Here’s the Church, Here’s the Steeple

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Americans seldom seem to fuss much about religion unless they perceive that it is under threat. We’re real believers in religious liberty that way. The threat angle is a vector worth measuring every once in a while. What gets our collective goat? A story on CNN last week about the National Cathedral caught some attention. Those who think about freedom of religion, liberty of conscience, and all that, might find the implications of a national cathedral itself a tad troubling. Of course, it really isn’t a cathedral for all of the United States, but it is used for many displays of civil religion including several presidential funerals and inaugural prayer services. The cathedral, historically and ironically, is of the Episcopalian brand. Episcopalians boast perhaps the smallest number of mainline protestants in the country, and since they are the remains of the “established church” of England in the States, it is not just a little odd that such an edifice should be associated, however informally, with government in its former colony. The reason that CNN ran the story related to a perceived threat to American religion: same-sex marriages.

Now that same-sex marriages have been approved in three states, some couples desire the symbolism of a wedding in the National Cathedral. It is a victory of social justice that highlights one of the deepest and most persistent of religious concerns—human sexuality. Although many religious denominations have made their peace with evolution by natural selection, few have really considered the implications of reproduction and its discontents. Formally ever since the Enlightenment (and certainly informally for all of human history) sexuality has been a subject of scientific scrutiny. And not just for humans either. As naturalists observe the world of our fellow creatures, we find all kinds of sexual behaviors labelled “unnatural” in humans are quite normal in nature. The reason is the religion that is invested in reproduction. People, many religions teach, are somehow different. Besides, in the days before scientific interest in animal reproduction, few bothered to consider what other animals did, far from human eyes.

For those willing to admit that nature can teach us something about ourselves, same-sex couplings are not limited to humans. They are a part of nature. As Martha McCaughey suggested in The Caveman Mystique, reproduction is only one of a variety of reasons that humans and other animals mate. For us, however, it is a strangely sacral act. All religions have something to say about sexuality, and many express strong feelings about what marriage means. So the Cathedral Church of St. Peter and St. Paul (two men, one might note) is in the news because of what marriages symbolize for many. Marriage is about commitment, not just sex. In a nation where commitment is only fair-to-middling, shouldn’t we applaud the use of the National Cathedral to reinforce such family values? Unfortunately, for many gender differentiation trumps love in what is understood as a legitimate religious outlook.

Carol M. Highsmith's National Cathedral

Carol M. Highsmith’s National Cathedral

Mystique-alism

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CavemanMystiqueReading in a public place gives peer pressure an entirely new meaning. Public transit is a place where I spend at least fifteen hours a week. Not having converted to Kindle, or even Nook, I still prefer the feel of paper in my hands. With the open book, however, comes exposure. On the bus you have no control over who climbs in next to you. You’ll be spending an hour, maybe two, side-by-side, and although s/he may never see you again, it could be that tomorrow they will find themselves once more at your side. I’m very conscious of the books I choose under such circumstances. I shouldn’t care what others think, but I do. Recently my choice was Martha McCaughey’s The Caveman Mystique: Pop-Darwinism and the Debates Over Sex, Violence, and Science. The issues here were multiple. McCaughey consciously chose her riff on The Feminine Mystique as a catchy, if very appropriate title. The person plopping down next to you with a bleary eyed glance over on an early morning bus will probably catch only one or two words in the title. One of them will be the only word with an x. Still, this important little book has big implications for the “s word,” and how men are socialized to think about sex.

Darwinism, and evolution, are concepts that are keyed to religion in the United States. There is no avoiding it. McCaughey, as a sociologist studying science, shows just how many assumptions scientists make about the universal applicability of their work. She suggests something that many of us have learned over the years: absolute objectivity is not possible for any human being. We are all socialized. We all bring biases to our work. We’re all human. McCaughey doesn’t question the results of scientific investigation, however. Her concern is that in a male-dominated field the results might be, well, screwed up. In a series of delightful thought experiments, she shows how very basic sexual biases get played out into larger scenarios that tend to excuse the inexcusable: violence against women. Men have to be taught to be cavemen. Science, improperly disseminated, gives men an excuse for blaming evolution for their lack of character. It seems to this man, at least, the McCaughey is certainly on target.

In a particularly insightful paragraph, McCaughey writes, “Invoking God’s will, or nature’s [i.e., science], hides the political context in which such a will was ‘revealed’ or ‘discovered.’” How easy it is for both scientists and religious believers to conclude that the way of their belief system is the only explanation for the world. Both camps forget they are profoundly political. As humans we can’t escape it. The world defies easy explanation—there are truths that we haven’t discovered yet. The main point of The Caveman Mystique, however, is clear. Just as men have been led to believe that the caveman is inevitable, they can be also taught that such a statement is a lie. Biologically there are gender differences, but socially—and this is the ability humans boast of—we can and must insist on equality.