Talking about the Body, 2

We are all aware, I think, of the deep antagonism toward women from the early days of the church, which continues to be enshrined in our church polities, theologies, and habits of mind. Even though most churches now ordain women, with pominent and significant exceptions, there remains a lingering scent of impurity and impropriety in the presence of women on altars and in clerical garb. Women in the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church were not treated well by male colleagues (prior to the elevation of a woman to lead the church--I don't know how women are treated now). One female bishop told me as recently as last summer of outrageous dismissive behavior by her fellow male bishops. I assume that the basic attitudes of patriarchal males have not changed overnight.

Women are not highly regarded by the worldwide church in non-Western societies, and that is especially true of the worldwide Anglican Communion, which objects, along with a number of Episcopal Churches in the US, to the full inclusion of gays in the church and its leadership. I believe that the attitudes toward gays in the church are rooted in attitudes toward women. They share a common origin: an abhorrence of the body and its irrational, sensual ways.

Like women, gays are seen as impure (as I said in my previous post), not for reasons related to menstruation and pregnancy, obviously, but for reasons having to do with an upsetting of what is seen as the natural order. Order comes with reason, according to the traditional male way of thinking, and women are inherently irrational. They are unpredictable. They feel before they think. They are soft edged. They tempt men to violate their allegiance to reason and to orderly action. They tempt men to lose control (sexually and other ways).

Gays are regarded by dominant male leaders in the church in the same way. Gays are too much like women. They care more about the sensual body. They violate natural order and therefore encourage chaos. They are unpredictable because they don't think like "normal" men. They can be soft edged. They may be passive receivers of the male organ, just as women are. (Some bisexual men who engage in homosexual acts deny the are gay if they are the "active" partner. It is the receiver who is gay, ie, not male.)

What I have rehearsed, of course, is a list of stereotypes--I want to be sure you understand that I don't hold these stereotypes myself. But the church is a rational institution in its governance if not in its worship or prayer. It is ok for the masses to sing or dance or wear colorful clothes, ok for women to weep and hold one another, ok for worshipers to be "out of control"--so long as their passions are contained by organized liturgy and constrained by the rules of a rational polity. Gays are allowed in the church as part of the worshiping masses so long as they behave themselves (do not sleep with others of the same gender) and do not "act out" in ways that disrupt the natural order.

Women have been allowed more freedom in many of the denominations and are far more visible now. But they are still regarded by most male leaders as annoyances. They are always making demands, pushing against the barriers. If they team up with gays, then the male hierarchy, perhaps even the very concept of hierarchy, will be threatened. What male leaders fear most is an alliance between gays and women in the church.

It will be harder for the male elite to accept gays as they have, grudgingly, accepted women. For one thing, they are threatened by the proximity of gay males, who tempt them as women do to betray the male body, which the conservatives identify wholly with the Body of Christ.

And that's where theology meets the body in this dispute. Woman doesn't look like Christ, and that has been a sticking point for opponents of the ordination of women. But no one is even willing for a moment to make the argument that there cannot be a gay Christ--even to raise the possibility by denying it is anathema. His is the essential male body that has nothing sexually to do with women or men. His body is pure, as all bodies should be. The early church thought that women would be changed into men at the last day. Straight men.

The body we cannot get rid of is the Body of Christ, which is normative for the church.