A Christian Conservative Obsession
Paul Campos: 'A Christian conservative obsession'
Paul Campos, The Ocala Star-Banner
Fifty years ago, the Christian writer C.S. Lewis devoted a couple of
chapters of his autobiography to describing the exclusive English public
(meaning private) school he attended as a teenager. Lewis portrays
"Wyvern" as a cesspool of worldly ambition, where the struggle to get
ahead all but overwhelms ordinary human decency, let alone any serious
ethical standards.
"Spiritually speaking," Lewis writes, "the deadly thing was that school
life was a life almost wholly dominated by the social struggle; to get on,
to arrive, or, having reached the top, to remain there, was the absorbing
preoccupation. And from it, at school as in the world, all sorts of
meanness flow; the sycophancy that courts those higher in the scale, the
cultivation of those whom it is well to know, the speedy abandonment of
friendships that will not help on the upward path, the readiness to join
the cry against the unpopular, the secret motive in almost every action."
Lewis also describes, largely in passing, the English public school
tradition by which socially powerful older boys enter into sexual liaisons
with younger boys, who thereby acquire a status similar to that of
courtesans. At one point, Lewis addresses why he has so little to say
about this practice, and indeed why he doesn't even bother to condemn it:
"What Christian, in a society so worldly and cruel as that of Wyvern,
would pick out the carnal sins for special reprobation? Cruelty is surely
more evil than lust and the World at least as dangerous as the Flesh. The
real reason for all the pother (about homosexuality) is, in my opinion,
neither Christian nor ethical. We attack this vice not because it is the
worst but because it is, by adult standards, the most disreputable and
unmentionable, and happens also to be a crime in English law. The World
will lead you only to Hell; but sodomy may lead you to jail and create a
scandal, and lose you your job. The World, to do it justice, seldom does
that."
Much has changed since Lewis wrote; but one thing that has not is the
veritable obsession many Christian conservatives seem to have with
homosexuality. As Lewis points out, this obsession has no sound basis in
Christian ethics or theology. It is true that Christian morality has
traditionally condemned homosexual behavior. But it is, on this view, no
different from fornication, or promiscuity, which are also considered
perversions of sexual passion, and which draw relatively little attention
from contemporary moralists.
Furthermore, as Lewis notes, Christian theology considers lust to be a
less dangerous vice than worldly ambition or (especially) spiritual pride.
So why are so many Christian conservatives focused on the putative threat
that the widespread acceptance of homosexuality presents to the spiritual
health of society, as opposed to, say, the threat posed by the widespread
acceptance of materialism, or the fanning of nationalistic passions?
It has been pointed out that it is more difficult for a camel to pass
through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. And
surely few vices could be more dangerous to a Christian's soul than to
indulge in the delusion that his nation is morally superior to other
countries (contemporary nationalism is little more than spiritual pride on
a grand political scale). For heterosexual Christians in particular, it is
easier and far more pleasant to condemn homosexuality than to consider
whether the lust for fame and fortune, or for the destruction of one's
enemies, might be more fruitful topics on which to focus one's attentions.
To preen oneself on having resisted temptations one has never felt is no
different than taking credit for victories over enemies one has never
faced. It is the squawk of the chicken hawk raised to the status of a
theological principle.
Paul Campos is a law professor at the University of Colorado and writes
for Scripps Howard News Service.
Copyright 2006, The Ocala Star-Banner
Source The Ocala Star-Banner:
http://www.ocala.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060325/OPINION/203250331/1
030/OPINION
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Russ T. Nale
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