Sadly, Presbyterians will probably find that at the
2014th Generally Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) they
are confronted by rainbow knitted wedding rings and stories of ancient
Christian martyrs and early church fathers and mothers who were married in
Christian rites intended as same sex rituals.
“Since the focus in Detroit will be upon overtures regarding marriage, MLP is adding an additional wrinkle to the rainbow witness at this assembly. St. Sergius and St. Bacchus were early church martyrs who were Roman soldiers in Syria. According to the historian, John Boswell, they were united in an official church liturgy of their time. Perhaps we can agree: today, we would recognize their love and commitment as marriage. A mosaic preserved in a Syrian church portrays them wearing identical rings.”
This mythological
idea has been soundly answered by a theologian who teaches church history, who
was, herself united in a “same sex union” with a friend. As Robin Darling Young
writes, when reviewing Boswell's book, Same-Sex
Unions in Premodern Europe:
This is a subject about which I have the
good fortune to speak not merely as a scholar or an observer, but as a
participant. Nine years ago I was joined in devout sisterhood to another woman,
apparently in just such a ceremony as Boswell claims to elucidate in his book.
The ceremony took place during a journey to some of the Syrian Christian
communities of Turkey and the Middle East, and the other member of this
same-sex union was my colleague Professor Susan Ashbrook Harvey of Brown
University. During the course of our travels we paid a visit to St. Mark's
Monastery in Jerusalem, the residence of the Syrian Orthodox archbishop. There
our host, Archbishop Dionysius Behnam Jajaweh, remarked that since we had
survived the rigors of Syria and Eastern Turkey in amicable good humor, we two
women must be good friends indeed. Would we like to be joined as sisters the
next morning after the bishop's Sunday liturgy in the Church of the Holy
Sepulchre? Intrigued, we agreed, and on a Sunday in late June of 1985, we
followed the bishop and a monk through the Old City to a side chapel in the
Holy Sepulchre where, according to the Syrian Orthodox, lies the actual tomb of
Jesus. After the liturgy, the bishop had us join our right hands together and
he wrapped them in a portion of his garment. He pronounced a series of prayers
over us, told us that we were united as sisters, and admonished us not to
quarrel. Ours was a sisterhood stronger than blood, confirmed in the outpouring
of the Holy Spirit, he said, and since it was a spiritual union, it would last
beyond the grave.
Our
friendship has indeed endured and flourished beyond the accidental association
of two scholars sharing an interest in the Syriac-speaking Christianity of late
antiquity. The blessing of the Syrian Orthodox Church was a precious instance
of our participation in the life of an ancient and noble Christian tradition.”
Young's
article “Gay Marriage: Reimagining Church
History,” was written for the Journal First Things in 1994.
It is very relevant for PC (U.S.A.) members today. Young points to the many historical errors
and poor translations in Boswell's book.
This
is particularly evident when he writes of
St. Sergius and St. Bacchus. As Young writes:
“In the story, Bacchus dies first, and
appears in a vision to exhort Sergius to preserve his Christian faith in the
face of certain martyrdom the next day. Boswell asserts that "Bacchus'
promise that if Serge followed the Lord he would get as his reward not the
beatific vision, not the joy of paradise, not even the crown of martyrdom, but
Bacchus himself, was remarkable by the standards of the early church,
privileging human affection in a way unparalleled during the first thousand
years of Christianity."
To
arrive at this conclusion requires that Boswell read Sun soi gar
apokeitai moi ho tes dikaiosynes stephanos as "For the crown
of justice for me is to be with you." But that is not how it reads; the
Latin version more correctly translates the Greek as Tecum enim
mihi reposita est justitia et corona: "For with you is laid up
for me the crown of righteousness" (in the Latin, "righteousness and
crown") [cf. 2 Timothy 4:8]. In other words, the two will together gain
the crown-not primarily one another's person, as Boswell wishes.”
More Light
Presbyterians with the help of some very bad history, are setting up a scenario
where affection/friendship between two women or two men is impossible. In their prevailing context, one cannot think
of friendship without thinking of the erotic. With this they hurt the communion
of the saints, they destroy the connectionalism of the
church.
But MLP and Janet
Edwards, in using Boswell's book, will undoubtedly go much further. Boswell in
his book, and as Young also points out, does more than slander ancient
martyrs, he slanders the Lord of the
church, suggesting that Jesus and the beloved disciple were perhaps lovers:
“Certainly
the most controversial same sex couple in the Christian tradition comprised
Jesus and John, the beloved disciple. The relationship between them was often depicted in subsequent art and
literature as intimate, if not erotic. John refers to himself six times as “the
disciple whom Jesus loved.”[1]
This touches the
very heart of the gospel. For those who claim that the PC (U.S.A) is not
changing the church's Christology—let them stand against this immoral heresy
invading the denomination.
Read Young's
article, Gay Marriage: Reimagining Church
History, and prepare
as followers of Jesus to stand for his sake in witness and kneel in
intersession for the broken hurting people of this denomination, including
ourselves. May Christ have mercy on his people, may the Holy Spirit turn many
to the Savior, may the Father walk with his children through this dark
time.
[1] found at
Amazon in Same-Sex
Unions in Premodern Europe
Picture of Serius and Bacchus taken from Wikipedia
6 comments:
One of the arguments that those who favor same-sex marriage often use is that the type of mutual homosexual love that we see in the 21st century was unknown in earlier times, and all they had back then was exploitation. But now some of them are bringing this up? They can't have it both ways. Either it was unknown or it was known. They'd better pick one argument or the other, but not both.
I get references to John Boswell's work all the time on my Marriage Conservation Facebook Page. He was a tragic figure, a gay activist dying of AIDS when he wrote his last work, Same-Sex Union In Pre-Modern Europe, in 1994. He was critiqued accurately as seeing homoerotic relationships everywhere, and seemed to be trying to find some justification for his sad life. It was bad scholarship then, and we don't need to revive it now for a PCUSA General Assembly. That book is getting a bit of a revival since it was re-released in digital form in August. There are thorough reviews of it 1994 editions of First Things (which you quoted) and The New Oxford Review. This past summer even the Huffington Post had to critique his ideas in the article below. It is helpful to hear of the author of the First Things review describe his friends' experience in Syria to affirm that Christians can have spiritual unions without turning them into erotic unions, something the modern world just can't seem to understand.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Mike Armistead
Fayetteville, NC
"Historian John Boswell", I needed a morning chuckle. Alas, what passes for scholarship these days is nothing more than advocacy of one's own bent. (And we conservative Christians are very much in danger of the same practice.)
One of my colleagues at an evangelical university taught 1-2 Samuel. And when discussing the Jonathan/David story, always had students jump to the conclusion that Jonathan and David were gay lovers. His response was along these lines: "I find it more than a little sad that we in the modern West cannot possibly imagine genuine and deep friendship without sexualizing it."
Jim Stochl, Ceres, CA
Boswell's work has been discredited over and over. But so desperate and dishonest are the Covenant Network and their allies that they will grab hold of anything for the sake of their cause. The end justifies the means for these folks.
Walter, It is the More Light Presbyterians-but they do seem to be working together recently.
Lord, help us.
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