By Fr. Richard R. Mickley, C.D.O.S, Ph.D.
saintaelred@gmail.com
We have all been reminded of the demonic evils of religious extremism and bigotry in the observance of the tenth anniversary of “nine eleven” today.
Religious extremism, whether Islamic, Protestant, Fundamentalist, or Catholic is not religion, is not of God, is direct from the demons of evil.
Those who plotted and those who flew the suicide planes that killed nearly 3,000 people on 9/110 — said they were doing it to please their god, but indeed the truth is that such insanity was very displeasing to the God of Islam, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jesus came and lived and loved and as we live and love. Look at his life. He was completely free of prejudice. Look, for example, at how he made heroes (e.g. the Good Samaritan) of foreigners, people of a different religion from his and most of his kababayan. That is already a clue to see what Jesus was like for 33 years among us.
Jesus came to show us what God is like, that God is love, and he showed it by his behavior toward the hated foreign Samaritan people. Imagine him, who came to show us what God is like, being anything but horrified by the 3,000 lives wiped out on 9/11.
Now let us examine some other things that misguided extremists do in the name of religion.
We all know that bombing of cathedrals and mosques comes from the insanity of religious extremism. A nun friend of mine who had just completed her master’s degree at Ateneo in Manila was disabled for life by a bombing while she was praying in the Catholic cathedral of Jakarta on Christmas Eve.
It was the same insanity that caused my nephew and godson, Joseph Mickley, to lose his wife in the Pentagon on 9/11. My son, Pete, was with Joe that fateful day in the Pentagon as they franticly helped the officials and ambulance drivers pull out the mangled bodies, including Joe’s wife, Patty.
The terrorism of religious extremism is not limited to insane suicide bombing or suicide plane crashes.
We don’t have to think very long to see the parallel in the stranglehold of religious extremism of one religion which has a hierarchy extreme enough and strong enough to deprive every Catholic, every Protestant, every Moslem, every person in the Philippines of the right to seek divorce in a marriage of incompatibility and perhaps violence for at least one of the partners. The Philippines is the only country in the world victimized by this form of religious extremism.
That same modern day religious extremism is preventing every woman in the Philippines from having the benefits of an RH Bill (which in no way fosters or condones abortion). At the same time it deprives every citizen, of whatever religion, from the freedom to choose the benefits of the RH Bill because of the power of the hierarchy of one religion.
In a letter to Fr. Pastells, Rizal showed his high regard for religious tolerance or respect for another person’s conscience. He tells the story of his conversations with a Protestant Pastor in Germany. “There, in calm and slow conversation, with freedom to speak, we talked about our respective beliefs, of the morality of peoples, and the influence of their respective creeds on them. A great respect for the good faith of the adversary and for the most contrary ideas that must necessarily arise due to the difference in race, education, age, led us almost always to the conclusion that religions, whatever they might be, should not make people enemies of one another, but rather brothers and real brothers,…I obtained … profound respect for every idea sincerely conceived and practiced with conviction.”
Of course we wish that every religious extremist would heed the experience of Rizal. It would be uplifting if even the senators of this republic would practice these “principles” of Rizal in the RH Bill debates.
When it comes to one religion and its own adherents, it is a different story. If a religion demands that its followers never play cards, never smoke, never dance, then it is up to the members of that religion to make their own free choice to follow those rules or if they stay in that religion or not. If the Roman Catholic religion requires celibacy of their priests, that is an internal discipline. But if that church requires lifetime celibacy of all LGBTq people, that is not an internal issue. It is sex-negative theology imposed unjustly upon all who will bow to it. The problem is, because of the influence of the teachings of that church, this becomes a “law” of society.
If one religion dominates a whole culture, such as Islam in Saudi Arabia which forbids and punishes the practice of all other religion, e.g. for all Christian Filipinos working in Saudi — we are not speaking of choice, but of injustice. If one religion dominates the whole culture of Philippine people, and its views are “enforced” in law or in the acceptance of society, because it is the religion of the majority, then we are no longer speaking of choice, but of injustice...
The list of prohibitions goes beyond divorce and the RH Bill. The “no-nos!” go deep into the lives of the citizens, in the bedrooms and out of the bedrooms. It is no laughing matter when a teenager is ridiculed to suicide because of the attitude of the church toward masturbation or feelings of same-sex attraction. It is no small matter when parents are driven to desperation because their church tells them, “No Condoms!” when they already have more (beloved) children than they can feed or send to school.
And to where can we trace the gay bashings, the murders of young and older gay men, the senseless slaughter of transexual people here and around the world? Can we see that it is all traceable back to religious extremism and societal prejudice which springs from religious extremism?
The whole matter of the treatment of women as inferior in society is no small matter. Perhaps nobody says, “In the name of God, for the glory of God, I declare you are a woman and you are not equal, not entitled to equal pay, equal rights, equal opportunities, access to ordination or leadership roles.” But where did this attitude of male supremacy come from? Look to patriarchal society which originated in religion. Look to one religion in particular with a male only priesthood, a male hierarchy.
My friends, it is not only Islamic religious extremism and 9/11 which bomb and kill and victimize society. Religious extremism of any religion brings about oppression and death — even today. Yes, in the Near East in Islamic countries, the government hangs men caught in same-sex sex or women caught in any forbidden sex. But here, in our own country, we see and feel the pain of incompatible marriage in the absence of divorce, the horror of bashings and murders and suicides and job losses and evictions — every day because of the attitude fostered by religious extremism and sex-negative theology and the powerful influence of its propagators.
As always we offer Sex-Positive Theology as a solution. We join in our time hundreds of scholars, theologians, teachers and authors who have thought through the unscriptural and un-Jesus-like evils of all these oppressive controls of one religious view over the lives of all citizens.
I have been pondering what might be “eight pivotal truths” for sex-positive theology for LGBTq people. What would I include in eight cardinal truths or eight key principles?
What would I consider the eight foundational elements of sex-positive theology?
This is my first draft.
1. I believe God is Love. Those who live in Love live in God, and God lives in them.
2. I believe the Bible is sex-positive. There is no passage in the Bible which condemns same-sex love or gay and lesbian relationships. There are good examples of same-sex love.
3. I believe all sex is good if it is not harmful or forceful; some sex is better if it is in the context of loving and caring; and some sex is best when it is in a committed enduring loving relationship.
4. I believe women are created equal in rights and justice and opportunity. Thus God loves women unconditionally and welcomes them into the fullness of Christian witness, including ordained ministry.
5. I believe heterosexual expressions of love and homosexual sexual expressions of love are equally good in the eyes of God. Thus God loves LGBTq people unconditionally and welcomes them into the fullness of Christian witness, including ordained ministry.
6. I believe the body and soul are equally good with a goal to uniting spirituality and sexuality.
7. I believe that since God is Love, love-making is a sacrament of God’s presence.
8. I believe God is Friendship, and friendship with God and with people and a good life go together for the fullness of life.
These eight points just scratch the surface of Sex-Positive theology. We discuss the subject fully and extensively with those who want to really get a complete mastery of Sex-Positive Theology in our free Seminar in Sex-Positive Theology by email. Just email me and let me know you are interested. saintaelred@gmail.com
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