Where do Evangelicals Live?

       “Home sweet home.”   “There is no place like home.” “Home is where the heart is.” “Take me home…country roads…” “You can’t go home again…” Ok, well maybe not the last quote, but the word ‘home’ evokes a powerful memory in all of us.  We define home as the place we are from, the place we go to when we are scared…the place that is sacred to us. 

            As we continue to learn about Evangelicals in the 21^st century, we are confronted with the second of N.T. Wright’s five questions: “Where do we live?” As we examine this question, we will see how important the concept of home is for them. 

            As we have seen, Evangelicals view themselves as the true heirs of Christ’s church, the last protectors of the true faith and the only legitimate church.  They find themselves caught between liberalism on one end and secularism on the other.  They see themselves always on the defensive and they need to protect their territory against all enemies.

            “Where do we live?” or “where is home?” is important for Evangelicals.  So where do American Christians live?

            Well…the United States…obviously…duh.

            Ok, yes, the United States is the physical home for the American evangelical church.  But it is not the physical location we are talking about…it’s the spiritual…or philosophical meaning that is truly important.

            The United States has always been important in Christian history.  The Puritans arrived here to have religious freedom (so one myth goes).  God has appointed the United States to be a ‘city on a hill’ to bring the light of Christ to the world (so another myth goes).  But there is a sense in Evangelical understanding that this country is the rightful heir of Israel in the Old Testament.   The United States is a special country, chosen by God, to be a vessel for the transmission of the Gospel throughout the world.

            Christians look to the Founding period to assure themselves that the Founding Fathers envisioned a Christian nation. The United States, the argument goes, is a Christian nation, conceived to be such.  Authors such as Peter Lillback, demonstrate that George Washington was extremely concerned to create a Christian nation.  Popular myths, such as Washington almost being killed by Native Americans during the French and Indian Wars, become evidence of God’s providence. Christian Evangelical scholar David Barton reinvents Thomas Jefferson as a devout Christian who has been deconstructed by liberal scholarship.  John Adams is summoned to talk about the necessity of the country’s Christians ethos. American history is rewritten to a Christian narrative in books like The Light and the Glory, which are taught in Christian schools and homeschools around the country.  The modern narrative is that the United States is one of the last true vestiges of Christianity in the world. It must continue to be a light in the darkness and the city on a hill.

            But the problem is that this Christian nation is under threat by the same enemies that they themselves face.  The liberals and secular powers want to make the United States into a non-Christian nation.  National issues like abortion and homosexual marriage are battlegrounds in the ever lasting war over the soul of the American nation.  If the United States continues to allow abortion or homosexual marriage, then it is evident that the United States has turned it’s back on God.  If this happens, the Gospel will suffer and many will not be able to achieve salvation.

            These issues are very important to the Evangelical church because they are directly related to the vision they have for America.   If any issue or topic can unite the hopelessly disjointed Evangelical church, it is the hope for the United States.  Evangelicals will unite around a topic like abortion because the very home they love is at stake. If the United States embraces liberalism, it will deny God and therefore forsake the very purpose of its existence.  

            ‘Battles’ over political issues reveal the true war going on in the country for the Evangelical Church.  Abortion, gay rights, socialized medicine, gun control all represent issues that threaten the spiritual and moral fiber of the country.  Evangelicals align themselves with conservative politicians and issues because these politicians represent the heroes fighting against the tides of evil.  This explains why so many Evangelicals are willing to forgive conservatives for sins while lambasting liberals for the same failings.

            For many American Evangelicals, the role of the country and the church are tied into each other. The traditional values must be adhered to, otherwise God will be angry.  Almost every year at the See You At The Pole, students around the country pray for the country and recite 2 Chronicles 7:14, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and heal their land” (NIV).  This verse, taken out of context and applied to the United States, becomes a banner by which the Evangelical Church can unite for a common purpose.

            It is no wonder, then, that we are seeing the rise of Christian nationalism within the country. Rich Lowry’s book The Case for Nationalism provides an understanding for the Evangelical church not only to the power of nationalism but also for a purpose in resisting the cases of evil. Nationalism provides an avenue for Christians to pursue wholeness and wellness for the country that God has blessed them with. 

            Where do Evangelicals live? They live in the United States…one nation UNDER GOD…which has been called to be the special receptacle of God’s grace and the foundation for God’s kingdom in the world.  Remember that Evangelicals view themselves as the true heirs of God’s teaching…God is preparing them a special country to live in, just like he did with Israel. 

            Ideally, although they would never admit, the Evangelical Christian would like to live in a theocracy.  In fact, many already believe they do.

The Hope We Sing

Isaiah 64:1-9

                Healing begins in pain.  Joy begins in sorrow.  Hope begins in Lament.

                It is Advent and soon we will be enjoying Christmas parties, Christmas carols, the lights, sounds, and smells of the ‘happiest time of the year.’ There will be mistletoe strung up for young (and not so young) lovers to kiss under.  There will be fires and egg nog and Christmas trees and sappy movies on TV.  People of all races, denominations, economic status and orientation will join their voices in singing Silent Night.

                But not today.  All of that will happen later.  Not today.

                Today as I sit the only singing I hear is the protesters in Ferguson, MO demanding to be heard.  The only fires I see are those burning up buildings in a once proud St Louis Suburb and the only decorations I see are the garish displays in department stores eagerly anticipating people to come and worship at their altars. What should be a beautiful and hopeful time of the year has turned into a parody of itself.

                And maybe that is why this reading from Isaiah is so appropriate for today.  Wheras the Old Testament readings for Advent are normally prophetic songs of coming happiness and joy, today’s text is a painful exploration of God’s absence and a lament over what has happened to the people of God.

                Isaiah lives in a time of deep turmoil where nothing is certain except disappointment, despair and destruction.  His nation has been attacked at every side and what was once a great and mighty kingdom is now destroyed and burned to the ground.  The Assyrians have come and attacked the people of Israel.  They have taken most of the kingdom off to captivity or dispersed it to the seven winds.  All that was left was the tiny city of Jerusalem, and even that is surrounded and almost brought to the place of destruction. 

                Jerusalem! The Holy City! Was burning and was under the threat of being completely and utterly destroyed.  How could such a thing happen? After all, Jerusalem was the Holy City! It was the city that YHWH lived in and from where he protected his people.  Had YHWH been defeated? Had YHWH abandoned his people?

                And that is the question that dominates this reading: where is God? Where is YHWH? Where is the Divine Presence that would come and take care of the people?

                Just before this passage, Isaiah sets the mood for it by stating: “We have long been like those who you do not rule, like those not called by your name” (Is 63:19).  We are not your people…you have forgotten us, left us, departed from us.  We are not special…even in your sight.

                And then there comes the great cry from Isaiah that opens this chapter: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence!” (Is 64:1).  What a great image! Oh God! Just tear it off and come down! Make yourself known! Be with us! Help us! Set things right!

                Isaiah looks back at history and knows that God has helped his people in the past by wonderful and mighty deeds.  So where is God? Where is He now? Why won’t he help? Why does he not care at the situation we now find ourselves in? This entire passage speaks of Isaiah’s pain…it is pain seeking understanding! WHERE IS GOD?

                Don’t we wonder the same thing too? WHERE IS GOD?

                We see a city burned to the ground – WHERE IS GOD?

                We watch as a twelve year old boy is shot by police – WHERE IS GOD?

                We watch as our loved one suffers with debilitating cancer – WHERE IS GOD?

                We watch as terrorists behead innocent people and kill thousands more – WHERE IS GOD?

                We struggle to make ends meet, give our children clothes and food, and we get further behind every day – WHERE IS GOD?               

                Does He not care? We know that he performed miracles all throughout the Biblical times.  He walked on water, gave sight back to the blind and raised the dead.  WHERE IS HE NOW AND WHY DOESN’T HE DO THESE THINGS ANYMORE?

                Now most of us wouldn’t think to ask these questions in church…because it may sound irreverent.  Others say that He does do these thing today and provide scanty and anecdotal evidence that cannot be verified.  But even if He does, he doesn’t do it on the grand scale that He did in the Bible.  He doesn’t part the Red Sea or raise the dead or provide food for the millions of people starving around the world.  

                We are not the only ones who think about this either.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German theologian who was imprisoned by the Nazis.  As he thought about this very problem, he came to a very different answer:

               God would have us know that we must live as men who manage our lives without him.  The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us (Mark 15:34).  The God who lets us live in the world without the working hypothesis of God is the God before whom we stand continually.  Before God and with God we live without God.  God lets himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross.  He is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us.”

“

                In essence, God allows himself to be moved out to the corners of existence because that is where he can help us the most.

                But this may not help when we see Ferguson burn or hungry people struggling to find food or single moms struggling to find answers, but maybe it provides a reason. 

                This divine absence has its negative effects on the people.  Notice in verse 5: “you were angry and we sinned, because you hid yourself, we transgressed” (64:5). Perhaps it’s a notice that we don’t do well as a people without God, without the divine essence.  Because of this, we read, "we have all become like one who is unclean and our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.” (64:6).

                Now this is a happy tiding for the beginning of Advent, isn’t it? How come there are no Christmas carols about this?

                But there is truth in this.  Isaiah is looking at his community and he realizes that there is no one who is righteous, no one who is immune from the evil and no one who has it completely ‘right’.  But more than this, we all have our sins and we all participate in the evils of our community.  We are all, in a sense, part of the problem.

                In the reaction to Ferguson, I have noticed that there have been some who have tried to paint this into other people people’s problems.  This about ‘looters’ or ‘thugs’ or ‘police’ or….fill in the blank.  What they fail to realize is that what happened in Ferguson is indicative of the fact that our society is broken and that is because it is made up of broken individuals.

                We may never know the exact details of what happened in Ferguson.  Since there will be no trial, there will be no further chance to examine evidence.  But what we do know is that Ferguson reveals a major crack in our culture and in our society.  Our world is broken and we cannot always sing for joy when we see these cracks. 

                But this does not mean that there is no hope.  Isaiah begs and pleads with YHWH, “Do not be exceedingly angry, O Lord, and not remember iniquity forever.  Now consider we are all your people” (64:8).  Even more desperate is the end of the chapter, “Our holy and beautiful house, where our ancestors praised you, has been burned by fire, and all our pleasant places have become ruins.  After all this, will you restrain yourself, O Lord? Will you keep silent and punish us so severely?” (64:11-12).

                The answer there is supposed to be a ‘no’ that we are expecting God to show up and answer his people and to reveal his presence to us once again.  Even though our world is a mess, even though our relationships are in tatters, even though our security has been breached and even though our economy is anemic…God is not done with us and He will be heard again.

                It may be easy for us to look at Ferguson and wonder where God is.  It may even be easy for us to dismiss his presence and say that he has abandoned us and this world…but this is not the whole story.

                Advent reminds us that even in the most ruined of places, in the most desolate spots in our lives, hope can still be sung and joy can still be found.

                Right now, things look pretty bleak for race relations in the United States…even and especially in the church.  Despite Paul’s insistence that there is neither Jew nor Greek (Gal 3:23), Sunday is the most racially divided day of the week.  The break down on opinions about Ferguson came down on racial lines with over 70% of white people believing that Michael Brown got what he deserved.  The posts on the internet range from borderline insensitive to downright offensive concerning race. 

                And yet, in spite of this…there is a sense of tremendous hope.

                Church groups are beginning to bring up the issue of race in their midst once more.  Church groups are responding and reaching out to those who have needs.

                Advent reminds us that just when things seemed their most desperate, God showed up.  After 400 years of not hearing from God, Israel could have easily abandoned their beliefs about God altogether.  Their kingdom was gone, tattered in ruins.  Yet in the midst of those ruins, in the most unlikely of places, God showed up and the world was never the same.

                As we look at the smoldering ashes of Ferguson, a world tattered and in ruins, dare we to hope that God may show up again this Advent…to change the world once more? 

Do I really want to be a Christian?

Lord, I want to be a Christian…in my heart

                Or so goes the old hymn.  Many of us who have gone to church know the song and we sing it with mild enthusiasm.  The idea behind the song is that we need God’s help in being a Christian, so that it permeates our very heart and soul.  There is just one big problem.

                Christians irk me.

                Not just a little, but a lot. 

                I mean A LOT!

                We can be bigoted and self righteous towards other people.  We can tolerate some sins, but absolutely not others.  We can be conceited and treat each other like dirt.  And we fight….about EVERYTHING.  Clothes, tattoos, tobacco, sex, worship styles, politics, theology, and about everything else we drag each other through the mud and we do it in the name of God. 

                I know this is nothing new.  This has been going on since the Church was established.  In fact, most of the New Testament is about Christians fighting each other.  Just about every other page is a new heresy or bad decision (usually by Peter) or about food sacrificed to idols.   It’s amazing that there never seems to be a period of agreement in the Church. 

                With all of the fighting that goes on and has gone on, we tend to forget the clear and central claim of the gospel that Jesus offers: “Follow me” (Mark 1:17).  In fact most of the gospels seem to be about expanding that call and discovering what it means for a disciple to come and follow Jesus.  This call seems to have dire consequences on the believer because Bonhoeffer writes, “when Christ calls a man, he bids him to come and die.” Bonhoeffer wrote his book Discipleship around the central issue of following Jesus.

                But can we really do this today? What does it mean to ‘Follow Jesus’? The disciples were lucky in this regard because they could literally follow Jesus from place to place.  We don’t have that luxury. 

                When I think about the call of Jesus, I certainly think it extends way beyond the paths of fighting about dogma and about deciding what side I am on concerning sexual orientation. I get the sense that Jesus is calling us to something higher, something more productive, something….bigger than our traditional squabbles. 

                Perhaps it’s time that all of us Christians look at ourselves and really begin to question what it means to follow Jesus.  Maybe the question is not do I want to become a Christian? But perhaps the question comes to be: what sort of Christian do I want to be?

                And for me the answer is, “I want to be a Christian that follows Jesus”.   What that means, however, has yet to be fully explored.

Marriage Equality

While Facebook is still all abuzz about the Supreme Court decisions from yesterday, it is a good time to think about what marriage equality means and think about our path from here as a nation and a society.

For some, the Decisions represented a new era in justice for all couples.  For others, it was the turning point in the path towards the destruction of Western Civilization. For others, it was less important than the Aaron Hernandez saga or the over hyped George Zimmerman trial.  What this moment means for history is yet to be seen, but one thing for sure, things are a-changing…and yet they need to change even more.

Let me get one thing straight at the beginning…no matter what side of the same-sex marriage issue you are, we should all agree that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was terrible legislation.  It was an overreach of the federal government and an attempt to legislate a certain brand of morality.  As a committed Federalist, it was governmental overreach because marriage is one of those things controlled and defined by local municipalities (such as the Constitutional understanding that Education is a power for the States).   And even though the government legislation affects morality (i.e. abortion, marijuana, and environmental policies), it has never been the job of the government to define morality in a way that advances the cause of one group over another (this is the key to the 1^st Amendment). 

Another thing that needs to be stressed at the beginning is that “state” marriage and “church” marriage are two different things.  Marriage in the state is a legal contract in which the government represents the relationship between two or more individuals.  Church marriage is sacramental and covenantal by nature and the laws of the Church usurp the laws of the State when it comes to governing who can and cannot be married to one another. If and when the State tries to dictate the Laws of the Church, the Church will need to decide it’s course of action, but the actions of the Supreme Court have no jurisdiction in the Ecclesiastical Courts of the Church.  For the purposes of this discussion, we will be using ‘Marriage’ as the State’s definition of marriage.

But with the Court’s decision, the country’s and culture’s path is no murkier and less equal than it was under the previous understanding. 

Marriage is a very personal and very volatile subject.  My goal here is not to cast any side in a bad light or to discuss which side of the marriage debate is correct.  I respect and love people on all sides of this debate and want to represent their sides fairly and accurately.  The underlying assumption I am working with here is that we need a federally recognized consistent understanding of the legal definition of marriage.  While the old school way of doing things did this (although many viewed it wrongly), yesterday’s decisions make things more complicated for us.

Marriage has generally been held as an archaic institution from times past to ensure proper bloodlines and property rights.  Under the old understanding, everybody was equal to marry: (a) one person, (b) of the opposite gender, (c) of a certain age, (b) that they were not biologically related to.   The reasoning for these restrictions on marriage had to do with the understanding of the purpose of marriage. 

Marriage was seen as a the proper and legitimate way to legislate the furtherance of the society.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day saints fought many Court battles in the late 19^th Century in order to overturn the restriction on one person.  The Courts came back and determined that marriage needed to between only two people in order to maintain a proper culture.  Perhaps the Courts were too limited in their thought, but they were basing their decisions on the older understanding of marriage. 

Property rights and inheritance laws were also central to marriage.  So called “legitimate” heirs were those heirs who sprung from the legal contract of marriage.  The government also claimed the health and well being of society when it limited the definition of marriage to discriminate against close relatives who wanted to be married.  They argued, largely from an evolutionary point of view, that incest affected the gene pool in a negative way and impacted society at large in a detrimental way.

The concern for marriage in the past was the way that it shaped and formed the society around them. 

As society changed, our understanding of marriage changed.  Rather than seeing marriage as a way to propagate the species and create social harmony and order, people began to view marriage as a way to express ‘love.’  We moved from a societal understanding of marriage to an individual understanding of marriage, one that was not concerned so much with bettering our culture, but with satisfying our emotional needs. 

And so now the concern in marriage is for individuals to express their love and individuality.

Romantic “love” has proved a less stable way of viewing marriage.  The divorce rate has sky rocketed and the birth rate has plummeted.  The number of couples who are together for more than five years (both heterosexual and homosexual) is at all time low and marriage is seen by many as a temporary situation that will last as long as ‘love’ is present.  This is not always the case and both homosexuals and heterosexuals are populated with long term couples, but the norm for both expressions of sexuality has become short term relationships that are easily broken up.

But ‘love’ is now the new bedrock for the State’s understanding of marriage.  That is fine and completely within the scope of the State to do so.  But now it is doing so in a way that creates inequality among people. 

Homosexuals and Heterosexuals are now free to marry any one person they love.  But this excludes certain other populations. For instance, what about a Mormon who may be in love with two women? This may seem contradictory to our current understanding of marriage, but polygamous societies often thrive under the concept of loving more than one person.  What about a brother and sister (or brother and brother or sister and sister) who find themselves attractive and want to spend the rest of their lives together.  (while this may seem like a particularly acute example, it has happened in the past and now there is no ground to deny them a relationship).  What about a thirty year old and a fifteen year old who love each other.  This has happened and seems to be on the rise.  

Neither should representation in the population be an issue. While only 1.4% of the population of Utah (about 40,000 people) live in polygamous families[1], it should be noted that the LGBT community makes up about 3-4% of the entire population (about 9 million people)[2].  Research on incestuous relationships is hard to come by, but we can imagine that the number is relatively small.  But if we are going to grant the same rights to a small percentage of the population, we should make sure that all people are covered and once again ‘equal.’

The position about polygamy is not on the fringe, either.  Since 2005, in Canada, the Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre has been advocating for the decriminalization of plural union relationships.

The Supreme Court Decisions yesterday were huge wins for the LGBT communities, but they represent more fuzzy thinking in our culture.   

In order to clear up the confusion, we need one of two things to happen.

The first would be a federally recognized, universal and consistent definition of legal marriage.  This means that across the board, the Federal Government needs to define marriage and the benefits (if any) that should come from it.  This may mean a shift in our thinking as to who can claim who on tax forms, visit in hospital rooms and receive property rights.  But in our new age of technology, we can easily accomplish this.  This would ensure that people are protected across the board universally.

The other option would be to simply abolish marriage altogether and to abolish the financial benefits that come from it.  This would make the playing field level and ensure that no type of relationship can be discriminated against at a governmental level.  This would also save a great deal of money as communities would no longer have to issue marriage forms.

At this point in my life, I feel that given our current social upheaval, the second option represents the best approach to this difficult and complex situation.  Eliminate legal marriage and we have the basis for a more free and equal society.

Whatever our country decides in regards to marriage, it needs to be uniform, consistent and EQUAL.   This is the true meaning of marriage equality.

---

[1] James Brooke. "Utah Struggles With a Revival of Polygamy. " New York Times [New York, N.Y.] 23 August 1998, Late Edition (East Coast): 12. ProQuest Newsstand. ProQuest. Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. 11 Dec. 2007

[2] http://gaylife.about.com/od/comingout/a/population.htm

Saving (or taking) a Life: Abortion In the Words of the Pro-Choice

Earlier this year, our country commemorated the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that made abortion on demand legal in the United States. Even as the mainstream media ignored the March for Life, the abortion discussion will not go away.

This issue is of continuing importance to the Christian Church around the world, because God has commanded us to protect life. In Exodus 20, God commands the Israelites that "thou shall not kill" and since then, the Church at its best, has had a commitment to the protection of life.  The Westminster Divines interpreted the 6th Commandment not only as a preventative motion against the taking of a life, but a proactive commandment to protect human life. When Jesus came, God took on human flesh and validated human life.  In His resurrection, Jesus proves the future of the human body.  Human beings are not just human beings if they have capacity to think and act for themselves.  The embryo, the fetus, the aged, the sick, the handicapped are all human beings and all reflect the glory of God and are all valuable as life.  Theologian Jurgen Moltmann, in the book, The Way of Jesus Christ, captures this nature perfectly. He writes:

Every devaluation of the foetus, the embryo and the fertilized ovum compared with life that is already born and adult is the beginning of a rejection and a dehumanization of human beings.  Hope for the resurrection of the body does not permit any such death sentence to be passed on life.  Fundamentally speaking, human beings mutilate themselves when embryos are devalued into mere ‘human material’, for every human being was once just such an embryo in need of protection.

Abortion, murder, euthanasia create such problems because they intrinsically involve degradation of the human form, which is made in the image of God (Gen 1:26).

Before we discuss this any further, we need to make a point, because not all abortion is equal.  There are times when abortion is medically justified to save the life of the mother. If our overarching directive is to preserve life, then, no matter how tragic it is, sometimes life must be sacrificed to preserve life.  But most abortions that occur in the United States are not performed to save the life of the mother.  Most are performed for other reasons.

Today we are going to to look at some of the reasons.  Recently, MSNBC commentator Toure Neblett offered an account of his personal experience with abortion.  He intended it as an apologetic for the pro-choi ce position, but what emerges is a disturbing look at his thought process.  I will confess at the outset that I am very unfamiliar with Mr. Neblett, but we shall use his own words to create a discussion.  The text in full states:

Toure Neblett from MSNBC

Touré:  This week brought us the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade and made me reflect on a moment from 15 years when I was in a committed relationship with a woman who I knew was just not the one. She also knew it probably wasn't going to work out and then she got pregnant, and I was terrified. I have always known the importance of family and building kids into strong adults and I know I would not be who I am if not for growing up under the watchful eye of two people who loved me and loved each other. I knew that pregnant woman and I were not going to be able to form a lasting family. She decided it was best to have an abortion and days later she did, we did, and in some ways that choice saved my life. I was not then smart enough or man enough to build a family or raise a child, and I only would have contributed to making a mess of three lives. Years after that I met another woman, married her, and after we decided to get pregnant, I went to her doctor's appointments, our doctor's appointments, with joy. It was a thrill to watch that boy grow inside her, but I must admit during that second trimester as we watched him move around on 3-D sonograms I saw how human and they were my life long belief in abortion rights was – let's say – jostled.  It was life colliding with belief system.  I had to rethink my position, but in the end I remain committed to being pro-choice because I cannot imagine arguing against a woman's right to control her body – and thus – her life. I believe in, as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote, “a woman's autonomy to determine her life's course.”Yes, there is a reasonable and unsolvable medical debate about when exactly life begins, but I find something undeniably misogynist about the impulse to deny a woman's dominion over her own body and limit her ability to shape her life – and impose another sense of morality on her. Family building is at the heart of nation-building, and taking away the ability to choose means the ability to build lasting families is challenged. Richard Florida finds the higher a state's abortion rate, the lower its divorce rate. But even though abortion is legal, ever since Roe was passed the right has been working not just to overturn it, but also to constrain it. Today was the 40th annual March for Life in D.C – and 87% of counties there are no abortion providers and in several states it's nearly impossible to get an abortion. In over the past two years 130 laws have been enacted restricting abortion rights and curbing the number of abortion providers. I want abortion to be legal, safe, and rare, but restricting access makes it rare for the wrong reason and drives many women to self-administered abortions that endanger their lives and their reproductive future.  In a nation where 40% of children are born to unwed mothers, we are hurting our nation by making family planning harder. I thank God and country that when I fell into a bad situation, abortion was there to save me and keep me on a path toward building a strong family I have now – and I pray that safety net remains in place. People who have children when they're prepared leads to stronger children, stronger families, and thus stronger adults and a stronger America. original text here 

Let's begin where he does, with his relationship with this woman. He admits that he was in a "committed relationship with a woman who I knew was just not the one."  Romantic nonsense aside, what does he tell us here?  He continued a relationship with a woman that he he had no intention of marrying.  So, then, why exactly was he in the relationship?  Obviously this was a sexual relationship, so it appears that he kept himself in the relationship  for personal gain. 

Then he attempts to remove personal responsibility by the use of the passive sense, "she became pregnant."  Wait....how did that happen? Did she have some sort of immaculate conception?  Did she accidentally bump against somebody and then became pregnant?  No...we all know what happened, but the use of the passive sense here is a means by which Mr. Neblett can avoid the responsibility of "I had sex with a woman I had no intention of marrying and I impregnated her."  People don't 'become pregnant' anymore than the gun 'just went off'.  People have to decide to a course of action that leads to pregnancy.  

Mr. Neblett then tries to couch the next decision in moral language.  "I have always known the importance of family...." He wants to prepare the reader by putting this in context.  Because he and this unnamed woman could not perform their moral responsibility to this new life, it is better that the new life is destroyed. 

And so, we are told, "she decided to have an abortion." Mr. Neblett again absolves himself of any wrong doing.  It was all her fault.  Roe v. Wade does create an interesting legal situation.  It takes two people to make a child, but after conception, the child belongs only to the woman.  Of course, men are more than happy to be absolved of most responsibilities these days, but it is amazing in this narrative how Mr. Neblett disappears from the stage altogether. 

Mr. Neblett then goes on to say that this decision, "saved my life."  Pause for a second to reflect on that choice of phrasing, because it's deliberate.  The notion here is that the unwanted baby gave his life in a noble sacrifice for  Mr. Neblett.  Was Mr. Neblett mortally injured or critically ill?  No! Then how did this abortion save Mr. Neblett's life.  We have to conjecture here.  By eliminating this unwanted child, this saved Mr. Neblett's financial resources and allowed him to persue a career in broadcast.  Thank God that this woman decided to have an abortion, otherwise this man would have had to get a job and take care of his responsibility and raise a child. 

Later on in his life, Mr. Neblett did marry and decide to have a child. It is interesting to read his reflections on that.  No where does he try to deny that the unborn child is a human life.  In fact, he remembers with joy as he "watched with joy the boy growing inside her." He talks about how this experience "jostled" his worldview about abortion.  But thankfully (or so we are led to believe) he remained committed to keeping abortion legal.  

He summarizes his position towards the end of this quote by saying "I thank God and country that when I fell into a bad situation, abortion was there to save me..." Notice again these use of the passive voice. It is almost as if he is saying that he had no choice and this situation was thrust upon him...he was an innocent who found himself in a 'bad situation.'  But abortion was there to save him. This is an interesting choice of words and imagery.  One can almost here the echoes of old timey religious language, but instead of "Jesus Saves," we are encouraged to believe that "Abortion Saves."  

Of course the question we have to ask is: 'saves who...from what?'  In this case, Mr. Neblett was saved from a life of providing for his child. He was saved from financial obligations, he was saved from having to grow up, he was saved from putting his career on hold and he was saved from the hard work of being a father.  Thank God for that!

Mary Elizabeth Williams

Ultimately, abortion does create two classes of people: those who have rights and those who do not.  As Pro-Choice Advocate Mary Elizabeth Williams recently put it, "All life is not equal."  She explains: "A fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides." (Mary Williams) For Ms. Williams, just like Mr. Neblett, an unborn baby is a life worth sacrificing to the greater cause of people not being hampered down in their responsibilities.  Ms. Williams exclaims that is she found out she was pregnant,"you bet your a** I'd have an abortion.  I'd have the World's Greatest Abortion."

The Church has no choice but to be pro-life because God is pro-life.  Celebrating abortion as a means of salvation from moral responsibility has no place in the church because it necessarily involves taking a human life...a human life who as no voice.  

This year, let us strive to strive to live out the truth that Bishop Oscar Romero taught us, "that those who have a voice must speak for those who are voiceless."