the previous post has gained much attention and a number of comments, so let me state my case.
i believe the primary focus of the church’s mission is not legislative, but local witness.
the church must first (yes, first) care for the child, the mother, and the circumstances surrounding them before it can make such loud assertions about abortion to congress. the issue is tricky because many christians view the unborn child as human whereas others outside the christian community do not. so who wins? for too long the religious right has had a monologue (see jim wallis) on the issue, but now its opening up to a discussion and dialogue. for the church the issue must be rooted in witness through action, not one-issue politicking.
let me remind my conservative chrisitan brothers and sisters: the bible contains no texts about abortion (richard hays, moral vision for the NT, pg 446). hays, a nt scholar at duke, says, “in sum, we have no passages dealing with abortion, though a few texts poetically declare God’s providential care for all life, even before birth or conception. this gives us very little material for the construction of a normative judgment (pg 448).” he goes on, “since the NT provides no texts that speak to abortion, we will obviously find no rules pertinent to the topic there, nor will an appeal to biblical principles resolve the impasse in the current debate (pg 449).”
hays places the issue of abortion in what he calls the “symbolic world” (the world of cross, community, new creation and baptism) and declares that the “community (i.e. the church) should assume responsibility for the care of the needy (pg 452).”
therefore, the church must share in the responsibility with the mother and child, this is its primary work and witness.
his next point is worth noting: ”It is inappropriate to set up the issue as a conflict of “rights”: the rights of the mother vs the rights of the child. in scripture, there is no “right to life” rather it is a gift from God, a sign of grace.
God is the author of life and the responsibility for it rests in God’s community.
hays goes on to assert, “we (christians) must begin by recognizing that we cannot coerce moral consensus in a post-Christian culture…We should recognize the futility of seeking to compel the state to enforce Christian teaching against abortion.” Why? “…because we recognize that the convictions that cause us to reject abortion within the church are intelligible only within the symbolic world (cross, community, new creation) world of Scripture.”
THEREFORE, “the primary task of the Christian community on this issue is to form a counter-community of witness, summoning the world to see the gospel in action (pg 458) … only a church living such a life of disciplined service (such as profound responsibility to the mother and child) has the possibility of witnessing credibly to the state against abortion (pg 459).”
therefore, in such living the gospel is not only taught and preached, but embodied – a far greater witness.
13 Comments
5 March 2008 at 8:09 pm
Let me add that I do think that abortion eventually will need to be outlawed, but this will not caused them to see a dramatic reduction. There will still be an unregulated, underground market for them.
Regardless it should be outlawed, but MORE importantly we, the church, need to focus on care and compassion in the mean time.
6 March 2008 at 2:49 am
At this point, we are largely talking past each other. So, I’ll just leave a few summarizing comments:
1) To say that Jesus’ and the Apostles’ lack of political action or talk gives us an indication that we should not be concerned with politics is a red herring. American-style democracy did not exist. In America, we are not just subject to the government; in America, we ARE the government, and we are therefore responsible for working for justice in the government. This is why Christians worked against slavery, for workers’ rights, and for Civil Rights. This is why Christians work against abortion via political means. To say that our Christian mission of private care and evangelism therefore frees us from our obligations to work for a just government is to demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of our democracy and our civic responsibilities. Further, your apparent support for Christians supporting government poverty programs (for example your references to issues such as health care which are beyond the church’s ability to care for by itself) undercuts your assertion that our work is to be done apart from the government. You are entirely inconsistent in your claims, here.
2) You are creating a false dichotomy, as if we can only do one thing well – either care or politics. The reality is that we must do both. You are asserting that we not only can only do one, but that we should only do one. It would seem that YOU are the one who is advocating that we abdicate our responsibilities – not me.
3) You have failed, at this point, to deal with the question of what you would do if murder were legalized. I contend that you do, in fact, make a distinction between unborn life and born life. You affirmed the argument that the Bible is silent on abortion. Certainly, the Bible has an AWFUL lot to say about unjust violence and murder. You can only make a distinction between murder and abortion if you make a distinction between adults and unborn children. You have a choice: you must either concede that the Bible speaks to the issue of abortion with absolute clarity, frequency, consistency, and condemnation or you must concede that you distinguish between unborn children and adults. I can’t possibly see how you can get by without doing one or the other.
4) You are allowing your distaste for conservative politics to lead you to inaccurate and unfair conclusions about those who hold those politics, namely politically conservative evangelicals. You are simply incorrect to make the point that evangelicals are not working to provide care for mothers and children. Crisis pregnancy centers, adoptive parents, adoption services, teen mother mentoring programs, and simple poverty assistance are just some of the ways (among many, many more) that evangelical Christians are putting their money where their mouth is when it comes to abortion. I would ask that you either reconsider your statements regarding evangelicals’ relative indifference, or that you supply hard evidence to support your claim that evangelicals are not doing work on behalf of the people involved in crisis pregnancies.
As for the case you laid out above, I will not specifically deconstruct your arguments. They are generally faulty and ill-conceived (and I’m trying to be generous, here… I’ve rewritten this sentence 4 times to try to be not too negative). I will allow my above points to suffice.
8 March 2008 at 1:23 pm
Mike,
What is so strikingly faulty with the argument? It happens to pretty much be the argument of Richard Hays – arguably the greatest NT Ethics thinker in the world today.
8 March 2008 at 5:15 pm
1) The idea that the Bible doesn’t speek to abortion is beyond silly, as I have previously noted. You are ignoring what I’m asking – do you make a distinction between an unborn baby and a person after their birth? If not (as you contend), then EVERY passage of scripture that speaks to murder, violence, etc. ALSO NECESSARILY speaks to abortion.
2) You continue to attack a strawman, ignoring the fact that the church is, in fact, working to fulfill BOTH halves of its responsibilities regarding the abortion issue. You continue to make assertions regarding the church’s failures in this regard, but have yet to provide any reasonable basis for your assertion and have yet to respond to my points about all the things that the church (and society as a whole) are doing in practical ways for these mothers and children. Let’s spell out a few things that society has agreed to do for these families if the mothers will simply allow their children to be born:
–We will provide medical care for them, whether or not they are insured.
–We will provide them with a free public education from the ages of 3-18, and will make higher education exceedingly accessible.
–We will provide them with food.
–We will provide them with adequate housing.
–We will fund their retirement.
–We will provide them with police and fire protection.
–We will provide them with money to help meet their financial needs.
And this is just a small part of what the secular society does. What does the church do (and this must be more general, because the church doesn’t operate as one, national institution):
–We will assist in adoption proceedings.
–We will adopt the child, regardless of race or disability.
–We will help meet the financial needs of the mother, before and after the birth.
–We will bring the mother and her child into our church family to provide a caring, forgiving social network.
–We will provide pre-natal care and counseling.
–We will mentor the young mother over the course of her pregnancy and as she raises the child.
3) The idea that lobbying against abortion pits one person’s rights against another’s is based on a faulty premise. Exactly what RIGHT of the mother are we infringing upon by refusing to allow her to submit to someone else killing her child? There is no right to kill your child or allow someone else to kill it for you. There is no conflict of rights here – there is a subjugation of the baby’s rights in favor of an invented, imaginary “right” on behalf of the mother. Exactly what right is being infringed?
4) Hays’ assertion that the church is seeking to coerce moral culture is off-base. The culture already accepts that the taking of life without proper basis is wrong and should be prohibited. Abortion can (and, in the U.S., should) be argued from a secular viewpoint, although people will be motivated by very unique, personal (often religious) reasons. One need not be a Christian to recognize injustice. If something can be determined to be unjust by secular reasoning (such as murder, stealing, drinking and driving, abusing children), then there is no reason why it cannot be legislated. For Hays’ to declare that the church cannot lobby the government on abortion because it is a moral issue is to declare that NO ONE can lobby the government on ANY issue, because all laws are ultimately based on some assumption of morality.
5) You say that the church’s primary responsibility is not legislative, but local witness.
–I would make the case that calling for justice in our government is a vital part of local witness. I doubt that Martin Luther King, Jr. would have made a distinction between local witness and his efforts to advance civil rights.
–Most of the efforts to end abortion by Christians are done OUTSIDE of the context of their local churches, as they either speak and vote individually or they form parachurch non-profits to work on this cause.
On the whole, your entire argument is based on a faulty premise – that the church is ignoring her practical responsibilities of caring for these women and their children. The reality is that the church has TWO NON-NEGOTIABLE RESPONSIBILITIES: practical care and calling on the government for justice. You are arguing that we must give up one of these responsibilities because we have not yet become perfect in executing the other. How long will you continue to ignore this point?
I would encourage you to re-read “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, but read it in light of the injustice of abortion. All of your arguments could have been made in an effort to tell Christians to NOT lobby the government to pass Civil Rights legislation. Would you have counseled the church against working for justice in that realm, as well?
Look – I’m conceding all of your points about the church’s responsibility to care for the least of these in our world (in this case, mothers and their children). Actually, I’m not really conceding your point, because it is really OUR point – I have been agreeing with you from the very beginning. But you are calling on the people of the church to intentionally fail in one of their fundamental responsibilities.
I am calling on the church to do MORE for social justice. You are calling on the church to do LESS.
Why will you not encourage the church to do both? Why do you insist that the church only do one?
8 March 2008 at 8:55 pm
(I’m going to try to post this again… it keeps giving me error messages…)
And, again, I ask the question that I asked days ago:
Let us pretend that my 16 year-old sister is raped and becomes pregnant. She is poor and has no community support. She is a promising young student, and plans to go to college to become a nurse. There are also some medical complications, and carrying this child to term could possibly harm her ability to have children in the future. To add insult to injury, her character may be impugned at school and at church, as people will begin to call her things like “slut” and “whore” when her illegitimate pregnancy becomes apparent.
Fortunately for my sister, there is a 25-year-old person across the street whose life is causing these problems. The 25-year-old didn’t mean to cause these problems, and doesn’t even understand what his role is in the situation. He didn’t rape the girl, and has never even met her, other than walking past each other on the sidewalk. If we can just execute this 25-year-old person, my sister’s pregnancy will go away, her medical complications will go away, all community judgment regarding her character will go away. Basically, killing this 25-year-old across the street will make it as if she had never been impregnated by the rape in the first place.
What say you, now that I have put an exceedingly “human” face on this young girl… does my sister have the right to shoot this 25-year-old?
If so, why?
If not, why not?
If this is not a fair parallel, what makes the 25-year-old different than an unborn baby?
8 March 2008 at 8:58 pm
And what shall we do if the government permits my sister to shoot the man?
9 March 2008 at 11:43 pm
Who is the “we” that provides all the things you say?
10 March 2008 at 12:51 am
The first “we” is the American Taxpayer.
The second “we” is the church at large. Not every one of us is doing all those things. Specifically, I listed things that either my church or individuals in my church do, either through our church, individually, or through parachurch organizations with which they work.
10 March 2008 at 12:51 am
Can you respond to some of the objections that I raised?
10 March 2008 at 1:40 am
Mike,
I appreciate your scenario with regards to the girl and guy, but I’m not sure how it relates to the discussion. Perhaps you can fill me in.
However, to answer you question, no, neither life (child or adult) should be killed. I am not for abortion, nor for any form of murder.
The (many) illustrations you’ve raised with regards to the “we” are not totally accurate I’m afraid. The “american taxpayer” does not give fulfill many of what you say they do.
My concern is not primarily how Christians are part of a democracy, but first concerned with how the church interacts with the world. I’ve stated my case numerous times so I’ll spare you and the reader of hearing it again. I do agree that the church has a dual obligation (politics and practice), but to make our politics credible we must practice what to desire to be passed into law (if we don’t who in their right mind would listen to us?).
The one comment I’ll leave with is this with regard to Scripture speaking of abortion as murder: although Scripture does speak of murder we must ask what does that mean? What does the specific instances of murder prohibition speak to (perhaps it does or does not speak to abortion)? I don’t think we can begin with saying abortion is murder (which I DO think it is) and taking that definition and applying it to Scripture. Rather, we must begin by asking what Scripture means by murder.
10 March 2008 at 1:44 am
PS: With regards to your concern for “rights” as stated in ‘my case’, life is not a right, but a gift. Let’s be careful with our language.
10 March 2008 at 2:02 am
True. Life is a gift. Let me refine that language.
Life is a gift from God. Legally and morally, people have a right to not have that gift taken from them unjustly by another human.
“Right to Life” is just shorthand, and I think that most pro-Lifers would agree with that understanding, at least to a large degree.
Fair enough?
11 March 2008 at 3:05 am
Mike,
Yes, fair enough. Check out this link to an article by Dr. Glen Stassen:
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=sojomail.display&issue=041013#5
It’s under the “Politically Connect” section
Let me know what you think.
Jerry