I have to admit it: I’m RFRA’d out. I felt at least somewhat engaged in the topic when Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act first came rumbling into America’s media landscape. I felt annoyed and amused in about equal measure when Arlene’s Flowers and Barronelle Stutzman became household names. Finally, as people continue to discuss the issue based on whatever their personal experience (and, y’know, THE BIBLE) has taught them to believe and value, I feel inclined to crawl into a sensory deprivation chamber.
Then an article by Conor Friedersdorf found its way into my Facebook newsfeed. Unlike most of what I’d read and heard on the subject of RFRAs, this piece seemed insightful about both sides of the debate, and about how the controversy developed in the first place. For me, this is the key quote:
Americans receive different upbringings in different families of different faiths, while living in different neighborhoods of different cities in different regions, and are then thrown onto the same social-media platforms. These platforms afford an illusion of a single culture, as if public controversies are grounded in common experiences and assumptions. But Americans have never understood one another.
This made me remember watching Barack Obama give the keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Obama said:
We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States, and, yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States.
I also remembered reading in 2004 about the “urban archipelago” model, which posits that liberals live, “not in a country that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to Mexico. We live on a chain of islands. We are citizens of the Urban Archipelago, the United Cities of America.”
Another divisive issue has been at the forefront of my mind lately: premarital sex. The connection to RFRAs might seem tenuous, but consider this: Some conservatives see the legalization of same-sex marriage, the institution at the heart of the RFRA debate, as an opening of floodgates. Moral relativism and a large-scale devaluing of “traditional” marriage will supposedly result.
When I read Matthew Sewell’s recent response to Martin Elfert’s column about premarital sex, I realized that we liberals aren’t the only ones living on islands. When Matthew states: “We’re all called to chastity,” it makes as much sense to me as the idea that we’re all called to veterinary school. Postmodern, humanist thinking like mine sees people as too different from each other to be subject to many universal rules, laws, or callings.
In the comments section under his article, Matthew links to a piece by Trent Horn titled “Homosexuality and Hypocrisy.” Horn writes:
Just because Christians are not bound by the cultural-specific codes in the Old Testament does not mean we aren’t bound by the universal codes found there.
After all, I am no longer bound by the childhood rule requiring me to hold my mother’s hand when crossing the street, but this doesn’t mean I am not bound by other childhood rules such as “Don’t drink what’s in the containers under the sink.” As an adult, I do not need the former rule to protect me, but the latter rule is still binding because ingesting bleach will kill me regardless of how old I am. Likewise, some rules in the Mosaic law still apply because they involve actions that are always harmful.
Who decides what types of behavior allegedly prohibited by Mosaic law are “always harmful”? Ultimately, I think people do. Postmodernism suggests that we cannot perceive anything, even the Bible, without experiencing it through the filter of our own experiences, preferences, and biases. Matthew and I are looking at different Bibles, as it were, because we want and need them to do different things for us.
One thing I want is to accept the impossibility of finding common ground on certain issues with certain people. What Friedersdorf refers to as the “illusion of a single culture” feels false and tiresome. I don’t think we can have a nation as diverse as ours without accepting that it is, in fact, a staggering collection of micronations gerrymandered by the faith and values of our families and communities.
Friedersdorf calls for empathy rather than mistrust, and I think that’s a realistic and fair thing to expect. Empathy doesn’t mean agreeing with others; it just means trying, at least a little, to understand why they might believe what they believe. That noble effort, I think, is what drew us all to SpokaneFAVS, and also what keeps bringing us back.
Join SpokaneFAVS for a Coffee Talk forum on Religious Freedom Laws on May 2, 10 a.m. at Indaba Coffee/The Book Parlor. Schindler is a panelist.
For traditionalist/evangelical christians the sexuality issue is simply solved by which OT laws pass to the NT by the teachings of Christ and his hand picked apostles not people’s persinal opinions.
“PerSINal” opinions … was that typo on purpose?
I really hope so.
As far as the progressive archipelago, I’d be careful of those earthquake coast slipping into the ocean rumors that just might solve this culture war. 😉
“not in a country that stretches from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Canada to Mexico. We live on a chain of islands. We are citizens of the Urban Archipelago, the United Cities of America.” should be a pullquote too.
Fixed!
“After all, I am no longer bound by the childhood rule requiring me to hold my mother’s hand when crossing the street, but this doesn’t mean I am not bound by other childhood rules such as “Don’t drink what’s in the containers under the sink.” As an adult, I do not need the former rule to protect me, but the latter rule is still binding because ingesting bleach will kill me regardless of how old I am. Likewise, some rules in the Mosaic law still apply because they involve actions that are always harmful.” should also also be a pullquote.
Well stated Neil and yet the wide cast net of national society does have us all in compliance of a national norm which is found in systems behavior of a political, economic and financial nature. The “wild west” of Ideological orientation is still a system more so culture specific with at least a cursory coat of red, white and blue so I would have to say yes I agree that America is an illusion of a single culture yet one that has as its common denominator a, do unto others as you would have others do unto yourself. Please tell me I’m not wrong.
Neal, well-said. I am all about diversity, right up until someone’s civil rights are violated or impinged upon, and marriage is a civil right in our country. Once upon a time, miscegenation laws made it illegal in some states for blacks and whites to intermarry. Loud arguments with awful, hateful language was used by ministers all over the South to ensure that these laws would never be changed, but they were. What “we” as a group called the United States all believe to be true may never amount to much but the right to get married has already been debated, in US vs Loving, and Loving won. One day, hopefully one day soon, (like this June) all the conversation about whether to allow same-sex marriage will be history, and we will be left listening to the death-throes of the bigots. It generally takes about 3 generations for these types of social changes to be completely integrated into society, and I’d like to think that my great grandchildren will laugh at the idea that once upon a time Great Grandma Jan and Great Grandma Deb were not allowed to marry. I hope my story will be ancient history for them.
Very nice thought 🙂
Has “America” ever been one people, one worldview, or one consensus on anything? You’d be surprised just how rare such a thing would ever be. This is a fantastic read on the subject: http://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1430357356&sr=8-1&keywords=American+Nations