Solemnibus

Banning parents from physical coercion (to prevent abuse) is the equivalent of banning women from being seen (to prevent lust). It does for physicality what Islamic fundamentalism does for sexuality.

Proponents of the section 59 repeal cannot understand how parents can exercise sufficient restraint to discipline physically in love. Such an experience seems beyond them. It is unfortunate that they are now projecting their own limitations onto the rest of the country.

But their limitations are those of experience, character – and beyond that, of culture. In the end, the range of possibilities for a people’s behaviour is determined by its culture. For instance, low-trust cultures have difficulty establishing large companies. This is because large companies generally require expert management, which most times must be found outside the founding family. In a low-trust society it is very difficult to hand over control of key assets to those of different blood and conflicting loyalties.

The use of physical force in love is, likewise, a possibility shaped by character and culture. Someone who does not share that character and who stands outside that culture is going to be unable to grasp what it is about – and is likely to reach for the wrong explanation when faced with it.

Why do some people insist on using words like ‘violence’ or ‘demeaning’ to describe smacking? Because, quite simply, they have no alternative. Their interpretative limits are supplied by the categories of their culture, and their cultural experience is bereft of loving physical coersion.

This helps to explain why Islamic fundamentalism insists that the answer to male lust is to hide women away: that their safety lies in a burkha. Islam has no experience of the inward discipline of the heart. The idea of an inescapable inner brokeness, a deep tendency to imperfection, is a Christian concept. And the disciplines that insist that a man turn away from his lusts (in the old phrase, to ‘mortify his flesh’) in his heart are Christian convictions, Christian practices.

The culture that embeds these lessons deep is the culture whose women are safe without a burkha. Just so, a culture that insists on the tight control of anger, the primacy of sacrificial love, and the rejection of power grasped by coercion will be able to take up physical discipline in a way utterly strange to those outside it.

A people’s religion significantly determines their political, social and economic liberties. Some things are simply not possible without the right cultural framework. Some things become impossible once the framework changes. Islamic fundamentalism for child-rearing is being mooted by some New Zealanders for a good reason.

Stuff reports (cheers David) that Sue Bradford, sponsor of the Crimes (Abolition of Force as a Justification for Child Discipline) Amendment Bill, concedes that she may need to re-word her Bill in order to pass it into law. She hopes that clarifying the intent of the Bill (reviewed here) , so that it doesn’t outlaw light smacking or forcible removal of children to safe/time-out environments, will get it more support.

Good. But then, what’s the point of the Bill? Violence and abuse of children are already illegal.

Alistair says,

The privatization of sexuality within our society is a factor that makes the Church’s opposition to same-sex relationships hard for many to understand. The notion that anyone would oppose the free expression of the sexuality of consenting adults seems nonsensical and tyrannical. However, within the Church our genitalia are not our private property. The Church’s discourse on sexuality will always run counter to that of our society for this reason. It is important to appreciate that the biblical opposition to homosexual practice is always seen as maintaining the purity of the community, rather than regulating purely private acts.

Part of the problem here is our society’s loss of a big story that we can situate and locate our smaller stories within. Without such a big story, our smaller stories become all-consuming and determinative of our entire identity. The public space of a common life that we share in is increasingly attenuated and our identities are reduced to private stories, rather than public roles that we perform as a gift to a broader community. I occasionally wonder whether the great focus that many ‘homosexuals’ have on their private sexuality as constitutive of their identity is indicative of a self-absorbed sexuality that contrasts to Christian sexuality that is lived out within and for the sake of the larger community — a selfish and narcissistic sexuality as opposed to a sexuality of self-giving and gratitude.

I have treated the subjects of singleness and celibacy before (here, here and here. The practice of celibacy within the Church in particular ought to remind us that we must always live out our ‘sexuality’ as something that is not a private possession, but as a commitment to a community outside of ourselves. The modern obsession with sexual self-fulfilment as the greatest goal runs profoundly contrary to a biblical understanding, which attacks the selfishness of modern understandings of marriage and sexuality. Christian understandings of marriage see it as an institution that is not primarily designed for the purpose of personal fulfilment, but as a place of self-sacrificial love and shared vocation.

I find this very helpful. It is yet another call to discipleship. And also to hope, because no private story carries any significance for the creation.

May the Lord make me public property.

Discrimination is treating people in the same circumstances differently, because of some variation between them that shouldn’t be relevant.

Until recently, gender has been considered very relevant in evaluating the circumstances for marriage between two people. Only if one is male and the other female have the circumstances been thought suitable for marriage.

Some, like Ann, now disagree. They charge the traditionalists with ‘discrimination’ against same-sex couples. But the charge only works once you’ve already decided to make gender irrelevant, evaluating circumstances at the level of ‘two persons’ rather than ‘one man and one woman’.

‘Person’ abstracts from ‘man’ or ‘woman’. It generalises gender.

So, any moral force in the charge of discrimination rests on gender generalisation.

And why should we support gender generalisation?