In this piece it is not clear what Hauerwas despises in secular culture.

Elsewhere he has said that one of the so-called secular presuppositions he dismisses is equality before the law as in marriage equality. He can't let go of the procreation requirement even though he admits most Christians don't practice "Christian" marriage anymore. His dogmatic notion of truth is allergic to inclusivism.

http://www.dukemagazine.duke.edu/dukemag/issues/010202/faith3.html

"The problem with debates about homosexuality is they have been devoid of any linguistic discipline that might give you some indication what is at stake. Methodism, for example, is more concerned with being inclusive than being the church. We do not have the slightest idea what we mean by being inclusive other than some vague idea that inclusivity has something to do with being accepting and loving. Inclusivity is, of course, a necessary strategy for survival in what is religiously a buyers' market. Even worse, the inclusive church is captured by romantic notions of marriage. Combine inclusivity and romanticism and you have no reason to deny marriage between gay people."

For Hauerwas, discipline, for Christians, would mean inequality for LGBTs.

LGBTs are made to pay the price for the perceived failures of straights. Actually, it seems as if people are doing fine on their own without the help of theologians.

Gary Paul Gilbert

The real problem with the sour likes of Hauerwas is these folks can never see how they themselves are very much intertwined with their culture. So they get up on high horses without noticing, say in his case, that attitudes toward lgbt persons in the Church and surrounding culture are often one and the same and both may be less than Christlike.

I think it's pretty clear that he despises secular culture's violence and idolatry.

I find Hauerwas' article on "America's God" to be right on target, and I'm not sure that the portion of the other article that Gary cites necessarily implies rejection of same sex marriage. Indeed toward the end of the section he says something that could be suggested to imply the contrary. What he does is to identify a woefully insufficient theological justification, namely desire not to offend any potential consumers. That's pretty thin when compared with all the sacraments for all the baptized.

Whatever Hauerwas' personal views on this matter, I think his theological position is consistent with a much more convincing theological justification for same sex marriage than the argument that he is rightly rejecting.

Thank you, Christopher! One cannot get outside of one's culture any more than one can get out of one's skin.

Bill, good luck with your project of coming up with a theological justification for marriage equality. "Same-sex marriage" already makes it sound weird. But I am no theologian and have only experience to rely on, my experience of having been married to Murdoch, my husband, for the past five years--after twenty-two years of living together.

Professional top/down theology seems to assume the church is made up only of the ordained.

From what Hauerwas has written on marriage equality, it is clear he opposes it. He starts out being opposed to it, which is why he doesn't need to make a case. Likewise on gays in the military, he says that it is good we are excluded because we get to become the pacifists Hauerwas says all Christians should be. LGBTs are made to do what straights won't.

Gary Paul Gilbert

Hauerwas, of course, is a layperson. The issue here is not lay vs. ordained; it's more a question of thinking with the Church. Hauerwas' point, if I'm reading him right, is that we shouldn't think we even know what marriage is. We need to be catechized into a set of virtues and practices informed by the particular story of Israel and the Church.

It seems to me that an account of marriage in general can be developed on this basis that would not imply inequality. Whether Hauerwas himself is open to making that move is another question.

Here is the relevant portion of the article you cite:

"For gay Christians who I know and love, I wish we as Christians could come up with some way to help them, like we need to help one another, to avoid the sexual wilderness in which we live. That's a worthy task. I probably sound like a conservative on these matters, not because I've got some deep animosity toward gay people, but because I don't know how to go forward given the current marriage practices of our culture."

It seems to me that this help should take the form of witnessing, celebrating, and blessing marital relationships of all kinds.

Bill, Hauerwas sidesteps the existence of LGBTs when he says inequality is tolerable: LGBTs should be happy the military views us with suspicion because Christians are not viewed with such suspicion. He is so focused on religion that he fails to do much to equalize civil marriage.

Theology is such a lovely discipline that professional theologians (mostly white, male, and straight or at least pretending to be) have still not figured out what to teach about marriage, civil and religious! How convenient that now that LGBTs demand equal access to the rights and privileges of marriage that the poor theologians throw up their hands and say they don't know what to make of marriage!

I suppose they are so busy studying God that they have failed to treat their fellow human beings with respect.

Gary Paul Gilbert