I think the answer here is that we must accept there are no easy answers, that things don't fit, that some things in life we may never resolve or understand. I think the answer is that I must learn to live the truth that I don't know, humbly accepting the possibility I may never know, and that knowing isn't what matters most.
The martyred monk, Christian de Chergé, is a hero of mine. Fascinated by Islam, he loved the Muslims in Algeria, where he lived. As a Christian, though, he knew he'd never fully understand the role Islam played in the divine plan. "Only death will provide me, I think, the answer I seek," he said. But the dilemma didn't turn him into a secular humanist. Rather, he accepted uncertainty while remaining faithful.
"I am convinced," he said, "that by letting this question haunt me, I am learning to discover the expressions of solidarity." He called it "existential dialogue." Instead of trying to figure it all out, he chose to live peaceably and vulnerably, accepting that the best he could do was dream of the time when God would shine his light upon all, "playing with the differences," Muslims and Christians together.
That's what authentic Christianity looks like, and it's how we should exist with our moral disagreements. Not changing the faith, not editing it into something it isn't, being a Christian means embracing the disjointed tensions of life. It means humbly sitting before the irritating beauty of it all, and waiting for God. It's why I'm bothered amid our controversies by people of faith and no faith who in their remarkable confidence and certainty seem to have figured it all out, when nobody's figured it out.
How do I love my gay uncle, for instance, as well as lesbian and transgender people? Do I fundamentally change Christianity? No. Must I therefore damn them to hell? No. What then? The answer is: I don't know. And I fear those who say they do. And that's because although messy and aggravating, patience and intellectual humility are better than arrogance. Because it demands we contemplate each other rather than smother differences, that we honor one another by waiting for each other.
But can we as civil society abide this? Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said, "The critical test of any order is: Does it make space for otherness? Does it acknowledge the dignity of difference?" I'm afraid for us the answer is no. We no longer allow things to be disjointed. We no longer abide aporias. We no longer sit with our mysteries.
Which is why we hate more than love, and why violence is what's become common to us all.
Joshua J. Whitfield is pastoral administrator for St. Rita Catholic Community in Dallas and a frequent contributor to The Dallas Morning News.
https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2019/05/05/can-love-gay-uncle-remain-true-catholic-priesthood-answer-dont-know
2019-05-05 07:00:00Z
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