Sarah Mullally as the Archbishop of Canterbury

On January 28, 2026, Sarah Mullally became the first woman to occupy the seat of the archbishop of Canterbury, which is the spiritual leader of the Church of England under its governor, the British King (or Queen) and of the worldwide Anglican Communion, which includes the Episcopal Church. The King (or Queen) being above the archbishop in the Church of England is in line with Thomas Hobbes’ seventeenth-century theory that the sovereign should be in charge of church and state lest civil war break out (again). Just as a British king is a man and a queen is a woman, so too, as of 2026, the Archbishop of Canterbury could be a man or a woman. This of course set the Anglicans even further off from the Roman Catholic Church, where only men can be priests and bishops, including that of Rome (i.e., the Pope). I contend that the intransigence on this point is due to a logical error involving a category mistake just for added fun.

The Confirmation of Election service out of which Mullaly became the Archbishop of Canterbury “marks a milestone for the Church of England, which ordained its first female priests in 1994 and its first female bishop in 2015.”[1] That was not long before 2026, so progressives in that Church had reason to be astounded as the swiftness of the change. In no small measure, the relative progressive stance of King Charles after his conservative mother, Queen Elizabeth, enabled the first woman to occupy the position in just a decade after the first woman was made a bishop in the Church of England. The tremendous change in the societal role of woman in the West since the early 1970s and the effect of this change on how all of Jesus’s disciples being men in the Gospels has been perceived differently can also be said to be factors in Mulally’s confirmation as the archbishop. Seeing in the contemporary world that women are perfectly capable of leading large organizations and even governments, Christians would be more likely to view the all-male discipleship in the Gospels as reflecting the societal context of Jesus or the writers of the Gospels and thus as not bearing for the contemporary world. Additionally, the point that just because Jesus selects only men in the Gospels doesn’t in itself mean that only men could be disciples could back up the historical-context argument.

Nowhere in the Gospels does Jesus say that only men can be disciples; were that line in the stories, then adjusting to the modern context would be more difficult from a theological standpoint. One of the problems with the notion of scripture is that everything in it must be taken as truth, so distinguishing, for example, between Paul’s personal opinion on women as leaders and a theological point that women should not be leaders in the Church is unfortunately difficult to do, if not utterly forbidden. That Paul’s stance on female leaders is so obviously his opinion, likely reflective of the world in which he lived, raises the thornier problem of including letters written to churches as part of scripture. Once a document has been declared to be scriptural, separating the wheat from the chaff becomes very difficult if not impossible from a theological standpoint. This is reflected in the opposition to Mullally’s appointment.

“Gafcon, a global organization of conservative Anglicans, says Mullally’s appointment is divisive because a majority of the Anglican Communion still believes only men should be bishops.”[2] In the Gospels, however, Jesus does not say, “Only men should be bishops,” and that he chooses only men is descriptive rather than normative. Hume’s naturalist fallacy holds that you can’t get normativity from a statement that is only descriptive. In other words, you can’t get “ought” out of “is”; something more is needed to say that what is, should be. If, for example, Jesus is to say, “only men should be my disciples” in the Gospels, the readers would expect a justification to also be stated as to why only men should be in the religious role. If there is a theological justification, readers would naturally expect Jesus to state it.

These problems aside, that the Roman Catholic Church had come to recognize Mary Magdalene as the Apostle to the Apostles may undercut that sect’s insistence that only men can (and should) be priests and bishops, especially since the discovery of the Gospel of Mary Magdalene in which she occupies a significant place in Jesus’s ministry. So perhaps more stunning than the swift change in the Church of England in the appointment of Mullally is the utter stubbornness of social-religious conservatives in that Church as well as in the Church of Rome.

Moreover, that matters given scant if any attention in the Gospels (hence excluding Paul’s personal letters to his congregations) have been so easily blown out of proportion many centuries after the Gospels were written, such as homosexuality, gender and the priesthood, and even abortion, demonstrates the vulnerability of the human mind’s self-check mechanism in the domain of religion (and politics). Religion loses its core element of transcendence and is instead so easily filled with personal ideology, in which is none other than self-love as self-idolatry. Rather than having compassion for “thy enemies,” ideological worship of oneself belies Jesus’s message in the Gospels on how to enter the Kingdom of God. Ironically, compassion even to the marginalized is in line with Paul’s dictum not to cause one’s brother (or sister) to stumble.

Lest this be viewed as an unabashedly progressive stance, it should be observed that feminist interpretations of the Gospels’ contents can easily replace theology with (feminist) ideology, such that the religion that results is in the very image of the feminists themselves. The same can be said of remaking Christianity according to queer theory. Such extravagances are just as damaging as reducing Christianity to opposition to abortion and homosexuality even though those two topics are not mentioned scarcely at all directly in the Gospels, and blowing one’s inferences out of proportion such that the religious text is distended beyond recognition is itself a manifestation of self-idolatrous ideology. 

I contend that were Christian sects to actually follow Jesus’s principles, conservative clergy would be oriented to serving the groups despised rather than fighting against them, and feminist and gay laity would serve conservative men in the clergy in respect to their humane needs. The last are first, and many of the first are actually last unless they put themselves after those whom they loath. Therefore, the conservative Anglican clergymen who opposed Mullally’s appointment were actually obliged as Christians to become servants of the female Archbishop of Canterbury, essentially washing her feet rather than castigating her as if being a female bishop rendered her as the Anti-Christ. Compassion for one’s detractors and those whom one dislikes does not imply agreement; rather, it is to begin the chore of expanding human nature to become a bridge of sorts to the Kingdom of God already in this world.

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1. Danica Kirka, “Sarah Mullally Confirmed as Archbishop of Canterbury, First Woman to Lead the Church of England,” APnews.com, January 28, 2026.
2. Ibid.

On the Ethics of Dispensational Pre-Millennialism

The Christian “belief in the ‘rapture’ of believers at the time of Jesus’ return to Earth is rooted in a particular form of biblical interpretation that emerged in the 19^th century. Known as dispensational pre-millennialism, it is especially popular among American evangelicals.”[1] This biblical interpretation is based on the following from one of Paul’s letters to a church:

“For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”[2]

Presumably the “trump of God” in the King James version of the Bible is distinct from Trump as God, for that eventuality would raise a myriad of questions and difficulties, and at least two difficulties pertain to the verse and, moreover, to dispensational pre-millennialism as a Christian doctrine. That it was constructed only recently by Christian standards raises the question of why the idea did not dawn on Christians closer to Paul’s time. That Paul does not represent himself in his letters as having met Jesus prior to the Resurrection and Paul’s use of mythological/Revelations language, such as “with the voice of the archangel,” also provide support for not taking the passage literally. After his resurrection in the Gospels, Jesus does not have the voice of an archangel. With Paul’s passage viewed figuratively or symbolically, rather than empirically and literally, the underlying religious meaning would of course remain unperturbed: keeping the faith is of value and thus in holding on to one’s distinctly religious (and Christian) faith, this strength will be vindicated even if no signs of this emerge during a person’s life. In other words, faith in vindication is part of having a religious faith, which is not limited our experience. The Resurrection itself can be construed as vindication with a capital V, regardless of whether Jesus rose from the dead empirically and thus as a historical event. In fact, a historical account or claim is extrinsic to religious narrative even though the sui generis genre can legitimately make selective use of, and even alter, historical reports to make theological points. The writers of the Gospels would have considered this perfectly legitimate, given that they were writing faith narratives and not history books. Making this distinction is vital, I submit, to obviating the risk that one’s theological interpretations lead to supporting unethical state-actors on the world stage, such as Israel, which as of 2025 was serially committing genocidal and perhaps even holocaust crimes against humanity in Gaza. In short, the theological belief that supporting Israel will result in the Second Coming happening sooner than otherwise can be understood to be an unethical stance based on a category mistake. American Evangelical Christians may have been unwittingly enabling another Hitler for the sake of the salvation of Christians, while the Vatican stood by merely making statements rather than acting to help the innocent Palestinians, whether with food and medicine, or in actually going to Gaza’s southern border (or joining the flotilla) to protest as Gandhi would have done.

One problem with dispensational pre-millennialism itself is that predictors keep getting the date wrong, and this may be because a category mistake has been commonly committed between the faith-narrative genre and those of history and empirical science. Joshua Mhlakela, an African, whose dream in 2018 predicted that Jesus would return on September 23^rd or 24, 2025, obviously did not pan out, for I write this essay on September 25, 2025 and the Christians are still with us here below. That the Second Coming presumably comes at the end of time means that today should not exist, which would mean that I am not writing this essay (and you are not reading it). Lest we have slipped into a supercomputer’s Matrix, named after the famous solipsistic movie, other people had predicted the Second Coming, also without success. William Miller, a Baptist pastor, had read the Book of Daniel and the Book of Revelation and concluded that “Jesus would return sometime between March 21, 1843 and March 21, 1844. When this date passed, he recalculated the date several times and finally landed on Oct. 22, 1844.”[3] Similarly, “Ellen G. White, a founder of the Seventh-day Adventist movement” and “Charles Taze Russell, the founder of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, predicted Jesus’ return in 1914. Over time, many others have attempted to predict Jesus’ Second Coming. Harold Camping’s 12 failed predictions being the most famous.”[4] Interestingly, all of these Christians had forgotten “Jesus’ own warning that no one knows the timing of this event (Matthew 24:36).”[5]

Moreover, I contend that applying calculation of empirical events from mythic language involves making a category mistake regarding qualitatively different domains. A person would not try to predict next year’s gross domestic product from calculations based on passages in Revelations, for example. Sometimes it’s easier to recognize category mistakes when they are made from the other direction.

Furthermore, Jesus not only says that no one but the Father (i.e., not even Jesus himself) knows when the last judgment will occur—and notice that Jesus is thus not omniscient by his own admission—but also that “this generation will not pass away” until the Son of Man will come “in the clouds with power and great glory.”[6] It is interesting that Jesus would make any prediction, since he is aware that only the Father knows, but, in any case, even this prediction is wrong. Such an uncomfortable conclusion points back to a conflation of history and myth, two distinct genres and domains, each with its own type of valid meaning that cannot be touched by the other domain even in overreaching.

Besides those problems, dispensational pre-millennialism can lead to rather unethical political and ethical stances. Many Christians “influenced by dispensationalism believe that the re-establishment of Israel and the return of the Jews to Palestine, especially since the 1920s, is a sign that the end is near. The centering of the re-establishment of Israel has important political implications, including unquestioned support for Israeli actions by many evangelicals.”[7] Conflating myth, such as is evinced by the Book of Revelations, and empirical, historical events can give rise to giving even a genocidal regime a blank slate and lots of military hardware. Both politically and ethically, even supporting Israel politically in 2025, when God was supposed to take humanity out of its self-imposed misery even in acting as bystanders, had become deeply problematic—especially ethically. In the Gospels, Jesus would obviously not encourage his disciples to support a genocidal regime even though he does not support the zealots acting against the Romans in the Gospel narratives. Giving what is Caesar’s (i.e., Roman coins) to the Romans does not mean actively supporting Rome. Were the imperator Romanorum to decide in the story to kill every Jew in Judea so to build Roman luxury resorts in and around the Temple in Jerusalem, Jesus would likely urge turning the other cheek and loving the enemies rather than either helping them to kill Jews or fighting the Romans as they do so.

To respond to the humanity of those whom a person dislikes (or is disliked by), according to Samuel Hopkins, who was Jonathan Edwards protégé, is the essence of the Kingdom of God available here and now, rather than after a final judgment. In fact, choosing to value and incorporate in practice such a kingdom as Hopkins sketches survives any Jansenist, strict Augustinian, view of free-will as profoundly wounded by the Fall. Looking the other way, not to mention supporting politically, ideologically, or ethically a heinous regime that is starving and killing millions intentionally out of sheer hatred, even relegating the other as subhuman, whether Jews in Nazi Germany or Palestinians in Gaza nearly a century later, reflects how deplorable a human’s use of one’s free-will can be, post-lapsarian (i.e., due to original sin). Even given the mythic fall of Adam and Eve in the Book of Genesis, we are all responsible for how we use our free-will, even though it is tainted.

It may even be said that there is a special place in hell for Christians who look the other way on Israel’s extermination of the Gazans, as if all of them were culpable for Hama’s day of attack in which 1,200 Israelis were killed and a few hundred taken hostage by a subjugated people occupied by an apartheid regime. The doctrine of collective justice, which Yahweh, not human beings, apply to Israel in the Hebrew Bible, is in human hands nothing but a weaponized fallacy. To give this a blank slate because Israel’s existence empirically is requisite to the Second Coming even raises the question of whether the human brain is inherently compromised cognitively and ethically in relating the domains of ethics to religion/theology. It used to be asked whether atheists could be ethical. Perhaps the question has become whether pre-millennialist theists (i.e., evangelical Christians) can be ethical and politically responsible.

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1. Robert D. Cornwall, “The Roots of Belief in the 2025 Rapture that Didn’t Happen,” MSNBC.com, September 25, 2025.
2. 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 (KJV)
3. Robert D. Cornwall, “The Roots of Belief in the 2025 Rapture that Didn’t Happen."
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. This prediction is in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21.
7. Robert D. Cornwall, “The Roots of Belief in the 2025 Rapture that Didn’t Happen."

Interpreting Scriptures: On Referential Realities beyond the Text

In Christianity, Paul wrote that if the resurrection of Christ Jesus didn’t really take place, then faith is for naught, but he also wrote that faith without love is for naught. The assumption that if Jesus was killed and raised historically speaking, why be a Christian, has had much greater currency than the assumption that if a person is not kind and compassion in heart and deed to people who have been insulting or have damaged the person, that person is not really a Christian. In short, the value of the religious meaning in the New Testament has typically been assumed to depend on the extratextual (i.e., beyond the text of the Bible) existence of Jesus. Using Vedanta hermeneutics (i.e., method of interpreting a text) in Hinduism, I argue that the assumption is incorrect. This is not to make a historical claim one way or the other regarding Jesus or Krishna; rather, I want to claim that the religious meaning in a scriptural text does not depend on making the assumption that the reality described therein exists beyond the text. Although hermeneutically based, this argument may sway attention back to religious meaning itself as primary, including in regard to engaging in pious actions.

In Hinduism, Mimamsa and Vedanta commentators “’restain’ extra-textual reference within the overarching frame of the text, which is not replaced by knowledge, even if the object of knowledge remains ‘outside the text.’”[1] To be sure, the Brahma-sutras “could lend itself to the idea that the Upanisads communicate various authors’ intentions and point to a reality beyond the text.”[2] This is problematic because “external reference to impermanent realities threatened ultimately to undercut the posited eternity and permanence of the sacred text itself. The system had to be nonreferential, meaningful in itself, and expressive in that meaning, in order to be protected from a changing and unpredictable world.”[3]

What about positing of imperishable, and thus permanent realities as existing outside the text? Doing so would not undercut the posited eternity and permanence of a sacred text itself, but it would mean that such a text is referential and thus not meaningful as a system within itself. Also, is not such a positing of something existent outside of the text necessary for the extra-textual component of the hermeneutic (or else the meditation is just on abstract knowledge)?  Both the Mimamsa and Vedanta schools presuppose that “text and performance—meditational or sacrificial—imply, reflect, and instigate one another.”[4] Perhaps it can be said that the meaning in the text is primary in the textual hermeneutic, whereas the extra-textuality reality is primary in the extratextual portion of the Vedanta hermeneutic. Hans Frei, who wrote in his Eclipse of the Biblical Narrative that neither form nor historical criticism should eclipse the religious meaning of a religious text. In other words, Frei holds that asking about “the historical Jesus” and whether different authors, each having their own agenda, contributed to a text gets in the way of giving the meaning of a religious story enough air to breath in a reader’s heart and mind.

 I wonder if questions concerning reality beyond a text and being referred to textually should also be bracketed so not to eclipse the meaning that is in the text. And yet, the Vedanta project “is permanently about the reading and use of texts, and about brahman as an extratextual reality communicated through texts, without either the text or the reality being thereby rendered superfluous.”[v] Perhaps the question is whether a text alone (bracketing extratextual praxis) can only allow for the nominalist rather than a realist assumption as regards the reality being described or discussed textually.

It may be that making the realist assumption—that the reality described in a text really exists outside the text—makes sense, for why would an author claim writing a text that a reality has meaning if that reality doesn’t really exist outside of the text. On the other hand, making a nominalist assumption keeps the focus on the text itself, whose religious meaning is primary in a hermeneutic. Put another way, even if brahman or Krishna do not exist beyond the meaning in a text, the textual religious meaning can still have value. As Victor Frankl discovered, the human need for meaning can be felt in even very dire circumstances. Distinctly theological or religious meaning can sooth a troubled heart or mind even if God doesn’t exist beyond the text. The textual meaning is real in that it is hardly illusory and can have an effect on people without having to approach a text as a realist rather than as a nominalist. This is not to say that the realist assumption is never the correct assumption to make; rather, it is to say that the validity and usefulness of religious meaning in a scriptural text does not depend on making that assumption. If so, and because we mere mortals cannot be certain whether an extratextual reality exists as it extends beyond the limits of our thoughts, perceptions, and emotions, religious meaning gleamed from a religious text ought to be primary in interpreting one and the basis upon which a religious practitioner acts, whether in worship or interpersonally in daily life.

In Christianity, for example, being compassionate to people whom the Christian doesn’t like or who don’t like the Christian should not depend on whether the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus occurred historically and even metaphysically. Even as a textual illustration, the Passion Narrative has meaning and thus value, which can be put into practice regardless of historical and metaphysical questions. Selfless love as to a detractor or even a hated or hateful enemy as a means to entering a different spiritual condition (e.g., the kingdom of God) has its own meaningfulness and value both in itself and as put into practice. Both Paul and Augustine wrote that God is such love. In Vedanta Hinduism, brahman itself can be grasped as identical to an person's self (atman) in experientially meditation, which, though extra-textual, is based on concentrating on the meaning of a scriptural passage. 

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1. Francis X. Clooney, “Binding the Text: Vedanta as Philosophy and Commentary,” in Texts in Context: Traditional Hermeneutics in South Asia, ed., Jeffrey R. Timm (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press), p. 56.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid., p. 58.
5. Ibid., p. 61.

Renunciation in Hinduism

The concept of renunciation in Hinduism has been subject to astonishingly different interpretations. Renunciation has been thought to necessitate meditation that one’s self is essentially the same as brahman, which is being itself, which can be realized by focusing on being conscious, or aware, without distracting thoughts and desires. This is Shankara’s position, whereas Ramanuja, who emphasized Bhukti devotion to the god Krishna, saw renunciation as detachment from desires without giving up action. Detached action or meditation. Which is preferred. In the Bhagavad-Gita, the former has the upper hand, but that does not mean that the text does not contain contradicting passages. It may that transcending contradiction lies above knowledge as well as renunciation in either of its meanings.

In chapter 5 of the Gita, Krishna tells Arjuna that dispassionate action is superior to renunciation. Regarding renunciation and Karma-Yoga, “the Karma-Yoga is better than (mere) renunciation of action.”[1] In the next chapter, Krishna essentially redefines renunciation as pertaining to a person “who performs the action to be done, regardless of action’s fruit.” Such a person is “a renouncer and a yogin.” In contrast, a person who “is inactive” is not.[2] In short, not only is karma-yoga better than renunciation of action, the latter but not the former is actually renunciation. This is antithetical to Advaita philosophy, so it is difficult for me to conceive of how it and Gita 6.1 can be reconciled, but why must everything be reconciled in a religious text, a faith-narrative, if it contains different paths that lead to the same end even though they jostle for supremacy over the other means? Historical and form criticism pale in comparison to resisting the temptation to eclipse the distinctly religious meaning in a faith-narrative. Hans Frei, in Eclipse of the Biblical Narrative, advocates focusing on the meaning while reading and studying a religious text. This approach was arguably the Yale hermeneutical theology, Brevard Child’s canonical method notwithstanding, during at least the last few decades of the twentieth century.

Even though Frei’s hermeneutic is applicable even to Hinduism, positing one, consistent religious meaning onto the Gita may actually be but a gloss imported from the Abrahamic religions in place of what are actually several distinct, even contradictory religious meanings. Wittgenstein’s notion of family resemblances may be apt in describing the relations thereof, but even that notion does not account for contradictions. Foisting one consistent religious meaning on a text may also be a projection of the rationalist reader rather than being in the text itself. Lest such a reader be disappointed, liberation (moksa) can be said to be a Hegelian synthesis at a higher level than either interpretation of renunciation. Brahman itself, including the consciousness (raw awareness) that being itself has (or is), transcends pairs of opposites, whereas the Gita itself does not.

To be sure, that text does point beyond its internal contradictions, and thus itself. After having Krishna assert that a person “who does not hate or hanker after (anything) is to be known as a perpetual renouncer,” the author has that deity state: “For, without (the influence of) the pairs-of-opposites, [such a person] is easily released from bondage.”[3] By implication, Brahman transcends pairs-of-opposites too, a person’s atman (self) being in reality the same as Brahman. Indeed, yogins whose “defilements have dwindled, (whose) dualities are destroyed, (whose) selves are controlled, (and who) delight in the good of all beings” reach “extinction in the world-ground.”[4] Transcending dualities in the world ultimate results in one’s very self (atman) no longer being a distinct entity in brahman, which is being itself. Even the apparent contradiction in that which has been extinguished being in being is transcended by a yogin.

Hence, a scripture itself can imply that the pairs-of-opposites within it can be, and in fact actually are, transcended by enlightened readers. Moreover, as the example of the nineteenth-century Hindu mystic Ramakrishna illustrates, scripture itself can be transcended by genuine religious experience, such as in devotion to a deity. It is a pity that literalist religionists hold such people back in what Nietzsche calls the ressentiment of the weak who foist, “Thou shalt not!” to beguile the strong, free-spirits from confidently exercising their innate strength. Breathing in bad air can compromise a person’s vitality. Whether or not to apply philosophical texts in interpreting religious texts is just one instance of the tension, the strong being bold in drawing on what is for others exogenous material.

In Gita 6.8, Krishna lauds the yogin whose “self is satisfied with knowledge and worldly knowledge.”[5] Is he referring respectively to scripture and secular book-knowledge? If so, then the earlier verse in which Krishna states that certain “ascetics of severe vows” offer “material-objects as sacrifice, austerity (tapas) as sacrifice, Yoga as sacrifice, and knowledge (gained from) study as sacrifice” seems to be contradicted.[6] But not everything listed is exogenous to religion, as yoga is included. Furthermore, Feuerstein claims that the compound svadhyaya-jnana “could possibly be translated as ‘book knowledge,’ but the phrase could also mean ‘knowledge and study.”[7] Especially the latter translation does not in itself exclude the study of a scriptural text, such as the Upanishads or the Gita. I may have projected the contradiction that exists in historical Christianity, wherein Paul eschewed the knowledge of Athens and yet Augustine and Aquinas drew copiously on Plato and Aristotle, respectively (though not completely respectively). Drawing on Eliade and Geertz, it may be said that knowing the otherness of the other requires bracketing (époché) one’s own background.  Adding Nietzsche, it can be said that a sufficient strength of will-power is necessary to master the seemingly intractable instinctual (innate) urges of egotism.

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1. Gita 5.2 in Georg and Brenda Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita: A New Translation (Boston: Shambhala, 2011), p. 149.
2. Gita 6.1. in Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, p. 157.
3. Gita 5.3 in Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, p. 149. I have changed Feuerstein’s use of brackets to parentheses because in quoting Feuerstein’s text, I use brackets to add words to those which Feuerstein has written. This is consistent with Feuerstein having used brackets to add words to the text he was translating. I submit that this is a legitimate exception to the general rule that that which is quoted should be quoted as is, including the punctuation marks in the text.
4. Gita 5.25 in Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, p. 155. Italics added to certain English words.
5. Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, p. 159.
6. Gita 4.28 in Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, p. 143.
7. Feuerstein, The Bhagavad-Gita, p. 143n29.

Pope Francis on Blessing Gay Couples

Pope Francis approved a document in 2023 that allows for “the possibility of blessings for couples in irregular situations and for couples of the same sex”[1] The inclusion of the word, possibility, is important because it gives priests (and their bishops) whose stances on morality are socially conservative an out. That irregular situations are included in the statement—although admittedly they are distinct from “couples of the same sex”—is a hint that the statement would likely be controversial and taken at least by some clergy negatively. So that the document gives the clergy discretion is no small matter. It also matters because of the emotional vulnerability that is entailed in requesting a blessing. At the time, the Church was still being impacted by having been recognized, and thus stigmatized, as the cause of the emotional damage that had been inflicted on children by pedophile clergy over decades. In fact, the resulting declining church attendance may have gone into the motivation for the statement. The document's overarching pastoral purpose in blessing gay couples over conducting a moral critique of homosexuality shows not only how much Pope Francis differed as of 2023 from his predecessor, but also how very much the atrocities against children had changed the orientation of the Vatican. To the extent that a significant number of the pedophile priests and bishops had molested (and were still molesting) boys, any moral critiques getting in the way of blessing loving gay relationships would suffer from a lack of credibility in the face of dripping irony and sordid hypocrisy. Even so, the document can be criticized for failing to distinguish moral from theological critiques of male homosexuality—an oversight mitigated by that fact that the pastoral purpose of the letter subordinates even a theological assessment, for, as Paul wrote, faith without love, especially love whose object is not convenient, is for naught.

It should be stated at the outset that no cleric should be forced, even by the Pope, to give a blessing against the dictates of  conscience, for surely intention matters both in the giving and the receiving of a blessing. Mitigating the likelihood of being forced, conservative clergy may actually not find the document, and thus giving such blessings, to be as objectionable as might be presumed from the immediate sensationalistic journalistic reports. For one thing, the blessings “must be non-liturgical in nature and should not be conferred at the same time as a civil union.”[2] Church was still maintaining that marriage is a sacrament between a man and a woman. Furthermore, homosexual conduct was still considered to be a sin.

The document is thus not revolutionary even within the Roman Catholic Church. The underlying motive is pastoral, based in the magisterium (teachings) of the Church, rather than doctrinal from scripture. In other words, the blessings on same-sex couples can be approached as a means of ministering to human beings in their hurt and yearning for God’s presence, rather than as giving religious legitimacy to homosexual conduct. A request for a blessing can be viewed as a response to the human condition that seeks to transcend itself, including all the concrete situations that we face. Sexual conduct is such a situation, and so it too can be transcended, including when requesting a blessing. Even the love that two people have for each other is deeper than the sexual relations, and yearning for God’s presence—God’s love—relativizes even interpersonal love.  

Nevertheless, a priest (or bishop) may view the document as giving permission to bless a sin. The document attempts to deal with this objection by stressing that no ideology should be an obstacle in the way of a person wanting to feel a connection with God via a blessing by a priest. That is to say, a priest’s ideology should not be an obstacle to a same-sex couple requesting blessing. There are, however, some problems.

Firstly, the document itself contains a contradiction that could give a moral critique from an ideological standpoint some legs. On the one hand, the document recognizes a role for “the prudent and fatherly discernment of ordained ministers.”[3] However, the document also states that “requests for such blessings for same-sex couples should not be denied.”[4] In the daylight between this language, same-sex couples requesting a blessing could be confronted with ideological prejudice. Priestly discernment, being expressly granted, can find an indirect way to justify denying a blessing. For example, a social-conservative priest could simply discern that a couple has not prayed enough to be ready to receive a blessing, even though prayer is not a precondition (but most lay Catholics wouldn’t know that).

Secondly, although the document does warn clergy against denials based on technicalities, including those based on ethical analysis, a theological, non-moral rationale exists that conservative clergy could use. “When people ask for a blessing, an exhaustive moral analysis should not be placed as a precondition for conferring it.”[5] The pastoral intent behind the document relativizes the moral dimension, but what about the theological dimension itself?

Religion, and thus theology, do not reduce to morality, though in Christianity (and Judaism) the relationship is complex. Divine decrees are not subject to moral constraints; otherwise, as Kierkegaard points out in Fear and Trembling, Abraham would be guilty of attempted murder in raising the knife above Isaac. So divine decrees trump countervailing ethical principles. Theology transcends morality because the anchor being sought transcends the limits of human cognition, perception, and sentiments.[6] Where divine decrees are consistent with, and indeed even have moral content, however, such as five do in the Ten Commandments, morality is given theological legitimacy rather than relegated as subordinate. None of ten commandments, and neither of the two given by Jesus in the Gospels, are on homosexual relations. In fact, Jesus doesn’t discuss homosexuality.

We have to go back to Deuteronomy to find a divine prohibition on male homosexuality, but even there, the point is theological rather than moral. Although this supports the document’s prohibition of moral critique, the document does not confront the theological point being made in Deuteronomy. Looking over the list that is given in that book of things that God dislikes (i.e., abominations), we find items that do not have moral (or immoral) content. Eating shell fish, for example, is included on the list as an abomination. Contrary to the popular view, an abomination is not necessary something that is very, very immoral. Rather, an abomination is simply something that God dislikes. That renders the list theological in nature. Male sodomy (but not lesbianism) is included on the list. On this basis, clergy have a theological rather than a moral basis to use their discretion to refuse to provide a blessing.

To be sure, a biblical hermeneutic (i.e., method for interpreting biblical passages) could be used to get behind the scripture. A cleric could conclude that male homosexuality was deemed culturally immoral when Deuteronomy was written, and that the social ethic was simply given divine credibility. Similarly, the military attack on Jerico could have been legitimated by writing that Yahweh ordered that even the women and children be killed. Without going “behind” scripture to speculate, a priest would be justified in concluding that a theological rather than an ethical reason exists for not blessing same-sex male couples. The document does not take on this point, but an effort is made to transcend it by emphasizing a pastoral goal in dealing with sinners.

The document emphasizes the fact that sinners generally have need of God. In the Gospels, Jesus says he came for the sinners. In fact, he puts them ahead of the self-righteous in getting into the Kingdom of God. Accordingly, the document states: “The grace of God works in the lives of those who do not claim to be righteous but who acknowledge themselves humbly as sinners, like everyone else.”[7] Were active sin a block to blessings, then nobody would be able to receive blessings. Clerical picking and choosing among sins, isolating abortion and homosexuality for special treatment, suggests the presence of human ideology. Ideological discernment is a very different thing than theological discernment. All too often, the two are conflated by clerics who would perhaps fit better running for a political office than saying Mass. God’s grace works even in sinners, regardless of the particular sin being committed. Doing something that God does not like does not cut oneself off from God’s grace. By analogy, friendships are not typically ended just because one person does something that the other person doesn’t like. Put another way, love is stronger than likes (and dislikes).

Similar to how love is not inconsistent with dislikes, wanting to be blessed, even if in a particular situation on the surface of life, is essentially a yearning to transcend. According to the document, “Ultimately, a blessing offers people a means to increase their trust in God. . . . The request for a blessing, thus, expresses and nurtures openness to the transcendence mercy, and closeness to God in a thousand concrete circumstances of life.”[8] Concrete circumstances are superficial relative to the yearning for experiential grounding to something that is solid rather than conditional. Such yearning is the seed of the Holy Spirit, which, according to the document, “must be nurtured, not hindered.”[9] Moral critique hinders. Ideology hinders. Even dislikes hinder. The Church’s clergy should themselves be oriented to transcendence where the reference point (i.e., God) lies beyond the limits of human cognition, perception, and emotions.

It is therefore not by accident that the document states that the Church must castigate rather than perpetuate its own “doctrinal or disciplinary schemes, especially when they lead to a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism whereby instead of evangelizing, one analyzes and classifies others, and instead of opening the door to grace, one exhausts his or her energies in inspecting and verifying.”[10] With energies dissipated thusly, nothing is left with which to love the sinner. To be sure, sin snuffs out God, but sin does not fit so conveniently into a particular social ethic—as if humans were divine law-givers. Even amid sin, a person can be redeemed from its grasp. Even while within it, even “when a person’s relationship with God is clouded by sin, he can always ask for a blessing, stretching out his hand to God,” the document states.[11] In providing a blessing, a priest is merely pointing hands in a transcendental direction. This is hardly to sanction conduct on the surface.

Therefore, sin does not reduce to immorality as defined by any particular ideology. Even if conduct taken to be immoral is further taken as indicative of sin, as something that is disliked by God, the sinner can ask God for help. To stand in the way of such a request, in which a creature renders itself vulnerable in a fundamental, existential sense, is itself blameworthy both ethically (because harm is being caused) and as a sin because blocking someone’s yearning for God is ironically to push oneself away from God. Surely God dislikes that, but even such a priest is not cut off from God’s grace. In the end, we are all struggling creatures falling short and yet we all have the amazing ability to yearn for existential transcendence.

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1. Christopher Lamb, “Pope Francis Authorizes Blessings for Same-Sex Couples,” CNN.com, December 18, 2023.
2. Nicole Winfield and David Crary, “Pope Approves Blessings for Same-Sex Couples If the Rituals Don’t Resemble Marriage,” The Huffington Post, December 18, 2023.
3. Christopher Lamb, “Pope Francis Authorizes Blessings for Same-Sex Couples,” CNN.com, December 18, 2023.
4. Nicole Winfield and David Crary, “Pope Approves Blessings for Same-Sex Couples If the Rituals Don’t Resemble Marriage,” The Huffington Post, December 18, 2023.
5. Christopher Lamb, “Pope Francis Authorizes Blessings for Same-Sex Couples,” CNN.com, December 18, 2023.
6. Here I am borrowing from Pseudo-Dionysius on the transcendence of God.
7. Christopher Lamb, “Pope Francis Authorizes Blessings for Same-Sex Couples,” CNN.com, December 18, 2023.
8. Nicole Winfield and David Crary, “Pope Approves Blessings for Same-Sex Couples If the Rituals Don’t Resemble Marriage,” The Huffington Post, December 18, 2023.
9. Ibid.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid.

The Case for Christ: On the Problem of Extracting History from Faith Narratives

A film narrative oriented to an investigation of Christianity is tailor-made to illustrate the potential of film as a medium to convey abstract ideas and theories. In The Case for Christ (2017), a skeptical journalist—Lee Strobel—takes on the contention that Jesus’ resurrection in the Gospels was also a historical event (i.e., happened historically). Lee states the proposition that he will investigate as follows: “The entire Christian faith hinges on the resurrection of Jesus. If it didn’t happen, it’s a house of cards. He’s reduced to a misunderstood rabbi at best; at worst, he was a lunatic who was martyred.” The journalist’s initial position is that the resurrection didn’t happen historically; it is just part of a faith narrative (i.e., the Gospels). Lee wants to test the proposition by interviewing experts. The dialogues between the journalist unschooled in theology and the scholars of religion provide a way in which complex ideas and arguments can be broken down for the viewer and digested. The journalist stands as a translator of sorts similar to a teacher’s function in breaking down knowledge new to students so they can grasp and digest it.

The full essay is at "Case for Christ."