On Evil and Gay Marriage (and Gun-Ownership, and the Death Penalty, and Hell, and...)

The reason the average discussion about anything goes nowhere is because everyone always talks about the thing at hand rather than the things assumed. What I mean is that we always discuss the "topics" but never our assumptions that under-gird and give life to those topics. It's like having weeds in your garden and deciding whether to break out the weed-eater or pull them up by the roots. Most of us break out the weed-eater: it's easier, takes less time, makes a glorious racket, and is good for a laugh when the casual passerby is barraged with vegetative shrapnel.

Pulling up by the root takes too much work. It's a hands-on, dirty, intimate process. We have to get on our knees and take each weed one at a time, coming to grips with their unique shapes and challenges, finding the right amount of leverage to unseat them, and finding the right consolation when we fail to yank the suckers fully free from the earth. It's all too messy and involved, but we'll never really take care of the weeds if we don't deal with the roots. That's what's wrong with the majority of our so-called "discussions" or "conversations": we're all whacking each other with weed-eaters, while the roots remain untouched.

Take any "hot-button" issue and you'll see what I mean, like gay marriage for example. Everyone makes everything and anything out of it: it's about the degradation of culture, or equal rights for equal people, or legislating morality, or protecting our children, or protecting our liberty, or freedom of conscience, or love, or hate, or whatever additional buzzwords are floating about, clouding up the debate like a pack of flies. The truth is that gay marriage is about none of those things. Those things are a part of it, they spring naturally from it, but they're not what it's about, what it's fundamentally built on. And what it's fundamentally built on is whether or not there is anything "fundamental" at all.

Is gender a fundamental reality or an arbitrary construction? Is there a fundamental reality out there? How can we know? To what authority do we reference? Is there such an authority? How do we know it/them/him/her? These are the questions that gay marriage is really asking. These are the presuppositions that inform the debate. These are the roots. Gay marriage is not about whether morality is on the decline; it's about whether or not objective meaning is an illusion we've created. It's not about whether we should let inequality exist; it's about whether or not nihilism is true.

Subjectivist? Nay! Subject-abyss.

If you are pro-gay marriage, then at bottom you hold that (at the very least) gender and marriage are empty concepts, and the only authority to say what they are is the subject(s) participating in it. You may not put it in those exact words, but that's exactly what a presupposition is, i.e., pre-supposed, assumed before any words. You assume gender and marriage under an individualistic, subjectivist, nihilist framework and let the rest roll from there. Likewise, if you are anti-gay marriage, then at bottom you hold that (at the very least) gender and marriage are not empty concepts, that they have fundamental, essential realities, and that conformity to those realities is the only way to truly live and enjoy them. Again, you may not have put as much into words, and you may not even be sure what authority gave those concepts their essential reality and meaning, but you hold to the existence of those realities (and authority) nonetheless.

Every topic or "hot-button" issue has their roots somewhere, and the only real way to have a real debate about these things (and not simply a shouting match or a group hug) is to deal with the roots. If you want to discuss gay marriage, then don't start with the shrubbery of equality or morality. Start with the roots of authority and reality: is there an objective reality to things, and is there an authority that tells us what that reality is and is not? Until that debate happens, everything else is so much window-dressing in a never-ending flame war.

By Jove, it's all linked!

I have found this to be true in my own discussion or engagement with certain topics and issues. I find a strange collaboration amongst things that seem at first to be disparate from each other. Somehow, a collection of unrelated items was all along involved in a conspiracy within me. I found to my shock that all my separate shrubs belonged to the same root system. For example: gun-ownership, the death penalty, and Hell are all things I have opinions on, things that everyone has some kind of opinion on. The thing is, I thought that they were each (by themselves) an issue unto itself, when in fact they all belonged to the same source. They all rested on the same fundamental assumptions.

Those assumptions had to do with evil. Your opinion on whether or not men and women should own a weapon, whether or not certain crimes are punishable by death, and whether or not a just and loving God would send/condemn/confine certain people to eternal punishment all stem from this one source, this one question: what is evil? What does it look like? How do we recognize it? And how ought we to respond to it? Believe it or not, your stance on self-defense, capital punishment, and eternal damnation all rest on this hinge: what is your "stance" on evil? What assumptions about it do you have?

"I find your lack of evil disturbing."

Allow me to speak for myself in order to produce an example. Here is at least one thing I believe about evil: that it comes in many different shades and intensities, including the darkest shades and worst intensities. I believe, in other words, that there is such a thing as irredeemable, irrevocable evil, of a place where a moral frontier has been crossed that cannot be uncrossed, where the downward spiral has reached terminal velocity and cannot be recalled. Not to be cliche or hang my laurels on a worn-out nail, but when Alfred described the Joker as a man "who doesn't want anything logical," who "can't be bought, bullied, reasoned to, or negotiated with," and "just wants to watch the world burn," I believe him. I believe he is absolutely right. There are such men (and women) out there, and they are not as rare as we suppose.

This is one of my assumptions about evil, and it is why I am in favor of gun-ownership and the death penalty, and why I believe in a place called Hell. Not because I necessarily "like" those things or are glad they exist, but because I know there are certain persons to whom there is no other solution or answer but an extreme one. There is no forgiveness or mercy or grace that will turn them, no therapy or accommodation or understanding that will change them, no compromise or appeasement that will stop them. A line has been crossed, and they will not turn back. What else is there that we can do to or for them? What else is there for even God to do? If they will not be forgiven, if they will not receive help, if they will not stop, then they must be stopped. I believe in such an evil as that, an evil in which our only legitimate response is to stop it by whatever means necessary.

This is one of the reasons I lose all patience with the anti-death penalty argument that says, "If we kill them then we are no different than them." The idea is completely absurd; the very reason we seek to put them to death is precisely because we are "different" than them. We seek their death because we belong to a moral sphere; they sought death and destruction because they stepped out of and beyond all moral spheres. We want them dead because we care too much about the lives of others in our communities (and even our prisons); they wanted others dead and destroyed because they cared nothing about them at all. There is a universe of difference between us and them, between the whole of common sense humanity and the occasional degenerates who seek our slaughter. If there truly was "no difference" between the two of us, then we wouldn't even be having this debate, for we wouldn't even call their actions wrong or punishable in the first place. The very idea of punishment can only come from a moral order and those who adhere to it. Thus, our similarity is merely superficial: the shrubs seemed identical, but their roots are miles away, in different depths and other soils. 

Because I assume these things about evil, it not only shapes my own stance but also my thoughts on the stances of others. If someone is anti-gun ownership, anti-death penalty, anti-Hell, or (what is more often the case) all of the above, I find myself assuming (because of my presupposition) that they have an incorrect view of evil, that their view of evil is skewed, that it is somehow lesser or weaker than mine. Now, I may be right or wrong in having that assumption, and I may be being unfair to those who disagree with me, but for now it is what it is: the roots have affected the shrub and its relationship to other shrubs.

...seems legit.

The point of all this blather is this: any debate that does not deal with the fundamental assumptions that under-gird our ideas will dissolve into shadow-boxing at best. I'm even willing to bet that most of the stupidity and incivility that reeks across our social and political realms like rot on a tree trunk could be avoided (for the most part) if we would actually get to the real point(s) behind our myriad "topics" and "issues" and "platforms," if we would get to the real heart of the matter. There we find what is really at stake, what we really believe, and (perhaps more importantly) who we really are, for our beliefs spring from who we are. Like Jesus said, "Out of the heart" comes all that makes us who we are, for good or ill (Matt. 15:18-20), and we would do well to cease from squawking at each other and take some time to first look at our self square in the eye. Then, perhaps, we can look at others in the eye as well.

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013

The End of America, Part I (political contemplations by an orthodox rebel)

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness." -"The Declaration of Independence"

Most hot-button issues in American politics revolve around some particular thing that many accuse (amongst other things) of potentially destroying the country. Take gay marriage for instance. This is certainly a hot-button ("boiler plate," some call it) issue in this country, and the doomsday arguments have been made. They are not without their merit, mainly because they are not without logic (or historical precedent). The two main ones go something like this: since homosexuals cannot biologically or naturally breed, they cannot have children; and if they cannot have children, then they will destroy the country, because no society can survive without function family units, containing both children to be the next generation and parents who can pass on good citizenship and love of country to said next generation. Furthermore (and slightly in correlation to the previous), children in homosexual "families" are in danger of "damage"; if not spiritual or physical, than at least psychological and emotional (since they belong to a currently ostracized group). Thus is the thrust of the basic political argument(s) against gay marriage.

Unfortunately, neither one of them holds real water, not because they are not true (e.g., societies do need stable family units), but because we have found ways around their truth. For example, while it may be true that homosexual couples cannot have children biologically (i.e., the "plumbing don't fit that way"), they can and have used adoption, or (in the case of some lesbian couples) they use insemination services. Anyone who works in certain other social movements (pro-life, anti-sex trafficking, etc.) can tell you that their are plenty of children out there to adopt (and there is, apparently, also plenty of semen to go around), so anyone trying to stand against gay marriage on the grounds of social and national dissolvement has to recognize that homosexuals can form "family units" too. And as for the "damage" argument, the stories from children like this young man seem to effectively counter it. Even if he and others like him are the exception to the rule, their mere presence is enough to rob all claims of "damage" of its debatable force.

There are, of course, biblical arguments against gay marriage (and a myriad of other "social ills"), but I have come to realize that they are of no use in a political discussion in America. Again, it is not because they're not true (how could I, being a Christian, say they are not?). Rather, it's for two often overlooked reasons. First (more generally speaking), politics concerns itself with the passing cities of men while the Bible concerns itself with the eternal and coming City of God. To put it less abstractly, the Bible says things like homosexuality are bad, not because it will dissolve the nation, but because it will damage your soul. More to the point, it says that all sin is a symptom (one of many) of an already damaged soul, a soul that needs to be brought back to God through Christ. In short, it is concerned with our spiritual welfare, not our political one. As far as politics goes, all the Bible says about it can be summed as follows: (1) be a good citizen and live peaceably, (2) governments (even bad ones) are ordained by God and they (3) ought to, as far as you can, be submitted to, (4) ought to punish wrong and reward good, and (5) are always passing away.

The second reason why biblical arguments are of no use in a political discussion in America is because specifically in America, one of the safeguards for our freedom is that no one religion is allowed any kind of special weight, treatment, or consideration. All voices are to be equally valid voices, and no one is to dominate the space. Thus, the best a biblical argument can hope for is to become just one voice among many, a voice that easily gets lost (or diluted or mutated) in the onslaught of competing ideas and notions. Simply put, the very freedoms that we have and hold to be so precious are the very things that nullify the effectiveness of biblical arguments (a point I'll return to in "Part II"). If we are to remain "free," then we can never become a theocracy, no matter how sympathetic we are to its doctrines. Hence, the frustration of the "moral majority" and its adherents: playing the game by its own rules necessitates your defeat. The whole thing feels like a unbeatable cheat, a necessary evil.

It was at the end of these ponderings that I was struck by a dilemma: "Well, if all of my traditional political arguments are nullified, and if all of my precious biblical arguments are true yet easily cast aside by the system itself, then what can I say against such things? Where is the real argument against them?" Though I never really arrived at any better arguments, I nonetheless stumbled upon certain facts that stumbled me further along a certain progression of ideas that lead me to one inevitable conclusion, a conclusion that troubled me deeply. It appeared that when I spoke earlier that homosexuality (and any other sin) was merely a symptom of some deeper ill, I hardly knew the truth of what I had said. America will be destroyed. It will be dissolved. But things like gay marriage are only symptoms of the deeper dissolvant, which is America itself.

You see, America is fundamentally fragmentary in its construction. Of course, there is the idea of decentralization, i.e., the federal government is divided into three separate branches (one of which is divided further into two), and every state is a nation unto itself (with their own constitutions, laws, resources, militaries, etc.), and every city contains its own government, etc. In addition to that, however, is the fundamental premise of American "freedom". By its own basic definition, freedom is necessarily fragmentary: it is a centrifugal force, moving outward beyond all boundaries. I believe our founding fathers knew this, and that they also knew that while freedom is necessary for human happiness, no nation can survive solely on its shifting sands. There has to be a unifying factor as well, some solidifying variable that could enter the equation and allow the whole edifice to hold together and stand erect. They found their unifying factor, and its name was God.

I'm quite sure that historical reconstructionists everywhere are already gearing up the torches and pitchforks. I would humbly ask them to hold their ire for a moment and face certain facts. It may be true that the founders were not traditional Christians, that they were deists or Unitarians or else various shades of agnosticism. I grant the possibility of such a premise; I also hold that it makes no difference whatsoever. Even if they weren't all Christians (an idea I hold suspect), and even if the Bible played a minimal role in their decisions (an idea I hold as possible), the fact remains (in all their subsequent writings) that they all believed in "God," a God somewhat analogous to the Christian God (for what other God was there for white, European males?). They held that there was some absolute, all-powerful Being who ruled over all. Furthermore, this Being had a moral character that had been transmitted to us (either by holy writ or other, more deistic means) as moral conduct. It was from this God that we received our "inalienable rights," and it was to this God that our rights were to be directed. This is what would unify us: a God-centered and God-based morality. It would give our freedom focus and our nation solidarity. Now we had liberty, liberty to become better men and women with a manifest destiny to change the world for that same "better". We were free, free to follow and spread the ten commandments.

I may be oversimplifying a bit, but I am not overstating. God haunts our political structure to this day (in debates, in documents, on buildings, on currency), because He was the glue that held it all together, that kept our nation from scattering to the four-winds, that kept our fundamentally fragmentary freedom from tearing us into pieces. The principle is found in the "Declaration" itself: our inalienable rights include "Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness," both of which speak to freedom and its fragmentary power. But prior to these rights, we are told that we were "created" and "endowed" by a "Creator". In America, God must be the first premise if freedom is to be kept sane. Deistic or otherwise, a "God" of some sort must be there. What's more, if you want to "dissolve" or "destroy" the nation, then you must dissolve/destroy its unifying factor. In America, you must dissolve/destroy God.

(To be continued in "Part II")

-Jon Vowell (c) 2013