A multiple-choice test, for those who are pro-life:
A woman comes to the pregnancy counseling center where you are volunteering. She is Mexican, her visa expired last year, her boyfriend abandoned her, and she is 7 months pregnant. What do you do?
A) Advise her to have an abortion, to prevent the birth of an "anchor baby."
B) Report her to immigration and hope she is deported before giving birth. Surely she and her baby will be fine on the streets of Juarez or Tijuana.
C) Help her through the pregnancy, pretending to care for her and her baby's well-being, then arrange for her to be arrested as she leaves the hospital with her newborn infant. Unfortunately, her child cannot be deported, so they are both held indefinitely in a prison-like detention facility.
D) Help her to choose life, and continue to help her and her baby after birth.
The Rich: people who make more money than you do The One Percent: people who make more money than you think they should The Poor: people you have never met, and don't want to meet because
they fail to satisfy your hipster sensibilities and add nothing interesting to
your life, but you feel guilty that they exist and that you don't give a damn
about them, so you think the government should do something to "fix
them" Compassion: the belief that other people should be more generous Fundamentalist: 1) someone who actually believes their religion is true (as
opposed to being something that someone just made up) or 2) someone who
is too religious for your taste Reactionary: anyone who resists your enlightened plan to save the world Progressive: anyone who is on board with your enlightened plan to save
the world Greed:
when other people want to make more money, or keep the money they
already have Need:
when you want to make more money, or keep the money you already
have Tolerance: the belief that things which are mutually exclusive are
simultaneously true, even though nothing is really true, so we should all just
get along and pretend that nothing matters except love and peace, and we should
smear/sue/imprison/destroy/kill anyone who says otherwise Intolerance: the belief that anything is true Open-minded: adjective describing someone who agrees with you Close-minded: adjective describing someone with the audacity to think that
you are wrong Denier: someone who remains skeptical about something which has not
been proven, such as the belief that human activities are going to turn the
Earth into a giant sauna Skeptic: someone who remains skeptical about something which is
well-documented, such as the life of Jesus, because they think it makes them
look like a sophisticated rebel Capitalism: human beings freely living out their lives without the
government telling them what to do and how to do it Teaching: instructing another person, imparting your knowledge to them
and possibly shaping their life for the future Proselytism: teaching, when done by Christians Right-Winger: someone who thinks Communism is still a bad idea
Inequality: the belief that the greatest
problem facing the poor is that other people are not poor; see "envy"
With the 113th Congress now in session, and Barack Obama preparing to take
the oath of office a second time, the post-election analysis and
explanation of the Republican Party's 2012 setbacks continue. The
conventional wisdom is that the GOP is too conservative on social issues
- such as abortion, marriage, and the rights of religious institutions -
to win broadly. This is a gross misrepresentation of the data.
Remember all those speeches Mitt Romney gave about the sanctity of
life, the sanctity of marriage, and the importance of religious freedom?
Neither do I.
Mitt Romney did better than any recent Republican candidate among
affluent white moderates. He actually won a majority of the white vote
in both California and New York! (FYI, neither state is known for their
social conservatism). He lost because he lost Asians and Hispanics, who
gave in 2004 gave George W. Bush an estimated 43% and 44% of their votes, respectively.
Similarly, Romney lost my home county of DuPage (IL) - traditionally a
Republican stronghold - because, according to the 2010 census, it is now
only 69% white. He would have had to win 70% of the white vote to
carry the county.
On the other hand, as is apparent from the actual number of votes cast by different groups, Romney lost Ohio entirely because
working-class whites simply didn't vote: they don't like Obama, but
after being saturated in anti-Bain advertising they didn't trust Romney
either.
As for the Senate... Everybody knew Todd Akin was pro-life, and yet
he was still expected to
win handily over Claire McCaskill - until his infamous "legitimate rape"
comment. Richard Mourdock's comments were actually far more nuanced,
but coming in the wake of Akin's mega-gaffe they sounded too similar.
Lost in all the furor was the fact that Democrat Joe Donelly, who
defeated Mourdock in the Indiana Senate race, is also pro-life.
Similarly, Scott Brown lost
the Senate seat in Massachusetts to Elizabeth Warren despite being
pro-choice. Losing Ilinois Rep. Joe Walsh had only recently become pro-life, is
one of the most loud-mouthed and least likable people in politics, and
was running in a redrawn district against a war hero in a wheelchair.
As
famed political scientist Larry Sabato noted, the 2012 election most
resembled 2004. In terms of education, gender, age, and income, all the
trends were unchanged from 8 years before; only the actual numbers were
slightly shifted toward the Democrats. The one big change: Republicans total loss of minorities.
Does anyone really believe that embracing abortion and same-sex
marriage will win over Latinos and Asians? And for every female voter
such positions woo from the Democrats, they will turn off at least two
women who already vote Republican. Despite the supposed "war on women,"
Romney won the votes of 56% of married women - it's single women whom he
lost, and they are probably a lost cause for the GOP anyway.
The bottom line is that the GOP lost because they ran a candidate
(backed by an immigration-hostile platform) who utterly failed to appeal
to anyone other than non-Hispanic Whites (and possibly Cubans). From
his privileged childhood, to his education, to his religion, career, and
present home, Mitt Romney has spent his entire life around those who
are white and mostly upper-class. He was clearly uncomfortable in any
other setting. Bush, despite his privileged background, was at home with
ordinary Americans. He surrounded himself with advisers such as Colin
Powell and Condoleezza Rice, and assembled what is still the most
ethnically-diverse cabinet in history. With the exception of his infamous
binders, no one could imagine a Romney cabinet filled with anything
other than white men.
Republicans: stop listening to the advice of those who won't support
you anyway, and look at the data. Stand for life and marriage - and for
the dignity of all Americans, including the unborn, the unemployed,
immigrants (regardless of how they got here), minorities and those
trapped in dysfunctional neighborhoods. In Illinois, forget Lake Forest -
you need someone who can win in Aurora. Let the Democrats have the rich
white liberals. Win non-white social conservatives - particularly
Hispanics - and you win the future. Ignore them, and your party fades
into history.
The last time I was frustrated with the results of an election, I moped
for a few days until I was suddenly struck by a realization that has
buoyed me ever since - and always will.
Jesus couldn't vote. He
wasn't even a citizen. The rightful ruler of the universe, the true Lord
of Heaven and Earth, was merely a subject under a corrupt king and an
impostor "lord" called Caesar. He had no voice. He had no Bill of
Rights. The actual owner of everything paid taxes to a corrupt system
which ultimately executed him.
I can imagine Jesus turning in disgust to his disciples, after yet
another report of power-mad behavior from Herod, and exclaiming, " You
know, where I come from, we do not do things this way!" Jesus understands political frustration - he lived with it his entire life.
In 2004, some people were
so depressed over Bush's re-election that they went into counseling or
on anti-depressant medication. This was rightfully mocked, but it's hard to blame those who are secular
for responding in such a way. Their "higher power" is government. C.S.
Lewis wryly observed that, "A man who will not believe in God will
[instead] believe in anything." These days, they often believe in
politicians. But when government is god, politicians are messiahs, and
politics is religion, what hope is left when you lose an election?
Christians ought to know better. As Gutenberg College professor Charlie Dewberry put it, "If
politics can fix a problem, then Christianity is a lie." If you know that mankind is hopelessly fallen, then you
will not look to human institutions, ideas, or leaders for salvation in
any sense. If you truly believe
that God is sovereign, then political (or economic) events are far less
frightening. If your hope "is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and
righteousness," an election is unlikely to squash that hope.
No matter what happens in American (or foreign) politics, Jesus - who was rejected by the public and unjustly received the death penalty - will remain in the highest
office: slowly, painfully, but surely advancing his kingdom.
Comment: KY passes Senate bill to teach Bible in public schools
A plan to give Kentucky students a well-rounded education, by ensuring familiarity with The Bible, generated a surprising amount of controversy. So much, in fact, that you might think that they were planning to indoctrinate students with a blind and uncritical devotion to atheistic Darwinism. (Schools never do that!) Here was my comment:
"Heinz M and others - you are absolutely right. Children should not be taught any books of literature, history, or philosophy! All such books should be barred from school. What good is Shakespeare? Just a bunch of nonsense written by an imperfect man. Or, if they read any books at all (other than math or science books), they should NOT be 1) widely-read, 2) cited by large numbers of influential thinkers or historic leaders, or 3) significant to the development of Western civilization. It would be very dangerous if our students were exposed to such works!"
One commenter claimed that if students studied the Bible, then they must also study all of the pseudo-canonical books and alternative (Gnostic) gospels from the first few centuries, and gave a list of almost 100 books. But we don't study these books for the same reason that we do study Shakespeare and Twain instead of paperback romance novels: over time, certain works are recognized as classics of enduring value, while others are abandoned due to historical innacuracy, poor quality, or sheer irrelevance. In every humanities class, teachers must decide which works - of music, art, literature, history, or philosophy - to present, and it only makes sense to use the limited time available to focus on those works of greatest significance.
That's what makes for a truly well-rounded education. (Assuming, of course, that our schools are meant to genuinely educate people, and not merely to supply labor for certain industries or votes for a particular party). What students choose to do with that knowledge - believe it or reject it, use it or forget it - is entirely up to them.
Texas executes almost as many people every year - 18 in 2008 – as all the other states combined. Since the Supreme Court re-constitutionalized capital punishmen in 1976, Texas has executed 423 people, out of 1136 nationwide. Texas is also home to numerous Christian ministries, several high-profile preachers, and at least 16 million people who would call themselves Christians, generally of the evangelical variety.
As of 2006, the United States ranked 6th in the world for executions, ahead of Saudi Arabia and behind Sudan; the remainder of the top ten is rounded by Islamic and Communist dictatorships, with China in the lead (Amnesty International). The Roman Catholic Church has been opposed to capital punishment for some time now (although this is a recent development in light of the church’s history of burning Protestants at the stake). On the other hand, Charles Colson, founder and chairman of Prison Fellowship Ministries – the largest and most comprehensive ministry to prisoners in the world – remains cautiously supportive of capital punishment, albeit in limited circumstances.
How should Christians view the death penalty? I approach this topic as an evangelical, bound by Scripture and Reason, but not by any official teaching on the topic.
Before delving into the weightier issues, we ought to consider whether the death penalty actually deters crime. Regardless of whether a convict is executed or imprisoned for life, he or she is no longer an effective threat to society at large, although in the latter case he may be a threat to fellow inmates and prison guards. Studies attempting to measure the deterrence effect are generally inconclusive: no American state other than Texas applies the death penalty consistently enough for it be an effective deterrent, and while those states that lack the death penalty have lower crime rates on the whole, most of this can be attributed to other factors. The most rigorous studies to date have found that each execution deters anywhere from 3 to 18 murders; in their paper, "Is Capital Punishment Morally Necessary?", Sunstein and Vermeule of the University of Chicago Law School conclude that on this basis, government is morally obligated to impose capital punishment to protect innocent lives. However, these studies are based upon a paucity of data, and the fact that there are so many factors to be controlled-for suggests that there are more effective ways to reduce crime, given that the average capital case costs a state $2 million (The Economist, August 30th 2007).
Perhaps the strongest Biblical passage to be cited in support of capital punishment is Genesis 9:6, which states, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in His own image.” The context is very general, if not universal, and the justification is the fundamental truth of human dignity based upon the image of God in man. However, at this point in redemptive history – long past Creation and the Fall, yet before even the Abrahamic Covenant – neither the Law or the Gospel have been revealed. While this passage makes a strong case for the justice of capital punishment, we ought to read “the rest of the story” before coming to any firm conclusions.
The Mosaic Law in the Old Testament does demand capital punishment. However, it demands it in so many situations, and in many cases for actions which are not even crimes today, that we ought to be careful in attempting to apply it. There is a vast difference between the ancient Kindgom of Israel – a God-ordained theocracy which existed prior to the revelation of the Kingdom of God with the coming of Jesus Christ – and modern-day America, an officially secular (though strongly-Christian influenced) democracy. Although a marginal element of Christians (the Reconstructionists) would attempt to apply all of the Mosaic Law to modern life, most Christians would reject this on both Biblical and political grounds. And the entire New Testament, beginning with Jesus Himself, declares that the Mosaic Law is imperfect, a dimished reflection of the true peace and harmony which God desires.
The New Testament never explicitly commands or condemns capital punishment. The thief on the cross proclaims that “we are getting what we deserve,” but it is precarious to build a judicial philosophy on this statement alone. In his confrontation with the Pharisees over the woman caught in adultery, Jesus does not repudiate the Mosaic Law, rather He challenges their right to administer it justly in light of their own hyprocrisy.Paul’s admonition in Romans 13 that the government “does not bear the sword in vain,” implies an authority to administer death – but it could just as easily refer to government power in general, the use of force in emergency situations, or the provision of national defense. And it does not address the difference between possessing the authority to “bear the sword,” and the wise use of that authority.
Biblically, the fundamental role of government is promote peace and preserve order, and to administer justice. If capital punishment does produce enough deterrence (as opposed to life imprisonment) to protect innocent lives, then it would be consistent with this mission. Furthermore, there is a strong argument that fair, retributive justice requires that those who take a life – or, even more, those who take multiple lives – ought to forfeit their own lives. Is it just for a serial killer to live, after numerous innocents have been killed? On the contrary, “an eye for an eye” does not always seem applicable: we don’t forcibly amputate those who wound others, and we don’t sentence rapists to being raped. Nevertheless, those who argue for capital punishment for either deterrence or fundamental justice certainly have grounds for doing so.
However, this analysis glosses over a couple of real-world injustices, as well as a key Biblical text. First, since 1973 over 130 people who were sitting on death row in the United States of America have been proven innocent. While death-penalty proponents note that it has never been proven that an innocent person was executed, this still demonstrates that the possibility of executing an innocent person is real. While it may be slightly less just to give a murderer life in prison rather than death, it is grotesquely unjust to give death to an innocent man or woman. Furthermore, studies have found that the death penalty is applied more often when the victim is white, rather than a racial minority.
Second, the Mosaic Law in the Old Testament – which is still often cited to support capital punishment – explicity declares on 2 occassions that “no one shall put put to death, except on the testimony of two or three witnesses” (Deuteronomy 17:6, 19:15, Hebrews 10:28). Laws on the books in many states – including Texas – allow the death penalty to be delivered even on the basis of a single eyewitness. And in 2007, Texas actually executed 2 men for a murder in which the victim was killed by a single bullet, since both admitted to shooting at him. Many of the now-overturned wrongful convictions were based on a single witness, but later overturned by either DNA evidence or a confession from the real murderer. It is truly shocking, tragic, and sad that so many evangelical Christians would support the administration of the death penalty in its present form, when the Bible explicity demands otherwise!
Whenever this topic is discussed, there is a “killer question” that is inevitably asked. I will do my best to answer it here.
“What if someone you loved were murdered? Wouldn’t you want to murderer to die”
It is an excellent question, but we must remember that hard questions rarely have simple answers. And it would be arrogant and presumptuous for me, having never experienced such violence in my life, to proclaim confidently what I would do if placed in that situation. So I cannot answer the question directly, but I can offer a few certainties.
1)At some level, I would “want” the murderer to be put to death. One night after Bible study in India, we gave up on waving down a rikshaw and chose to walk home. We quickly realized this to be a mistake. In fact, that 1-mile walk from our friends’ apartment to our hotel was the only time we have truly felt unsafe overseas. At one point, a man walking past us quickly and harshly grabbed my wife. He was on his way down the street before I knew what he had done, and I was afraid that if I confronted him on the street I would wind up dead. By the time we reached our hotel, I was still enraged at the way she had been assaulted and frustrated at my inability to defend her. I tried to obey Jesus in praying for my enemy – that nameless punk – but the only words that came out were “Dear God, I pray that he gets run over by a bus.” Literally.
2)If the victim were my wife, I ultimately do not think I could demand the death penalty, for a very simple reason – she wouldn’t want me to. As evil as it would be for anyone to take her life, how much worse would it be to dishonor her in her death? An execution does not resurrect a life already taken.
3)God declares clearly that “vengeance is mine, I will repay.” It is our responsibility to forgive, to reconcile, to demonstrate the reality of costly grace to a world which finds it unbelievable.
Considering the second reason, it is important to distinguish between justice and mercy. Justice demands a life for a life, assuming that the accused is truly proved guilty. But Jesus calls us to go beyond justice, and to love mercy as well. If capital punishment were fundamentally unjust, it ought to never be applied – not even to Saddam Hussein. But if the real question is, “How are we to show mercy?,” then I cannot demand that non-Christians show mercy to those who have wronged them, or that the government show mercy in a case which does not involve me. Mercy and forgiveness are individual decisions. If the legislature abolishes all traffic laws, that is an abandonment of the government’s responsibility to uphold order. But if an individual police officer chooses to let me off with a warning even though I was going 60 in a 45, that is mercy.
So here is my conclusion. The death penalty is not inherently unjust. But in its present form – with wrongful convictions, inconsistent application, lack of multiple witnesses, and a possible bias against minorities – it is unjust. And we Christians are called to a higher law than the law of the land – we are to show mercy and offer forgiveness even to those whom our government punishes, just as Jesus did to the thief next to Him.
This past Sunday I received a powerful lesson in patriotism. Partway through a long, passionate prayer, the Rev. Elvin S. Bloice of Muckle Memorial Baptist Church launched into a series of invocations for our nation's leaders. He prayed for the President and his cabinet, for both houses of Congress, then for the governor and the local political leaders, for the men and women of our armed forces, and even for victory over "the forces of evil" in Iraq and Afghanistan. He prayed so much for America that my own patriotism was put to shame. What was all the more remarkable was that, except for my wife and I and a few visitors, no one there could even vote in a federal election.
Muckle Memorial is on St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands, a territory which was purchased from Denmark for reasons of national defense in 1917. The congregation is entirely black--with the exception of ourselves and a young Hispanic woman visiting from Florida with her Crucian-born husband--and, on the whole, lower-income. They do not strike a visitor as the types to be waving American flags and donating to the Republican Party. Here in America's Caribbean, it would seem they could escape the turmoils and concerns of those in the 50 states. Yet they prayed more fervently for their country, for my country, than I do on most occasions.
This was one of the most profound demonstrations of patriotism I have seen in some time. It was not even remotely political, nor did it stem from a blind certainty that America is always right. They genuinely loved their country, simply because it was theirs. It was because of this, as well as enlightened self-interest (1st Timothy 2:1-2), that they prayed for all of those in our government, regardless of party. I left wondering why I didn't pray for my country more. I left wondering if Christian conservatives would pray as fervently and lovingly for a President Hillary Clinton as for President George W. Bush. After all, if you think someone is a bad president, ought you to pray even harder that they would act with wisdom and have the courage to do what is just? I left wondering if, despite our rhetoric about one nation "under God," our political activism sometimes crowds out our trust in God's sovereignty and His ability to work through all political authorities--even evil and incompetent ones.
For now, I'm grateful that my disenfranchised island brothers and sisters reminded me what it meant to be a true patriot.
Here is my response to Marvin Olasky's osbscenely wrong editorial in WORLD Magazine on July 21st:
Dear Editor,
I am absolutely appalled that a Christian would attempt to justify the mass killing of innocent people in Japan and Germany by our government in order to win World War II. This is "ends justifies the means" argument is a blatant rejection of Augustinian Just War criteria and of all that the Bible teaches. In particular, the firebombing of Tokyo, Dresden, and Berlin killed over 100,000 innocent civilians and contributed little--if anything--to ending the war. It was not evenly remotely just. To apply the Biblical command regarding the Amalekites to our own conflicts is to make the same hermeneutical (and moral) error that some used to justify the extermination of American Indians. If we believe that our ends, however just, sanctify any and all means, then we have sunk to the same level as the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. As Christians, we must hold our nation to a higher standard.
Scott Roney Des Plaines, IL
I have subscribed to WORLD for nearly 10 years now, and I appreciate it highly and agree with their opinions about 90% of the time. But sometimes they completely miss the boat. I submitted the above letter to WORLD, with a few changes. They published it, along with two insightful replies supporting Olasky, here in the latest edition.
