Will pluralism be the churches answer to the Gay Gestapo?
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| Gordon College (Massachusetts) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
What does the current legal and cultural landscape suggest? Here are three predictions.
Prediction #1: Only religious groups (by no means all of them) will impose restrictions based on sexual conduct. That is in stark contrast to the many groups that make gender-based distinctions: fraternities and sororities, women's colleges, single-sex private high schools, sports teams, fitness clubs, and strip clubs, to name a few.
It is perhaps unsurprising in light of these observations that views on gender and sexual conduct have flip-flopped. Thirty years ago, many people were concerned about gender equality, but few had LGBTQ equality on their radar. Today, if you ask your average 20-year-old whether it is worse for a fraternity to exclude women or for a Christian group to ask gay and lesbian members to refrain from sexual conduct, the responses would be overwhelmingly in one direction. That trend will likely continue.
But many people reject the distinction between status and conduct. And in a 2010 decision,Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, the Supreme Court also rejected it, viewing distinctions based on homosexual conduct as equivalent to discrimination against gays and lesbians. I have argued in a recent book (Liberty's Refuge: The Forgotten Freedom of Assembly) that the Court's reasoning is troubling in the context of a private group's membership requirements. But it is the current state of the law.
But many people reject the distinction between status and conduct. And in a 2010 decision,Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, the Supreme Court also rejected it, viewing distinctions based on homosexual conduct as equivalent to discrimination against gays and lesbians. I have argued in a recent book (Liberty's Refuge: The Forgotten Freedom of Assembly) that the Court's reasoning is troubling in the context of a private group's membership requirements. But it is the current state of the law.
Prediction #2: Only religious groups will accept a distinction between "sexual conduct" and "sexual orientation," and those groups will almost certainly lose the legal effort to maintain that distinction.
Most Christian membership limitations today are based on conduct rather than orientation: they allow a gay or lesbian person to join a group, but prohibit that person from engaging in conduct that falls outside the church's teachings on sexuality. These policies—like the one at Gordon College currently under fire—are not limited to gays or lesbians; all unmarried men and women are to refrain from sexual conduct. The distinction between status and conduct from which they derive is rooted in Christian tradition, and it is not limited to sexuality: one can be a sinner and abstain from a particular sin.
Prediction #3: Fewer and fewer people will value religious freedom. Although some Christians will respond to looming challenges with appeals to religious liberty, their appeals will likely face indifference or even hostility from those who don't value it. The growing indifference is perhaps unsurprising because many past challenges to religious liberty are no longer active threats. We don't enforce blasphemy laws. We don't force people to make compelled statements of belief. We don't impose taxes to finance training ministers. These changes mean that in practice, many Americans no longer depend upon the free exercise right for their religious liberty. They are free to practice their religion without government constraints.
Additionally, a growing number of atheists and "nonreligious" Americans have little use for free exercise protections. Even though most Americans will continue to value religious liberty in a general sense, fewer will recognize the immediate and practical need for it to be protected by law.
This final prediction is deeply unsettling, because strong protections for religious liberty are core to our country's law and history. But those protections have been vulnerable since the Court's decision in the peyote case. And they will remain vulnerable unless the Court revisits its free exercise doctrine.
Prediction #3: Fewer and fewer people will value religious freedom. Although some Christians will respond to looming challenges with appeals to religious liberty, their appeals will likely face indifference or even hostility from those who don't value it. The growing indifference is perhaps unsurprising because many past challenges to religious liberty are no longer active threats. We don't enforce blasphemy laws. We don't force people to make compelled statements of belief. We don't impose taxes to finance training ministers. These changes mean that in practice, many Americans no longer depend upon the free exercise right for their religious liberty. They are free to practice their religion without government constraints.
Additionally, a growing number of atheists and "nonreligious" Americans have little use for free exercise protections. Even though most Americans will continue to value religious liberty in a general sense, fewer will recognize the immediate and practical need for it to be protected by law.
This final prediction is deeply unsettling, because strong protections for religious liberty are core to our country's law and history. But those protections have been vulnerable since the Court's decision in the peyote case. And they will remain vulnerable unless the Court revisits its free exercise doctrine.
After Religious Exceptionalism
If I am correct about these three predictions, then arguments rooted in religious exceptionalism will see diminishing returns.
If I am correct about these three predictions, then arguments rooted in religious exceptionalism will see diminishing returns.
There is, however, a different argument that appeals to a different set of values. It's the argument of pluralism: the idea that, in a society that lacks a shared vision of a deeply held common good, we can and must live with deep difference among groups and their beliefs, values, and identities. The pluralist argument is not clothed in the language of religious liberty, but it extends to religious groups and institutions. And Christians who take it seriously can model it not only for their own interests but also on behalf of their friends and neighbors.
Pluralism rests on three interrelated aspirations: tolerance, humility, and patience. Tolerance means a willingness to accept genuine difference, including profound moral disagreement. In the pluralist context, tolerance does not embrace difference as good or right; its more limited aspiration is permitting differences to coexist.
The second aspiration, humility, recognizes that our own beliefs and intuitions rest upon tradition-bound values that can't be fully proven or justified by external forms of rationality. Notions of "equality" and "morality" emerge from within particular traditions whose basic premises are not endorsed by all. Humility holds open that there is right and wrong and good and evil, and that in the fullness of time the true meaning of equality and morality will emerge. But humility also opens the door to hearing others' beliefs about right and wrong, good and evil. Instead of making claims about what we can know or prove, we might point out that faith commitments underlie all beliefs (religious or otherwise) and stand ready to give the reason for the hope that we have (1 Pet. 3:15).
The third aspiration, patience, recognizes that contested moral questions are best resolved through persuasion rather than coercion, and that persuasion takes time. Most of us—whatever our beliefs—think we are right in a profound way. Most of us structure our lives around our deepest moral commitments. And we instinctively want our normative views to prevail on the rest of society. But patience reminds us that the best means to a better end is through persuasion and dialogue, not coercion and bullying.
Pluralism and Witness
Pluralism does not entail relativism. Living well in a pluralist world does not mean a never-ending openness to any possible claim. Every one of us holds deeply entrenched beliefs that others find unpersuasive, inconsistent, or downright loopy. More pointed, every one of us holds beliefs that others find morally reprehensible. Pluralism does not impose the fiction of assuming that all ideas are equally valid or morally benign. It does mean respecting people, aiming for fair discussion, and allowing for the right to differ about serious matters.
The argument for pluralism and the aspirations of tolerance, humility, and patience are fully consistent with a faithful Christian witness. And in this age, they are also far likelier to resonate than arguments for religious exceptionalism. The claim of religious exceptionalism is that only believers should benefit from special protections, and often at the cost of those who don't share their faith commitments. The claim of pluralism is that all members of society should benefit from its protections.
Christians have a long way to go in affirming the value of pluralism for all members of society. We might begin by recognizing its role for our gay and lesbian neighbors. When Uganda enacts a law that punishes homosexuality with death, U.S. Christians can speak out against such a law. Domestically, we need to think carefully about the kinds of legislation being pushed at the state level. Some proposed laws are undoubtedly important to protect religious institutions' right to live in accordance with their own beliefs and traditions; others are deeply problematic. Christians in states without any antidiscrimination protections for gays and lesbians might consider supporting those laws containing exemptions for religious groups, rather than simply advocating for religious freedom on its own.
Unkind words have emerged from almost every corner of the public discourse. Christians should not be bullied or silenced by careless language. But neither should they engage in it. Advocacy for Christian witness must itself demonstrate Christian witness. In this way, our present circumstances provide new opportunities to embody tolerance, humility, and patience. And, of course, we have at our disposal not only these aspirations but also the virtues that shape our lives: faith, hope, and love.
Pluralism rests on three interrelated aspirations: tolerance, humility, and patience. Tolerance means a willingness to accept genuine difference, including profound moral disagreement. In the pluralist context, tolerance does not embrace difference as good or right; its more limited aspiration is permitting differences to coexist.
The second aspiration, humility, recognizes that our own beliefs and intuitions rest upon tradition-bound values that can't be fully proven or justified by external forms of rationality. Notions of "equality" and "morality" emerge from within particular traditions whose basic premises are not endorsed by all. Humility holds open that there is right and wrong and good and evil, and that in the fullness of time the true meaning of equality and morality will emerge. But humility also opens the door to hearing others' beliefs about right and wrong, good and evil. Instead of making claims about what we can know or prove, we might point out that faith commitments underlie all beliefs (religious or otherwise) and stand ready to give the reason for the hope that we have (1 Pet. 3:15).
The third aspiration, patience, recognizes that contested moral questions are best resolved through persuasion rather than coercion, and that persuasion takes time. Most of us—whatever our beliefs—think we are right in a profound way. Most of us structure our lives around our deepest moral commitments. And we instinctively want our normative views to prevail on the rest of society. But patience reminds us that the best means to a better end is through persuasion and dialogue, not coercion and bullying.
Pluralism and Witness
Pluralism does not entail relativism. Living well in a pluralist world does not mean a never-ending openness to any possible claim. Every one of us holds deeply entrenched beliefs that others find unpersuasive, inconsistent, or downright loopy. More pointed, every one of us holds beliefs that others find morally reprehensible. Pluralism does not impose the fiction of assuming that all ideas are equally valid or morally benign. It does mean respecting people, aiming for fair discussion, and allowing for the right to differ about serious matters.
The argument for pluralism and the aspirations of tolerance, humility, and patience are fully consistent with a faithful Christian witness. And in this age, they are also far likelier to resonate than arguments for religious exceptionalism. The claim of religious exceptionalism is that only believers should benefit from special protections, and often at the cost of those who don't share their faith commitments. The claim of pluralism is that all members of society should benefit from its protections.
Christians have a long way to go in affirming the value of pluralism for all members of society. We might begin by recognizing its role for our gay and lesbian neighbors. When Uganda enacts a law that punishes homosexuality with death, U.S. Christians can speak out against such a law. Domestically, we need to think carefully about the kinds of legislation being pushed at the state level. Some proposed laws are undoubtedly important to protect religious institutions' right to live in accordance with their own beliefs and traditions; others are deeply problematic. Christians in states without any antidiscrimination protections for gays and lesbians might consider supporting those laws containing exemptions for religious groups, rather than simply advocating for religious freedom on its own.
Unkind words have emerged from almost every corner of the public discourse. Christians should not be bullied or silenced by careless language. But neither should they engage in it. Advocacy for Christian witness must itself demonstrate Christian witness. In this way, our present circumstances provide new opportunities to embody tolerance, humility, and patience. And, of course, we have at our disposal not only these aspirations but also the virtues that shape our lives: faith, hope, and love.
