One of the courses I'm taking is called "Frontier Questions in Queer Ethics" and I want to share with you the words with which our professor Theodore W. Jennings started our class last monday. I didn't record his words, so I will not be able to quote him literally, but his words were approximately the followings:
"In this class we will not argue in favor of homosexuality as an acceptable way of life. This is something we will take for granted. It is on the contrary heterosexuality which should defend itself in view of the failures of so many marriages which end in divorce and so many nuclear families which don't give their members and specially the children the emotional support they are supposed to offer them.
"It is right that only a couple formed by a man and a woman can engender children in the traditional way. But even when we know that this is not the only way of engendering children nowadays, I would argue that bring more children into the world is not the most pressing need we have in most of the countries of this world.
"And furthermore. Even when every child needs a home, I would say that all the statistics about children abuse show that the nuclear family is the most dangerous place for the upbringing of children."
Provocative words? Definitely. Exaggerated? Perhaps. But to reverse the way in which we normally think was for me very illuminating.
Therefore I want to make a proposal, at least for a certain extent of time. That we agree on asking the majorities, rather than the minorities, to be who have to justify themselves in their ways of life. And that nobody will criticize others without looking first at their own faults.
What do you think? Would it not allow the public square to "air out"?
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This is such an issue of my heart and I am glad when people admit that they are willing to re-orient their perceptions and open their minds to different paradigms. Everyone would do well to be told that, for a period of time they must adhere to a position with which they are uncomfortable. It serves us all to ask not "what about this do I disagree with" but "what about this disturbs me." It takes us to a deeper level of consideration, under our position and into our emotions. You are covering more than just spacial mileage, my friend!
ReplyDeleteVery interesting idea - to have the majority view have to justify their position. I like your title. Keep up the good work. Mike
ReplyDeleteMy professor of Systematic Theology, Rev. Dr. Walter Bouman, once asked me how I was "doing", taking the course at a Lutheran (ELCA) seminary as a United Church of Christ student. "Does anything make you uncomfortable?, he asked. I responded by talking about our difference of opinion regarding the communion elements. (He said that it must always be real wine or non-alcoholic wine as opposed to grape juice.) I went on to say, however, that I don't think it's healthy to always be comfortable. Growth can happen in the discomfort. After all, a farmer loosens the soil so that the seed may sprout through cracks in the earth.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your thoughts, Andres -- looking forward to some more "airing out" of the public square tomorrow afternoon!
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