How Can We Overcome Pro-Life Fundamentalism*?
Posted by DLW in Uncategorized at 11:29 pm | 
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The answer is evangelism with a more missiological/ecclesiastical focus.
Since I began to write and do research on the politics of abortion, I’ve had lots of opportunities to interact with people from both sides. It can be frustrating to tangle with pro-choicers who implicitly associate a woman’s right to abortion on demand at all stages of pregnancy with womens’ rights in general or who apply the language of economic libertarianism to obfuscate the fact that what is in contention is the legal framework that governs the medical relationship between a woman and her doctor.
But that is nothing compared to Pro-Life Fundamentalism*! A Pro-Life Fundamentalist insists repeatedly that the newly-formed zygote is a full human being and ridicules or slanders the reputation of someone who disagrees with them. They also insist that to accept anything short of making all elective abortions illegal again would be to turn one’s back on the ongoing holocaust of innocent children/babies. Christian fundamentalism/dispensationalism elevates their interpretation of the Bible to the same level as Scripture itself and rules that all others are wrong. In the case of abortion, it elevates a non-essential belief based neither on scripture nor science to mandate a political activism that fails to seek to discern what can and cannot change in the near future about this fallen world that we live in.
It is in part because of the harm done to Christianity’s witness to the world by Pro-Life Fundamentalism that we need to have more pastors/theologians do more to encourage the development of deeper habits of political deliberation among faithful believers. They must perform the pastoral role of exhortation in the development of political virtue, rather than the high priestly role of pointing to what is holy/right conduct in the political sphere.
dlw
*Fundamentalism is used here for when a matter of fact is objectively open to legitimate differences and one side claims that its view is the right position and that all other positions are wrong. One can believe in one’s heart of hearts that the newly-formed zygote is a human being an not be a pro-life fundamentalist. What makes you a “fundamentalist” in this regard is when you deny that others can legitimately as Christians see things somewhat differently. I do believe that Christianity does mandate that we should value the sanctity of human life above our personal autonomies. That should make us be conservative in our community standards and willing to extend the period when the human fetus is a legally-protected-person. But that does not mean we should insist that to use a morning after pill to end a pregnancy prior to the zygote’s implantation on the womb is murder, like with a late trimester elective abortion or infanticide. Both sides often implicitly treat all abortions as equal and this is a grave mistake that has prolonged this debate seriously.
Fundamentalism, as a form of heresy/wrong doctrine, does not affect one’s relationship with God. It does negatively affect one’s witness to the world. In my understanding of the matter, hard-core pro-choicers obstinence on various moderate reforms to the abortion industry are, in part, a reaction to the vehemence of hard-core pro-lifers that insist that to permit legally any elective abortions is to cordone murder.
dlw
The 29th of March, 2005 at 1:36 am
Off topic, which really is on topic for me I guess…
Great article on the Shiavo debate - a different perspective from most of what I’ve seen on the web anyhow. Though you might enjoy the read.
MrCLM
The 29th of March, 2005 at 10:28 am
Sorry — but I’m not with you on this one. You’re using a rhetorical trick. Fundamentalism is always defined relative to a norm. Rather than using historical Christian tradition as a norm, you’re using post-1960’s secular, western, middle-class — and mostly white — values.
You argue “A Pro-Life Fundamentalist insists repeatedly that the newly-formed zygote is a full human being and ridicules or slanders the reputation of someone who disagrees with them”. This is a straw-man attack. One needn’t believe that a “zygote” is a full human being to argue that it has human worth, or that its life is a gift from a transcendent source. Moreover, not everyone who maintains this belief engages in ridicule or slander. Do you want to see an example of ridicule and slander? Look here . You argue that the belief isn’t based on scripture. Well, there are no direct scriptural prohibitions against racist ideology, sex with juveneiles, carpet-bombing of civilian areas, or flying airplanes into buildings full of innocents, but most Christian thinkers could apply biblical principles to these issues and articulate whey they are immoral. Moreover, the vast majority of the world’s Christians (Catholics, Orthodox and Evangelicals) interpret scripture to be against abortion from conception. It is only a handful of denominations that dissent from that view, and that has only happened in the last 40 years. That doesn’t mean they are wrong, but they are certainly not the norm.
Not based on science? Nat Hentoff is a liberal, secular Jew, who became a pro-life activist after reading a medical textbook and coming away believing that life begins at conception. Is he a pro-life fundamentalist?
I reiterate my own view that pro-life Christians need to acknowledge the validity of pro-choice arguments, and that civil dialogue and legal compromise are necessary. But that doesn’t mean that they have to re-invent the Christian tradition to accomodate modern secular thinking.
So, how to overcome Pro-life fundamentalism? Start by respecting your opponent’s views and their faithfulness. Acknowledge that the pro-choice views of American mainline denominations is neither global nor historical. Accept that people have a right to look to their faith traditions for moral guidance in the process of political decision-making. And consider the possibility that the Christian witness is harmed more by name-calling and labeling than it is by people who genuinely believe that unborn humans truly count among the “least of these”.
The 29th of March, 2005 at 10:46 am
Hi DLW!
First of all I don’t understand your usage of Christian fundamentalism/dispensationalism together in this fashion and its relevance to your topic. Not being disrespectful and abrasive, just wondering what you mean.
DLW, I lived in Maine for 8 years and up there you would be fined $100,000 and get 5 years in jail for destroying a eagle egg. It says something about our value system. It also says something about man and his arrogance to think that he and he alone determines when live begins or ends. The bedrock principle of most religion is that it places in authority a higher power for issues such as life and death–are you suggesting that this is “fundamentalism”?
DLW, I appreciate what you are trying to do, but trying to manipulate people away from their faith based paradigm is not particularly educational so much as deceptive. After all, its just exchanging one faith for another.
The 29th of March, 2005 at 11:38 am
Chris, thanks for the article, but i have a rule that when someone brings up nasiism(can’t type last letter of alphabet on this computer) at the very beginning, that I skip the rest.
dlw
The 29th of March, 2005 at 12:38 pm
Rick, the def’n of fundamentalism as I’m using it here is when you have something that is under-determined, or legitimately open to different interpretations, and one side insists that their interpretation is the only legitimate interpretation and all others are wrong.
Historical Christian tradition has been far more open to legit disagreements about when we become human beings.
What sort of worth does a newly-formed human zygote have? Should we treat the possible abortafacient effects of the use of birth control medication that works prior to the implantation of the zygote in the same way we treat third trimester elective abortions? I agree that all life is a gift from a transcendent source, but I also think we need to struggle with the mystery of how God deigned for 80% of zygotes to be absorbed by a woman’s womb a week or so after conception. If this was not the case, we humans with face much more severe over-population problems. I don’t see why God would create us like that if we were human beings at conception.
there are no scriptural prohibitions against racist ideology, sex with juveneiles, carpet-bombing of civilian areas, or flying airplanes into buildings full of innocents, but most Christian thinkers could apply biblical principles to these issues and articulate whey they are immoralThe Bible deals with very close analogies to these sorts of situations. The Bible doesn’t deal with when definitively we become human beings apart from suggesting that it is before birth. It doesn’t deal with this issue because it wasn’t an important issue back then in an agricultural-based society with strong social pressures to marriage and only very dangerous abortion procedures used mainly by prostitutes.
I’m not saying that our urban-based soiceity without strong pressures to marriage when a pregnancy happens is that good, but it has made the issue of when a woman should be able to elect an abortion more serious than it has been in the past.
The vast majority of the world’s Christians officially also used to also be anti-semitic. I’ve found that if someone wants to believe that we are human beings at conception then there is very little that can be said to change their mind. But I don’t see believing that as the same as conservatively valuing the sanctity of human life above human autonomy. It is because of the importance of the latter that I believe that at 48 days we should as a community treat the fetus as a human being. Before hand, we can value the zygote/embryo/fetus and should mourn its death, but we should not view its abortion as murder.
We are biologically alive at conception, but to be biologically alive with human dna and the potential to develop does not make one a human being. Potentiality is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for one to be a human being.
I’m not talking about reinventing Xtn tradition. I’m talking about acknowledging a historical ambiguity on this matter.
I agree that fundamentalist is often perceived as a denigratory label and so there is risk in using it. But I think that the firmness with which so many Christians hold to the belief that we are human beings at conception needs to be challenged and since I’m nobody important I’m a good one to challenge it.
dlw
The 29th of March, 2005 at 10:51 pm
Rick, the def’n of fundamentalism as I’m using it here is when you have something that is under-determined, or legitimately open to different interpretations, and one side insists that their interpretation is the only legitimate interpretation and all others are wrong.
According to that def., the 1973 Supreme Court is the worst bunch of fundamentalists the world has ever known.
But, then, according to that definition, the mid-19th Century Quakers were fundamentalists, as was Martin Luther King (look up King’s admonition to white moderates).
[link]Historical Christian tradition [link]has been far more open to legit disagreements about when we become human beings.
After spending 15 irretrievable minutes of my life on that link, I found nothing that indicated that the Church has ever permitted abortion. The only “disagreements” were over the relative severity of the sanction at different points in development.
The vast majority of the world’s Christians officially also used to also be anti-semitic.
What I meant was that the traditional scriptural interpretations of the branches of the Church to which the vast majority of Christians belong are opposed to abortion from conception. You want to argue, on the one hand, that the tradition has been heterogeneous (via the OCRT link). Yet, taken to the logical extreme, you’re accusation of “official” anti-Semitism suggests that we should disregard tradition altogether, because it has sometimes been wrong. Which is it? Do we look to tradition or not?
I’m not talking about reinventing Xtn tradition. I’m talking about acknowledging a historical ambiguity on this matter.
There is no historical ambiguity — or if there is, you’ve failed to demonstrate it. If you think we should disregard tradition, just come out and say so. I’m a heretic on lots of issues, but I’ll admit when I dissent from tradition.
Again, I’m not arguing that Christian tradition should be enshrined in secular law. My beef the term “fundamentalist”. To label the huge number of people who accept traditional teaching on this issue as “fundamentalist”, is a most innovative — and counter-productive — use of the term.
The 30th of March, 2005 at 12:14 am
According to that def., the 1973 Supreme Court is the worst bunch of fundamentalists the world has ever known.
Yes, modernism is sometimes known as liberal fundamentalism and it was wrong to enshrine autonomy as the only legit base for someone to be a legally protected person.
But, then, according to that definition, the mid-19th Century Quakers were fundamentalists, as was Martin Luther King (look up King’s admonition to white moderates).
Perhaps, they were. I was writing a clarification of what I meant by the term that got lost. Lots of religious groups enshrine in their doctrine concepts that could, as a matter of fact, be stated to be inherently contestable. And just because something is contestable(like the resurrection) doesn’t mean it is not true. It does mean that its affirmation does ultimately require a leap of faith. However, if it is a leap of faith then we should not seek to wield the sword of the state to make people nominally assent to its truth.
I haven’t heard of MLKjr’s admonition. I don’t think it prohibits trying to persuade others about what is right conduct has anything to do with fundamentalism as defined above. That has more to do with matters of positive fact, like when do we become human beings, rather than whether we should protect the lives of human beings.
After spending 15 irretrievable minutes of my life on that link, I found nothing that indicated that the Church has ever permitted abortion. The only “disagreements” were over the relative severity of the sanction at different points in development.
It wrote, “Only abortion of a more fully developed “fetus animatus” (animated fetus) was punished as murder.” The disagreement was when the fetus was a human being/life versus a potential human being/life and when ending its life was murder. Only recently have many Christians widely concluded that we are human lives/beings at conception.
I’m not saying we throw away tradition. I was saying that the fact that officially many churches affirm that the newly-formed zygote is a human being as part of their traditions does not make it true. In fact, their traditions have been varied in the past, though the language used has changed. I’m saying we should seek continuity with the past on this issue, because the HS has been present with our churches. But I’m also saying that we should be open to some consideration of how we deal with their being some ambiguity as to when we become human beings.
There is no historical ambiguity — or if there is, you’ve failed to demonstrate it. If you think we should disregard tradition, just come out and say so. I’m a heretic on lots of issues, but I’ll admit when I dissent from tradition.
If pre-quickening abortions were not murder then that says the fetus at the early stage was not a human being. Our traditions have changed as leaders like Augustine and Aquinas judged right conduct from both revealed wisdom in scripture and natural wisdom from observation of the natural world.
Now, we know a lot more than they did about the human fetal development process and they likely did get it wrong for the wrong reasons perhaps, but that does not mean we inevitably must hold to what the early Christians believed and many current Christians have come to believe.
Again, I’m not arguing that Christian tradition should be enshrined in secular law. My beef the term “fundamentalist”. To label the huge number of people who accept traditional teaching on this issue as “fundamentalist”, is a most innovative — and counter-productive — use of the term.
It is meant to be provocative and tends to evoke a strong response. But it fits with the def’n of a movement or attitude stressing strict and literal adherence to a set of basic principles. Once again it also fits with the notion of underdeterminism. If our positive understandings of our world are subject to varying interpretations and we choose to home in on one particular interpretation as “the” correct interpretation then that is a form of fundamentalism.
Its effects are not so much on our relationship with God, but rather the quality of our witness to others.
dlw
dlw
The 30th of March, 2005 at 1:47 pm
I’ve found that one way to cut through some of the fundamentalist diatribe is to simply say,
“The fact is that abortion has been known since we figured out that babies come from inside women. Understanding that led to the introduction of the Caesarian section - a procedure that was used commonly enough in Jesus time. Therefore, abortion must have also been known in his time. Why didn’t he speak about it directly?”
The fact is that Jewish rabbis have always been consulted over allowing a fetus to die. They set up a very consistent set of rules to determine when it was morally right to allow the fetus to die and when it was morally imperative to do so.
XT
The 30th of March, 2005 at 1:55 pm
Sure, but we also have an undifferiated Christian history of generally opposing late-term abortions. We can and should go beyond the rabbinical rules in a manner not unlike with how we helped to make infanticide illegal.
We deal with the issue of when we become human beings differently today than in the past, because our ability to observe and abort the fetus at earlier stages is considerably expanded.
dlw
The 30th of March, 2005 at 9:18 pm
I have a reply — but its late and I pre-wrote in on my other computer. As the Cali-Gov says –Ahhll be back
The 14th of June, 2005 at 2:08 pm
I guess do away with abortion. Can any Christian in their right mind think that abortion honours and glorifies the Lord? I think on this issue you would have to lump Jesus in the fundamentalist catagory…
-Jack
The 16th of June, 2005 at 12:55 pm
the fundamentalist part has to do with the insistence that the newly formed zygote is a human being.
Read the above more carefully to understand my position better.
Jesus would not have used absolutist language to advocate for fallible narrow political strategies that may end up hurting rather than helping to establish the kingship of God.
dlw
The 3rd of April, 2007 at 12:22 am
“it elevates a non-essential belief based neither on scripture nor science…”.
Let me get this straight; just as a matter of clarification– You believe that the group commonly referred to as fundamentalists (a definition of which you provide fully above) have no science whatsoever for believing that a newly formed zygote is a human being. Furthermore, your opinion is that the commonly appealed to Bible passage accounts only for life beginning “before conception”.
Do you have a personal opinion on when human life “DOES” begin?
Do you have a personal opinion on exactly what a zygote is, if not human life?
I mean it is generally not a great task to shred the position of others with questions requiring proof.
It is quite another matter to offer an alternative explanation or answer that is plausible, feasible, believable or which otherwise “resonates” with that subjective “meter” inside of us that “knows truth when it hears it”.
I’m personally constantly intrigued by the fact that two seemingly sane, coherent, otherwise practical people can come to totally opposite opinions on very foundational issues such as abortion, homosexuality, global-warming, women in ministry, and civil rights.
It is getting at the root of “how” people come to determine what they believe that keeps me reading posts like yours and others who take the time to allow the world to consider their opinions, and to respond.
The 3rd of April, 2007 at 12:35 am
Tim:You believe that the group commonly referred to as fundamentalists (a definition of which you provide fully above) have no science whatsoever for believing that a newly formed zygote is a human being. Furthermore, your opinion is that the commonly appealed to Bible passage accounts only for life beginning “before conception”.
dlw: There is no scientific or biblical basis for dogmatism on the belief that we are human beings at conception. The Bible passages commonly appealed to account for us becoming human beings before birth.
Do you have a personal opinion on when human life “DOES” begin?
Do you have a personal opinion on exactly what a zygote is, if not human life?
I do. See here. The zygote has the potential to develop into a human being, but potential is a necessary but not sufficient condition for being a human being.
I hope that helps.
dlw