Conservative Christians are still grappling with the Supreme Court’s ruling legalizing same-sex marriage this summer. It’s sinking in that Obergefell was just the starkest example of how they no longer enjoy the absolute cultural power they once held, and that, as younger generations become more secular, their influence will keep dwindling. Some are reaching for apocalyptic rhetoric – Franklin Graham, for example, has said in response to the ruling, “I believe the end is coming… we are in the midnight hour”. Others, as I’ve written about, are promoting the so-called “Benedict Option” of withdrawing from society into their own insular communities.
Two other conservative thinkers, Michael Gerson and Peter Wehner, have a different response, “How Christians Can Flourish in a Same-Sex-Marriage World“. They acknowledge, unusually for religious conservatives, that in many ways human life is getting better – crime rates are falling, teen pregnancy is down, HIV/AIDS is being successfully combatted – and admit that “A Christian pro-family agenda that makes its central mission the reversal of gay marriage will be spectacularly unsuccessful.” Instead, they argue that Christians should “participat[e] in coalitions on a variety of issues โ including building safe, healthy, child-friendly communities โ with supporters of gay marriage. This is not moral compromise; it is the normal practice of democracy.”
I’d call this a welcome offer of truce in the culture wars, except that they want to call it the “Wilberforce Option” in reference to the 19th-century abolitionist. I would think that if you truly want to build alliances with LGBT people, maybe it’s not the best idea to adopt a name that implicitly compares them to slave owners.
However, I especially wanted to call attention to this:
Those who felt ambushed by the decision haven’t been paying enough attention. The ruling was the result of cultural trends that emerged in the context of heterosexual, not homosexual, relationships. During the 1960s and 1970s, America saw a concentrated cultural revolution: the triumph of radical individualism, particularly in sexual ethics. Since then, we have seen the outworking of this shift in attitudes, behavior, and laws: on divorce, abortion, cohabitation, out-of-wedlock births, gender roles, and now, decisively, same-sex marriage.
This is exactly right, and again, a point I’ve rarely seen evangelicals articulate. Marriage equality isn’t a right that came out of nowhere, it’s rooted in the same evolving understanding of gender equality which demolished the idea that men and women were strictly assigned to non-overlapping spheres. But I was bemused to see that they equate this to “the triumph of radical individualism”.
The phrase “radical individualism” seems to be one of those snarl words that religious conservatives regularly denounce while rarely bothering to define. Pope Benedict decried it, and it’s been blamed as the root cause of everything the speaker disagrees with, from cannabis legalization to assisted suicide to abortion. Robert Bork claimed it was behind the Supreme Court ruling that Americans have a right to privacy.
I’d like it if these writers could be more explicit about their terminology. What is radical individualism? Is there non-radical individualism?
The way I see it, there’s not a lot of middle ground here. You either own yourself, or you don’t; either you can make your own choices, or you can’t. How could there be a compromise position on this?
Here’s one evangelical attempt at a definition I found:
Radical Individualists promote the exercise of one’s goals, desires, independence and self-reliance for the self. Radical Individualism makes the individual its focus and starts “with the fundamental premise that the human individual is of primary importance in the struggle for liberation.” Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, and many others have been leading the way for the NOW Generation to accept what ever anyone wants to become or what anyone wants to do as long as it does not cause pain or suffering to anyone else.
Aside from the strangely garbled pop-culture references (the “NOW Generation”, really?), it’s hard for me to see what the problem is. Accept whatever anyone wants to be or do as long as it doesn’t cause harm to anyone else? Sounds like a great idea! I’m all for it.
Another definition strongly suggests that people have a duty to remain in abusive marriages, families, churches or other relationships:
Ours is a culture which insists to its own destruction that the dreams, goals, and personal fulfillment of the individual deserve a higher priority than the well-being of any group (natural family or church body) or relationship (friendship or marriage) in an individual’s life… Our culture has powerfully socialized us to believe that our individual happiness and fulfillment must take precedence over our relationships with others in our families and in our churches.
This seems to be the common thread in all the denunciations I quoted above: apologists and theologians are upset that people are claiming the power to direct their own lives and finding fulfillment in making their own choices, without deferring to church authority. But if they just called the philosophy that they oppose “individualism”, that would make it too obvious what alternative they were calling for (which I can only assume is “corporate religious freedom“, a.k.a. theocracy.) Instead, they have to add the “radical” qualifier to make it seem scary and dangerous.
That doesn’t work on me. If “radical individualism” means the freedom to make your own decisions and seek happiness on your terms, without sacrificing your life to the desires of others, then I’m happy to be a radical individualist. Sign me up!
In this context, it’s exactly right to say that radical individualism is a threat to the dominance of Christianity and other religions. The world’s major faiths have always preached that people have a duty to obey their betters and follow the rules, no matter the suffering it may cause. It’s a good thing that people are rejecting this bleak message and taking their happiness into their own hands in this, the only life we ever have.
That’s not to say that communities and institutions are unimportant. I believe that we exist in a web of moral mutuality, that we all depend on each other for our survival and livelihood. I also believe that humans are social beings who are happiest in the company of others. But those associations always must be chosen, not forced on people who don’t consent to them. People can and must be free to quit a community that isn’t meeting their needs and seek out another. And communities and ideologies don’t have rights separate from the rights of the individuals who comprise them.