Thanks, Patrick!

Thanks, Steve, for pointing this out. Existential resentment is a scary beast, and humility, among other spiritual gifts, is much needed.

Thanks for commenting, Frank. You are right about Connolly's nervousness regarding attunement. As a theologian deeply engaged in the Christian mystical tradition, I have come to share his reticence here. It is not that harmony is unimportant, nor is attunement always wrong. (I think Connolly would agree). Quite often, its a crucial part of discerning what Connolly means by 'the event' and moving fruitfully in its wake; surfing it, so to speak, which is an aspect of creativity. Its that when it becomes the ultimate telos, especially in a theo-political register, it has a hard time dealing with that which resists its ordering impulses. Augustine's aesthetic theodicy is a good example of this danger of a harmonizing imperative, and I am with Connolly on that. Brent Shaw's recent book, Sacred Violence, is a rather stunning work of fine-tuned historical analysis regarding Augustine and the so-called Donatists of North Africa, which points out the real-world (and rather devastating) consequences of Augustine's over-emphasis on a theology of love as always moving toward attunement with divine ontological and political order. Foucault's late essays on parrhesia would be another way to see the difference between certain 'minor' strands of Cristian thinking and the Augustinian tradition. Anyway, I very much appreciate your work, and look forward to reading your revision of it!

Great post, Steve!

Great post, Steve. As Camus said, when we can imagine Sisyphus as happy, we've begun to understand something of the religious spirit (he doesn't put it quite like this, but its close!)

On the other hand, there's the view of gay Roman Catholic priest/theologian James Alison, whose interview on some of the same issues is at dot commonweal here: http://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/?p=17840 And in the Church of England, today the new Dean of historic St. Paul's cathedral announced his support for marriage equality. See here: http://www.episcopalcafe.com/lead/church_of_england/new_dean_of_st_pauls_cathedral_1.html

Thanks, Michael. I missed that. And of course, Steve has been a tremendous help to me in learning to distinguish between theological and legal reasoning on these matters. What may be obvious as a theological matter is by no means how the law will see it. In this case, keeping these separate seems crucial, as intra-catholic debates over the legitimacy of the mandate (formal vs. material co-operation with evil etc.) may not matter at all to the courts if called upon to decide if there has been an infringement. That's why I'm curious as to whether the bishops can legitimately claim to speak legally for these other entities. By the way, I sometimes joke that since the Law School here at Cornell is just a quadrangle away from the Religious Life offices, keeping these thought worlds separate in my mind is no easy feat! They mingle in the space between us!

Michael, I think this is a marvelous post, one with which, as a theologian I entirely agree. I serve in a hierarchical church, one with bishops, etc. and I know first hand the truth of what you say and the danger of clerical overreach on these matters. And yet, I wonder if the legal system in the U.S. will agree. The deference shown in property disputes by the Supreme Court to hierarchical churches and their canon law, which do give the bishops significant authority whether the people like it or not, is a concern. Even after Jones v. Wolf and the articulation of neutral principles as opposed to always deferring to hierarchies, do the bishops still have legal authority in this arena, to which the Court would defer? I suspect they do in their parishes, but I'm not aware of to what extent they have control over entities like Catholic hospitals and Catholic Charities. Can they speak for these institutions and have a canonical, legal authority that the U.S. Court system will defer to? In other words, if the bishops say that the HHS mandate violates the religious freedom of Catholic Charities, even if Fr. Snyder, CC's director states otherwise (I know there has been some confusion regarding his stand on this), are they canonically, legally authorized to speak for Catholic Charities on this? If not, how can the bishops make a freedom of religion claim on behalf of entities over which they may not have any direct control? Is it posturing, or real legal (because canonical) authority? In any case, I am deeply grateful for your articulation of the sources of authority in the church, about which, regardless of how the legal cases may turn out, I entirely agree.

Michael, I've been a huge fan of Stringfellow's for many years now. He really is amazing. I lead a study group every year on one of his books here at Cornell. His papers are here in the Cornell special collections, as he was a good friend of Cornell's most famous chaplain, Daniel Berrigan. Andrew McThenia, emeritus law professor at Washington and Lee, is one of Stringfellow's finest interpreters and has edited a wonderful collection, Radical Christian, Exemplary Lawyer, honoring Stringfellow's work. Stringfellow would be a great topic for a religion and law conference or even a part of a course on religion and law. Thanks for giving him a headline! --Clark

David, I saw this article too, though I am much more skeptical than you about its intent. My reading of Bryson/George is that they are not very much interested in convincing FFA of anything, but in continuing their real goal, that of building a coalition of conservative Jewish/Christian/Muslim leaders to fight against same sex marriage and abortion. I think their audience here is not FFA at all, but these other religious conservatives they hope to join their cause. I read this piece as pure politics. Bryson's thoughts about Islam, about which she has written at length, are troubling. And George/Bryson's defense of the effort to stop the Muslim community center near ground zero is equally troubling. See their defense here: http://tinyurl.com/87j6ho7

Fantastic sermon, Taryn!

Ain't that the truth! Camus is one of my favorite writers, whose thought has been a goldmine for me as a theologian. The Rebel and The Fall have been favorites of mine for awhile. Thanks for reminding me of this, Patrick.

Thanks, Steve, I don't know how I missed your post, which had I read it, would have saved me a lot of work!

Steve, So then you would make an accommodation for the clerk who articulated with religious sincerity that their God would not allow them to issue a license for a mixed marriage or an interracial marriage so long as the accommodation was reasonable (the deputy clerk was at hand and willing?)

I am fascinated by this disagreement between you and Dorf. My question has to do with where one draws the line in allowing accommodation. If the clerk is truly a fundamentalist Christian, she might well believe, following Mt. 19:9, that it would be wrong for her to issue a marriage license to a person seeking a second marriage (adultery in Jesus' view). Or if, as is entirely likely in a small town, the clerk knew that a couple coming before her for a license had no intention of being monogamous, could she also be accommodated for her refusal to issue the license? (again, assuming that her assistant clerk would be 'a reasonable alternative' for her to delegate to?) How would the law adjudicate when she was engaging in a purely idiosyncratic reading of what her God required, when, that is, her 'extreme' was too extreme even for the law to countenance with accommodations? What if her religion held that true marriage can only be legal if it is also in coherence with her view of the law of God, such that mixed religion marriages, etc., were ruled out? I am guessing you have a line beyond which you would not favor accommodation, but I am not clear where that is and how you articulate it legally.

I've read only a smattering of Hauerwas, whose cantankerous turns of mind and phrase both please and sometimes annoy me--mea culpa for letting this get in the way of my reading him more! IN any case, his book The State of the University has a very interesting chapter on poverty as it relates to both the church and the university, in which he champions the L'Arche community of Jean Vanier as something on which universities would do well to focus attention. In a meditation on Gregory Nazianzus' oration: On the Love of the Poor, he writes: “But I also think any university that would be about the formation of people who can love the poor will need those who have learned ot live as the poor by living with the poor. It may well be, for example, that universities that desire to have what they teach be disciplined by the Gospel have at the center of their work a L’Arche home or a Catholic Worker house.” Hauerwas' own parish, Church of the Holy Family in Durham, NC, does an impressive job of this work, and I know from my conversations with their current rector that he is committed fully to these ministries. Though he has a tendency to suggest that the church needs to be an alternate polis to the liberal welfare state, which he often excoriates for its failures to serve the neediest (who with a conscience doesn't?), his practice as a Christian is often, as you say Steve, more nuanced than his rhetoric. One simply can't be a part of programs like his parish has without insisting that the state has a duty to support agencies in local communities which serve the poor. The stark either/or of church as polis versus state as polis is broken down by the opening quotation from Oscar Romero which Hauerwas uses to start his essay on the poor and the university: "It is the poor who tell us what the polis is." Hauerwas' book is here: http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1405162473.html