"Conservatives" and abortion

Can't remember exactly when I first heard of abortion, and was forced to think about what that is. It was probably in the late '60s, when I started to have an adult perspective on politics. It was probably when the governor of California, Ronald Reagan, signed the most permissive abortion law in the country.

At the time, legalizing abortion was considered a "conservative" position. "Conservatives" claimed to be defenders of our "rights" against Government interference. Ayn Rand and other "conservatives" taught that laws against abortion were a great intrusion of "statism" into personal decisions about sex and reproduction. (It's still the position of Ayn Rand's followers: http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=5105.)

I'd been a teen-age Goldwater fan. But Reagan had been elected governor of California, and was the rising conservative figure. There was lots of national attention on what he did as Governor of California during those politically-turbulent times. That was probably the first time I ever heard of, and thought about, abortion.

At the time I was moving toward what I considered the logical conclusion of conservative principle: that government itself is the root of our problems. That made sense to me during those times of war and civil unrest, and I eventually became a convinced anarchist. (Reagan's thinking evidently moved in that direction too. He made anarchist principle an applause-line in his first inaugural, telling the country that "government is the problem.")

But I probably wasn't yet a thorough anarchist (or even the kind of half-anarchist we now call "libertarians") when I first thought about abortion. If I had been, I'd have had to view abortion as Government infringement on our "rights." But I didn't. I remember vividly my first thoughts about abortion. They remain my thoughts today: "That's killing a baby," and "That's WRONG."

I certainly wasn't the only one who looked at, or looks at, abortion that way. But it was not mainstream opinion, or even a mainstream "issue." When Ellen McCormack didn't get the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976, she ran as a third-party pro-life candidate. I remember relatives thought I was crazy to vote for her, since they considered the REAL issue of that presidential campaign was whether or not to give the Canal Zone back to Panama. Abortion was not even on the politicians' radar that year, well after Roe v. Wade.

But soon enough political manipulators discovered abortion, an "issue" that would play well to Christians...whose votes they were courting for 1980. Roe v. Wade set the national stage for the "issue," and attacking that decision also gave the manipulators a chance to flog another of their favorite whipping-horses, "activist liberal judges."

What they conveniently forgot (or ignored) was that 6 of the 9 justices who decided Roe v. Wade were Republican appointees, and a "conservative" majority on the Court. In the 7-2 decision, the only dissenters were one "conservative" (the Nixon-appointee, Rehnquist) and one "liberal" (actually the famously independent Kennedy-appointee, White, who voted with "conservatives" any time he thought their position adhered to the Constitution).

The "activist court" which ruled abortion was a Constitutional right was a "conservative" Court. And another inconvenient fact that was lost (or covered-up) by the manipulators was that the early criticism of Roe v. Wade was by "liberal" legal scholars. They called it a "frightening" decision, erecting a "...super-protected right...not inferable from the language of the Constitution..." (see legal comments at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade).

In the run-up to the 1980 election, Reagan and other "conservative" hopefuls duly announced they were AGAINST abortion. It played well to Christian voters, as their handlers had hoped. It worked so well that the "neo-con" faction which idolizes Reagan still requires its candidates to appease the Christian electoral sub-demographic with "pro-life" rhetoric.

But as with Reagan, most of those candidates' pro-life pronouncements seem to be political posturing rather than an expression of heart-felt conviction. We all know politicians will reverse a life-long record on one side of an "issue" when it's to their advantage to take the other side, and there's been a lot of that on abortion. George Bush the First, for example, came out as "pro-life" when his long-held pro-abortion beliefs stood in the way of his being Reagan's successor.

Some honest pro-life people have run as "conservatives" because they believe that faction's lip-service to their beliefs. But most of the candidates "conservatives" have foisted on us (Bob Dole, George the First and Second, John McCain) have shown little real moral conviction that abortion is WRONG.

The best evidence is that "conservatives" have done little to reverse Roe v. Wade. They've held the presidency for 20 of the last 32 years, and controlled Congress several additional terms under Democratic presidents (most notably during Gingrich' "revolution" under the Clinton administration). The Supreme Court has been a "conservative" majority that entire time. Scriptural wisdom is that what men do shows what they truly believe. It's telling that "conservatives" claim to believe abortion is a great EVIL, and have had both opportunity and the political power to do something about it: and haven't.

The contrast with what "conservatives" have done against "Obamacare" (their partisan terminology) is instructive. The national health-care act was signed into law barely two years ago. In those two years, "conservatives" have assaulted the working of that law in every state, "opting out" of or reversing it to every extent possible. "Conservative" Congresspeople have attempted to nullify every provision of the law. "Conservatives" have challenged the law's constitutionality before several federal courts, and right now have their challenge on the Supreme Court docket. It seems reasonable to expect, if "conservatives" are truly outraged toward Roe v. Wade, they would have done at least as much to reverse it in the last 30 years as they've done to reverse "Obamacare" in two years.

But the underlying problem goes beyond two-faced politicians. Politics itself is "the art of compromise." Finding abortion WRONG is a moral judgement: and moral judgements deal with absolutes. With abortion as with slavery, politics is simply the wrong tool. The Christian worldview is even more stark in this regard: human politics is part of the evil "kingdom of this world," and cannot ultimately do righteousness.

It's a continuing problem for those who want to tout "conservatives" as the faction of righteousness. This week was a good example. Rick Santorum, the current "Christian conservative" rock-star of the Republican primaries, was criticized for his waffling views towards abortion.

Santorum's campaign hurried to affirm their candidate is pro-life, and always has been. But it's the usual political spin: what else would we expect from a candidate's handlers ? After his 1990 election to Congress, Santorum admitted in a magazine profile that he was actually "...basically pro-choice all my life, until I ran for Congress."

It seemed an unusually candid admission from a politician, but his campaign that year showed the typical "conservative" temporizing. He cautioned against trying to criminalize what many people consider a "right." His 1990 position-paper said he only opposed third-trimester and publicly-funded abortions. In another post-election interview, Santorum admitted that on abortion he'd tried to "dance around the issue, not really take a position on it." It's not the stance of moral conviction.

Mitt Romney too has been criticized for waffling on abortion. He had claimed to be "unequivocally pro-choice" in his unsuccessful run for Ted Kennedy's Senate seat in the '90's: and only decided he was pro-life a couple years after being elected Massachusetts' governor in 2003. So his loyalists gleefully rubbed Santorum's nose in his own equivocations. But I doubt most of us, Romney and Santorum partisans excepted, consider that gotchas and oneupmanship prove a candidate's pro-life convictions.

What makes any person "pro-life" is a heart-felt moral conviction that abortion is WRONG. I'm pro-life because of that conviction. But politics doesn't deal in heart-felt moral convictions. Politics rewards its players' ambition and ability to manipulate the truth, not their righteousness.

Get down to it, what politicians desire above all else is political power. They will mouth whatever "position" furthers their ambitions, whether or not they believe it. That's why we see "conservative" politicians against "gay rights," until they're outed: or who champion "family values" while they molest teen boys.

We can't expect anything else from those whose hearts are set on the corrupt power of the world's kingdom, under the enemy's sway. But even the blind denizens of that realm know that what politicians SAY is no indication of what's in their hearts. In that, they are wiser than most Christians.

Our nation is sick-unto-death because Christians deceive themselves, and so choose to follow deceivers. We should be the country's moral compass, pointing toward righteousness. How can America not wander, lost, when the Church points our country to transparent political deceptions ? Our unbelieving fellow citizens are wise enough to distrust us, and despise the Church's "moral leadership." Well they should.

But even in their self-delusion, it may be that some "conservative Christians" still love Christ more than than their "conservatism." God is merciful: it may be that He will yet give some the grace to repent. Let those in whose hearts He has set love of Truth forsake the broken cisterns they drink from, and turn back from following their own blind way ! God is merciful: let us seek Him and repent !

Asking the Wrong Things of Government

We all know human organizations work better by being smaller and more efficient. But we also know that in partisans' mouths "smaller" and "more efficient" are primarily code-words for "less expensive." The real criteria of "small government" partisans, to the exclusion of almost every other consideration, is money.

It's one monomania of "conservatives" today. We easily assent to the plausibility of their madness because everyone knows government could be better if it were smaller, more efficient, and less costly. The problem is that the cost of government (or its size, or its efficiency) is the wrong criteria.

Any discussion of what is good, or "better," or "best" is a moral question, presented in moral terms. The problem is that moral questions speak to right and wrong; and the size, efficiency and cost of government are, in themselves, neither.

Made in the likeness of God...Who Alone IS Good, Jesus says...man has moral capability. Things created by man: whether ideas like efficiency, or objects like money: take on a moral dimension only in man's use of them. Governmental efficiency can be a moral evil, as in the crematoria of the Nazis. Government spending can be a moral good, as in our aid to the starving after that war.

The governmental systems and concepts men have devised can likewise only be considered in moral terms ("better," for example) according to how man uses them. Communism, for example, is morally judged not according to its paradisical concept, but on its hellish practice.

The great mistake in morally evaluating government is to draw the line the wrong place. Christian ideas and attitudes about moral government are rooted, first and only, in the Kingdom of God: perfect governance, owing nothing to man. Human governments may manifest some relative moral difference, between the "better" and the "worse." But all Christian consideration of government begins and ends in our King, Who Alone IS absolute Good.

The only line of distinction Christians should recognize, or take as their own, is between His rule and man's.

The danger of anti-communism

The human ideas on which communism operates are false and evil. Our scriptural faith is that evil will NOT triumph. Where then is the "danger" of communism ?

The real danger is that Christians would be misled from scriptural faith to operate on false and evil human ideas. And a Christian who puts his/her faith in communism is not operating in the Spirit and the mind of Christ.

A Christian who puts his/her faith in capitalism, democracy, "conservatism," militarism, political partisanship, anti-communism, patriotism, or any other false and evil human idea from the secular realm has likewise ceased to operate in the Spirit and the mind of Christ.

Vastly more Christians are misled by those deceptions than by communism. Which false and evil human ideas, then, are a greater danger: those we reject, or those we take into our hearts and minds ?

Illegal Aliens

I've been part of a spirited discussion on a Christian site about illegal aliens.

People mostly repeated Fox News anecdotes, and mouthed all the usual evil spin on the "issue" by unscrupulous politicians such as Kris Kobach.

After citing all the scriptures I found pertinent, I disengaged from the red-herring "policy" debate and Obama-bashing that continued: something I'm not always wise enough to do.

I think God also gave me the wisdom to sum up the matter well, quoted here:

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The "policy" aspect here is a complete red herring: it goes off in all directions, to no real purpose.

Folks, government policy can change tomorrow, and it WILL change dozens of times in the coming few years. During that time, the "issue" will be used by unscrupulous politicians and lying "news" organizations to create fear and advance their evil purposes. That's the way the world works, always has worked, and always will work.

I've witnessed to what I understand scripture says about righteous treatment of illegal aliens. If we operate on that reality, we will be righteous people, pleasing to God. The world's way will only produce fearful, deluded people who are manipulated by evil-doers.

The central question about illegal aliens is what kind of people WE will choose to be.

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The discussion seemed to exemplify the current psuedo-Christianity: centered on "issues," and demonizing other people (illegal aliens, liberals, etc.) for every national ill.

God forgive the American Church !!

Class Warfare

Last year Oregon citizens voted in a state-wide referendum to raise state taxes for those making over $250,000 a year.

Kevin Looper, one of the organizers of the referendum, responded to criticism he was promoting class-war:

"You know, it's class war when we're cutting Medicare. It's class war when we're cutting teachers out of our public schools."


http://www.npr.org/2011/10/03/141013128/what-motivated-oregon-voters-to-raise-taxes

Idol

A good definition of "idol" is any thing that takes the place of God in our thinking. We talk about people whose idols are their cars, or success, or house...things.

We all need money. We need it to buy food, or have a place to live. When does money become an idol ? When we cease to think of it as a thing: when we invest it with a spiritual quality against God's place in our spirit: love, for example, or trust. If we ascribe the qualities of a living relation to what is only a thing, we create an idol in our life.

Libertarians: Definition

Libertarians: anarchists lacking the courage of their convictions.

Ayn Rand Again

Ayn Rand is in the news again. Rep. Paul Ryan, author of the 2012 Republican budget, has credited the ideas of that budget to his idol, Ayn Rand. Anyone who has looked at that budget's treatment of the poor can agree.

Chuck Colson, bless his heart, was on top of this several years ago. In a review on a VERY conservative website in 2007, Colson was already warning that in their espousal of Ayn Rand's ideas, "conservatives" were buying into a radically anti-Christian agenda. Colson's warning is worth quoting again.

http://townhall.com/columnists/chuckcolson/2007/10/16/the_legacy_of_ayn_rand/page/full/

"In his new memoir, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan reminds us that author Ayn Rand is still influencing the world. He credits her with turning him into something more than a 'math junkie.'

"Greenspan is not alone. A 1991 Book-of-the-Month Club and Library of Congress survey asked members which book had most influenced their lives. As expected, the Bible finished first. Unexpectedly, Rand’s most famous book, the novel Atlas Shrugged, finished second.

"Fifty years after its publication and 25 years after Rand’s death, Atlas Shrugged is still read everywhere from college campuses to Wall Street. Given its popularity and its impact, Christians ought to be acquainted with Rand’s work and, especially, her worldview.

"As theologian John Piper puts it, Rand’s work manifests a 'complete rejection of a divine or supernatural dimension to reality.' The absence of God causes Rand to get human nature wrong as well.

"In Atlas Shrugged and her other writings, Rand articulated a philosophy she called 'objectivism.' Among other things, objectivism teaches that man’s 'highest value' and 'moral purpose' is his own happiness.

"By 'happiness' Rand meant 'rational self-interest.' For her, 'virtue' consisted of doing what 'secured' your life and well-being.

"Where did that leave altruism and self-sacrifice? As vices. For Rand, altruism and self-sacrifice represented a betrayal of what should be a person’s 'highest values,' that is, his life and well-being. Similarly, justice would be possible only where you never sought for nor granted unearned or undeserved results, 'neither in matter nor in spirit . . .'

"But without altruism and self-sacrifice, how do people relate to one another? Ayn Rand says through exchanges that promote mutual advantage, what she called a 'trade.' In other words, as if each of the parties were businesses, not people.

"Rand’s inversion of biblical norms had predictable results: Scott Ryan, who wrote a book on Rand’s philosophy, called objectivism a 'psychologically totalitarian personality cult that allowed Rand . . . to exercise personal power over [her] unwitting victims.' He cites, for example, the way she manipulated 'her own unemployed and dependent husband' to get him to agree for her to have 'an adulterous sexual affair.'

"We’re not talking here about personal flaws or merely human weaknesses. As Ryan puts it, these abuses are 'demonstrably connected to Rand’s own "philosophical" premises'—that is, her worldview.

"Rand and her followers, you see, lived in a way consistent with her worldview. But you can hardly regard a philosophy that exalts selfishness and condemns altruism as the basis for a good society.

"That’s why it is so important for us as Christians to understand our Christian worldview and to be able to contend for it, because it gets God right, and it gets human nature right, as well. You can find that worldview in the one book that out-ranked Atlas Shrugged."

Disposable Jesus

Stephen Prothero published a thoughtful blog on our culture's "disposable Jesus."

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/11/my-take-poll-on-bin-ladens-death-reveals-a-disposable-jesus/?hpt=C2

One of his examples is the "Golden Rule:" most Americans say they believe we should treat others as we would want to be treated ourselves (though that's not just a Christian teaching). Even when specifically applied, a small majority agreed that we should not do anything to enemies that we would not want done to American soldiers.

But less than half of white evangelicals agreed to that belief. "In other words," observes Prothero, for a majority of white evangelicals, "when Jesus said, 'So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets' (Matthew 7:12), He didn’t really mean 'everything.' He thought there should be an exception in the case of waterboarding your enemies."

This is what Prothero calls our "disposable Jesus:" the operative attitude that Jesus is not so much the sovereign Head of the Church as a useful pawn for OUR opinions...and can be ignored when He contradicts them. I'd add that this attitude also manifests itself in the treatment of truth (who Jesus said He IS), particularly among followers of the politicized Church.

I have limited interest in heresy-hunting, and the conspiracy-mindedness that goes with it. Heresies and conspiracies are both "out there." But time spent searching them out seems to me a complete waste, and conspiracy-mindedness is forbidden to us (Isaiah 8). I doubt heresies and conspiracies, even those which are real (most aren't), mislead and destroy anywhere near as many Christians as does "disposable Jesus" thinking.

It's again a question of thinking in Kingdom terms. In the Kingdom, the King's word is law.

Amen !!

Wisdom, well-stated

"All Things Considered" today read a letter from a listener who enjoyed a recent news-story.

The writer said he was a gun-owning Libertarian, but praised N.P.R. for its thorough and intelligent coverage of news. He admitted he often disagreed with what he called N.P.R.'s "editorial policies:" but, he ended, "nobody learns anything in an echo-chamber."