May the Force Be Ever in Your Favor
The New Testament authors do quote from the Old Testament, but most of their uses of the Old Testament are allusions. And these allusions sometimes come back-to-back. Like those who understand the expression, “May the force be ever in your favor,” we need to be diligent readers of the Old Testament so that the allusions to it in the New will be more evident to us. We can read how an author uses an earlier text and smile and say, “Ah! I’ve seen language like this before. I know this phrase is pulling from an earlier source.”
I can’t remember the first time I saw someone write, with a smirk no doubt, “May the force be ever in your favor.” It’s like those memes that attribute a Lord of the Rings quote to Harry Potter. I smile at these things when I see them, and maybe you do too, because we know what the writer is up to. The conflation is deliberate. We’re “in” on the joke.
With the statement, “May the force be ever in your favor,” the first half is drawing from Star Wars, and the second half is drawing from The Hunger Games.
Years ago I heard someone use that deliberately-melded line to make a biblical point: “The New Testament authors do this all the time.” Now that got my attention. What did he mean?
The New Testament authors don’t mind putting back-to-back allusions to the Old Testament together without telling you that’s what they’re doing. In order for you to understand what the biblical authors are doing, we must be careful readers who are immersed in earlier Scripture. If someone isn’t aware of Star Wars or The Hunger Games, then the statement, “May the force be ever in your favor,” won’t have the effect that it should.
As a biblical example, the Gospel of Mark opens like this: “Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way, the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight’” (Mark 1:2–3).
These words in Mark 1:2–3 push several Old Testament lines together.
- In Exodus 23:20, “Behold, I send an angel before you to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared.”
- In Isaiah 40:3, “A voice cries: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.’”
- In Malachi 3:1, “Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me.”
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The Impossibility of Transgenderism
We are born male or female. We are, therefore, male or female. And one becomes, through reproduction, a mother or father. The way we manifest our identity as a man or a woman is going to either conform to “socio-cultural standards” or be a form of reaction against these same socio-cultural standards, or be a mixture of conformity and reaction.
Nature, Gender, and Biological Sex
Introduction
It is becoming more and more common to hear politicians, social media influencers, and celebrities discussing biological sex and gender in much the same way that they discuss religious or political affiliations. We are told that we choose them, to a certain extent, or, perhaps, that we are chosen by them and only come to a progressive discovery that we just “are” Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Republican, Democrat, Male, Female, or something else. What we are hearing through the various media outlets, in cinema, and online, is essentially a trickle-down effect from research and theorizing that has been going on in the“academy” for well over 100 years.1
According to the Standards of Care for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender and Gender-Nonconforming People (hereafter, SOC), published by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (hereafter, WPATH), “Sex” is defined as follows, “Sex is assigned at birth as male or female, usually based on the appearance of the external genitalia. When the external genitalia are ambiguous, other components of sex (internal genitalia, chromosomal and hormonal sex) are considered in order to assign sex (Grumbach, Hughes, & Conte, 2003; MacLaughlin & Donahoe, 2004; Money & Ehrhardt, 1972; Vilain, 2000). For most people, gender identity and expression are consistent with their sex assigned at birth; for transsexual, transgender, and gender-nonconforming individuals, gender identity or expression differ from their sex assigned at birth.”2 The term “Gender Identity,” used in the second part of this definition, is defined as “A person’s intrinsic sense of being male (a boy or a man), female (a girl or woman), or an alternative gender (e.g., boygirl, girlboy, transgender, genderqueer, eunuch) (Bockting, 1999; Stoller, 1964).”3
From these definitions alone, which are increasingly influential on public opinion, it is clear that biological sex and gender are no longer understood, as they historically have been, in relation to a person’s phenotypical and genotypical traits. Rather, they are presented to the public as something that is “assigned” or “imposed” upon children at their birth, though potentially (and truly) discovered at a later time. Indeed, models of gender-fluidity are becoming more and more prominent in discussions about sex, gender, and studies related to the social aspects of “being” some “gender”.4 We are told that it sometimes happens that an individual’s “gender identity or expressions” differ from the biological sex they were assigned at birth. This “gender identity” refers to one’s intrinsic sense of identity—who or what they feel themselves to be—or, their way of socially acting in relation to reproductive processes. Gender, and even biological sex, is a social construct which needs to be deconstructed.
The question we wish to discuss is, does natural law have anything to say to this cultural phenomenon? To do so, we will provide a quick reminder of what natural law is. We will then perform a short “experiment” of sorts, illustrating how natural law theory can be helpful in public discussions surrounding sexuality.5 In this second section, we will first consider questions related to biological sex, and then turn to questions related to gender.
Natural Law and the Gender-Identity Debate
What is Natural Law?
As we have stated elsewhere, natural law, as that part of the eternal law which applies specifically to human beings, is the rule or norm of practical reason which governs all human actions. Natural law is “natural” because it is based upon human “nature”—what humans “are” as designed by their Creator6—and not upon the human will.7 Natural law is a “law” because it is not only binding (prescriptive and proscriptive commands) on all humans, but also because it directs all humans to their proper end and common good, and is in principle knowable by all humans.8 Some might wonder about the promulgation of natural law, suggesting either (1) that it is not promulgated, as there is no “place” where one can find it written down, or (2) that it is not promulgated, because it appears that not all are aware of it.
To the first objection, we reply (a) that it is inscribed on the mind of man—it is more naturally anchored in the mind of man than the Operating System and basic applications are in a newly purchased i-Phone.9 Furthermore, (b) as if “permanent inscription” of the law on the mind of man was not sufficient, many of the early Reformers held that God also “published” the main tenets of natural law in the 10 Commandments given to Moses on Mount Sinai.
To the second objection, we reply that ignorance of a law is proof neither that the law was not promulgated, nor that one can be held non-guilty if one breaks the law. It is simply not the case, even in our technologically advanced age, that all of those who live within any given municipality are aware when new laws are created, even though they may be posted publicly. Even if one is not aware of a law which has been promulgated, one is still held responsible for knowing about it (and seeking to find out what regulations may apply to any socially affective action one makes), and one is considered guilty for breaking the law whether one knows about it or not.10 In the same way, though the Natural Law is equally promulgated to all, it is not necessarily equally known by all. Just as there may be many who are unaware of the laws in a given area, there may be many who, due to lack of time, training, or ability, or due to negligence (vicious or innocent), have less knowledge of the givings of the Natural Law than others. However, the Natural Law is sufficiently promulgated that those who break it are rightly condemned.
How can we apply Natural Law to Gender and Sexuality?
Though there are many aspects of transgender theory and the philosophy of gender that we could discuss, we will concentrate on two aspects which are fundamental to the discussion: (1) biological sex and (2) gender or gender-identity. As there is somewhat more of a consensus on the first, we will begin with biological sex and then turn to gender. Natural law, grounding human morality in human nature, is able to call upon the observations of human biology to arrive at conclusions concerning sexual morality. In what follows, we will approach the question of sexuality in a way which could be broadly construed as a natural law approach to sexuality. Such an approach necessarily begins with an examination of what is meant by the terms “biological sex” and “gender”.
Biological Sex
Despite the fact that some gender theorists suggest that biological sex is fluid and that bodily changes associated with sexual development are ambiguous until given meaning in a socio-cultural context,11 the study of biological life reveals a number of important natural truths about human beings, which have normative implications for our question. First of all, though some gender theorists claim that biological sex is “assigned” at birth, or that individuals must “determine” their sex when they discover, create, or recreate their “gender identification,”12 it is still recognized by most that biological sex is determined at the molecular level,13 and “discovered” through the examination, first, of the phenotypical traits of an individual; and, then, if there is some doubt as to the biological sex of an individual, genotypical traits can be examined.14 Some gender theorists, though they see biological sex as a bodily reality, argue that the bodily changes related to reproductive processes take on the meaning that we give them within the society in which we find ourselves, and in relation to the gender structures of our culture.15 It is worth emphasizing here that even for those who deny that biological sex is “determined” by genetics and discovered through examination, it remains, by their own admission, inescapably related to genotypical and phenotypical traits. Connell and Pearse, for example, suggest that bodily processes related to reproduction, such as childcare, birthing, and sexual interaction “which deploy human bodies’ capacities to engender, to give birth, to give milk, to give and receive sexual pleasure,” should be understood as “an arena, a bodily site where something social happens…the creation of the cultural categories ‘women’ and ‘men’.”16 We will address the question of gender in the next section, but it is worth noting that they recognize that biological traits do have some bearing upon what they see as culturally relative categories.
Secondly, going a step further, recent research into the function and interrelation of the various parts of human bodies has shown that the piece-meal “mechanistic” view of the human being, which sees the human body as highly modifiable (malleable) through the removal, addition, or replacement of body parts, is far from the truth, especially in relation to our biological sex. Rather, “Systems Biology,” which understands living things as dynamic networks of integrated parts all working together for the growth and flourishing of the individual, suggests that “the sexual development of an organism cannot be readily divorced from its overall developmental trajectory.”17
It follows that, “the specification of sex/gender and the maturation of the sexual organism is the result not of the activity of a single gene but of the interactions among numerous genes and the molecules that they encode. Together these molecules determine the shape and overall trajectory of human sexual development.”18 This implies that in discovering the biological sex of an organism, one does not rely exclusively on genotypical or phenotypical traits, but must also consider how the phenotypical traits of the biological organism have naturally developed, in relation to their proper ends and functions. If biological sex is determined by the role of the sexual organs, based on the natural development of a biological organism, in relation to the process of human reproduction, then there can only be two sexes — male and female — one that, to put it simply, fertilizes an egg, and one that produces the egg which will be fertilized and which brings the fertilized egg to term.19 In relation, then, to biological sex, we find that it is neither assigned nor determined by doctors, but, rather, discovered by observation.
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This Is Not What the Sheep Need: Reflections on Credo Magazine’s Book Awards
Our scholars should not, as such, be commending Roman academics with awards. They should be calling them to repent of their communion’s notions which twist and deny Scripture, and to use their talents and devotion to promote sound doctrine. For Christ said “if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples” (Jn. 8:31), and Rome still does not abide in his word as it ought. And well might we fear that, ignoring Ps. 1:1 and 1 Cor. 15:33, our own theologians are at risk of being ensnared by that communion’s sins (Gal. 6:1b).
Carl Trueman caused consternation recently when, fresh from delivering the inaugural lecture of the Center for Classical Theology (CCT), he suggested Protestants need to “go back to basics.” It was not entirely clear what all this entailed, and as if to oblige an answer, Credo Magazine, CCT’s popular outlet, has revealed in what direction it imagines we should turn with its 2023 book awards.
There is a category called “Thomas Aquinas,” whose winner is a book by a Romanist professor who “invites all traditions – including the Reformed tradition – to retrieve Thomism so that together we can answer the modern challenges that have crippled biblical scholarship,” as Credo puts it. The question of Thomism’s usefulness aside – and with it, the cumbersome question of whether “expanding on Thomas’s Christological typologies today will equip biblical theologians with the ontology they need to defend typology in the first place” – it must never be forgotten that Aquinas was an idolater (see here), who sometimes butchered scriptural exegesis because of philosophy and tradition (see here), and who has been a stumbling block to many by means of his elevation to the center of a cult of personality (see here). Scripture commands us to avoid idolatry (1 Cor. 10:14: “my beloved, flee from idolatry”) and idolaters (5:11: “I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is . . . an idolater”), not to take them as our teachers (comp. also Deut. 13), and it says that idolatry is a “work of the flesh” (Gal. 5:19-20) whose offenders “will not inherit the kingdom of God” (v. 21), but “whose portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death” (Rev. 21:8). Having an award for studies in such a person’s thought (thus encouraging more such studies) is about as far from obeying God’s command “not to associate” with such people as one can get.
The winner of the “Translated Work of Theology—Patristic and Medieval” award is a recent edition of John of Damascus (or Damascene)’s On the Orthodox Faith (De Fide Orthodoxa). This is the same work from which Aquinas derived the notions by which he promoted idolatry, saying “Damascene (De Fide Orth. iv, 16) quotes Basil as saying: ‘The honor given to an image reaches to the prototype,’ i.e. the exemplar” and concluding that “the exemplar itself – namely, Christ – is to be adored with the adoration of ‘latria’; therefore also His image.”[1] In other words, the worship given to an image passes through it to the person whom it purports to represent, so it is therefore appropriate to worship images of Christ since the worship passes through them to him. (This absurd notion makes idolatry impossible, provided one’s intentions are good, and openly contradicts Scripture’s representation of the evil and folly of idolatry consisting in worshiping objects in passages such as Psalm 135:15-18, Isaiah 44, and Jeremiah 10.)
Elsewhere Aquinas quotes Damascene saying “the precious wood, as having been sanctified by the contact of His holy body and blood, should be meetly worshiped; as also His nails, His lance, and His sacred dwelling-places, such as the manger, the cave and so forth.”[2] Yet Credo commends Damascene’s work, saying “readers would do well to receive this gift from Christianity’s Great Tradition with gratitude.” There is something awry when Protestants such as the contest judges commend Tradition (which they regularly capitalize), rather than defending Scripture against tradition’s tendency to undermine it (Matt. 15:1-9).
Winning the award for “Natural Theology” is Plato’s Moral Realism, published by a philosophy professor at the University of Toronto. The book description begins:
Plato’s moral realism rests on the Idea of the Good, the unhypothetical first principle of all. It is this, as Plato says, that makes just things useful and beneficial.
And continues:
This fact has been occluded by later Christian Platonists who tried to identify the Good with the God of scripture. But for Plato, theology, though important, is subordinate to metaphysics. For this reason, ethics is independent of theology and attached to metaphysics.
The actual text says, “I am content to classify Plato’s theory as robust realism with the proviso that his realism be distinguished from moral theology” (pp. 10-11) and “in the matter of ethics, Plato draws his principles from metaphysics, not from theology” (p. 54). It is strange to give a theology book award to a philosophy book which explicitly denies a theological character to the moral conceptions of the philosopher whose thought it relates. One might as soon give an award for best electronic dance music to a string band or a classical orchestra.
The award for “Theological Retrieval” went to Hans Boersma’s Pierced by Love: Divine Reading with the Christian Tradition, which is the inspiration for Credo’s latest edition on lectio divina (literally, divine reading), being mentioned nine times in that issue about this approach to reading scripture. Credo commends it here because it is “what spiritually serious Christians have always done” (emphasis mine), which claim is curious, since its own edition on lectio says “Lectio Divina originates in the twelfth century with Guigo the Second, an Italian monk,” or, maybe, “as far back as St. Benedict of the sixth century” (all emphases mine). Also, there is arguably an implicit insult that believers who do not use lectio are therefore not “spiritually serious.”
Winning the award for “Systematic Theology and Dogmatics” is Christ the Logos of Creation: An Essay in Analogical Metaphysics by Notre Dame professor John R. Betz. It features what appears to be an image of Christ on the cover, in which offense against the Second Commandment (Ex. 20:4) it is joined by two other awarded books. Alongside the edge of the front cover is a series title that reads “Renewal within Tradition.” This series is produced by a Romanist press and edited by the same professor, Matthew Levering, who won the “Thomas Aquinas” category. The series summary, available here, states that “Catholic theology reflects upon the content of divine revelation as interpreted and handed down in the Church” and that the series “undertakes to reform and reinvigorate contemporary theology from within the tradition, with St. Thomas Aquinas as a central exemplar.” It continues, “the Series [sic] reunites the streams of Catholic theology that, prior to the [Second Vatican] Council, separated into neo-scholastic and nouvelle théologie modes” and that “the biblical, historical-critical, patristic, liturgical, and ecumenical emphases of the Ressourcement movement need the dogmatic, philosophical, scientific, and traditioned enquiries of Thomism, and vice versa.”
That is thoroughly and unabashedly Roman, and yet it did not prevent Credo’s Protestants from commending Betz’s book. When they then weakly complain the author “would benefit from a wider engagement with the Protestant tradition,” one feels compelled to cry aloud in mixed pathos and exasperation: ‘Just what did you think you were going to find in a Romanist work of renewal and ressourcement, if not Roman tradition, ideas, and thinkers?’ One does not go to Bob Jones University to find the arts of winemaking and dancing; and one does not go to Rome to find the Reformation and its protest against those things which make Rome distinctively Roman.
There is an irony here as well, for in Trueman’s post-CCT lecture appeal to ‘go back to basics’ he bewailed evangelicals who assert divine suffering by denying impassibility, and praised some Romans (the Dominicans) by contrast for their theology proper. And now the CCT has just recognized this book, which also commends Hans Urs von Balthasar, a Roman theologian who . . . . . . asserted divine suffering.[3] Granting Trueman’s appeal was at First Things, not Credo, this inconsistency suggests that the larger classical crowd is apparently not as discomfited by people who seem to deny impassibility as Prof. Trueman (albeit still regarding it as mistaken). And the approval of Balthasar by Romanists committed to Thomism-inspired renewal suggests that, Trueman’s wistful gazes upon members of that communion notwithstanding, the grass is not greener on the other side of the Tiber. (Or, keeping with the context of his original statement, that it is not so on the other side of the accreditation agency conference room.)
Of the nine awards given, only three were given to Protestants (Petrus van Mastricht, Phillip Cary, and Karen Swallow Prior). There are concerns about the last, who endorsed Revoice and published a book with contributions from a normalizer of immorality (see here), and the second, author of the “Book of the Year,” teaches at a university that has normalized that same strand of immorality, and makes some curious claims.[4] One award was given to an author of unknown affiliation, while three were given to Romans, and another to a member of an Eastern communion (Damascene, whose translator is also an Easterner). Boersma is officially an Anglican, but his views are so thoroughly Romanist as to be accounted with the members of that communion (see here or footnote).[5]
All this matters because Rome still retains most of those things against which we have been protesting for 500 years. It still has purgatory, pilgrimages, penance, and indulgences – the Pope has even offered them via Twitter – as well as intercession of the saints and prayer to angels. It has a full-orbed system of false ideas about Mary: perpetual virginity, immaculate conception, bodily assumption into heaven, and regarding her as “exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things” (Roman Catechism, 966), to whom prayers and devotion ought to be given, and who is “invoked in the Church under the titles of Advocate, Helper, Benefactress, and Mediatrix” (969). In Scripture our Helper is the Holy Spirit (Jn. 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7), and our Advocate is Christ himself (1 Jn. 2:1), the relevant Greek term (paraklétos) only being used of them, never of any other person. And Scripture plainly says that “there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5); Mary is nowhere referred to as a mediator.
Rome also maintains the same mistaken notions of justification[6], and of scriptural interpretation[7] and authority[8] as in the past. It forbids its clergy to marry, which 1 Tim. 4:1-5 says is a teaching of demons and a mark of people who have “seared consciences” and “depart from the faith.” Scripture also says that marriage is God’s ordained means for preventing immorality (1 Cor. 7:2: “because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife”). Having rejected this, Rome has become the scene of gross, widespread corruption, 33 of its 194 American dioceses being involved in or having completed bankruptcy proceedings, many because of payments to sexual abuse victims. It openly rebels against Christ’s command to “call no man your father on earth” (Matt. 23:9) by using this as the official title of all its clergy, but especially of the Pope, who is styled “Holy Father,” pope itself coming through Latin from the Greek for ‘papa, father.’
Now God says to “beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves” (Matt. 7:15), that “Satan comes disguised as an angel of light” (2 Cor. 11:14), and that his “servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness” (v. 15). He says of such people that we will “recognize them by their fruits” (Matt. 7:16). Who can deny that the widespread sexual abuse and errant doctrine of the current Roman communion are rotten fruits?
Our scholars should not, as such, be commending Roman academics with awards. They should be calling them to repent of their communion’s notions which twist and deny Scripture, and to use their talents and devotion to promote sound doctrine. For Christ said “if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples” (Jn. 8:31), and Rome still does not abide in his word as it ought. And well might we fear that, ignoring Ps. 1:1 and 1 Cor. 15:33, our own theologians are at risk of being ensnared by that communion’s sins (Gal. 6:1b).
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Five Forks (Simpsonville), SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation.[1] Summa Theologiae III, Q. 25, A.3
[2] Summa Theologiae III, Q. 25, A.4
[3] How Balthasar’s ideas of divine suffering comport with historic notions of God’s immutability and impassibility is disputed within the Roman communion, as evidenced by one of the other books in the “Renewal within Tradition” series being devoted to a consideration of his ideas on this point (One of the Trinity Has Suffered: Balthasar’s Theology of Divine Suffering in Dialogue by Joshua Brotherton), and works such as The Immutability of God in the Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar by Gerard O’Hanlon.
[4] E.g., he says he “feels quite comfortable in a high-church Anglican congregation,” as well as that it is not “a tragedy when Protestants become Catholic” (here at about 7:55).
[5] He quotes Pope Francis approvingly, regards the Reformation as a lamentable tragedy, and denies sola scriptura as the authority for faith in favor of Rome’s scripture and tradition, doing so, by his own admission at Credo, because of the teaching of important Roman theologians. He also thinks “the Reformation doctrine of justification sola fide needs a significant overhaul in light of [N.T.] Wright’s reading of the New Testament,” and that Wright’s views “are more or less compatible with standard Catholic and Orthodox understandings of justification theology” (Exile, ed. James M. Scott, p. 257).
[6] “Justification includes . . . sanctification, and the renewal of the inner man” and “is granted us through Baptism.” (Roman Catechism 2019-20)
[7] “The task of interpreting the Word of God authentically has been entrusted solely to the Magisterium of the Church, that is, to the Pope and to the Bishops in communion with him.” (Roman Catechism 100)
[8] The Church “does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence.” (Roman Catechism 82)
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Can Christians Attend Gay Weddings?
Written by Carl R. Trueman |
Monday, February 5, 2024
There are also obvious reasons why a Christian should never attend a gay wedding. If marriage is rooted in the complementarity of the sexes, then any marriage that denies that challenges the Christian understanding of creation. It is one thing for the world to do that. It is quite another for Christians to acquiesce in the same. Further, the biblical analogy between Christ and the Church means that fake marriages are a mockery of Christ himself. Of course, that applies beyond the issue of gay marriage. A marriage involving somebody who has not divorced a previous spouse for biblical reasons involves that person entering into an adulterous relationship. No Christian should knowingly attend such a ceremony either.To update the famous comment of Leon Trotsky, you may not be interested in the sexual revolution, but the sexual revolution is interested in you. Some of us are still privileged enough to be partly sheltered from this revolution. I count myself as one, along with those whose detachment from real-life pastoral situations apparently qualifies them to sell political pedagogy to others. But as the push among the progressive political class to dismantle traditional sexual mores continues apace, it is harder and harder to find a pastor or a priest who has not faced a difficult question from congregants about Christian obedience and their livelihood. Only last week a pastor friend told me of a member of his church who, as a manager of a business, has been ordered to integrate the bathrooms and is now faced with complaints from women staff who feel their safety and privacy have been compromised. It’s easy to decry right-wing scaremongering in the abstract, far more difficult to give advice to real people who have to make decisions that could cost them their careers.
The sexual revolution has revolutionized everything, to the point where questions that once had simple answers have become complicated. For instance, the question “Can I attend a gay wedding?” comes up with increasing frequency and is proving less and less easy to answer, as Bethel McGrew’s closing paragraphs in her recent World column indicate. It is not hard to guess what reasons a Christian might give for attending a gay wedding: a desire to indicate to the couple that one does not hate them, or a wish to avoid causing offense or hurt. But if either carries decisive weight in the decision, then something has gone awry. A refusal to attend might well be motivated by hatred of the couple (though in such circumstances, an invitation would seem an unlikely event) but it does not have to be so. To consider a declined invitation necessarily a sign of hatred is to adopt the notion of “hate” as a mere refusal to affirm.
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