Anne Rice, Called Out of Darkness

I just finished Anne Rice's Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession. Let me tell you, I liked it. Of course, I like Anne Rice's writing. It's not all perfect, but some of it is brilliant. This is a good book. She was raised uber-Catholic (daily Mass, Tuesday night novenas, etc.) and yet left the Catholic Church and Christ to become an atheist for nearly forty years. And then she was gently called home by Christ. It's a great little autobiography.

She says some interesting things at the conclusion of her book. One of the things she brings up is the idea of gender and sexuality in the Catholic Church. She is at odds with the teaching of the Church here, and yet she's very quiet about it and, it seems to me, very humble about it. She doesn't demand the Church change anything, but suggests that perhaps our view of gender and sexuality needs to be informed by science much like our views of evolution or heliocentrism have been. Now to understand Anne, gender plays a huge role in who she is as a person and how she sees herself throughout the book (throughout her life). For years she never thought of herself as a girl, but simply as a person. Anne also has a son who is gay. So these ideas of gender and sexuality are important to her personally. But she's honest with it and she sincerely communicates, in spite of where she wishes the Church would change, her love for both Christ and Church. It's an altogether interesting little mix.

(On a related note, Avery was talking to me yesterday and said she was going to be a priest when she grew up. I explained to her that it wasn't possible, and her eyes fell and she told me it wasn't fair.)

This view of Anne's might be something offensive for some of you, but I don't think it ought to be. There are issues I have with Church teachings: I think after a half dozen children or so an occasional *ahem* condom shouldn't be considered grave sin in a financially challenged home. Yet I still do my best to be obedient and submit myself to the teaching of the Church. I may never completely understand why the Church teaches some things. My view of hell leans toward Orthodoxy, but I don't make an issue of it. And I like my Nicene Creed without the filioque, but I still happily pray the Creed with it when I worship with my brothers and sisters. These are areas of tension for me with our Church. But she is the Church. And I love her. And I want nothing but her. This is the same feeling I get from Anne Rice in her book with her "objections." It's worth the read.

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And Happy Father's Day to you dads out there. To my dad especially (I love you so much). And to all our priests. And, of course, to our Father, God.

Men and Sex

In All Things, Sex

It's late - I'm tired and have a headache - but I wanted to throw together a few thoughts on the issue of sexuality tonight. I apologize for the sloppiness of the post/my thinking. Also, there are issues here that are of a rather sensitive and possibly offensive nature.

The ongoing sexual obsession of our society is disturbing. We see sex everywhere. And it has become who we are and how we think - so that a first grader who kisses a girl is suspended from school for sexual harassment. We do not understand innocence.

"With the loyal you show yourself loyal;
with the blameless you show yourself blameless;
with the pure you show yourself pure;
and with the crooked you show yourself perverse."

And Christians are no exception. We see this evidencing itself in our beliefs about sexuality. And our beliefs, or lack of beliefs, about sex are shaped by the silence of many of our churches on such issues as pornography and abortion, and an even greater silence concerning contraception and masturbation.

Our obsession is evidenced in our marital unfaithfulness and our pastoral sexual abuse.

Our obsession is evidenced in our immodesty and in our coarse humor - the very patterns of our thoughts relentlessly turn toward sex. And we begin to be unable to think of our thinking as possibly dysfunctional.

For example, in conversations about the ever-virginity of Mary, the idea of a man being married and also being chaste is, for some, inconceivable. Understand that I am not arguing here for Mary's perpetual virginity - but to be unable to even see chastity as a possibility is surely, at the very least, lamentable. (Mary's ever-virginity is not exclusive to Catholic and Orthodox traditions. The Reformers also believed in Mary's ever-virginity. So the rejection of Mary's ever-virginity is not simply a Protestant phenomena, at least not at Protestantism's own conception.)

Homosexuality and abortion are big issues in Christianity. Yet even these issues are, in some corners of Christianity, post-issues. I hear people making less of them. So it is no surprise that we do not talk much about more private issues, such as contraception and masturbation.

But it shocks me that 80 years ago, all traditions within Christianity opposed contraception. And tonight, on Nightline, the broadcasters seemed surprised to hear of a Christian group (the Quiverfull Movement) that was against contraception - as if this belief were a new thing, and extreme.

Nowadays, of course, most Christians do not think twice about contraception. That, in itself, is troubling. It is not even so much that Christians use contraception, though I believe contraception is wrong, but that we do not even ask questions about the dangers (the chemical regulation, shortening, or elimination of a woman's period) or morality of contraception - that it has become quite normal for us. Taking a pill or having a vasectomy is just what we do.

Finally, masturbation. I attended an evangelical Protestant college - perhaps fundamentalist, certainly dispensational. In my first year, students were not permitted to see movies. In my third year, as part of a Christian living class I took for my Bible minor, we discussed masturbation. The professor thought it possible to masturbate without sin, without sexual fantasy (or improper sexual fantasy) - that, perhaps even, Jesus masturbated.

Shocking as that may be, my point is this: The lecture was the only time I can recall hearing a discussion about the morality of masturbation. And outside of discussions about lust, I certainly was never taught that masturbation itself was disordered. In fact, we simply did not talk about it.

Ultimately, I suppose, I'm disheartened by our willingness (and even desire) to live broken lives. Our churches cannot afford to be shy about sexuality. Silence breeds acceptance. And impurity is still not the road to holiness.