12 July 2009

Thought for the day

"How can you initiate someone and then treat them like they're half-assed baptized?"

Bishop Barbara Harris at the Integrity Eucharist
Posted by on

3 comments:

  1. ChristopherJuly 12, 2009 at 2:33 PM

    Because Baptism in our tradition is still profoundly intertwined with heteronormativity rather than Christonormativity. I was not baptized in the name of the mother, father, and 2.5 kids, but in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But often, the two are conflated on many levels that heterosexuals don't even notice, but are quite visceral and embodied and present for sexual minorities. Heteronormativity is a lens by which our Sacraments are profoundly distorted, and do so, distorts our sense of ethics. Heterosexuality rather than Christ becomes that to which sexual minorities are meant to be converted to.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Bill CarrollJuly 12, 2009 at 4:00 PM

    Christ is normative humanity. All that is truly human is found in him, without losing its particularity but truly one.

    ReplyDelete
  3. ChristopherJuly 12, 2009 at 8:30 PM

    Of course. But I was trying to answer Bp Harris' question. And much of the reason lies in the filters by which Christ and the Sacraments are presently interpreted. To be in Christ is conflated with heterosexuality. Phillip Turner's First Things article a few years back is a classic example of this assumption. The Mind of Christ, fully humanity is assumed to be heterosexual without question of fruits, virtues, etc. The problem is the embodied reality seems to suggest otherwise, and that makes a lot of the filters by which the Church is currently operating not theological, but ideological.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)