Not that it has anything to do with the price of tea in China, but can someone answer the question: Is Diarmaid MacCulloch an homosexual? I’ve read several of his books, including the excellent one on Thomas Cranmer and several friends have said to me that he was a man of the vicious sensuality.

RMBruton,

I would like to field that, but I would also like to be very careful about my answer.  First let me say that I’m in MacCulloch’s scholarly field and am a traditional-minded Anglican.

1)  Yes, Prof. MacCulloch is openly gay and in a relationship (one that has lasted some years).  He dedicated his magisterial biography of Thomas Cranmer to his partner, even making a rather cute joke about being in a manage a trois with a dead archbishop.

2)  He was ordained a deacon in the 1980s but declined priestly orders because of the Church of England’s position on non-celibate homosexual clergy.  However, I’ve also heard from quite reliable sources that he may have simply been denied.

3)  Prof. MacCulloch is a brillant historian.  Although I don’t care for his take on Augustine in his very helpful “Reformation: Europe’s House Divided” and his insinuations about Erasmus’ sexuality (which I feel is irrelevant) in the same text, Prof. MacCulloch is nevertheless a real light in the field of reformation history.  He totally rejects “via media” silliness - ideas about the reformation which are just not true.  He gives us a picture of a truly evangelical movement for reform, one driven by scripture.  Also, if you look at the acknowledgments in his biography of Cranmer, you’ll see that he heaps thanks on his former graduate student, the Rev. Dr. Ashley Null.  As many of you will know, Ashley Null is a very traditional-minded and orthodox Anglican, and canon-theologian for the Diocese of Western Kansas.

So all of that is to say: yes, Prof. MacCulloch is openly gay and does have some slanted arguments.  BUT, he is a great historian whose books should be read and read carefully by anybody who really cares about the English reformation.

#2: All of this correct. He is also, as far as I know, something of an agnostic as far as as Christianity is concerned. He’s an historian, not a theologian.

#2: He was declined by his bishop. He was previously an active leader of the ‘Gay Christian Movement’.

Calvin wrote,
Thanks for answering my question.

Goodness, what a judgemental crew we have here! Does a person’s private life make any difference to the quality of his work? Really!

Fr. Mark,

That is a fascinating question, and one addressed by Prof. Randall Balmer in another post.  Prof. Balmer, who describes himself as a liberal Episcopal priest, notes that perfect objectivity is simply impossible - this is the very real challenge of post-modernism.  Prof. Balmer says nevertheless that he hopes to do justice to his subject matter (in his case, religion in early America). 

What you’ve hit on is often discussed in relation to the German philosopher Martin Heidegger.  A brilliant mind in the middle 20th century, Heidegger was nonetheless a Nazi.  The question becomes how to do we wrestle with that reality?  His thought was incredibly important in lots of circles, particularly in the area of existentialism. 

To restrict ourselves to the case of Prof. MacCulloch, I would like to say again that I think he is a brilliant historian.  His work is excellent.  However, there are quite a number of instances in which his attitudes about human sexuality come through in his books on the reformation.  I noted above his insinuations about Erasmus.  So his scholarship is in fact influenced by some of his deeply held convictions.

Unless you feel that we can return to the days where we really believe in perfect objectivity, critical and thoughtful readers do have to know some things about the authors we read.  In short, an author’s life does inform her or his perspectives and the works she or he produces.  The same is true of the arts.  Consider the music and plastic arts crafted in times of social crisis, Picaso’s Guernica for example.

Do you really believe we should totally ignore the lives and experiences of the authors we read?  If that is the case perhaps we should give up on historical-critical methods of reading scripture and ignore the context of the biblical authors.  Is that what you advocate?  Sounds awfully fundamentalist.

No, what I advocate is ditching the very naive (and still widely held amongst the religious in America?) view that personal conduct of which one approves = someone is better at their job.

And I don’t think they are insinuations about Erasmus. Why should stating that someone was gay (he says the same about Laud, too, which has long been widely known) be at all a negative thing anyway?

To your #8
None of the posts above made that equation.  In fact, my post went in the opposite direction, praising his work despite my disagreements with his conduct.

To your #9
If you read MacCulloch’s arguments in Europe’s House Divided, he doesn’t actually state that Erasmus was gay in any direct way.  He makes a number of allusions and in fact insinuations.  More important, however, is the fact that Prof. MacCulloch argues that Erasmus’ sexuality (the nature of which has never been really established as he was celibate) was the primary motivating factor behind much of his thought.  To fill you in, Prof. MacCulloch argues that because Erasmus had some deeply unsatisfying sexual experience in his youth (only slight evidence btw is offered for this event), this made him turn to celibacy all his life.  Is that a convincing argument?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  In short, Prof. MacCulloch’s circuitous claims (and yes they are insinuations in the sense that they are indirect) are highly debatable.  If it were in a less introductory text he might have been taken to task to provide more convincing citations.

Regarding Laud, it’s always what you want to make of the evidence (again only slight), and then what you actually do with it.  Charles Carlton in his psychoanalytical biography gave us a man haunted by his sexuality.  This is a rather shallow read of a very complex man.  In my opinion, his sexuality wasn’t really all that much of a factor.

What I am suggesting is a mature approach in which we appreciate and recognize an author’s prejudices and all the elements and experiences that inform her or his life while not limiting or pigeon-holing her or him to a predetermined course.

Go back to my #2 for an application of this.  I have the sense, though, that your goal here isn’t to talk about historical method or the post-modern problem of limited objectivity.  Fr. Mark, is it that you just want us to think that homosexual behavior is not problematic in the Christian life?  If that is the case, there are more direct ways of having that conversation…. and more interested interlocutors than me for that matter.

oooh, Calvin, that supercilious tone!

#11: nothing supercilious at all; very reasoned and thoughtful.
Worth emulating, Mark!
(pwned by reason - that’s gonna leave a Mark!)