About that Nashville Statement? Let me nitpick.

o some Evan­gel­i­cal lead­ers (from the Coun­cil on Bib­li­cal Man­hood and Wom­an­hood) gath­ered in Nashville and ham­mered out a state­ment (NS) on Chris­tian­i­ty and human sex­u­al­i­ty, and not even con­ser­v­a­tive Evan­gel­i­cals are alto­geth­er hap­py with it. Part of the prob­lem, accord­ing to the Wash­ing­ton Post, was the feel­ing that Evan­gel­i­cals who vot­ed for Don­ald Trump lost their stand­ing to speak on sex­u­al moral­i­ty.

Well, that’s a fair point. If you’re going to vote for a man who boasts about where he’s grab­bing them, you’re in no posi­tion to be rebuk­ing gay peo­ple about their sex­u­al activ­i­ties.

The Post goes into some oth­er detail, not entire­ly inter­est­ing for my pur­pos­es. I want to go through a cou­ple of the arti­cles in the NS and pick apart a few of the the­o­log­i­cal errors I find. This is not just aca­d­e­m­ic.

Arti­cle I describes mar­riage as “covenan­tal”; which is true, but you are not going far enough unless you also say that mar­riage (for the bap­tized, at any rate) is sacra­men­tal.

Mar­riage is not mere­ly a sign of Christ’s love for the Church, but it is meant to help save us. It gives sav­ing grace. (Christ alone saves, but he acts through the sacra­ment.) Hus­band and wife “help one anoth­er to attain holi­ness,” as the Cat­e­chism puts it (1641).

Arti­cle II says that God’s pur­pose is “chasti­ty out­side mar­riage and fideli­ty with­in mar­riage.”

Okay, I know what they mean. But God’s pur­pose is chasti­ty out­side and inside mar­riage. “Chasti­ty” does not mean “hav­ing no sex.” The word NS is look­ing for is “celiba­cy.” A man who has sex with his wife, and his wife only, is prac­tic­ing chasti­ty. Fideli­ty to one’s spouse is not some dif­fer­ent thing from chasti­ty.

Arti­cle VII “den[ies] that adopt­ing a homo­sex­u­al or trans­gen­der self-con­­cep­tion is con­sis­tent with God’s holy pur­pos­es in cre­ation and redemp­tion.”

The prob­lem here is with the word “adopt­ing.” It is as though the authors of NS believe that a “homo­sex­u­al or trans­gen­der self-con­cep­tion” is cho­sen. That’s dis­putable, to be nice about it. It is grave­ly dis­or­dered, yes. But to imply that any­one choos­es these things, (instead of them being con­cu­pis­cence, or a psy­cho­log­i­cal con­di­tion), is unjust. It lacks com­pas­sion. It implies a cul­pa­bil­i­ty that may not be present. No one can judge such things except God.

Per­haps I suf­fer from a glut­to­nous desire for can­dy. I did­n’t choose this; I have it. It’s dis­or­dered, yes. But I did not “adopt a glut­to­nous self-con­cep­tion.” No more does some­one with same-sex attrac­tion “adopt a homo­sex­u­al self-con­cep­tion.” That kind of talk needs to be abol­ished.

Arti­cle VIII denies that indi­vid­u­als with SSA are “out­side the hope of the gospel.” And we can all be glad it says this. Good for the NS.

Arti­cle IX says that “sin dis­torts sex­u­al desires.” Okay, sure. That is true–if you mean orig­i­nal sin, or con­cu­pis­cence. And yes, this does include het­ero­sex­u­al sins as well as homo­sex­u­al ones, so I am glad NS clar­i­fies that.

Arti­cle X says that to approve of “trans­gen­derism” is a “depar­ture from Chris­t­ian wit­ness.”

Here, the NS suf­fers from a fail­ure to define terms. What does it mean by “trans­gen­derism”? Does it mean a bio­log­i­cal male who iden­ti­fies as female? Or does it mean some­thing else? If the for­mer, then there is no ques­tion of “approv­ing” or “dis­ap­prov­ing” of this; it is a phe­nom­e­non that just is in the case of some bio­log­i­cal males. Rea­son­able peo­ple, and rea­son­able Chris­tians, can sure­ly dis­agree with each oth­er about what to do about such things, even while admit­ing that it was not part of God’s orig­i­nal design. The world we live in is not God’s orig­i­nal design. It’s just not. We can dis­agree about where to go from there.

Arti­cle XI “den[ies] any oblig­a­tion to speak in such ways that dis­hon­or God’s design of his image-bear­ers as male and female.”

Well, again, some exam­ples of what NS would con­sid­er “dis­hon­or­ing God’s design” would be help­ful here. Does NS mean, “I’m going to call you he even if you believe you are she, because to do oth­er­wise dis­hon­ors God”? Does NS mean, “There are no trans­gen­dered peo­ple; phoo, why, the very notion is dis­hon­or­ing to God”?

Look, my com­pas­sion toward peo­ple who are suf­fer­ing bro­ken­ness is not dis­hon­or­ing to God; my affir­ma­tion that their bro­ken­ness is part of who they are is not dis­hon­or­ing to God. We are all bro­ken, in one way or anoth­er. I don’t have to think it’s part of God’s orig­i­nal design. I don’t have to believe peo­ple should be free to engage in what­ev­er self-destruc­tive behav­ior they like. But telling some­one who thinks he is a she that he is a he, damn it, I’m not going to dis­hon­or God, might not be the best way to help. It might, in fact, be destruc­tive. It might break even the bro­ken pieces. Rea­son­able Chris­tians can think this, and we don’t need to be told we are dis­hon­or­ing God if that’s how we choose to love a broth­er or a sis­ter. We can dis­agree about how to love.

Arti­cle XII says that the grace of God helps us to “put to death sin­ful desires.”

No. No, no, and again no. Even after bap­tism, con­cu­pis­cence remains. Sin­ful desires do not get “put to death.” Grace enables us to resist them; it does not elim­i­nate them. Sin­ful desires, accord­ing to the Cat­e­chism, are “part of the dai­ly expe­ri­ence of the spir­i­tu­al bat­tle.” (Jen Fitz has more about this on her blog Stick­ing the Cor­ners.) And this mat­ters. Some­one who has SSA will like­ly always have SSA. It will be a cross every day. To give them false hope that, you know, if only you had grace enough, you could con­quer that, is unbe­liev­ably cru­el, how­ev­er well-inten­tioned. That’s true whomev­er the sin­ner, what­ev­er the sin­ful desire.

Arti­cle XIII says “that the grace of God in Christ enables sin­ners to for­sake trans­gen­der self-con­cep­­tions.”

Again, this assumes, false­ly, that “trans­gen­der self-con­cep­tions” are cho­sen. Only some­thing cho­sen can be for­sak­en. Gen­der dys­pho­ria is a psy­cho­log­i­cal con­di­tion, just as much as bipo­lar dis­or­der. The “grace of God in Christ” does not per­mit any­one to “for­sake” being bipo­lar. I don’t deny that God can some­times mirac­u­lous­ly heal peo­ple of phys­i­cal or psy­cho­log­i­cal ail­ments. But “the grace of God in Christ” helps us to over­come the con­se­quences of sin. Gen­der dys­pho­ria is not a sin.

But oth­er than those things…

The NS is not entire­ly lack­ing in truth, but it has very def­i­nite flaws, and I don’t think Catholics should be affirm­ing it or sign­ing it.