Q: I am a registered voter, and I believe "abortion" is morally wrong. Would Jesus support abortion or a candidate who supports it?
A: They say that there are two things that you should never discuss with people: religion and politics. And here I go volunteering to answer a question that involves both. What am I, crazy?!? Probably.
I would have to agree with you, that abortion is morally wrong / sin. Psalm 139 tells us that it was God "who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed." This tells me that God knew us long before we were born, and even before we were formed in our mother's womb. It suggests that we are an individual before being born. And throughout the Bible, we see that God has a particularly soft spot for those individuals that can't defend themselves, and tells His followers that we should serve them and protect them. In the Bible, those individuals were the poor, the foreigners, the widows, and the oppressed. Today, they can be seen as the unborn child. So yes, to take the life of an unborn baby, I believe that God sees that as wrong.
However, I don't know that it should be elevated to a different level than other sins. There is so much that people do that God would frown upon, but we tend to blow up a few things that are so much bigger than the others, abortion and homosexuality being the two that come to mind. But we look past things such as slander and gossip, lust and envy, murder and hatred (OK, we probably don't look past murder, but we turn a blind eye to hatred), idolatry and lying, and so on. There are lots of sins that we commit in this world, and abortion, in my opinion, is one of them.
Now whether or not Jesus would support a candidate that supports abortion is another question altogether. If there was only one platform for the candidates - nothing else - and it was whether or not they support abortion, I believe Jesus would support the one that opposes it. However, there are many more than just one platform issue: poverty, war, health care, education, the economy, and so on. I think Jesus might look at some stances that a candidate takes with pleasure, and some others that he/she stands for with displeasure. The same with the opposing candidate. There are too many issues to choose from. I don't know that Jesus would support one candidate over another based on the wide varieties of issues.
I think Jesus might have a real problem with our political system as a whole. I was watching a debate the other night and wondered how people could be that mean and spiteful towards each other - and it was in public! Behind closed doors, I've heard people say some nasty things about others, and have probably said some myself. But they were on stage being downright malicious! And that's not to mention the slew of political ads that hurl insights and half-truths at the other candidate. I think Jesus would look at how we treat each other in the midst of political season with sadness. He might have a hard time supporting any of them after witnessing their interactions.
How should you vote? That is between you and God. I will pray for wisdom as you make your decision.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Abortion and Politics
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Thank you for such an intelligent and fair take on an extremely touchy subject.
You're welcome...and thanks.
What makes you think abortion is a sin and morally wrong? Where does it say that in the bible? If you are relying on the fact that "killing" is forbidden by the sixth commandment, then you haven't read much of the bible since it makes clear that a lot of killing is allowed and in some cases even commanded by god--including the killing of actual babies, i.e., babies that no on can argue aren't yet babies because they have already been born. So, obviously god isn't against all killing, according to the bible.
The closest you will find to a treatment of abortion in the bible is Exodus 21:22-25, which makes it clear that causing a miscarriage is punished much less severely, by a fine apparently, than causing the death of the mother, which is apparently to be punished by killing the perpetrator. (There goes god with another exception to commandment against killing.) In addition, calling abortion "killing" is an example of circular reasoning because you have already assumed your conclusion, which is that a fetus is a human being for all purposes.
Questions: Can a person really be said to be "pro-life" if he supports laws that endanger the very existence of the human race--as does overpopulation? Do you realize that if the Constitution doesn't protect abortion then it doesn't protect access to other forms of birth control either? (Either there is a right to privacy or there is not.) Do you support that result as well?
Dear Anonymous-
First of all, just because a specific act is not explicitly forbidden in the Bible does not mean that it is not a sin or morally wrong. Times change and technologies change. This means that there are new things all the time that can rightly be called sin that could not be called sin when the Bible was written because they simply didn’t exist at that time. For example, I would consider looking at porn on the internet to be sin, even though there is nothing in the Bible about it. However, there are passages about lust and looking at other women lustfully, which I believe would include this. There are other examples, but I won’t belabor the point. With abortion, yes I believe murder to be wrong, and especially the murder of innocents. I also read passages in the Bible that refer to actions taken by unborn children (Gen. 25:22; Luke 1:41), and the word used for the baby(ies) is the same as a baby outside the womb. There are other passages that speak of God’s work on a baby in utero, and the child is never referred to as an it, always an ‘I’, ‘me’, or ‘he.’ (See Psalm 51:5; Isaiah 49:1; Jeremiah 1:5; Luke 1:15; et al) This tells me that God views that unborn baby no differently than one who has been born already. Therefore, to kill him/her in my opinion, is sin.
Regarding God’s commanding Israel to kill babies, I would encourage you if you were not with us, to check out the MP3 of the message given on Jan. 20th on Disturbing Stories in the Bible (http://feeds.feedburner.com/lacroixchurch/). Hopefully, this will shed some light on those passages.
The Exodus 21 passage is used frequently to condone abortion, but it just doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. First, the normal Hebrew word for ‘miscarriage’ is not used here; instead it is the word for a normal live birth (see also Gen. 25:26; 38:28-30). Moses used the word for ‘miscarriage’ elsewhere (see Gen. 31:38 for one), so we know he had a word for it, and probably would have used it here had he actually meant ‘miscarriage.’ So a simple fine is required if no serious injury occurs. The word ‘injury’ in this v. 22-23 is indefinite – doesn’t specify the mother or child – so we can assume that it would apply to both. Now if either of them die, the fact that this is the only place in the Bible that requires the death penalty for an accidental death (v. 23), suggests the high value that God places on moms and their unborn children. An accidental death of either would require the death penalty.
In answer to your questions: Which laws do you refer to, outlawing abortions? I don’t know that the majority of abortions that are performed are due to a fear of overpopulation, so I don’t know that that is a legitimate question. And secondly, I don’t think that abortions should be not protected because of an individual’s right to privacy. I believe they should be not permitted because it is killing and unborn person. In that case, the right to privacy question about birth control also does not hold up.
On a more personal note, I recently had my second child, a beautiful baby girl. Prior to her birth, I was able to see her pretty face, her perfect hands and feet, and hear her strong heart. I’m sorry, but you will NEVER be able to convince me that she was not a baby/person until she traveled the 8” down the birth canal. She was a she, not an it.
I'll weigh in on this. I love politics!
First of all, the person asking the question was search for guidance from a biblical perspective on how a candidate’s position on abortion would be viewed in the eyes of Jesus. I think Fitz did a wonderful job explaining the depth of the issue without telling the questioner what to do. I applaud him for that.
On to your comment Anonymous: you said, “The closest you will find to a treatment of abortion in the bible is Exodus 21:22-25, which makes it clear that causing a miscarriage is punished much less severely, by a fine apparently, than causing the death of the mother, which is apparently to be punished by killing the perpetrator.” Clearly, if there is to be punishment of any sort associate with forcing a miscarriage it is a sin. The rest of your argument only exhibited your contempt for Christians.
I believe one can make a scientific argument that a zygote is a human being from the moment of conception. I'm pro-choice but am not sure whether my position is "right"; it's just right for me.
Doctors can't even define death. Every time they think they have it figured it out someone comes back. I have heard the argument that zygotes have no brain function and therefore are not human. Many adults have had severe head trauma resulting in no brain activity. Is the absence of brain activity the prerequisite of exclusion from the human race? People, admittedly very few, have awakened from a zero-brain-activity state. Did they cease to be human for a time and then return to the human race? You might think abortion and the definition of death are not related but I beg to differ. I also believe that people have the right to die whatever their situation (i.e. cancer or car trouble.) Hopefully, victims of car trouble would seek expert mechanical assistance before resorting to suicide.
It’s a complicated issue and Fitz has taken the position that each person should make their own choice OF A CANDIDATE without advocating either CANDIDATE. He even goes as far as to say that abortion would not necessarily be a “hot button” issue for Jesus. What more could you ask of a Christian? Perhaps you should select your enemies more carefully.
Terry
Let me weigh in just a bit, though I can't improve much on what Fitz had to say. Allow me to address it from an historical perspective. Until recent times, the Church stood opposed to abortion. It's only been in the last 40 years or so that a pro abortion perspective has appeared in Christianity. G. K. Chesterton spoke of tradition as the "democracy of the dead," allowing those who've gone before us to weigh in. It was the Christian influence that put an end to abortion and the abominable practice of "exposure" in the Roman Empire. The Didache was a highly respected teaching of the early second century. Though it did not make its way into the New Testament it was quoted extensively by the early church fathers. It states: “you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is born.” There is no evidence that position ever changed throughout church history.
Post a Comment