… on Matthew Sitman’s account, I mean. Here is the latest from his side in our friendly exchange over the Benedict Option. I appreciate Matthew’s tone, and the way he has made it possible for us to differ over these things civilly and respectfully. More of this, everybody! In my last installment, I told Matthew that it was not at all clear to me from his point of view what Christianity is for — that is, what it means to accomplish.
In his response, he says that he simply doesn’t feel the hostility to modernity, or the alienation from it, that many traditional Christians do. The world is always getting better, he says, and always getting worse. He says that even though he differs strongly from traditional Christians on the moral character of gay relationships, even traditionalists like me would agree that it’s a good thing that gay people aren’t treated harshly anymore, that those abuses are rapidly becoming things of the past. He’s right about that. We can agree that modernity is not uniformly bad, and that even out of decline (e.g., the move away from the Christian standard of sexual morality; I see it as decline), good things can come about, like a more humane standard for treating gays.
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