Christianity, Abortion, and Womens Rights (A Mature Discussion)

I don't see this topic being discussed very well, anywhere.  Of course, the internet has more articles/blog entries/etc. about abortion than you can shake a stick at, but most of them are just filled with angry, politicized ranting.  Since I started this website in order to have better conversations, it's high time I started this one.

Christians who view abortion as the murder of an infant naturally seek to avoid it.

I wouldn't put an infant to death because I didn't want it, and I think that the same thing applies to an infant who happens to still be in the womb.  It's unfair for that innocent life to be killed for our convenience.  Who am I to decide who lives and who dies just because a pregnancy was unexpected, or unwanted?  That's no cause for killing.

But what about women's rights?

This is where things get rough, of course.  When I tell people that I'm against abortion, they reply with, "why do you hate women?"  Years ago, this confused me, because no one ever bothered to explain what they were talking about.  I would end up scratching my head while my conversation partner was singing Helen Reddy songs.

They were upset because they assumed that I would tell a mother that she would have to die in the event that the baby's birth threatened her health.  Why would I do that?  I wouldn't.  Again, who am I to decide who lives or who dies?  I don't have that privilege (and I don't want it).

If a mother's life is threatened, then I don't see any reason not to preserve her life.  For one thing, she can have more children this way.  In my opinion, her life is just as valuable as the child's, so there is no way to choose.  In fact, in that situation there is no right answer - it's a tragedy and everyone is a victim.  There's no mandate that says a woman needs to die, and I think that it's unfair to assume that someone who protests casual abortion is the same as someone who would sentence a woman to death because of pregnancy complications. 

So, just to be sure we're all on the same page, I don't hate women (half of the babies I'm trying to save are female, after all), and I don't insist that a woman must die if her baby might kill her during the birth.  I'm not a monster.

What about children who might be born with Down Syndrome?

It shouldn't surprise you, by now, that I don't think Down Syndrome (or any other birth defect) is a strong enough reason to kill a baby.  They are just as precious and worthy as any other child.  Or, do you think that only healthy, intelligent babies should be allowed to live?

What about rape victims?

Rape victims have undergone a horrible nightmare that will probably haunt them for the rest of their lives.  But, killing the unborn baby is not going to change that.  The baby is innocent in all of this, and many people in our world were born as the product of rape.  (It might shock you to know how common this sort of thing is, or how many people you might know who were born this way - those people are thankful that they were allowed to live despite their unfortunate conception.)  I can't stress enough how much sympathy I have for a rape victim, but it doesn't give us a reason to end the child's life.  That just adds another victim to the crime.

Conclusion

Abortion needs to be avoided.  We should work against ending the lives of infants because it's wrong to take their lives in our own hands.  Those who cannot fight for their own survival always need our help, and I believe we must extend that to the unborn.

Furthermore, more women would keep their children if we didn't talk about pregnancies like they were some kind of scandal.  Be sure that your friends and family members can be comfortable keeping a baby (or a pregnant belly) around and don't make them feel like they are being criticized for it.

(In keeping with my theme of having a "mature discussion," feel free to disagree with me in the comment section - just do it like a grown up.)

Xanax and Kierkegaard

I interrupt my remarks on C. S. Lewis to announce that the New York Times has been running a series of articles on anxiety. This one is about Kierkegaard's The Concept of Anxiety. The author notes that in our culture anxiety is conventionally treated with medication. Of Kierkegaard: "Is there any doubt that were he alive today he would be supplied with a refillable prescription for Xanax?"

The same is probably true of Augustine in 386, the year of his conversion to Christ. Many other religious and philosophical figures might, in our day, have been diagnosed and given anti-depressants or anti-anxiety medication. A few who come to my mind are David and some other Psalmists, Jeremiah, Boethius, Nietzsche, and the Buddha (the article actually mentions Buddhism in relation to this topic). You can probably think of your own examples.

"Stop writing Psalms. That won't do you any good. What you need is a prescription."
(Picture originally from here.)

Now I have no problem with seeking medical solutions to anxiety. Sometimes there is a medical condition that calls for a medical response; I disapprove of religiously motivated rejection of medical care for a genuine medical problem.

But I think our culture has gone wrong in not seeking a spiritual solution. (What if David, Jeremiah, Augustine, Boethius, and Kierkegaard had taken these medications?)

"No more philosophy for you, Boethius! What you really need is pills!" (Picture originally from here.)

And I think Christians often go wrong in not applying a spiritual treatment for anxiety and depression. Whether or not there is a medical problem, isn't there always a spiritual problem that calls for a spiritual response?

After all, what does Scripture tell us? What do the Psalmists do with their fears and worries and miseries? And what does the Sermon on the Mount tell us to do with our anxiety? And Philippians 4:6-7? Until we can learn to have the Cross and the Empty Tomb always in mind, until we can learn to pray without ceasing, can we expect any amount of medical care to solve all the problems in our souls?

Theology For or Against the Church? An Open Plea to My Fellow Christian Thinkers

Right off the bat I should probably tell that there aren't going to be any cool/goofy pictures in this particular post (I'm as disappointed as you are).  I hope you'll keep reading, anyway.  Also, this post will probably be pretty general in its language without a great deal of specifics, mainly because I'm not trying to call any one out here.  In fact this isn't really a call of any kind -- a call to action, to arms, or to repentance.  It's really just a plea from a grieving and broken heart.  Full disclosure: it's after 12 am, and while I've tried to keep this concise, I'm pretty sure I've failed.

I see so many young Christian thinkers of my generation using their God-given minds to do theology not out of love for the Church or for the sake of the Church, but rather as pain- and/or embarrassment-fueled acts of self-vindication against the Church.  I see brothers and sisters lashing out against the Church that hurt them, pointing out the ugliness of the Church that made them feel unworthy, and rejecting in disgust the Church they feel rejected them.  And they write about why they ultimately left the Church not out of a desire to draw Christ's Bride closer to Him, but to justify the act.

Don't get me wrong: the Church hurts people.  I don't know why this surprises or shocks us.  The Church is a community of faith founded upon, among other things, the common belief that we so royally screwed up everything that it took the death of God Himself to start the process of making it right.  The Church consists of people being  made right, not people who are in the right.  And so we hurt each other.  And so we sometimes weekly confirm in our interactions with each other the fact that, yep, we definitely need a Savior.  Sometimes people are hurt so badly they leave -- sometimes that local church and sometimes the Church altogether.  And in leaving or in the way they leave, they often end up hurting others.  (I am not saying there is never a good reason to leave a local church, though there is never a good reason to leave the Church.)

And many times it seems those who (justifiably!) feel hurt and wounded level the sights of their creative and brilliant minds right back on the Church to whom God gave their wonderful minds as gifts in the first place.  Rather than working to fix the flaws of the Church, they flay the Church wide open through books and blogs so that the world can gawk and stare.  They join nonbelievers in mocking and disparaging the Church -- even going so far as to try to separate Jesus from His Church so that He becomes more palatable ... as if God ever offered Himself separately from the community He creates.

I've been guilty of all these things.  But I'm trying to change.  I'm trying to see the Church as Christ says she will be.  I'm trying to love the Church as Christ loves her .. and remembering that I'm part of the Church! If I leave the Church, all I'm doing is contributing to the problem.

I try to help fellow Christians think through Christianity not so that they have to admit that I was right and they owe me an apology, not so that they feel ashamed or put in their place, and not so that I feel vindicated against those who have abused me and abused the gospel.  I try to help the Church think through its pervasive folk-theology, its sometimes sentimental, yet meaningless art, and through its empty jingles, rhymes, and sound bites because the One I love loves her.  In fact, if I understand the Scriptures correctly, I actually cannot claim to love God without loving the Church, as well.

So please, fellow bloggers, authors, song-writers, artists, and thinkers of all kinds -- we of a generation that feels so utterly alienated and put off by the Church in so many of the manifestations left to us by our parents and grandparents: Fight.  Fight! Fight for the Church.  Not against her.  Fight for her right belief and right practices.  Fight for the value God sees in her.  Fight for the beauty He will bestow upon her.  Fight on behalf of your fellow mess ups -- the ones who have abused and hurt you because they themselves have been abused and hurt.

This does not mean that we as a generation give up the prophetic voice.  The Church needs correction and reproof in every age, and God always manages to raise up men and women of faith to do just that.  But prophetic does not mean abusive, and it most certainly does not mean unloving.  Do theology out of love for the Church, or not at all.  For as Paul reminds us, whatever we may accomplish, if it is not done in love, it is worthless.  That includes the products of our rage, anger, and self-vindication -- no matter how clever the theology may be.

"Without Religion, We Wouldn't Have Any Wars." Huh?

Raise your hand if you've heard someone say something along the lines of the quote in the title of this post.  Now, I obviously can't see any of your hands, but I'm guessing that quite a few are up right now.  Now, nothing drives an historian nuttier faster than people oversimplifying and misunderstanding history.  The direct, simple, and necessary line that people draw between religion and war makes me batty.  Here are some reasons why:

"You see, [insert here] is just like Vietnam! When are we going to learn, man!"

Religion is sometimes the justification, but seldom the direct cause of war in human history.  Now this point really is important, people.  Throughout human history, most conflicts have revolved around water, land, wealth -- things like that.  That's not to say that people didn't fight over these things in the name of their god(s), but that everything wasn't all cool until some idiot invented religion.  In other words, people would have found other reasons to fight over resources.  Religion has also been used as a justifying veneer to hide what are basically political or territorial struggles.  This is especially true in European history, but in the history of other parts of the world, as well.  So the key lesson here is that just because someone finds it convenient to do something in the name of a supernatural being doesn't mean they wouldn't have taken the same action without such an inspiration (pun intended!).  Besides, the largest body counts and the biggest empires the world has seen haven't been due to particularly religious motivations.

"The gold, the political aspirations, and the vast natural resources are nice, I guess.  

But if I didn't know that there was a divine being wanting me to have all this,
 I just don't know what the point would be."

Religion has been the weapon of the oppressed, not just of the oppressor.  Religion has certainly been a rallying cry for empire building, but it has also been the rallying cry for revolutionaries and freedom fighters the world over.  Pssst, this includes the American Revolution! Recruiters for the continental army  had a very difficult time recruiting throughout New England, and often turned to local ministers to recruit for them.  On more than a few occasions, the story went something like this: recruiter enters town; maybe a few, if any, recruits come forward, local minister admonishes his congregation to join the army from the pulpit; suddenly, there is a rush of recruits, often including the local minister.  I am not debating here whether America was founded as a "Christian" nation or anything like that.  I'm merely pointing out that many rank and file soldiers had to be convinced that God was cool with the Revolution before they would sign up.  Across the New World and the Old World resistance movement have similarly sprung up, revolving around a saint, a god, or some other spiritual being.  Most of the readers of this blog probably enjoy certain rights and freedoms because somewhere in the past someone thought their god(s) wanted them to fight .. and not always through violence.  Whether rightly or wrongly isn't my point.  My point is that religion has served the bully and the underdog alike throughout human history.    

PICTURED: A religious person, probably up to no good

People commit violence all the time for reasons that have nothing to do with religion.    How many religiously-motivated rapes, drive-by's, murders, muggings, etc, are there every year.  Sure, there might be some, but clearly not even close to the majority.  The fatal flaw of the "no religion = no war" argument is that it completely misses the mark on human nature.  Yes, people have used religion as a justification for cruelty and violence.  But people have used almost everything toward this end.  War and other kinds of violence are products of human nature, not belief in a divine being or beings.

"I don't even like the color red, but God totally wants me to have this car."

And on a philosophical note, just because something can be abused does not mean it is inherently bad or that the world would be better off without it.  My word! What technology, what human cultural advancements -- what of anything would we have left if we got rid of things that have ever been abused, incited or aided violence, or in some way brought about bad things? I guess it's back to rocks and fire, people.  Oh wait, those can be used to kill, too.  Well, crap.  You see, religion's legacy is not just war.  It is tremendous cultural, social, political, and scientific (yes, scientific) advancement.  It is hospitals and orphanages.  It largely responsible for the end of slavery (even if it has often been used to justify it) and accounts for much of the personnel and resources devoted to the struggle against human trafficking.  You get the picture.

Bill had a rather extreme reaction to burning his hand on the hot steering wheel.

Now, of course, I haven't uncovered even the tip of the iceberg as far as places this conversation could go.  This is, after all, merely one blog entry (and it's getting a bit long as it is).  My hope, though, is that at least some of the points I've made here briefly will encourage deeper thinking about the connection between religion and war.

Online Conversations about Religion Are Almost Never Fruitful

"Okay, so let me get this straight," you're thinking.  "A guy on a religious blog is about to tell me there's no point in having religious conversation online ... like on a blog."  Close! However, I'm not suggesting that online religious conversations CAN'T be fruitful (I've been in a few that were!), but rather that the vast majority of them aren't.  Here are some reasons I think this might be:


MOST PEOPLE BASE THEIR BELIEFS ON THE OPINIONS OF THEIR "EXPERTS"
Here's the terribly sad truth about the internet and all its promises for knowledge: most people online have absolutely no idea what they're talking about.  Now, I don't mean they're wrong: I mean they don't personally know what they are talking about.  Okay ... so what does that mean? Most people who either believe or don't believe in evolution have not done the science themselves.  Instead, they are relying on whatever books, blogs, or articles, they have read.  The same goes for theological, philosophical, or historical topics.  Most of us genuinely don't know what we are talking about, but speak with confidence online based on our trust in people we determine to be "experts" on these topics.  Again, this isn't universally true, but I feel like it's a safe assumption about the average person you are likely to meet online.  It's a terrifying thought, but in our society which emphasizes specialized knowledge (Way to fight back, liberal arts education! Sorry, soap box/side bar ...), most of our knowledge is not a result of direct experience or understanding, but rather the product of the faith we put in other people that we decide must know what they are talking about based on whatever criteria we establish for the definition of "expert."

Expert (n): Someone I see as far more credible than the dummy you're listening to!

Of course, none of this would be a huge problem if we had some standard definition for "expert" or if all the "experts" could agree.  But they can't because ...



THERE ARE NO UNIVERSAL RULES REGARDING WHAT COUNTS AS "EVIDENCE."
Now if you're like me, after that last sentence, you're fighting hard against the Law & Order flashbacks, but let's try to keep going! As much as we might like to think so, "evidence" isn't some objective, obvious, and agreed upon category.  The idea of "evidence" is very much tied to our worldviews, especially our epistemologies (what we think we can know, how we think we can know it, etc).  When religious and non-religious people (and hear I'm using "religious" to mean belief in some sort of deity, not as a  term opposed by "spiritual") clash online usually neither side is aware that what is really happening is a clash of epistemologies.

So what you read is:

NON-RELIGIOUS PERSON: "There is absolutely no evidence for the existence of a god!"
RELIGIOUS PERSON: "What are you talking about? There's plenty of evidence!"

What you should read is:

NON-RELIGIOUS PERSON: "Most likely I'm an empiricist and have decided that the only things that can be credibly believed in are those things that can be observed and understood through the five senses.  I believe that my five senses are reliable enough for this to work as an epistemology.  Furthermore I have enough faith (pun intended!) in the capacities of human reason to understand the universe to such an extent that surely human reason could know if a god existed, and thus is qualified to pass judgment on the issue."


RELIGIOUS PERSON: "Well, I have no issue believing in what can't be understood through the five senses.  Maybe I consider personal experience or divine revelation to be credible sources of knowledge (and thus of "evidence"), or maybe you and I are looking at the exact same phenomena (e.g. aspects of the physical world, historical events, etc) and disagreeing about whether or not it counts as evidence because of our differing a priori assumptions ... which for some reason, neither of us is aware of or maybe just won't admit."

Oh, yeah! Well, my evidence can beat up your evidence!

These differing rules for evidence are also why conversations that start with "Give me one good reason to believe in God" or "Give me one good reason to not believe in God" almost always devolve into pseudo-intellectual drivel rather quickly.  Really, the best you can hope for in an online conversation is to make an honest effort to understand where the other person is coming from.  How do they understand the world? How did they come that understanding?

Which leads me to my next point ...


THE AVERAGE PERSON'S BELIEFS ARE SUPPORTED, BUT NOT ACTUALLY FORMED BY THE "EVIDENCE"
This is not to say that people aren't trying to make well-reasoned arguments for or against the existence of God.  What I'm suggesting is that most people don't rely on these arguments until they've already made at least a preliminary decision about the issue.  "Evidence" can challenge or confirm our beliefs, but it seldom forms them (Again, yes there are people for whom this is the exception.).  I can't recall the vast number of people I know who walked away from or joined a religion because of the behavior of its practitioners.  I can't count the number of people I know who have rejected the gospel because they can't accept what is says about their sinful condition, or the people who have embraced the gospel because they feel miserable and desperate in their current circumstances.  How many people who walk away from or embrace a faith tradition in college do so because they encountered someone they came to respect more (either for reasons of character or "expertise") than the person(s) who originally taught them to believe or not to believe? These are just a few examples.  In other words, "evidence" runs the risk of being a bit of a red herring in trying to understand how a person initially came to or why a person primarily holds to their current beliefs.

I'm not saying that "evidence" isn't an important part of our beliefs about religious things.  In fact, how much weight we put on "evidence" may vary depending on what we encounter in life or what season of life we are in.  However, I am convinced that for many of us "evidence" is a secondary (though still important) concern.

That was the day that a very thirsty Timmy started questioning a lot of things ...

What this means is that neither walking a person through your "evidence" or "experts," nor listening to their "evidence" and "experts" is likely to accomplish much in that one conversation.  Ultimately, you need to get to know a person, their experiences, and their deeper reasons for their beliefs.  All of these things are exceedingly difficult to accomplish online.


So please, do participate in online conversations about religion, but understand their rather severe limitations.  And please comment on the entries in this blog, feeling free to agree, disagree, or just ask further questions.  But understand that you're very unlikely to ever convince someone to completely change the way they see the world in a few blog comments.  Also, understand that the way you choose to address other people online -- people who often don't know you and never will -- very much affects your credibility and their willingness to consider what you say.  Also, remember that dialogue is a two-way street.  Be prepared to try to understand how other people see the world, too.

Happy online conversing, people!

Two Disagreements with C. S. Lewis

I took in C. S. Lewis with my mother's milk (and Francis Schaeffer with my father's lectures). I am glad I did. But even Lewis makes mistakes. Here are two of them.

Still Awesome.
(Picture from here)

1. Disbelief in the authority of Scripture. Lewis believes that some things (admittedly few) included in Scripture by its authors are incorrect. Disagreeing with Scripture is not a good idea. I have never actually read him disagreeing with anything in Scripture, so it seems the effects of this mistake are relatively minimal. But a friend I trust told me that it happens in Lewis' commentary on the Psalms, which I happen not to have read.

2. Rejecting the substitutionary atonement. The "atonement" is what Jesus did on the Cross to reconcile sinners to God. There are several views of the atonement, and I happen to think that more than one view can be correct (on which I'd suggest reading chapter 6 of Michael Wittmer's Don't Stop Believing). But I think the basic meaning of the atonement is the idea that Jesus on the Cross received the full punishment for our sins. In the background of this view is the Old Testament idea of the transferrence of guilt to a sacrificial lamb or a scapegoat. This is called the "substitutionary atonement" view because Jesus is our substitute.

Lewis affirms at least two good views of the atonement, that Jesus paid our debts on the Cross and that the Cross and the Resurrection conquered Satan and freed creation from his power. Unfortunately, Lewis also rejects the idea of the substitutionary atonement.

This is one reason why, as I said in an earlier post, N. T. Wright's Simply Christian and John Stott's Basic Christianity are such helpful companions to Mere Christianity. They handle these issues better than Lewis. Stott is especially clear on the substitutionary atonement in light of the Old Testament.

I'll say more about Lewis and the atonement later.

P. S. I should have used the term "penal substitutionary atonement" above rather than just "substitutionary atonement." --MB, 4-10-12