Phil Robertson and the Catholic Bishops on Homosexuality: St. Paul vs. Civil Law

 

Before he was elected pope, Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio was opposed to allowing same-sex marriage under civil law in Argentina -- just as the American Catholic bishops have been opposed to allowing same-sex marriage in the United States.

 

But St. Paul's statements in 1Cor. 6:9-11 are NOT about civil laws. Instead, his statements are about inheriting the kingdom of God.

 

However, Phil Robertson may have figured out how to counter my line of argument here about separating church law and civil law. According to Magary, Phil Robertson made the following statements:

 

""All you have to do is look at any society where there is no Jesus. I'll give you four: Nazis, no Jesus. Look at their record. Uh, Shintos? They started this thing in Pearl Harbor. Any Jesus among them? None. Communists? None. Islamists? Zero. That's eighty years of ideologies that have popped up where no Jesus was allowed among those four groups. Just look at the records as far as murder goes among those four groups.'"

 

So there you have Phil's argument in favor of American exceptionalism based on Jesus.

 

But Anthony de Mello, S.J., suggests in The Way to Love, mentioned above, that the experience of the kingdom of God that the historical Jesus proclaimed is available to all of humanity, including not only Christians and Jews and Muslims but also Buddhists and even atheistic communists as well as other people.

 

What if Anthony de Mello is right?

 

Maybe Phil Robertson should run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016. In the meantime, I am reasonably sure that the furor in the media over his admittedly traditional but now controversial views regarding homosexuality and regarding blacks in the Jim-Crow era before the civil-rights era will help sales of Dock Dynasty merchandise. By buying Duck Dynasty merchandise, traditional Christian customers can in effect vote in the ongoing culture wars regarding Christian traditions, or at least express their preference and support for traditional Christian views. In their view, the mainstream media represent the adversary of their traditional Christian views, as Huckabee calls their views. As a result, traditional Christians tend to demonize the mainstream media.

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