diff --git a/website/public/css/base.css b/website/public/css/base.css index 981fbed..9e3f9eb 100644 --- a/website/public/css/base.css +++ b/website/public/css/base.css @@ -34,9 +34,9 @@ --font-size-lg: 1.5rem; --font-size-xl: 2rem; - --spacing-block-sm: 0.75rem; - --spacing-block-md: 1.5rem; - --spacing-block-lg: 2.5rem; + --spacing-block-sm: 1.75rem; + --spacing-block-md: 2.5rem; + --spacing-block-lg: 3.5rem; --spacing-block-xl: 5rem; --spacing-inline-sm: 0.5rem; --spacing-inline-md: 1.5rem; @@ -70,16 +70,18 @@ small { font-size: var(--font-size-sm); } -:is(p, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr) { +:is(p, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, img, figure) { margin-block-start: var(--spacing-block-sm); - max-width: 30rem; } /** Base layout */ body { - margin-inline: var(--spacing-block-lg); - margin-block-end: var(--spacing-block-xl); + --body-margin-inline-start: var(--spacing-inline-lg); + --body-margin-inline-end: var(--body-margin-inline-start); + --body-margin-block-end: var(--spacing-block-xl); + margin-inline: var(--body-margin-inline-start) var(--body-margin-inline-end); + margin-block-end: var(--body-margin-block-end); } :is(h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6) { @@ -95,13 +97,23 @@ img { display: grid; grid-template-columns: [media-start] - 6rem + var(--grid-margin-inline) [content-start] - minmax(calc(36rem - var(--spacing-block-lg) - 6rem - var(--spacing-block-sm) - 6rem), auto) + minmax(var(--grid-max-content-width), auto) [content-end]; - margin-inline-end: 6rem; column-gap: var(--spacing-block-sm); - max-width: calc(6rem + var(--spacing-block-sm) + 30rem); + max-width: var(--grid-total-width); + + --body-margin-inline-end: 6rem; + --grid-margin-inline: 6rem; + --grid-total-width: 36rem; + --grid-max-content-width: calc( + var(--grid-total-width) + - var(--body-margin-inline-start) + - var(--grid-margin-inline) + - var(--spacing-block-sm) + - var(--grid-margin-inline) + ); } :is(main, article, nav) { @@ -119,6 +131,12 @@ img { } } +@media (min-width: 48rem) { + body { + --grid-total-width: 48rem; + } +} + /** Headings */ h1 { @@ -163,6 +181,14 @@ dl dd + dt { margin-block-start: var(--spacing-block-md); } +/** figcaptions */ + +figcaption { + font-size: var(--font-size-sm); + font-style: italic; + text-align: center; +} + /** Navigation bar */ nav { diff --git a/website/public/images/blog/2024/06/30/ncuti-gatwa-promo-pic.webp b/website/public/images/blog/2024/06/30/ncuti-gatwa-promo-pic.webp new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cd74f23 Binary files /dev/null and b/website/public/images/blog/2024/06/30/ncuti-gatwa-promo-pic.webp differ diff --git a/website/src/content/blog/2024/07/08/doctor_who_gayness_church.md b/website/src/content/blog/2024/07/08/doctor_who_gayness_church.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..60749c4 --- /dev/null +++ b/website/src/content/blog/2024/07/08/doctor_who_gayness_church.md @@ -0,0 +1,248 @@ +--- +title: Doctor Who, Gayness, and the Church +description: >- + Series 14 of Doctor Who has a schizophrenic relationship with Christianity. + It’s also gay. I think there might be a connection. +pubDate: + year: 2024 + month: 07 + day: 8 +--- + +I’ve recently finished the most recent series of Doctor Who, series fourteen (or +‘Season One’ as our new benevolent overlords at Disney+ are styling it.) It’s +pretty fun, by the way. I can recommend it for light watching[^1]. + +There’s a few discussion points coming out of that series that would be worth +dwelling on. But I’ve been particularly thinking about the schizophrenic +attitude the series has taken to Christianity, along with how gay this series +is: and what these two themes might fit together, to give us something important +to say about Jesus Christ, being gay, and the universe. + +## The Doctor’s schizophrenic relationship with Christianity + +First, let’s look at that schizophrenic attitude to Christianity I mentioned. + +The series ticks up an impressive tally of explicit or strongly implicit +references to Christian beliefs and morals, and **none** of them are positive. + +In episode 3, _Boom_, the far-future Anglican church has become an army, +with the ranks of the clergy becoming equivalent to arms-bearing ranks in the +soldiery. The Doctor claims that ‘the Church’ has been an army for most of +its history[^2], and that his companion Ruby Sunday (and therefore us) has +been living in a ‘blip’. An all-powerful arms company has tricked the Church +into fighting a non-existent foe in order to keep them buying weapons. The +Doctor attributes their ability to fall for such a deception to religious faith: + +> I mean, most armies would notice that they were fighting smoke and shadows, +> but not this lot, Ruby, you know why? They have faith. Faith! The magic word +> that keeps you never having to think for yourself. + +In episode 4, _73 Yards_, Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, head of UNIT, makes this +offhand comment, suggesting the oft-repeated claim that all religion is founded +in credulity[^3]: + +> That’s what we do, all of us. We see something inexplicable, and invent the +> rules to make it work. Mankind saw the sun rise and created God: or we saw the +> arrival of a Sontaran, one or the other. + +In episode 5, _Dot and Bubble_, The Doctor is rejected by the people he is +trying to save. They rant that he is ‘not one of us’, call his claims about the +TARDIS ‘magic’ and ‘voodoo’, and in the same breath assert that it is their +‘God-given duty to maintain the standards of Finetime’ (their space colony). + +In episode 6, _Rogue_, a party of murderous aliens turns up at an upper-class +Georgian dance party and demand to be married. The priest denies them, not on +the grounds that they are unrepentant murderers with obviously no intention +of taking their marriage vows seriously, but on the grounds that they are +‘creatures from hell’, _ie_ ‘you don’t look like us’[^4]. + +There are other references to Christianity here and there which are, in +themselves, neutral or ambiguous. This adds to the sense that Christianity is an +important theme for the series. + +But the message is clear. It’s consistently drilled in: Christian beliefs and +morals are stupid and bigoted. + +And yet, when the series culminates in its epic two-part finale, the story is +plastered wall-to-wall with Christ-like imagery. It transpires that the Doctor +has unwittingly been acting as an ‘Angel of Death’ by carrying the invisible God +of Death, Sutekh, on his TARDIS, infecting everyone he goes near with the curse +of death. Finally, through one of his children, the curse is unleashed, and +everyone in the universe is given over to death. Even in death, they continue to +suffer, and one of the characters describes themselves as being in ‘hell’. The +Doctor battles Sutekh face-to-face and defeats him. Sutekh becomes one of the +only creatures which The Doctor, usually a staunch pacifist, can bring himself +to kill. Then, the whole world is restored to life. Ruby Sunday even gets to +meet her birth mother for the first time, and their relationship is wonderfully +restored. + +So on the one hand, any outward sign of Christianity is despised, but the heart +of the Christian story — the Resurrection — becomes the template for the +climactic redemption story which ties the whole series together. + +That’s what I mean when I say this series has a ‘schizophrenic’ relationship +to Christianity. + +## What’s this got to do with gayness? + +In series fourteen, Doctor Who goes gay. + +I’m not playing culture wars here. The Doctor literally kisses a man in episode +six. + +But it’s not just that. When we first meet his companion, Ruby Sunday (in the +Christmas special), she’s busy falling in love with a woman. Ncuti Gatwa plays +The Doctor camp (brilliantly by the way). The Doctor refers to Ruby as ‘babes’. +It’s got ‘gay’ written all over it, and this is definitely on purpose. + +
+ An official promotional picture of Ncuti Gatwa looking lustily into the camera +
+ Look at this official BBC promo pic and tell me Ncuti Gatwa isn’t playing + The Doctor gay. +
+
+ +From this perspective, it’s not hard to imagine where the hostility to the +Church might come from. + +The Church has failed to teach well and Biblically on sexuality, at least in +the last couple of centuries. Everyone has suffered as a result of this, but gay +people often feel the sharpness of this particularly keenly[^5]. + +The Church has put its weight behind a variety of unhelpful teachings on +sexuality over the centuries[^6]. But two, contradictory, ones stand out as +particularly salient today. + +One is **prudishness**. Sex is evil. Sex is the origin of all evil: the Devil +seduced Eve, and Eve seduced Adam, and that’s when it all went downhill. Sex +is naughty. Sex is bad. Remember when Jesus said, ‘whoever looks at a woman to +lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart’ (Matt 5:28)? +He was saying that **all sexual desire** is sinful. Remember when Paul advised, +‘It is good for a man not to touch a woman’ (1 Cor 7:1)? He was saying that it’s +**bad** for a man to touch a woman **under any circumstances**. + +This is, of course, false and dreadful teaching. The truth is that sex is a gift +from God, given so that we can bear his image by loving each other in this most +intimate and wonderful way. This is the consistent message of both Testaments. +But the idea that there’s somehow something **inherently wrong** with sex has +undeniably been a part of the Church’s teaching since at least the Victorian +period (and possibly a great deal longer than that). + +The other is that sex is an **essential aspect of humanity**. If you aren’t +having sex, you’re missing out on an irreplacable part of your created purpose. +This has reacted explosively with the ideas of the Sexual Revolution. The +net result is that we have not so much been **freed to have sex** as we’ve been +**enslaved to have sex**. Virginity is an embarassment – both for men and for +women. + +The radical Biblical idea that you can have a completely fulfilled life, deeply +enriched by loving relationships, **without** having sex or getting married, +is forgotten. + +Everyone has been harmed by these teachings. But those who experience +significant attraction towards the same sex have been harmed double. + +Faced by the impossible demands of bad Church teaching on sexuality on top +of the complexities of living with same-sex desire has left those people with +nowhere to go. They can _just say ‘no’_, and be made to feel that they’re +missing out on completing their full humanity. Or they can indulge their +same-sex attraction, and be judged not only promiscuous but a pervert to boot. + +No wonder so many gay people have given up on the Church (and I haven’t even +talked about discrimination or violence towards gay people). + +And no wonder that The Doctor has become strikingly anti-Christian at the same +time as it has become strikingly gay. + +## What next? + +Doctor Who’s criticisms of the Church hurt when they hit the mark. They hurt +more when they’re unfair. But that’s not the point. That point is this: the +Church has lost control of the conversation. And we’ve lost control of the +conversation because we threw it away. We threw it away encased in bomb-proof +concrete and left it to sink to the bottom of the deepest available ocean +trench. + +If we in the Church are feeling hurt, we should start by feeling hurt by +our own sin. + +The work of regaining trust on the question of sexuality will be the work of +decades: and that’s if we start working full-pelt right now. But there is hope. + +I was encouraged last December by the visit to my local church, Bruntsfield +Evangelical, of _Living Out_[^7], a charity dedicated to helping churches across +the UK talk about sexuality. Ed and Andy, both same-sex attracted men, led us +through talks and discussions, and played recordings of perspectives from their +same-sex attracted female colleagues who couldn’t make it on the day. + +They were primarily there to talk to us about how to support people like them: +same-sex attracted Christians who might be in our church who believe they are +called to singleness, helping them to thrive, living their true selves openly, +surrounded by love and empowered to share their love with others, just as we +want for everyone in our church. In fact, I heard some of the best news I’d ever +heard about my own sexuality, even though I am in the minority of people who +have never experienced significant same-sex attraction. + +Whether or not you agree with their stance that the right place for sex is +within a marriage between a man and a woman, charities like _Living Out_ are +driving the Church in the right direction: serious, Biblical sexual doctrine +which helps us to realise in practice how we are all made in the image of the +God of love. + +And how needed! How desperately needed! And Doctor Who gives us a little glimpse +of that, too. + +Because not only is the series apparently anti-Christian, it also expresses a +need for Christian salvation. The Resurrection story is one which everyone needs +to hear, to have their death transformed to life, to have their full humanity +affirmed and celebrated and tended and to delight in it and to see it flourish. +To know the God of love and life, behind all and over all, with a plan and a +means to defeat the grip of death on the world. + +So let’s keep having those frank conversations about sexuality in the Church. +It matters for all of us. + +[^1]: Unless you’re bothered by + [plotholes big enough to fly a TARDIS through](https://www.doctorwhotv.co.uk/doctor-who-opinion-empire-death-2-102716.htm). + Oh, and you can probably skip episodes 1 and 3. + +[^2]: For the record, this is flatly false. Though exceptions are widespread, the + overwhelming mainstream opinion is that priests should not bear arms. This is + not new, but has been the consistent orthodoxy, taken straight from Jesus’ + teachings by the Church Fathers and maintained constantly since then. Can the + Church be legitimately criticised for its use of violence? Absolutely, let’s + have that discussion. Has the Church almost always been a **literal army**? No. + The Church has **never** been an army. + +[^3]: See _God is Not Great_ by Christopher Hitchens, Chapter 11 for an epitome + example of this put forward by a prominent atheist apologist. + +[^4]: In the spirit of charity, I have to accept that this admits of multiple + interpretations. It is possible that by calling them ‘creatures from hell’, + the priest is referring precisely to their unrepentant murderousness. However, + the priest has already tried to avoid the creature’s gaze by the pitiably + schoolboyish ploy of **looking elsewhere**, priming the viewers to think + that the priest is a silly coward: certainly not the kind to make a noble, + principled defence of justice with his head in the jaws of death. Plus, if + we interpret ‘creatures from hell’ as meaning ‘you don’t look like us so you + must be evil’, that would fit with the consistent framing of the series: that + religious morality is equivalent to bigotry. + +[^5]: Though it must be remembered that many gay people have remained and + thrived within the Church in spite of the challenges, serving in diverse ways, + not least the priesthood. + +[^6]: I found the Ezra Institute to give a good + [introduction to the history of Church teachings on sexuality](https://www.ezrainstitute.com/resource-library/articles/sex-and-the-history-of-christianity). + +[^7]: For a great and humane introduction to what these guys are like, have a + listen to this [Living Out podcast episode](https://www.livingout.org/resources/podcasts/68/misstep-7-godliness-is-heterosexuality-the-plausibility-problem-7). + I get that if you haven’t grappled with issues like these before, it can be + really challenging, and you might find it hard to trust people who take a + different view to yourself. I know: I’ve been there myself! The best way to + start is to listen to a human voice.