Hugo Schwyzer

Note: I wrote this post before Governor Sanford of South Carolina, another staunch social conservative, admitted his affair today. The field for 2012 to run against Obama is being winnowed fast as those who wish to deny marriage equality for all are quick to break their own pledges of fidelity. One is trying, oh how one is trying, to avoid schadenfreude.

Summer school is upon us, we’re planning a move from Pasadena to West Los Angeles, and dear little baby is back to waking up several times during the night. I certainly spend more time lecturing than sleeping, and as a result, whatever dim wit I normally have with which to blog has grown even, well, dimmer. I’m not complaining, of course; this is the exhaustion that comes from happy duty, not grim obligation. But still, when I sit down at the computer all I seem to want to do (when I’m done returning legions of emails) is read the news.

The comments below yesterday’s post in response to Kathryn Lopez got sidetracked into a discussion of “cornerstones.” A bit more explanation of the image is needed. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the reference to cornerstones goes back to Psalm 118, verse 22: The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. In the Jewish or Old Testament context, the rejected stone is a reference to King David himself; for Kabbalists, it’s a reference to the Shechinah, the feminine aspect of the divine.

References to Psalm 118:22 show up in the three synoptic gospels too. They do so very differently, however. In Luke, Jesus says:

“Then what is the meaning of that which is written:
” ‘The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone’?

Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.”

And in Matthew:

Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures:
” ‘The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
the Lord has done this,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?

“Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit.

The implication, carried forward by Luke in Acts and then Peter and Paul in their epistles, is that Jesus himself was the cornerstone:
Jesus is
” ‘the stone you builders rejected,
which has become the cornerstone.’
Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name given under heaven by which we must be saved.”

Senator John Ensign, in the article I cited in yesterday’s post, described traditional marriage as “the cornerstone on which our society is founded.” Ensign and K-Lo are Christians whose strongest support comes from the Christian right; they are, presumably, somewhat biblically literate. To speak of cornerstones is to use very specific religious language, language that in Christian circles traditionally has a Christological implication. Temples do not have multiple cornerstones; Jesus is never called one cornerstone among many. There is simply “the” cornerstone. And so when Ensign speaks of marriage as the cornerstone, he’s engaged in a common heresy on the religious right: “marriage worship”, in which heterosexual monogamous union is lifted up above Christ Himself to a status as the singular glue which holds all of our society together.

Responsible Christians know that this marriage worship is not biblical. Indeed, think of 1 Corinthians 7:1, in which the celibate Paul says “It is good for a man not to marry”, and later muses “I wish that all men were as I am.” Centuries of Christian tradition saw marriage as a second-best to lifelong chastity; the elevation of marriage to sacramental status really only starts with the Reformation (and the Counter-Reformation), fifteen centuries after Jesus and Paul.

So it’s not nit-picking to challenge Ensign and Lopez on their language. Both are ardent culture warriors, fighting against the cause of marriage equality for all. Both are willing to employ biblical language as tools in that fight. I count myself a Christian and a culture warrior as well, though from the opposite side of the lists; it is indeed fair sport to point out that one’s deeply misguided (but no doubt charming) opponents are — out of ignorance or malice I know not — misusing Scriptural language and misrepresenting the role of marriage in the Judeo-Christian narrative.