When "The Faith" Won't Have Our Children

Normally, we expect our children both to do as they’re told and to think as we think—we parents, that is. But it doesn’t always work that way.

For example, Republican Senator Rob Portman, from Ohio, recently changed his mind about gay rights on account of his son. Portman has a strong record of voting against gay rights. But two years ago his son Will came out as gay. So this month Portman announced that he has changed his mind. He now favors same-sex marriage.

Similarly, in Toronto—well, until he was recently fired—another father in the same boat was Brian Burke, former GM of the Maple Leafs. Burke always played the gruff, dour, tough-talking macho role in his hockey career. But when his son Brendan came out as gay Burke immediately adopted a very public role in the fight against homophobia.

However, the spiritual and moral influence of children isn’t limited to the issue of gay rights. In my case, my children helped me change my mind about basic faith issues.

My two boys are crazy about social justice. They both work on behalf of the marginalized—refugees, those who have been attacked on account of xenophobia, victims of racism, and the poor. They have the idealism and energy of youth as they pursue political and social goals for the good of humanity.

But both have stopped going to church, too. At least, they don’t go very often! It isn’t that they’re against church or Christians. They have deep respect for many Christians. Both have been deeply influenced by their years in church and Christian ideals. But they see both sides of the faith coin—the idealism and the hypocrisy, the achievements and the failures. And so, overall, it doesn’t appear to them that you can count on the church, or on Christians, or on the Christian God to get the heavy social-justice lifting this world needs now, done.

Plus—this is my view, and my boys might differ with me on this—the whole Christian story lacks plausibility for them. Talk about God becoming human, immaculate conceptions, dying and rising, as well as insisting that you have to believe the right things about these stories—well, it doesn’t compute for them. Too much fairytale and not enough plausibility or coherence.

In my previous faith-community, my boys’ perspectives would have been seen as a reason for thinking that they might be out of favor with God and headed for some sort of eternal calamity. And their leaving the church would have been perceived as a shadow over my own work.

But I can’t agree with any of that—and much more—any more. Now, looking back, I see that my boys have helped me change my mind, too. They have given me a deeper and I think truer appreciation for the fairytale-like qualities of scripture, and for how Christians can’t agree about the meaning of much in scripture.

Most importantly, I love my boys and their dreams. This makes me wonder about God’s love. Surely, if God is a Father—or a divine Mother—God could not love my boys less than me! God is love, after all. And if God was going to make his love dependent on our getting ancient history, or interpretations of scripture, or doctrines right then God would surely have written a clearer explanation of that sort of stuff than what we find in the Bible.

Well, just for starters (and keeping in mind the eternal calamity that some Evangelicals are so concerned with) there is the matter of who is saved and why. Most Christians think people are saved by grace. But according to Matthew 25 the sheep and goats of the world are separated not on the basis of grace, or doctrine, or faith, but on the basis of works. Those who receive eternal rewards are those who feed the poor, give water to the thirsty, and entertain strangers. It is a passage that ought to make most Christians who have defined themselves as “saved,” and who sit in their comfortable pews week after week, squirm.

The long and short of it, though, is that whatever the theological particulars, my children’s perspectives on faith taught me much, even though I had the PhD. Their experience and questions, their searching and convictions, and their hypocrisy barometer all led me to revisit my own spiritual roots. And so I changed my mind. I left my old faith community and found a new one that better fit my new, evolving convictions.

And so I have learned that my love for my boys should not be directed just outwardly, at them. No, my love for my children also needs to be open to their insight and wisdom. Otherwise I might not ever change my mind or heart.

Against Nature?

            A few weeks ago, the Toronto Star ran a story about a gay woman, Anne Tesluk, of Bowmanville, Ontario. She sent her daughter to the local Catholic School because she was herself a Catholic. Tesluk was also thrilled that her school, St. Joseph’s Elementary, distributed the blueprint for a plan to help teachers tackle discrimination of all kinds, from racial to religious to discrimination based on disability or sexual orientation.

            That is, she was thrilled until she read in the fine print of the school document that homosexual people are “objectively disordered.” Tesluk was so shocked and offended that she decided to go to the local Catholic school board to ask that the offending phrase from the blueprint be removed. In a way, the story is surprising—what Catholic person, after all, doesn’t know that the Catholic Church takes this stand? Perhaps especially, what gay Catholic mother? Be that as it may, I wish Ann the best of luck, because her concerns for how such statements demean and marginalize gay people are right on.

            In my denomination, the Christian Reformed Church, things are about the same, unfortunately. We’d say that homosexuality is “against nature,” or “against creational norms.” People who argue that homosexuality is against nature believe that God reveals his intention for sexuality, at least in part, by divine norms or laws that can be deduced from the natural order. In my tradition there is actually a very deep philosophical well of reflection on whether or not such norms actually exist, and if they do, to what extent can we know them? The last question is really important. It is hard enough to interpret Biblical texts. But how does one interpret nature with a view to arriving at appropriate ethical conclusions? It can’t be easy.

            For example, I’m reminded of a person who once said to me, “Homosexuality is wrong. Anyone can see that God didn’t create two men or two women to fit together. The body parts just don’t align.” This person is saying, in effect, that what seems to be our “natural design,” should be the rule for how body parts get used. The argument, right or wrong, is an important one.

            However, it is worth noting here that not only is nature hard to interpret if you are reading it for  ethical norms, but it would also be very hard to develop a consistent application of such an ethic. Human activity, after all, is replete with actions that seem “against nature,” that few of us therefore regard as being against God’s will. In the area of sexual practice, for example, masturbation, oral sex and even kissing are actions that involve the use of the body in novel and not necessarily “normative” ways, at least given the primary uses of the plumbing and appendages involved. But beyond sexuality, the list of things humans do that they were not “designed” to do is endless. If God had meant for us to fly, he would have given us wings. If we are supposed to bear children in pain we dare not use epidurals. The list goes on: in vitro fertilization and/or surrogate pregnancies, birth control, transplanted hearts, heart valves made of pig flesh, genetic engineering, artificial (not natural!) hips or knees or even facelifts . . . all of these technologies involve leaps of the imagination and use of the body in ways that are novel and imaginative. 

            Meanwhile, one supposes that if a behavior really is against nature, you would not find it in nature. Suffice it to say, however, that homosexual behavior has been widely documented in nature, including among chimpanzees. Homosexuality, like having red hair or an IQ of 170, isn’t so much against nature as it is just not that common in nature.

            Naturally, the ethics of homosexual behavior—like the ethics of heterosexual behavior—are complicated and deserve more reflection than I can give it in a short blog post. But arguing that homosexuality is against nature just isn’t going to work for me--or Anne Tesluk.