Fear Strikes Out (not a baseball story)

The following conversation is fictional. It is intended to be a humorous example, and not a criticism of any faith or person.

Scene: Rome c. 1463 A.D. - Papal Chambers, entering, Prince-Bishop of Friesing (and Munich) Johann Tullbeck.

Pope Pius II: "Ah Tullbeck, I am glad you could come so quickly."

Archbishop Tullbeck: "Your Eminence, I am at your service, though perhaps a some wine?"

Pope: "Of course. Oh, Scullery Maid... Maid, I say MAID, bring us some wine please. Yes, Yes, I know that it is my second bottle tonight. When I want to be rebuked, I think I can cover it myself, thank you. Now, Tullbeck, what's this I hear that the Luthers are going to allow their Priests to marry."

Archbishop: "I am as aghast as you, Your Grace. They have no vision."

Pope: "Vision, is that your word? I might used the word heresy. Certainly I'd call it putting the needs of the body before the needs of the soul."

Archbishop: "Your Grace, I was of the impression we already consider them Heretics."

Pope: "Don't get snippy with me, Bishop, I can give your office to the King of Brandenburg. Or maybe better yet, to the Polish, it seems that you Gauls have become experts at making "points" about heresy for a while, wouldn't you say?"

Archbishop: "Your Holiness, speculating on the whim of a Heretic hardly seems my place or the best use of my time."

Pope: "Do you deign to lecture me, TULLBECK? Do you not have enough time to speak with God's messenger on Earth?"


Archbishop: "Your Holiness knows I do not look to lecture you, and of course I am always hopeful Our Father listens to my pleas as well, but rather understand that I am not concerned with the rantings of Luther or his followers and so cannot know their minds."

Pope: "Well let me tell you then, this practice, this allowing for Priests to marry, will be the end of the Church. Priests will lose faith with God, they will seek to accumulate earthly goods, seek earthly pleasures, rather than seeking to please Our Father. This Heresy must not stand, Tullbeck, it must not. It threatens the very Church itself."

Archbishop: "Surely the strength of God and the Church can withstand the practices of Heretics, Your Holiness? Surely even it can withstand that they might pray in another language than Latin sometimes too?"

Pope: "The Holy Church survives by the actions of its soldiers, Tullbeck. Only if we stand and fight. This must not survive, if left unchecked it might lead to horrible things, teaching the people the word directly, the cheapening of the respect given those called to service. I doubt even the Holy Roman Catholic Church could survive such a thing. Marriage to God cannot be intruded upon and survive, those who would attempt to do so will never achieve the purity necessary to know His mind."

Archbishop: "Yes, and let's not forget that their heirs might know our gold, that too would be unfortunate, wouldn't it Your Eminence?"

Pope: "I should think so, now if you wouldn't mind, please send in Sister Lydia, she has such a pleasant countenance."

Archbishop Tullbeck: "As you desire, Your Holiness."

Tullbeck exits, scene ends.

This conversation is not intended to slight the memory or service of either man named. For all I know Pius II, had no concerns with Luthers, the practice of marriage or the countenance of Sister Mary, Ruth or Lydia. So far as I know, Tullbeck may well have been a harsh man who never travelled to meet Pius II. Thus are such fictions otherwise improperly used, that is, they are improperly used to try to reflect the attitudes of the actors when the words are pure fiction. Yet, I use this illustration in reaction to an editorial written a couple of weeks ago by Katherine Kersten in the Minneapolis StarTribune to illustrate that her pronouncements of the death of marriage and of the church are highly misguided, even hypocritical (and to discuss Proposition 8, banning Gay Marriage and recently overturned in California).


While growing up, my parents told me time and again that homosexuality was a perversion. They didn't call it a sin, though we were ostensibly a Catholic family. They went further, they called those who were homosexual words like "deviant" and "perverts." To this day, I am quite certain my father still feels this way, my mother I suspect simply feels that they are odd and sinful.

The christian churches, of various denominations, stripes, and styles, from Eastern Orthodox Catholic to Lutheran to Free Evangelical, practices many sacraments or few, many different forms of baptism, many different forms of marriage vows. Most allow their ordained members to marry, many allow women to become leaders of congregations. Roughly 500 years ago, a church which was at the time Catholic, split, and allowed divorce. That church became the Anglican Church, with the King of England as its leader (who conveniently was the one wanting the divorce :)). That church came to America and became the Episcopal Church. Both are different from the Catholic Church only in small ways, and now the Catholic Church itself allows for divorce, though it only recognizes those which it sanctions.

All have survived, even thrived, after divorce was possible, after marriage of Priests was possible, even after allowing women to become Priests was made possible. Indeed, christian churches have suffered in attendance not because they became too liberal, but rather because they were seen as drab and lacking a message which resonated with an educated society.

Yet, I suspect strongly that any review of the comments of the time (when divorce was allowed, or when priestly marriage was allowed, for that matter when sex for a purpose other than procreation was allowed) was met with the same pronouncements that this would be the death of the church. Luther pointed out that we had become prostrate to the Church rather than to God. He pointed out that we built edifices which became the point of worship, rather than reflections of reverence. It was the most damning threat the church has ever faced, because it spoke many truths. Yet, the church survived.

In her column, Kersten claims that with the allowance of Gay Marriage in Massachusetts (and I'm sure with the striking down of Proposition 8), that it is obvious and forgone conclusion that the government will intrude upon the churches and require the allowance of Gay Marriage. My question is, "Since when??" When has the government in this country been allowed to determine the dictates of sacraments? When has the church in this country been required to modify its worship practices based on the whim of the government other than to keep its interests in the spiritual world rather than the secular if donations to it weren't to be considered political donations - a rule put in place specifically to make solid the line between government and religion. This country is overrun with "God Speak", the practice of every politician to invoke the Almighty to bless us, to ensure we all know they are "believers" and so on.

The concern has not been that the government would invade church, but that church not invade government. Ms. Kersten's (and others) concerns are 180 degrees on their heads - she wants a state which prevents Gay Marriage, thus creating laws and a state which upholds one religious view (Catholic/orthodox christian), thus in fact doing the exact thing she rails against, it is intruding the state upon those churches which might otherwise feel that allowing all members of a community to marry if they are in love is correct, much like they felt allowing women to be ordained was correct. Her desire here isn't to protect churches, but rather to use the state. The churches she prefers (seemingly the Catholic and Evangelical faiths) are in no danger of the state passing laws requiring them to recognize Gay Marriage, just as the state never passed laws requiring the Catholic Church to recognize secular divorces. However, those churches which might desire to perform Gay and Lesbian weddings, by virtue of Proposition 8, were prevented from doing so, the state had indeed been used by the powerful to enforce a strict view held by a certain section of society and more importantly by a specific set of religions. There was no freedom of religion while that Proposition stood and people like Kersten are and were using the government to prevent the free practice of religion in churches they didn't belong to, not the other way around.


She goes on to suggest that not only will marriage come to an end, but so will the church. In short, she stokes unreasonable and unfounded fears to (once again) drive a wedge in society between those who devoutly worship at a church and those who support expecting equal treatment under the law for all parties. Despite claims that it would (or is currently in the process of), marriage did not end when divorce was allowed. Divorce has been allowed for hundreds of years, it only sky-rocketted when women were no longer tied by the requirements of income and survival to marriages which were physically, emotionally, or sexually abusive (or all of the above). Gay Marriage has no more in common with the degradation of the "traditional" family than did the allowance for divorce. We can (hopefully) easily recognize it was wrong to force women to stay in so-called traditional marriages to be raped, cajoled and brutalized because they had to chose between staying or starving. Indeed, perhaps Ms. Kersten would find more spiritual health in rejoicing the obvious examples of love right in front of her, than in attempting to use fear as the fulcrum to unite an intolerant church with unloving law.

Church attendance worldwide in developed countries has fallen dramatically in the past 40 years. Churches full in the 1950's and 1960's have been shuttered. I've been a parishioner at a couple of them which hung on by threads. What they lacked were any members between the ages of 18 and about 30, and a scant few between 30 and 50. Of those between 30 and 50, most/many were there simply to get their children baptised because while they might not be strong believers, they believe (still) in tradition. As well, out of love for their child, they wanted to ensure justification of their child in heaven through baptism and entering the body of Christ.

When asked why they do not attend church, the answers are very often things like "because they don't want to get up on Sunday" or "because church is stodgy and boring," but one of the most common answers is also "because I don't feel it has anything to offer me." That answer isn't a reflection by the young that they do not understand the concepts of salvation or "eternal life," rather it reflects what young people have seen at church and from those who most vocally beat their chests about it, namely deep and abiding intolerance. Too often youth saw from the church and heard from the pulpit rampant hypocrisy in messages of racial purity, racial supremacy, religious condescension, dogmatic pride, and sexual puritanism in a way which the average person viewed as hardly loving, and anything but warm. The messages to love neighbor and God was drowned out by the shrill cries of "Pervert" or pronouncements that the end of the church would ensue if simple matters were allowed to progress on their own (like civil rights), or that God was punishing us because of our sinful ways. It was drown out by demands to deny sacriment to those who didn't agree with the secular pollitical dictates of the church and church-goers of one political stripe. It was mother church who chased away the parish, not the parish which left mother church.

In the end, those churches which do not allow Gay Marriage will survive. Contrary to Ms. Kersten's claim, a requirement to perform such duties will not be forced upon them by the state any more than divorce or priestly marriage was. As a nation, we are a better place by not allowing a church to determine what is permissible at other churches. I suspect chruches which do allow Gay Marriage may see more members over time than those which do not. I suspect this because it is love which drives the former and which those churches embody, making them easier to be at peace in, and at home in, than those which do not welcome all into what is God's House after all.

I may be challenged occasionally by certain latent inner feelings about homosexuality, it has to do with my upbringing, but I, like the Church itself, will not be harmed by allowing those who love each other deeply to be allowed by the state to codify that love, and I and they will be stronger, not weaker, by being welcome in any church which will embrace them.

(SIDE NOTE - after my good friend Thoughts of Eternity pointed out my chronological errors, I've changed the names to protect the equally innocent and to fix my temporal gaffes :)).