The abortion crazy Episcopal woman priest says that a woman who is in a ‘loving, supportive, respectful’ relationship wants an abortion she should have one.
Quite apart from the abortion issue, aren’t you sick of this ‘loving, supportive, respectful’ stuff being the criteria for a legitimate ‘partnership’? Forget about marriage. Forget about divorce and re-marriage. Forget about co habitation. Forget about lesbianism or homosexuality or transgendered freakery. Forget about fornication or adultery or the ten commandments. What really matters is if two people are ‘loving, supportive and respectful.’
The first problem with this is that it is so patently upper middle class patronizing nonsense. What on earth does ‘loving, supportive and respectful’ mean? It means that the people are nice people. They are respectable people. They have good taste. They don’t shout at one another and use nasty words. They have good table manners. They don’t eat at McDonald’s. They are educated. They read fat books with long words. They dislike television and go to the opera. They know how to use a salad fork and a butter knife. In other words, they are Episcopalians.
The second problem is: Who defines what ‘loving, supportive and respectful’ actually means? One couple’s love is another couple’s fistfight. One couple’s ‘support’ is another couple’s agreement to leave each other alone. One couple’s ‘respect’ is another couple’s divorce.
Third problem is that being ‘loving, supportive and respectful’ is not even necessarily human, and doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with marriage at all. My daughter loves her hamster. I support the chickadees on my bird feeder and I respect my mailman because he delivers the mail in the sleet and snow. Big deal.
Fourth problem is that ‘loving, supportive and respectful’ is temporary. What if the relationship stops being loving? What if it’s loving for one person and not the other? How do you know if it is still loving or not? Is it how you feel? What does ‘supportive’ mean? Does it mean I bring home the bacon or I sit and drink tea with my spouse and listen to her while she complains about her corns? What does ‘respectful’ mean? That I like the other person or that she likes me? That she has read my PhD thesis and thinks me clever or that I think she is pretty smart because she can bake cookies and they don’t stick to the tray? And what if one of these three things stop? Do they all have to stop for the relationship to no longer be a relationship?
Marriage, on the other hands, is objective. It is at least a civil agreement and at best a sacrament which unlocks divine love within human love. Marriage is something tangible and real and eternal. Compare the sentimental and subjective ‘loving, supportive and respectful’ to the grim glory of the marriage vows: “I vow to love and to cherish until death do us part, for richer for poorer for better or for worse, in sickness and in health…” Of course a marriage should be ‘loving, supportive and respectful’ (whatever that means) but that on it’s own such a definition has no more substance than a Hallmark card.
Thank you, Fr. L. Episcopalian maybe, knowing no faith certainly.
Patronising upper-middle-class nonsense indeed.As I was saying.
The way that woman insisted we had to”Repeat after me,abortion is……”Well,I’m not middle class or particularly intellectual but I know manipulation and dictatorship when I smell it and she reeks of it.I wonder what her testimony is,what defects of character she herself acknowledges,seeks to overcome(or is it just everyone else’s she’s called to remove)?God save us from the spiritual ‘elite’.
Thank you, Father, for putting my thoughts into words 🙂 Patronzing nonsense indeed.
By the way:”The Episcopal Divinity School is pleased to announce the appointment of Katherine Hancock Ragsdale as the school’s sixth president and dean.” http://www.eds.edu/previewMain.asp?pageID=316
While I certainly get that love is not simply a mushy feeling but rather an act of will, I have to wonder: Being loving and respectful have nothing to do with marriage, Father? Glad I didn’t do my marriage prep with you.
Way to take comments out of context, Steve.
Father, I like your description of the marriage vows as "grim glory". My husband & I have been married for 30 years, and sometimes things have been more grim than glorious! However, I always say that we're still together because of the grace of the Sacrament. If we had listened to our "feelings", well, I'd rather not go there, thanks very much! And thank you, Fr. for a thought-provoking post.
Scandalous that the tawdry abortion litmus-test could find any place in the ministerial mutterings of any person attached to any “church” that remotely professes a connection with Jesus Christ.Then again, heterodoxy is startlingly pervasive in 2009. Go to a bookstore and take a gander at how many people are mangling and then churning-out different Bible “translations” (highly subjective paraphrasings) with different theological slants.I suspect Father’s complaint about this Rachel Maddowian Episcopal priest’s “loving, caring, respectful” lingo stems from the fact that it’s so indicative of the vague, diaphanous liberalspeak that tends to rob serious concepts of substance and merely decorate these concepts with flimsy window-dressing. It’s a means (conscious or unconscious) of devaluing values, if you will. I agree that this kind of jargon is most disturbing. It’s also annoying.
kkollwitz, one can’t make up a parody that good. Only shows how mainstream in her church she is.Although I like great art and old-fashioned English mannerliness (including at one remove), and certainly don’t wish ill on Episcopalian people (such as having their properties stolen), I have no time for the institution of the Episcopal Church.
Steve, did you read the last sentence of the post?
“kkollwitz, one can’t make up a parody that good.”Indeed. Todd Unctuous himself stands in awe.
Father, indeed I did read your entire post. You referred me, however, to your final sentence: “Of course a marriage should be ‘loving, supportive and respectful’ (whatever that means) but that on it’s own such a definition has no more substance than a Hallmark card.” If your dismissive phrase “whatever that means” (not so many miles from a cynical tenth grader’s “Whatever…”) does not undermine your last-minute endorsement of people being “loving, supportive and respectful,” I don’t know what would.Yes, marriage is a legal arrangement. Yes, in the church marriage is also an ongoing sacrament as well as a vocation. But why go out of your way to ridicule the very idea that people should love one another, people should treat each other in a respectful way, in a marriage? Certainly the ideal is not attained on a daily basis in ANY marriage (or in any other long-term relationship), but why mock the very notion of love and respect? How does that make marriage appear (to the world at large, but particularly the young) as anything other than just a “grim” duty, something to be endured?
Steve, is it possible that you read so much into my post that was not there?I did not mock ‘loving, supportive and respectful’ but pointed out that, on its own, these definitions are subjective, sentimental and shallow.Of course a marriage should be ‘loving, supportive and respectful’ but that’s like saying, ‘A car should have four wheels.’ Everyone knows that already and agrees on that.Saying that a car is nothing but four wheels is what I was digging at.
Patronizing nonsense indeed, but to call it “upper middle class” sounds to me like inverted snobbery. But there, I have no experience of episcopalianism.
This blog is called ‘Standing on My Head’You should expect inverted snobbery
I disagree that that “loving, supportive, and respectful” are shallow definitions. We are commanded by God to love. And being supportive and respectful are both key ingredients for a solid and lasting relationship that is good rather than grim. Of course marriage isn’t always sweetness and light, and of course marriage is different from other relationships, making it a unique bond between the sexes. But of all the things Ms. Ragsdale said in her “sermon,” that characterization of a relationship was, for me, nothing to complain about. Her vile chant about abortion was another matter entirely, of course.
I disagree that that “loving, supportive, and respectful” are shallow definitions. We are commanded by God to love. And being supportive and respectful are both key ingredients for a solid and lasting relationship that is good rather than grim. Of course marriage isn’t always sweetness and light, and of course marriage is different from other relationships, making it a unique bond between the sexes. But of all the things Ms. Ragsdale said in her “sermon,” that characterization of a relationship was, for me, nothing to complain about. Her vile chant about abortion was another matter entirely, of course.
Kirstin, I don’t think you get Ms Ragsdale’s point.She was not simply in favor of a relationship being ‘loving supportive and respectful’ That’s common sense. No one would disagree with that.This is Episcopalian code for the definition of a legitimate relationship of any sort. Homosexual, lesbian, remarriage, co habitation, adultery, you name it, anything goes for Ms Ragsdale as long as it is ‘loving supportive and respectful.’Of course I’m not opposed to ‘loving, supportive and respectful’ I’m opposed to the shallow belief that this is the only definition of the legitimacy of a relationship.
I’m with you, Fr. and I completely sick to death of all this “loving and respectful and supportive” drivel that means exactly what you said. As long as I feel loving, respectful, and supportive, then all is well. If and when I change my mind about how I feel, then I am free to walk away and my wonderful relationship should dissolve. Baloney. Marriage is not for wimps. It’s the biggest commitment you’ll ever make and it doesn’t depend at all on your feelings. Which is why God went out of His way to demonstrate to us that love is not a feeling.You nailed it. It’s total patronizing nonsense.
Of course I get her point. But it was your point I was addressing when I said I disagree that these were shallow. They are key in any kind of relationship, including marriage. Her use of them in the broadest sense does not dilute their necessity. Perhaps I just disagree with the way your phrased it, but not with your actual belief. I agree that with you that just because something is loving, supportive, and respectful doesn’t in and of itself justify an anything goes perspective. I don’t think adultery can be loving, supportive, and respectful — or, if so, very seldomly. I do think same sex relationships can characterized by those attributes, but that does not mean that such relationships ought to be entitled to enter into legal and/or sacramental marriage as Ms. Ragsdale would insist. We are one on that.
I’d be hard pressed to regard my marriage as ‘loving, supportive and respectful’ if it involved telling my wife it’d be ok with me if she got an abortion.
The real game in TEC is to render the objective subjective, because then you can make anything mean whatever you want it to mean, and justify whatever you want to justify. It may be Satan’s best trick.
Great reflection Fr. L – spot on. But I must say, you have pretty thick skin. Looking at some of the comments from this, and other postings made me feel like I was back in CPE.
But, considering the original comment of yours a little more, you went off on a tangent, didn’t you? Ms. Ragsdale wasn’t opining on the differences between marriage and living together or what have you. Her remarks to her congregation (and to anyone reading her in the blogosphere) were focused on the glorious freedom anyone, married or not, has in being able to have or agree to abortion [heavy sarcasm here, of course]. She wants the whole world to be able to kill the unborn if they want to. As you know, when she mentions people in loving, supportive, and respectful relationships, she says they have the “right” to do it too. Don’t feel guilty, she’s urging, about not wanting a baby, no matter what the reason or what kind of relationship you’re in. She is bent on a truly inclusive perspective. The point is, in my view, that she is simply trying to turn morals on its head and claim a sin as a virtue under any circumstances within any kind of relationship.Your differentiation between marriage and the other relationships that she, by this phrase, is lumping together, doesn’t address her central theme. And I’m not sure what you accomplish because marriage should have loving, supportive, and respectful underpinnings, as we agree. Also, whether a person has a marriage license or something more informal, the Catholic ideal is that no one have an abortion. In effect, Catholic teaching is simply the exact opposite of Ms. Ragsdale’s.
What really matters is if two people are ‘loving, supportive and respectful.’Isn’t that a bit specist Father? After all, a case could be argued for canine affection being much more consistantly ‘supporting’, ‘respectful’ etc than us fickle human beings. I await the day when some forward thinking judge awards state money to a ‘couple’ who argue that their ‘loving, supportive and respectful’ relationship is ideal for raising a state sponsored IVF child… or puppy, or kitten as the case may be.
Said Romkey:”The real game in TEC is to render the objective subjective, because then you can make anything mean whatever you want it to mean, and justify whatever you want to justify. It may be Satan’s best trick.”Indeed. Terrific post there, Father. Thanks.Kirsten, Wordsworth said, “We murder to dissect.” He was speaking of literary critics, but I find the remark applicable to a certain habit of the mind when it encounters anything of integrity. It’s as though the wholeness of the thing is somehow intolerable and must be disassembled to be rendered acceptable. There is analysis for the sake of comprehension and appreciation; then again, there’s analysis for the sake of destruction, an attempt to deprive a thing of its potency, to render it impotent. Thereafter, when one finally feels safe from any affect of the thing, one excuses oneself by declaring that one “agrees,” a way of disclaiming responsibility for one’s actions. It’s a clever defense of the virginal intellect.Not that any of this applies to your comments, of course….
I think is what Fr. L is driving at:How does this original quote:”And when a woman becomes pregnant within a loving, supportive, respectful relationship; has every option open to her; decides she does not wish to bear a child; and has access to a safe, affordable abortion – there is not a tragedy in sight — only blessing.”differ from this edited quote: “And when a woman..becomes pregnant; decides she does not wish to bear a child; and has access to a safe, affordable abortion – there is not a tragedy in sight — only blessing.”or this one:”And when a woman becomes pregnant within a loveless, alienating, abusive relationship; has every option open to her; decides she does not wish to bear a child; and has access to a safe, affordable abortion – there is not a tragedy in sight — only blessing.”I don’t think there’s any real difference, which suggests that “a loving, supportive, respectful relationship” is just pleasant fluff. The abortion would be a blessing whether those conditions obtained or not.
If you look on the link kkollwitz supplied to the unbelievable news that this woman was just named president and dean of a divinity school (!)http://www.eds.edu/previewMain.asp?pageID=316you will see that the page Fr. Longenecker referenced for the article is the “selected sermons” page the school wants everyone to read.I am feeling physically ill.
Fr. L.,In stating that “such a definition has no more substance than a Hallmark card” I think you may be overestimating the substance of the definition. If so, that would go a long way towards explaining this woman’s obvious hostility.Pax et bonum,Keith Toepfer
Father, in your copious spare time (lol) I hope you teach the marriage prep course at your parish for pre-cana.:-)