Mystical Union - Good Theology and Gay Marriage - Justluckie

There has been a lot of noise and heat of late in the discussions around the consultations of governments north and south of the border about the possibility of extending marriage to same sex couples. The noisiest of these noises has come from the north with the preposterously apocalyptic views of Cardinal O'Brien with a more measured pastoral letter coming from Archbishops Nichols and Smith. Indeed, I was pleasantly surprised at some of the very good theology in the letter which, in one place, describes how the creative life of a married couple is a participation in the life of God:

As a Sacrament, this is a place where divine grace flows. Indeed, marriage is a?sharing in the mystery of God?s own life: the unending and perfect flow of love between?Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

What is not clear to me is why this creative, life-giving mutuality cannot exist between people of the same sex. Indeed, the letter argues to some extent from the experience of married couples, so it would same fair to acknowledge that the experience of same-sex couples is that such unions can be no less mutual, creative or sacramental. And the use of the beautiful image of the 'perfect flow of love' within the Trinity surely takes the thinking far beyond the narrow demand for gender difference within a committed relationship. There is, after all, no gender in God who needs no 'father and mother' to create life. Of course, it is true that same sex couples do not have the biological capacity to reproduce, but this is very far from saying that they do not have the capacity to create a loving family, to love and educate children, to create a welcoming home or to bring to life what lies hidden in each other, their children, their wider families, their friends or, indeed, the wider community.

The letter gets into further theologically awkward territory on the insistence that only mixed sex couples are capable of 'complementarity'. That simply does not reflect the true lived experience of human relationships and may, indeed, play into a very socially conditioned notion of the distinctive roles of the genders. Complementarity does not depend on sex but on mutual understanding (and self-understanding).

But the letter does not draw on one of the most widely used images of the church when referring to marriage; that of a mystical union like the one that exists 'betwixt Christ and his Church' to use the language of the Book of Common Prayer. I suspect this may be because the writers thought they were on safer ground with their argument from nature. But there was a very interesting piece in Saturday's Guardian by a gay Catholic who said that he would not want to be married to his partner because he felt that a civil partnership more clearly expressed mature mutuality in a relationship. Marriage, by contrast, was a relationship that required mutual subjection. While I strongly disagree with his choice of words, I think Martin Pendergast has touched on something that the Archbishops missed. If there is something in marriage that reflects the mystical union between Christ and the Church, it seems likely to me that that 'something' is a mutual sacrificial self-giving which enriches the life of the other. I would say that this is very much not the same thing as 'subjection', which has notions of domination and imbalance but that it is the most perfect reflection of the nature of the 'mystical union' envisaged by the prayer book.

I would suggest that this is at the heart of Christian marriage and I see no reason why it cannot be at the heart of a Christian marriage between people of the same sex.

Source: http://justluckie.typepad.com/justluckie/2012/03/mystical-union-good-theology-and-gay-marriage.html

mark kelly mark kelly jeff goldblum uc berkeley annie annie zuccotti park