Category: Religion

How Far Would You Go to Save a Life?

Abortion is a hot button issue mainly because both sides care a great deal about the things they see themselves protecting: a woman’s control over her own body, her self, her personhood; an unborn child’s right to simply live. I don’t mean to answer that question here in this small space. (What hubris that would be!) I do intend to state where I am in all of this and that is in a state of moral dilemma. I see both sides as protecting things that are worthwhile, even essential.

(Version 1.5)

The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means.
–Georges Bernanos

Abortion is a hot button issue mainly because both sides care a great deal about the things they see themselves protecting: a woman’s control over her own body, her self, her personhood; an unborn child’s right to simply live, its self, its personhood. I don’t mean to answer that question here in this small space. (What hubris that would be!) I do intend to stake out where I am in this debate and that is in a state of moral dilemma. I see both sides of the issue as protecting things that are worthwhile, even essential. (I have something between disdain and contempt for the political “debate” as it stands. I don’t like people demonizing others nor do I like propaganda, i.e. comfortable lies.)

To put it as succinctly as I can, I am a pro-lifer unwilling to save the lives of the unborn by any means. I have always had moral problems with abortion and pro-choice arguments  have only solidified that position. I am not, however, a contraception-is-abortion pro-lifer. I don’t think RU-486 is an “abortion pill.” Preventing conception is simply not abortifacient. I tend to follow those in the medical profession who won’t perform abortions on unborn who clearly can feel and react to what is happening to them. In that, I find it cruel and inhuman.

But supporting its legal ban has always given me pause. The awful truth is that via the state I am usurping power and control over the most intimate parts of a woman’s body. An act very similar to rape. This escalates to full murder when pregnancy kills. And Hallmark cards aside, it does kill. But to put it in more palatable terms, it is violating the physical person of one individual for the sake of another in our society. And that is something that the majority of the Pro-Life movement do not have the moral integrity to acknowledge. We would recoil in horror if the state required people to donate bodily tissue, a kidney for example, in order to save the lives of others. It goes against many of our core democratic principles surrounding human rights.

How would we react if a man on dialysis, i.e. dying a slow death, was so far down the donor list that he virtually had no prospects for a transplant and the government saved him by finding and mandating a compatible person donate their kidney? How would any of us feel about being the donor? Remember, a person’s life is at stake here. Would you approve on that basis? I seriously doubt any of us would approve of such an act even to save a man’s life. So how is the mother of an unborn child worth any less than a kidney donor?

So until the pro-life movement is less pro-baby and fully pro-life and the pro-choice movement is less pro-woman and ceases to treat the unwanted unborn as something akin to the appendix, I remain in my moral Catch-22: support movements with little regard for life itself only that of certain parties.

Whose Religion Is This, Anyway?

Whose Religion Is This, Anyway? | The American Prospect:

“The tension of being an Orthodox dove is partly sociological. Most Israeli Jews with whom I could pray don’t share my political views. Most Israelis who share my politics do not understand why I enter a synagogue. More basically, the presumption of the society in which I live is that one cannot be an Orthodox critic of the occupation. That matching up of the political divide and the secular-religious one is a mistake. For a religious dove, however, there is an additional dimension to the argument about territories, settlements, and peace: The stakes are not only the future of one’s country but also of one’s religion.”

(Via The American Prospect.)

I find myself in the same situation with my Christianity and homosexuality. It’s why politics is bad for religion. Every political idea starts to become an article of faith. You can’t have absolutism with equivocality without giving evil has an opening.

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Kept From a Dying Partner’s Bedside

Well – Kept From a Dying Partner’s Bedside – NYTimes.com:

“When a loved one is in the hospital, you naturally want to be at the bedside. But what if the staff won’t allow it?
That’s what Janice Langbehn, a social worker in Lacey, Wash., says she experienced when her partner of 18 years, Lisa Pond, collapsed with an aneurysm during a Florida vacation and was taken to a Miami trauma center. She died there, at age 39, as Ms. Langbehn tried in vain to persuade hospital officials to let her visit, along with the couple’s adopted children.
‘I have this deep sense of failure for not being at Lisa’s bedside when she died,’ Ms. Langbehn said. ‘How I get over that I don’t know, or if I ever do.’
The case, now the subject of a federal lawsuit in Florida, is being watched by gay rights groups, which say same-sex partners often report being excluded from a patient’s room because they aren’t ‘real’ family members.”

(Via NY Times.)

This is precisely why I’m for gay civil rights. Despite all the legal documents that should have had the force of law and protected their rights, these couples and no doubt many others were denied basic human treatment. Religious opponents of gay civil rights of course are varied, some honest objectors and others “wolves in sheep’s clothing.” To all of them I say to clothe such hate, such as what we see here, in faith and conscience is unequivocally wrong, no evil. In the words of my Lord:

A Tree and Its Fruit

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, no can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits.

Now That’s Political Power

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Obama show’s them how a politician is supposed to roll. Coates was right.

The Problem with Christianity: the Christians

Survey: Support for terror suspect torture differs among the faithful – CNN.com:

“White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified — more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it. Only four in 10 of them did.”

(Via CNN.)

This is why people fear the religious. We don’t have the courage of our convictions.
“But love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for his he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”
— Luke 6:35-36

My Pastor with the Mayor

Father Walsh with the Mayor
Left to right, Msgr. John McIntryre, Mayor Michael Nutter, Father Chris Walsh, Father Kevin Gallagher, Msgr. Thomas Flanigan and Auxiliary Bishop Joseph P. McFadden enjoy the parade

(Via The Catholic Standard and Times.)

My pastor, Fr. Walsh, getting his Irish on with the cap and sash!

A Rose by Any Other Name

I took part in a discussion about divorce, abusive relationships, and how female submission plays a misogynous role in evangelical, and more widely Christian, circles. The book Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians in the Bible naturally surfaces, specifically the passage in Chapter 5 dealing with wives and husbands. It occurred to me how different the discussion might be if we stepped back and really took a look at Ephesians itself and the context it provides for its contents.
Virtually all scholars judge that it was not written by Paul himself but rather a disciple of his writing under Paul’s name. Such forgery was a common and accepted practice in the ancient world with the rationale that the student was merely building on the master’s ideas. It’s why the book is considered one of the Deutero-Pauline books.
I wonder if it were common knowledge that Paul didn’t write that epistle, would the drumbeat be so fierce on female submission? What would the justifications be?

And Forgive Us Our Debts

Saw a documentary today on Ted Haggard, the disgraced pastor. I thought I’d see Christian hypocrisy at its height, and I did. I just didn’t expect from whom. There’s a great quote from Haggard:

If they were playing chess instead of checkers they’d know the church’s business was me, the sinner.

Word. As self-serving as that statement might be, it’s spot on. These evangelical types really demonstrate the reality that our faith is almost defined by hypocrisy in our modern culture from their position on homosexuality to its treatment of the sinner. As a Christian, I was very angered by what I saw. It demonstrated, yet again, how we Christians fail God on the basics:
Jesus taught us to pray this way

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,your will be done, on earth as in heaven.
Give us today our daily bread;
and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors;
and do not subject us to the final test, but deliver us from the evil one.

Matthew 6:9-13

He goes on to say, “If you forgive others their transgressions, your heavenly Father will forgive you.
But if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your transgressions.” That’s just basic to our faith: forgive the sinner. And yet so quickly forgotten.

Taking Their Kids

Op-Ed Contributor – Anti-Gay, Anti-Family – NYTimes.com:

“Most ominous, once ‘pro-family’ groups start arguing that gay couples are unfit to raise children we might adopt, how long before they argue that we’re unfit to raise those we’ve already adopted? If lesbian couples are unfit to care for foster children, are they fit to care for their own biological children?
The loss in California last week was heartbreaking. But what may be coming next is terrifying.”

(Via NY Times.)

Why the so-called “pro-family” agenda is all anti-gay and very little family.

Competing Tax Plans: Two Perspectives – Freakonomics – Opinion – New York Times Blog

Competing Tax Plans: Two Perspectives – Freakonomics – Opinion – New York Times Blog:

Tax Graph

(Via Freakonomics – Opinion – New York Times Blog.)

I love freakonomics. Looking at the complete set of graphs breaks down each candidates’ tax plans. It clearly lays out the candidates’ priorities.