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I made the statement above that "Taken as a whole, the Bible proclaims the theme that, first, the entire human race was directly created by God and is the particular object of his love, care and grace (and indeed made in His own image), and that, second, the love commands that embody the whole law are both addressed to all humans and embrace all humans. As the parable of the Good Samaritan makes clear, every member of the human race is our neighbor, And the general ethical principles for how humans should be treated, laid down in commands like the Golden Rule and "You shall not murder" are understood to be universal in scope for that reason. "This is a key point, because professing Christian advocates of abortion typically trade heavily on the claim that, "the Bible doesn't mention abortion!" --that is, it doesn't use the specific term. A comparable argument that might be made, in defense of burning down your neighbor's house or barn to retaliate for some behavior you didn't like, is that "the Bible doesn't mention arson!" It's perfectly true that it doesn't use the word, nor does it even anywhere include a specific command not to burn other people's property. Intellectually honest Christian ethicists, though, would understand the general love commands to categorically exclude any hurtful behavior, including arson. Insisting that a general command has no force unless every specific possible violation of it also has a separate specifically listed prohibition would be an absurdity, requiring a Bible that's dozens of volumes long (and which still wouldn't be specific enough to completely preclude every possible violation, especially in the eyes of "interpreters' whose only interest is looking for plausible-sounding loopholes). This is one illustration of why biblical interpretation is a matter of looking to the whole general pattern of the Bible's teaching, rather than ignoring the forest and trying to find a small tree that can be made, in isolation, to sound like something we want to have said.
This comment doesn't deal directly with biblical or theological principles, as such, that impact the abortion debate, but it shares some factual information that's useful for Christians to have, and which the secular news media won't share. Since the U.S. Supreme Court's Doe vs. Bolton decision last year, abortion advocates have pushed the claim --which at least a number of them know to be false-- that laws against abortions forbid life-saving medical treatment for an "ectopic pregnancy" (that is, a fertilized egg that attaches to the Fallopian tube instead of the uterus, where the baby cannot possibly survive and where his/her growth would also kill the mother).Prior to 1884, ectopic pregnancies were always fatal; but in that year Robert Lawson Tait developed the first successful surgical treatment for removal of the egg, and that became the standard treatment. (Eventually techniques were developed for doing this without surgery.) This was at a time when abortion was universally illegal in the Western world. Treatment of an ectopic pregnancy is no more an "abortion" than extracting a tooth, and nobody in the medical community or legal profession ever imagined or suggested that it was for the next 138 years. No state law prior to the Roe vs. Wade decision ever criminalized treatment of ectopic pregnancy (which was, and is, offered by all medical personnel, including pro-life personnel, engaged in pregnancy care, and always will be). No state law passed since then criminalizes it; no state law passed since the recent Doe vs. Bolton decision criminalizes it. Nor is such a law contemplated, by anybody. That isn't an "opinion;" it's a fact.
This blog post by Randy Alcorn provides helpful information on this topic: https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog... . (See also
https://www.liveaction.org/news/plann... .)
A companion false narrative that's being deployed by the same propagandists concerns treatment for miscarriages. When the latter tragically occur, some parts of the placenta, and/or dead embryonic tissue, may be left in the uterus. Medical or surgical treatment to remove this is often performed; again, it's a non-controversial procedure, completely distinct from abortion, which is performed by all health care providers in this field, was never illegal anywhere before the Roe vs. Wade decision was handed down, has never been outlawed since Doe vs. Bolton, and is not objected to by anyone in the pro-life movement. That hasn't stopped pro-abortion pundits from incessant claims that pro-life laws render such treatments illegal.
There's good reason to believe that these lies, unchecked in the establishment media, have had a major effect on recent abortion-related referenda in several U.S. states (since, obviously, NO voters, including pro-life ones, want to criminalize these procedures). It's important for Christians to be able to debunk this type of disinformation when it's deployed, with ulterior motives, as a weapon to subvert public policy discussions.
Plenty of politicians want to appeal to Christian voters by touting their christian credentials. But since JFK's Presidential campaign, many professing Catholics and christians in the Democrat party have felt the need to walk a middle line between the view of the Catholic church (abortion is sin and must never be allowed) and the increasingly liberal policies of their party and voters. Like Kennedy before them, Nancy Pelosi and President Joe Biden have adopted some kind of schizophrenic view on abortion. They profess to personally oppose it like Christians are compelled to, but to support it in their political office. Do they use a defence of maintaining separation of Church and State? Why do they court the votes of Christians if not to assure Christians that they will vote according to their shared moral values? We're seeing this today with Robert F Kennedy's 2024 Presidential campaign. He stated he was supportive of Federal bans on abortion after the first trimester of pregnancy, only for his campaign managers to backtrack in a press release afterwards.
If memory serves (I grew up in the 60s, graduating from high school in 1970), abortion didn't actually emerge as a national political issue in the U.S. until the 1972 election, so JFK and RFK never really had to deal with it. And although the "personally opposed, but must support the law of the land" mantra has often been employed by "Catholic" officeholders as a fig leaf, my understanding of Biden and Pelosi's position (though I haven't read or listened to their speeches in detail, only picked up sound bites) is that they're NOT opposed to abortion at all, "personally" or otherwise, but in full-throated, enthusiastic support of it. (Which means they, or their handlers, have calculated that a fig leaf is no longer needed.)Nathan wrote: "Why do they court the votes of Christians if not to assure Christians that they will vote according to their shared moral values?"
The confusion arises from the fact that most nominal "Christians" in the U.S., and probably the rest of the "developed" world, don't share any moral values distinct from those of their secular culture. (And that's true of Protestants as well as Catholics; the latter are just more noticeable in the U.S. because here they're the largest denomination, though Protestants counted as a group outnumber them.) In denominations where lifelong "membership" is conferred by infant baptism, many members have never had any experience of repentance and conversion from the attitudes and practices of the heathen world, and have no conception that they need to, but they see themselves as "Christians." The same often is true of nominally "believers" churches in which the need for repentance in salvation has been downplayed for many decades, so as to make the church's "product" easier to "sell" to more people, and in which, for kids raised in the church, "believer's baptism" has degenerated into simply an expected rite of passage into adulthood. And in those denominations which not only downplay repentance and teaching about Christian ethics, but also promote the "once saved, always saved" theology, the message picked up by many kids raised in that environment is, "say a 'sinner's prayer' once, do anything you want to for the rest of your life, and you're a shoe-in for heaven!"
In that milieu, pro-abortion politicians who tout their church connections aren't claiming to endorse what we would recognize as biblical morality. They're just signaling to their fellow (mostly nominal) church members that "Hey, I'm a good ol' boy/gal who's one of you culturally, who identifies with this group and these rituals, who grew up in this subculture; you can feel comfortable with me and vote for me!" (And, sadly, it usually works.) Some of these people are just cynical hypocrites; others really do think that they're Christians, and have a great deal of superstitious faith in the efficacy of their church membership or religious rituals. Which individuals are which doesn't really matter; they do the same damage to the fabric of human society, and to the reputation of Christianity. :-(
Hey Nathan,To your comment about Catholics, you might be interested to learn about the history of the pro-life movement since it may contextualize some Catholic politicians’ political ambivalence towards abortion.
The pro-life movement began as a liberal New Deal Catholic position with a very expansive ethic of life, as being anti-abortion was aligned with being anti-war and anti-death penalty. This phase of the movement is where we get the “right to life” rhetoric which was seen as foundational to rights to livable wages, collective bargaining, and so on.
At the turn of the 70s once women’s rights to bodily autonomy took the Democratic Party, Catholics found themselves without a party platform for pro-lifeism. Some years after Roe, evangelicals became pro-life, but the movement was now a Republican one.
Evangelicals had previously been in disagreement on whether abortion was wrong and when life began. Once they became pro-life, they had a much narrower ethic of life, and saw abortion as an isolated act of violence devoid of any socioeconomic and moral conditions that give rise to it.
Werner,
It seems you’re getting at the question of how Christians are choosing to bring their faith to the political table or not, right? Do you think there is a limit to how much of your own moral values you can legislate over people who do not share your values?
John, thanks for commenting! (Nathan and I pop in and comment in this group fairly often; but we've often missed hearing from other members. So it's great having someone else contribute to a discussion!I'm old enough to remember the orchestrated push for abortion legalization that began in the mid-to-late 1960s, and the origins of the pro-life movement (which I was part of from the beginning.) At that time, almost all of the people in the local groups I belonged to were observant Catholics, and opposition to abortion was treated by Big Media as exclusively a "Catholic issue." Pro-abortion propagandists at that time appealed heavily to anti-Catholic sentiment, with considerable success. That was a significant factor in fostering the evangelical confusion about the issue which you noted above. Southern Baptist leader Foy Valentine (who headed the denomination's "Christian Life Commission" from 1960 to 1987) was a vocal example; he saw combatting Catholicism as a major part of the Commission's role, and argued that evangelicals should support abortion since Catholics opposed it.
The other factor in evangelical confusion was the lack of Biblical literacy and church teaching on the subject which I spoke of in message 1. Before the late 60s, in the U.S., abortion just wasn't a big topic in the popular mind. Ironically, the abortion movement's blitzkrieg conquest of the levers of cultural power was what forced the issue into the awareness of more preachers and teachers, making them study the issue. For Christians who took the Bible as their authority, studying it in light of this subject led to the shift in opinion you noted, which was beginning by the late 70s and solidified in the 80s. Observant Catholics had a "jump start" on this topic, because pre-Vatican II Catholicism had always made pro-life ethics a part of its teaching ministry.
One component of Catholic support of the pro-life cause, from the beginning down to the present, has always been "liberal" Catholics, in the tradition of Dorothy Day, who linked it to other humanitarian causes, and particularly to pacifism and anti-death penalty sentiments. But many other Catholic pro-lifers simply support traditional Church teaching (which historically didn't include the latter two positions). Similarly, some evangelical pro-lifers don't link a pro-life stance to broader social concerns. But many of us do (and those who base their stance more seriously on a deep reading of Scripture are more apt to make that linkage).
You mentioned the role of Democrats vs. Republicans party politics as a factor in Christian engagement with this issue. U.S. Catholics were traditionally Democrats from the 1830s on, for a number of reasons that are mostly no longer relevant, and most Catholics still are. Once the abortion industry became a major pillar of the Democratic party's financial support, there was no longer any possibility of the party's national leadership supporting a pro-life stance. Though much of the Republican party's leadership isn't pro-life by conviction, they know that much of their grassroots base is, which makes them more open to supporting pro-life measures. But the entrenched two-party system in the U.S. and the resulting political polarization keeps pro-life Democrats from making common cause with their Republican fellow pro-lifers. (The media-reinforced stereotype of the Republicans as uniquely the party of plutocracy, and of the Democrats as the only party that cares about the interests of the working class and ethnic minorities, helps to keep the polarization going, even though it no longer bears any relationship to observable reality.) The main lesson I'd draw from this is that it's not a good idea for Christians to make an idolatrous shibboleth out of loyalty to any secular political party (and Christians in both parties are prone to that mistake).
John wrote: "It seems you’re getting at the question of how Christians are choosing to bring their faith to the political table or not, right? Do you think there is a limit to how much of your own moral values you can legislate over people who do not share your values?"
To take the first question first, that's part of what I'm getting at, but only a part of it. I think Christians should bring an informed Bible-based faith to every aspect of their lives, including their political behavior as one part of that. The sad reality is that too many Christians (nominal or otherwise) don't bring their faith to ANY part of their life in this world, be it voting, consumer behavior, general treatment of other people, or whatever.
On the second question, Jesus told us to be salt, light and leaven, morally and spiritually, in the world. That means trying to influence other's behavior for the better. In a democratic polity, we have the means (and therefore the duty) to work for peace, justice and righteousness in society through its laws and policies. But since, in this kind of polity, laws and policies need enough support to be adopted, and since Christians can expect to be a minority in this world, how much we can accomplish depends on much we can convince enough non-Christians that particular aspects of peace, justice and righteousness reflect the kind of society they'd prefer to live in, also. So yes, that limits how much we can do in that area. This amount will vary in different times and places. But it typically isn't zero, as pessimists might assert; and it isn't zero in the time and place American Christians now find themselves in.
The abolition of slavery is a good example. The first time, in the Old World lands where Christianity was introduced in Christ's coming, it took centuries to build that consensus. After slavery was re-introduced in the 1500s-1600s, it took well over 200 years in the U.S. (longer in Brazil). Two take-aways here are that the work of public education and building a culture of justice and righteousness is the main job, from which political change flows; and that appeals to non-Christians need to be framed in the context of arguments based on conscience and common good, not on strictly religious dogma. But common-good political action is never useless, and will always have at least an educational function. (I don't know if that helps to answer your questions, but I hope it does!)
Welcome John!Thanks for the background context. I live in Australia, so I don't have firsthand experience with any of the past or present-day US political events. Between your response and Werner's additional history, I think I've got much more of an understanding of the lead-up and reaction to Roe v Wade.
What a shame that the Southern Baptist Convention leadership simply took whatever position opposed Roman Catholicism. Many years of Evangelical confusion could've been avoided simply by a Biblical understanding that all human life is made in God's image, and that it is a terrible sin to unjustly take that life.
Werner and Nathan,Thank you for your responses.
Werner,
It’s a privilege to be able to speak with fellow Christians who were alive and participated in the things that I can only read about. Thank you for bringing that perspective. It is definitely true that evangelicals simply did not have the catechetical instruction on abortion prior to Roe, precisely because we resist the fact that we do have a Tradition to turn to. One cannot build an argument against abortion purely off of Scripture (the biblical authors did not know about the stages of pregnancy and probably couldn’t tell when conception occurred). One must also integrate science and Church Tradition, too.
On your point of Christians expecting to be a minority in this world - as far as I can tell, we are far from it. White Christianity in the West is certainly on the decline, but the Global South and East are growing quickly. In the US, Christians still make up a numerical majority, and since secular folks do not quite believe in raising families, whereas religious folks do, we can expect the current rise in non-religion to slow and be overcome by the rise in religious people, many of whom are immigrating to the US. Global Christianity is undergoing a drastic demographic change.
Werner,
I do agree that it is a sad thing that the SBC simply took a contrarian stance on abortion. That goes to show how division within the Body of Christ leads us to abandon the faith of our forefathers and foremothers.
John, when you mention the "stages of pregnancy", are you referring to the "trimester" sequence? I understand that this trimester scheme was invented by the court while framing up the opinion in Roe v Wade. I disagree with your statement that we cannot build an argument against abortion purely from Scripture.
1. God made humans in His own image.
[Genesis 1:27 ESV] 27 So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
2. God commanded humans to have children, enough to fill the earth. He never commanded humans to stop having children.
[Genesis 1:28 ESV] 28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth."
3. God commanded humans not to murder other humans. The reason God gives is because we are made in God's image.
[Exodus 20:13 ESV] 13 "You shall not murder."
[Genesis 9:5-7 ESV] 5 And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. 6 "Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image. 7 And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it."
4. God prescribed specific punishments for harming or murdering an unborn baby. This passage confirms that the Bible considers unborn babies to be living humans:
[Exodus 21:22-25 ESV] 22 "When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman's husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. 23 But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe."
5. God creates us, and He knows us from before we are born, and plans the events of our lives. God considers us human even while we are still "unformed substance":
[Psalm 139:13-16 ESV] 13 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
Nathan wrote (on another thread): "Since we both believe that babies and small children who die before making a credible confession of faith are graciously saved by God (and all of God, nothing of the baby) unto eternal life, I think we will be amazed when we see just how many people will be spending eternity in the presence of God. Considering the WHO states there are 73 million abortions performed every year, 5 million child deaths under age 5 every year (down from 12 million 30 years ago) and only 2.7 million people converting to Christianity every year, the total number of the Church Triumphant is growing exponentially, yet completely out of sight. Satan and humans intend abortion for evil, but God intends it for good.... Given the ratio of babies that die every year compared to adults who accept Christianity, I would say that around 30 times more people are being saved every year by God's grace alone with no possibility of involving their personal will to believe, than people who are capable of understanding good and evil, yet are still saved by God's grace alone."Yes, Nathan, you and I both believe in (though, as you rightly point out on the "free will" thread, we don't know it for a fact --we infer it from our understandings of the Scriptural message overall, but it's not stated explicitly and some Christians disagree with us) the salvation of all aborted infants, as well as all born children dying before the "age of accountability." So, granted, we believe that at least, by the kindness and mercy of God, the horrible agony these little ones experience as the end of their brief earthly lives is not followed by the, to them, incomprehensible additional horror and agony of damnation.
That said, IMO, it does not follow that being aborted has no real lasting consequence for the victims. They're deprived of every constructive spiritual experience, and other experience, that they could have had in post-birth life, and likewise of every human relationship they could have enjoyed and contributed to; and the earthly kingdom of God, and the world, is deprived of every good deed they could have done and every contribution to the building up of Christ's body they could have made. This isn't negligible.
Also, none of us really know what effect the undeveloped state of their consciousness and intellects has on their eternal state. Many Christians believe such little ones remain eternal infants in "Limbo." (I don't believe there's such a place as "Limbo;" but that they remain eternal infants in heaven is certainly possible.) Other Christians believe (though I don't) that they will be resurrected and live earthly lives in the Millenium, during which they will either finally accept or reject Christ. All that we know for certain is that they enter eternity with far less spiritual development than you and I will.
All of this is to say that human sin has real consequences --not just for the sinner, but for the victims. God in His providence works to mitigate those consequences, according to His will. But the fact (or at least, what those of us with Arminian beliefs see as a fact) that He allows the existence of sin, as a corollary to the good of human free will which makes real love relationships between God and humans possible, does not mean that none of its effects are lasting. Sin does damage. It does real damage, serious damage, to human beings, which God would ideally prefer not to have happen (even though, since it's going to happen, He can and does use it for His purposes). That's one reason why God HATES sin (not pretends to hate it, or adopts a posture of "hating" it (for forensic purposes in a judicial process), but really, honest-to-goodness all-out HATES it, desires to --and ultimately will!-- extirpate it, and justly punishes it.
A recent blog post by leading evangelical Christian pastor, writer and evangelist Randy Alcorn (who has been very active in pro-life ministry for decades), here: https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog... , is very relevant to this thread, and well worth reading!
Werner,Thank you for sharing that blog post. I think it’s very important to remind ourselves that evangelism is more than just telling people, “Jesus love you and died for your sins.” Evangelism is also living into the atonement and resurrection through serving the least of these, meeting people’s needs, loving them truly, so that they might understand the depth of Christ’s passion and atonement for their sins.
Nathan,I think this is a good biblical argument, but it is not without its assumptions. Perhaps the following will sound like parsing words to you, but I think that as interpreters we should be very attentive to the meanings we impose onto the text (which is not always a bad thing—in order to interpret the Bible for today, we must impose meaning, but a more euphemistic way to put it is that we are drawing meaning or implications from the text out).
In the Torah, the measure of justice is very much tit for tat. We see this all over Esther, for example. Mordecai gets what Haman wanted for Haman’s self, while Haman gets what he wanted to have happen to Mordecai. Therefore it is written, “a life for a life.”
In the case of a pregnant woman, that verse in Exodus 21 that you cite is not so much about the unborn child as it is about the pregnant woman.
”When people who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no further harm follows, the one responsible shall be fined what the woman's husband demands, paying as much as the judges determine. If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe” (Ex. 21:232-25 NRSV).
Now if there is only a miscarriage, only a fine is paid. “If any harm follows,” this is obviously referring to harm done to the pregnant woman, since the unborn child has already been miscarried.
Returning to “life for life,” if the Old Testament authors really saw the unborn child as a full human being, then the punishment for causing a miscarriage would result in death. However, the punishment for causing a miscarriage is only a fine, which shows that the unborn, to the authors, has some value, but not as much as, say, a human being who has already been born.
Now, regarding the verses you cite of how God knew us in the womb, this is absolutely true. But this does not mean we were alive. Similarly, God knew us before He made the heavens and earth, but this does not mean we were alive before creation.
We must bring to Scripture what we know scientifically, that life begins at conception. We must also make the further metaphysical claim that such life is equal to life that is already born (we would be justified in doing so because we have a Tradition that makes this very claim). After bringing (1) the findings of modern science and (2) making that metaphysical claim, then all the verses that you cite do in fact lead us to believe that the unborn are just as alive as we are. But the Bible alone does not get us there.
This is totally fine. When AI becomes a more pertinent issue, we shall also need to impose meaning onto Scripture and bring our assumptions, but this does not mean that we are “adding or taking away.” It means we are trying to live, by faith, in continuity with God’s eternal and perfect Word.
Thanks for your considered response John. I do agree with your point that it is open to interpretation, as are many passages. The word in Exodus 21:22-25 that the NRSV alone translates as "miscarriage" is yâtsâʼ which is actually most often translated as simply "out" or "forth". It is the identical word that is used when Noah and his family come out of the ark after the flood waters recede. Most modern English translations render this as premature delivery, and the KJV simply as fruit coming out. Premature delivery does NOT always mean death.
I believe the verse in Exodus intends to incorporate the entire pregnancy event in this law, meaning if any harm comes to mother or child/ren, then punishment is to be set accordingly.
The Bible clearly teaches it is sin to take onto ourselves decisions that are rightly God's, and this would include attempting to reverse a pregnancy that had commenced. Just as we would attribute sin to suicide.
Here's a passage of Scripture that shows unborn infants experience human emotions:
[Luke 1:41-42, 44 NIV] 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! ... 44 As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy."
So this is a baby at around 6 months gestation, leaping for Joy in the presence of a baby that has very recently been conceived. Yes, there is Holy Spirit influence at work here (and of course the Holy Spirit works in and on humans), but John the Baptist experienced joy before he was born.
A recent blog post by Randy Alcorn (whom I've mentioned on this thread before), helpfully addresses the topic of children conceived in rape, the group the abortion lobby most aggressively targets as a "wedge" because of the belief that they're the easiest to de-humanize. Here's the Goodreads link to that post: https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...? .
As a Catholic, I would say to my fellow Catholics, especially Mr. Biden, Mrs. Pelosi, and even the various Kennedy's if they were still alive...Woe to you who have known the truth, and used your authority to oppose it. I would hate be in Mr. Biden's place, coming up on his mortality, and having to face the lord with what he's done. I hope there is a lot of repenting going on in his spirit. All of them have spend their lives with the blood of the innocents on their hands, and now that they have gotten from it whatever evil thing it was they wanted, I hope now they are looking to their souls, and not their hatred. But I suspect not. I would just simply not wish to be them. It would be better if they were never were taught the truth.And while I am at is, Woe to all the Priests and Bishops and Cardinals along the way, who should raised the red flag, and pulled from them the eucharist, or threatened them with excommunication, but instead cared more about something else than the souls of their flock. Politicians need to know, if they use their power to support evil, they cannot maintain their place as esteemed Catholics. I am ashamed of all of them.
Patrick, your post raises an important point, and one that's broader than the Roman Catholic context (although it's glaringly obvious there, because of the nominal Catholic affiliation of so many really prominent pro-abortion politicians, compared to the denomination's historic and still affirmed solidly pro-life stance). In the modern West, most Christian congregations of any stripe don't have ANY behavioral standards, whether relating to abortion or to anything else, that people have to meet before being allowed communion. The very idea of church discipline, as such, is viewed by the heathen culture as "intolerant" and therefore BAAAD; and most leaders of ecclesiastical organizations are more interested in being approved of (or, at least, not denounced) by the heathen culture than they are in obedience to God.
Well...You know, I am Catholic, and there are reasons for that. I personally would discount any Christian denomination that does not oppose abortion on its face. If you can't see that abortion is wrong, you are not doing Christ's work. Many churches have taken the view that to have better outreach means we should lower standards, and drop the temperature of our rhetoric. This has been the effort of the American, and Western Catholic church for quite a while now. And look what its sewn. Nancy Pelosi probably believes she is going to heaven on a golden jet. But being a follower of Christ means something, and it comes with rules. Those rules are meant to be boundaries. And not all will like them. But they are the call to come join with the good will of God over secular godless rhetoric.
Kum-by-yah all you want, if you dont stand up for Christ, you stand for nothing.
I have seen in some of my own internet searches that the new Pope, Leo, does not share that view, and more saying up front who we are is coming, but...You know, I am dubious. I have to see it to believe it. It would be nice if my church stood more forthrightly behind its catechism. I will pray for it.
Just Anecdotally, I have physically seen only two Presidents in my life. I saw Mr. Carter light a christmas tree, and I saw Joe Biden at a Church in DC. Even then, I knew enough that he should not be there and denied communion. But...The priest took no action, and Mr. Biden went on his way. Babies be damned. He has his aim on the white house.It saddens me, that I have seen two terrible presidents and none of the good ones. I need to find a way to change that.
P. Pherson wrote: "Well...You know, I am Catholic, and there are reasons for that."Yes, Patrick, I do know that you're a Catholic, and totally understand why it's natural to you to call out cowardice and hypocrisy in that specific context. I didn't mean my comment as a criticism of that, but rather to agree with you, and also to point out that in the cultural moment we're living in, cowardice and hypocrisy about abortion (and other things) is not a uniquely Roman Catholic problem. There's an awful lot of it going around these days. :-(
P. Pherson wrote: "I personally would discount any Christian denomination that does not oppose abortion on its face. If you can't see that abortion is wrong, you are not doing Christ's work.... Kum-by-yah all you want, if you dont stand up for Christ, you stand for nothing."
That's very true, and reminded me of a comment I made (message 5) of our group's Christian unity thread, here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... , to the effect that the unity of God's church, under the Lordship of Christ, has ethical parameters defined by Scripture. Religious organizations that deliberately take stances outside those parameters are not Christian churches, even if they want to be regarded as such.
That said, it can be expected that new converts from a pagan context may not immediately know and understand all of the implications of the love commands, even though a genuine convert will have been called to basic repentance from sin. That's where the teaching ministry of the church comes in. And those entrusted with that ministry need to themselves a.) know and commit to the full implications of the commands, and b.) actually teach what they know and are committed to. Obviously, that's the area where there's been a colossal failure, spread by now over several generations. And that's a failure that tragically doesn't just stunt the moral growth of converts from paganism; it stunts the moral growth of professed believers raised under such a deficient ministry as well. That's why the Pelosis and Bidens (and Clintons and Gores, etc.) can think that they're "going to heaven on a golden jet." It's also why we have lay believers in their 50s and 60s and more (let alone in the younger generations), who aren't pro-abortion politicians but just average pew-sitters, who actually think abortion is a gray area or that it's sometimes okay. And that moral confusion doesn't just affect the openly apostate organizations I mentioned above. It affects the Roman Catholic Church, and a lot of other churches which also profess to stand for God's law, but in which major confusion about the particulars has been allowed to seep in. A major task of the 21st-century church is going to have to be recovering sound moral teaching at the congregational level; and that's going to be a project comparable to the cleansing of the Augean stables.
Another major task, obviously, needs to be recovery of the idea of meaningful church discipline. We've touched on that already, above; but it's a subject that I think actually deserves a thread of its own, and I hope to start one soon.
Werner wrote: I didn't mean my comment as a criticism of that, but rather to agree with you, and also to point out that in the cultural moment we're living in, cowardice and hypocrisy about abortion (and other things) is not a uniquely Roman Catholic problem. There's an awful lot of it going around these days.I know you did not. I just pick on my own team. They've been very good at getting it right, but not so good in standing up for it. I've not been happy with the way the Church has behaved in this. Mrs. Pelosi is a soul worth saving as well, and the church has tools to correct her, but has left them unused. I will pray for Mrs. Pelosi, but I have great fear for her. I think my church could have done better and has let her down. I am hopeful the new Pope will change our direction on that.
I dont really feel comfortable calling on the other denominations, cause its on them to align themselves right. But my advice is, if you want to find christ, and your church does not oppose abortion, you should keep looking.
Werner wrote: That's why the Pelosis and Bidens (and Clintons and Gores, etc.) can think that they're "going to heaven on a golden jet." It's also why we have lay believers in their 50s and 60s and more (let alone in the younger generations), who aren't pro-abortion politicians but just average pew-sitters, who actually think abortion is a gray area or that it's sometimes okay. And that moral confusion doesn't just affect the openly apostate organizations I mentioned above. It affects the Roman Catholic Church, and a lot of other churches which also profess to stand for God's law, but in which major confusion about the particulars has been allowed to seep in. A major task of the 21st-century church is going to have to be recovering sound moral teaching at the congregational level; and that's going to be a project comparable to the cleansing of the Augean stables.
I can't deny that. I will say, if the Church knows what its values are, and will stand up and fight for them, they will become a beacon that those who are searching for something with meaning beyond the promises of the fallen world, and the world needs such beacons.
I'd like to thank you, Werner. Not only for being a saintly spirit, but for putting in the extra work to format your posts correctly. So many just let all the posts jumble up, and they are very hard to read. I wish more would do the extra work of formatting quotes from others properly.
Patrick, thank you for your kind words! I don't know what the future holds (though I know who holds the future, and I hope for the best). Even though I'm not a Catholic myself, at least in the capital-C sense, I've been regularly praying for Pope Leo pretty much since his ascension, with something of the same hope that you expressed. And I too so much want the universal Christian Church to stand up unashamed as God's beacon of truth and grace to a world in desperate need.For anyone who's interested, here's the link to the new thread on "Church discipline":
https://www.`.com/topic/show/23198925...
Here's the link to an excellent Internet article on working for cultural change to end abortion: https://www.lifenews.com/2026/02/03/w... .
I would always enjoy a better answer to complexity of this problem. In reading the article, I feel it needs a call to action. What is it wanting me to do?I think it is this:
That means building a robust, universal support system: housing assistance, food, transportation, medical care, childcare, and emotional support.
And, okay, how do we do that? Cause the many programs we have that are government sponsored that do these things are not exactly hitting it out of the park.
I'd love to wave a magic wand and make all of this appear, but the world does not afford easy answers. If this organization has the answer, I can support them, but it I fear it would only have a small impact.
The issue of women not having support is a bigger issue than providing housing and care. Where are their men? Why is it so unstable? What has broken down to get to this, that has made this so prevalent?
If the answer is, first I must fix everyone's bad circumstance, then I can expect less abortion, well, that is a great ask. We've been trying to fix that as long as I've been alive, and mostly I see more government, more godlessness, and more dependency. Its not like the messages are not out there. There is a crises of faith, and community first, and government is a bad answer.
What can I do?
I do love the pic on their website.
Patrick, you raise very good, well-taken questions! After reading your comment, I read the article more carefully (when I linked to it, it was pretty late, and I needed to get offline soon). I hadn't picked up on the fact that what's he's suggesting is actually a tax-funded government program to do the work that crisis pregnancy centers are doing, but (supposedly) do it on a universal scale. While I think the article still has value as a conversation-starter, I have to agree with you that a government program isn't the magic answer.The fact that 85% of Americans support alternatives to abortion is meaningless, because it doesn't determine their voting; they don't feel that strongly about it. So Democrats would face no political consequence for opposing this proposal, but a very dire one for supporting it --loss of the abortion industry's massive campaign contributions, which buy absolute veto power over the party's positions. No Democrat-controlled state would adopt such a proposal, and if it were enacted as a Federal program, the next Democrat administration would gut it, and/or turn it into an abortion referral service.
That doesn't even touch on the more basic problem, reflected in the fact that, as you pointed out, existing government services that already (theoretically) provide a partial social safety net for expectant mothers in difficult circumstances are doing a poor job of it. Government bureaucracies tend to evolve a mindset of perpetuating the problem they're supposed to be eradicating (in order to keep their jobs viable). And such a government agency wouldn't, and couldn't, even begin to address the spiritual and communal vacuum which you also rightly point out is at the root of the problem.
This root of the problem can only be addressed by Christian ministry. Non-governmental, faith-based CPC's aren't a complete answer, but they do provide the gospel as well as material support; they provide teens with Christian-based abstinence education and encouragement (which the government does not), and they build a strong community of support among Christian believers. (This relates to a point we've discussed on another thread; local CPCs, and even widespread CPC networks, are institutions that do great good in the world, but as far as I'm aware none of them were ever founded by any denomination. They're classic examples of widespread grassroots cooperation by Christian individuals, congregations, etc., regardless of denominations.)
It's easy to become overwhelmed by the sheer scope and persistence of the abortion tragedy, and wonder "what difference can I make?" The answer is, only a little; but great differences grow from the cumulative build-up of little differences. One way to make a little difference is by supporting CPCs. (Barb and I serve as church liaisons for the one here in the Bluefields, and contribute to it financially.) I'd encourage every member of this group to everything they can along that line.
I'd like to hit like on the above.And I do agree. It does not matter much what the current admin does, if the next admin would just gut it. I think that is a great shame, but it happens lot.
If the President has asked for an 80/20 solution he can support, i'd love for him to have one. And if it just that we add more to our welfare roles, I mean...how much more can that hurt?
But, the answer is not government, its ministry, and a renewal faith. Many are resistant to that, preferring instead their secular religion. So..I do what I can, but I know its only a small difference.
If I could, I would take all those women in, and support them till their kids are on their own, but...I cant.
I pray, I give money, I help some individuals, but a large problem like this is just very hard to grapple with.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Patrick. Hang in there, and keep on keeping on!
Referring to the above proposition as a "question" may seem incongruous to many Christians (including myself!). I would maintain, in fact, that it is not a "question" at all if the message of the Bible is taken at face value. Taken as a whole, the Bible proclaims the theme that, first, the entire human race was directly created by God and is the particular object of his love, care and grace (and indeed made in His own image), and that, second, the love commands that embody the whole law are both addressed to all humans and embrace all humans. As the parable of the Good Samaritan makes clear, every member of the human race is our neighbor, And the general ethical principles for how humans should be treated, laid down in commands like the Golden Rule and "You shall not murder" are understood to be universal in scope for that reason. That's the basic core of the issue, and the Bible's message is unequivocal.
Most 21st-century Christians in the Western world, however, do not actually read the Bible or base their beliefs on it. Obviously, this is true of purely nominal "Christians" (who are not eligible to belong to this group); but it's also true of most modern believers who have consciously accepted Christ as Savior and want to please him, For many of these people, right and wrong is determined by their culture's elite opinions, and it doesn't occur to them to question these. (This has been a problem for the church for centuries, even when Bible reading was more common. Most Southern churches in the U.S. before 1865 defended chattel slavery as legitimately moral for Christians to practice; and at least some of these people were undoubtedly actual Christians.) Christians who have never been confronted with questions about the practices of abortion, infanticide and euthanasia, and who only know that all of their culture's "smart" and "good" people uncritically accept them, are likely to similarly accept them. The teaching ministry of most churches hasn't addressed these issues (or has taken the form of attempts to "explain away" the Bible's teaching), which make them particularly important to directly address in this group. (I'll hope to elaborate on this more in later posts.)
There's a great deal of helpful material written on the life issues; but the only entire book I've personally read on the subject is an older one, Handbook on Abortion (I read the 1972 edition) by John C. Wilkie. Despite its age, I'd still recommend it as a worthwhile resource on the subject (the moral issues are the same in 2022 as they were in 1972). If anyone's interested, my review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .