American Spectator G. Tracy Mehan, III November 14, 2006
The Queen’s English takes a beating whenever our politics turns to abortion. The most recent instance of this distortion of language — obfuscation, really — is the discussion of “partial birth” abortion. This barbaric practice is neither partial, nor is it an abortion. It is nothing short of infanticide.
During the last week’s oral arguments in the U.S. Supreme Court, over a federal law seeking to ban this latest assault on the integrity of the human person, my ears perked up when I heard that the lawyers and judges used the term “fetal demise” to describe the fate of the doomed subject of the horrendous practice.
The “fetal” part refers to a baby. The “demise” refers to the killing of the baby, by means of crushing her skull, in the course of a breech delivery.
It should be of no consequence whether this outrage occurs immediately before, during, or after the actual “birth” of the child. It is abhorrent throughout. In terms of the continuum of the child’s existence, which begins with conception and ends with death, birth is an entirely arbitrary, fleeting moment in time, a non-event in terms of the child’s inherent worth. What in God’s name is the principle of science, law, or morality which dictates that a human being is worthless one moment, before birth, and entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness the very next, that is, after birth?
. . . more
Here is a troubling headline: Half of Women Who Underwent Abortion in 2002 Had Previous Abortions, Guttmacher Report Says
Reports like this prompt the question of whether instead of focusing on this extremely rare “partial birth abortion” procedure, the efforts of the pro-life movement might be better utilized emphasizing the need for reproductive responsibility. Something is wrong with our society when abortion is clearly still being utilized as a repeat form of birth control.
Obviously the Guttmacher Institute thinks the solution is more information and access to contraception. Contraception is a solution but a secondary or fall-back solution. Unintended pregnancies are going to continue to occur (and contraception will only stop some of them) until more people develop responsible and moral views towards sexual behavior. That goes for men as well as women. Furthermore, because a greater proportion of repeat abortions are concentrated among the lower-income groups there are social and economic contributing factors to abortion that the pro-life movement should be addressing as well.
Garance Franke-Ruta, a pro-choice advocate having second thoughts, writes in the New Republic:
LIBERAL CONCERNS ABOUT ABORTION. Multiple Choice
Something is wrong with our society when abortion is clearly still being utilized as a repeat form of birth control.
You think? Hum, we might have to ponder that one…;)
until more people develop responsible and moral views towards sexual behavior.
Why, who could have thought of such a thing?…;)
Furthermore, because a greater proportion of repeat abortions are concentrated among the lower-income groups there are social and economic contributing factors to abortion that the pro-life movement should be addressing as well.
Take out “economic” and your right on. The economic argument, “poverty (or at least the American flavor of it) = abortion” is part of the lie of the left….
The quote from Garance Franke-Ruta is not really interesting. Occasionally the truth does get through – even to the hard of heart. But I am curious Dean, why you are writing about this as you support abortion? When you say “extremely rare “partial birth abortion” procedure” you lose all credibility on the issue and reveal your refusal to recognize the personhood of the victim of partial birth abortion. If ever was an issue where your alleged Orthodoxy would come into play it would be here…
Mr. Scourtes, I don’t know you, but I gather from this blog that you identify yourself as Orthodox while embracing something that the Church repudiates (abortion). This is a curious intellectual convolution — to claim to be something while eschewing the thing itself. It must be difficult for you.
But setting that aside, I imagine that you would insist that you do not, in fact, recommend abortion. Am I right? You would not say to your daughter, if you have one, that she must be sure to get one; that having at least one abortion is an experience that every young woman should have.
On the contrary, I assume that you — as so many others — consider abortion a necessary evil; that it would most emphatically NOT be an enriching experience for anyone but indeed may be necessary as a “relief valve” of sorts — that circumstances in some people’s lives may be so intolerable that abortion may represents a remedy for suffering… Similar to chemotherapy, perhaps, eh? In other words, abortion is to unwanted pregnancy as chemotherapy is to cancer. No one would wish to have to endure either, but outlawing either would be unconscionable.
You wrote to give suggestions in regard to what you call the “pro-life movement” about what they should be doing to prevent the need for abortion. But Mr. Scourtes, I would suggest that as someone who believes that abortion should NOT be outlawed, you should be one who is particularly active in trying to prevent the need for it. Just as you might participate in a “Walk for Life” designed to raise awareness of breast cancer, or funding for research about its prevention, or support for those caring for cancer victims such as the Ronald McDonald houses, shouldn’t you be participating in awareness campaigns and fundraisers for those who provide crisis pregnancy aid, financial assistance, and support to those who find themselves in “unintended” pregnancies?
In short, Mr. Scourtes, shouldn’t you be at least a supporter of the “pro-life movement” if not an active member of it?
Your comment that “something is wrong with our society…” reminded me of something G.K. Chesterton wrote once, about education. He said:
What is education? Properly speaking, there is no such thing as education. Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another. … What we need is to have a culture before we hand it down. In other words, it is a truth, however sad and strange, that we cannot give what we have not got, and cannot teach to other people what we do not know ourselves.
And this, sir, brings us back to the disconsonant psychic predicament you find yourself in, I think…
Christopher: Don’t you think that’s just a stunning acknowlegement of the defects in the liberal position on abortion, by a liberal? She writes:
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=exvx525l1V6Y9%2B29yiRI83%3D%3D
But the article also makes the point that polarization of the issue is preventing objective and rational solutions to abortion from even being considered.
“Don’t you think that’s just a stunning acknowledgement of the defects in the liberal position on abortion, by a liberal?”
No. First, it happens all the time. People from all over, every day, come to all sorts of realizations about the nature of man and the nature of the world. Second, what she seems to be arguing is that liberals abortion ideology is obscuring their assessment of certain facts – but this is (and always will be) a given. What she also says is that the same ideology is obscuring liberals view of other liberal ideology:
“sad fact is that, three decades after legalization, abortion is no longer mainly a tool women use to shape their own destinies, but rather a symptom of larger social problems that ought to be addressed by policymakers.”
So liberal ideology is blocking liberal ideology? As in “social problems that ought to be addressed by policymakers” – she forgot to add to the end of that sentence “with a liberal ideological solution”. Well, I dare say that the devil tripping over himself should not bother anyone…
Ronda – I’m grieved by your remarks because I do indeed consider myself pro-life, and have certainly never embraced abortion. My wife and I have donated money to an organization called “Chicks in Crisis” that provides aid to single mothers and offers adoption assistance.
Where I may differ with you is that I believe in treating the causes of problems rather than the symptoms. Simply outlawing abortion while doing nothing to address the underlying causes of abortion and would only push the procedure into the back alley, making it more lethal and dangerous for women. While abortion is undoubtedly a moral issue, addressing abortion as a public health issue and attacking the causes of abortion in a systematic and scientific manner, on the other hand holds the promise of changing the behavior that leads to abortion.
There’s nothing ideological about acknowleging the clear correllation between certain social and economic independent variables and the rate of abortion. How is suggesting that a woman who is having a repeat abortion because of sexual abuse, get some help, a “liberal solution”. Providing assistance to a single mother who doesn’t know how she will be able to afford to raise the new baby on the way isn’t a liberal solution; it is a Christian solution.
The fact that some upper-income women have abortions of social convenience indicates that there is, as you say, a moral and cultural dimension to the problem. However, the fact that there are many more lower-income women, per capita, who have abortions demonstrates that there are social and economic forces present that also drive the rate of abortion.
NARAL and and the other abortion-rights activists are rightly chastised for ignoring the underlying social and economic causes of abortion and treating the matter solely as a privacy issue. Why would pro-life groups want to commit the same error of ignoring the underlying public health issues, by treating women as criminals?
Dean says:
When liberals use the word “polarization” they mean any consistent, organized attempt to object to their ideas especially if it is based upon a genuine moral foundation. We must have conformity and equality after all, no matter how many we have to kill to achieve that blessed state.
Why do you think that Planned Parenthood has offices just on the fringes of the ghetto? That’s where the money is. PPs are good little capitalists. They know where their propaganda, excuse me, “educational literature” will be most effective. They know their market and they strive to increase their market share, encouraging sexual license so that they can reap the financial rewards. Also, we must not forget that Margaret Sanger wanted to cleanse the United States of un-desireables. Are we sure her founding philosphy is not still active at least subliminally?
Objective and rational: How many lives is it rational to allow to be harvested? Shall we set quotas by race, gender, and socio-economic status? By what “objective” standards do we judge which lives are allowed to continue and which are not? Should we use Tiller’s standard here in Kansas: “Give me $5000 each and I’ll kill as many babies as you want me to kill regardless of how far along in the pregnancy you are. Hell, it doesn’t even matter if you are a 12 year old girl repeatedly raped and impregnated by your step-father—fork over the money and I’ll do it as often as you want. That’s the kind of capitalism you ought to object to Dean. Tiller and the abortion industry has objectified and capitalized each and every unborn child–they are worth, for Tiller, $5000, no more, no less. Makes me wonder if we could just pay him $1,000,000 a year if he’d stop doing the abortions? Maybe that’s the “rational and objective” solution. After all we pay farmers not to grow crops, why not abortion doctors not to harvest “fetal tissue”. Of course, we could always emulate Jonathon Swift’s, A Modest Proposal http://emotionalliteracyeducation.com/classic_books_online/mdprp10.htm since there are a lot of poor mouths to feed in the United States and around the world surely that would be better than just dumping the “fetal tissue” in the garbage, that’s such a waste of good protein.
Ms. Wintheiser is correct, if you had any objective or rational understanding of the problem you’d coordinate your schedule with Randall Terry when he returns to Wichita to protest. Jim Holman is right. If the unborn child is a person, then we have to do more to stop the killing.
“And this, sir, brings us back to the disconsonant psychic predicament you find yourself in, I think… ” and indeed that we are all in.
Dean, I’m so sorry you’re greived.
Dean, don’t you think it more than a little patronizing to address Ms. Wintheiser by her first name when she had the courtesy to address you as Mr. Scourtes? Maybe its an effort to put a woman in her place and/or gain a more strategic position. Or maybe its that old hobgoblin of egalitaianism coming out in you Dean. God forbid that there be any but the most plebian and common form of address. Show her the same respect she showed you!
Mr. Scourtes, no need for grief. As I said, I don’t know you and my impression came from someone else’s post. And I did say I was certain you would never recommend it but think of it only as a necessary evil. Didn’t I get that right? Since you did not deny being Orthodox, I must have got at least part of it right, didn’t I?
However, the language you used also lent itself to my impression that you favor legal abortion. You referred to the “pro-life movement” as if you are outside of it; you said “there are social and economic contributing factors to abortion that the pro-life movement should be addressing as well…” as if you have nothing to do with it. As your own critique implied, anyone who is strongly pro-life does not put quotes around the phrase partial birth abortion, nor would they think that focusing on saving even one unborn child “extreme” or somehow a wasted effort. Perhaps you haven’t thought about it, but the advantage of focusing on partial birth abortion is that, unlike human beings who are not much larger than a peanut, no one can deny the humanity of an infant being slaughtered hanging halfway outside his momma’s birth canal.
In 1943, Hans and Sophie Scholl, brother and sister, and their friend Christl Probst were sentenced to death by the Nazis for publishing a circular letter that was “against the Regime.” Sophie wrote that living in Germany at that time was “like living in a beautiful house when you know that terrible things are happening in the cellar.” I believe that one of the primary reasons that abortion is not understood by most as the pivotal moral issue of our time is the fact that the victim of the killing is invisible. The use of euphemism has rendered us even more blind to the reality of the holocaust that is happening under our very noses. Perhaps focusing on partial birth abortion will open a small window in the cellar of the beautiful house that we live in.
Mr. Scourtes, where did you get the idea that pro-lifers (not you, of course) do not believe in treating the causes of abortion and advocate doing nothing more than outlawing it? Virtually every pro-life activist I know believes strongly in addressing the underlying causes of abortion. They aren’t relying on government to do that work for them, either — they believe it so strongly they are actively involved in efforts intended to address the culture from the “roots” up. They also are a little more savvy than to fall for the “back alley” argument any longer (since Dr. Bernard Nathanson came out of the closet, actually…). Really, Mr. Scourtes… I’m surprised you don’t know by now that abortion rates have skyrocketed since 1973! Legalizing abortion has increased the rate of abortion; indeed, you were expressing concern yourself that something has gone terribly wrong. Perhaps relegating abortion to back alleys would be a handy deterrent to repeating the experience…? (By the way, another ominous statistic worth noting is that child abuse has increased by 400% since abortion was legalized. I wonder if there might be a connection there; what do you think?)
And by the way, I’m sorry, but I must have missed something in this thread. Who said that suggesting a woman who is having a repeat abortion because of sexual abuse should get some help is a “liberal solution?”
You commented that “Providing assistance to a single mother who doesn’t know how she will be able to afford to raise the new baby on the way isn’t a liberal solution; it is a Christian solution.”
I heartily agree, Mr. Scourtes. I see that you truly do have pro-life sensibilities. You know, then, that there are many crisis pregnancy agencies who work very hard to provide this assistance to single mothers, including the one you donated to. As you mentioned, this is not something NARAL does, nor Planned Parenthood, either, to my knowledge. Indeed, it is often individual pro-lifers who make huge personal sacrifices to address some of these concerns; for example Mary Ann Kuharski, a pro-life activist in St. Paul who has 7 biological children. She and her husband have adopted 6 more children, some of whom were slated for abortion. You may have also been a volunteer at some local crisis pregnancy center — the one you mentioned perhaps?
As far as your comment regarding the social and economic forces that drive the rate of abortion is concerned — I really don’t care if women getting abortions are in upper or lower income brackets. Their babies are all precious, regardless of their mothers’ income or lack of one, and so are they. I want to make it impossible for them to experience something as violent and degrading and morally depraved as abortion regardless of their socio-economic standing.
I’m new to this site; I must have missed something else in this thread. Which pro-life groups want to ignore the underlying public health issues and treat women as criminals???
“Where I may differ with you is that I believe in treating the causes of problems rather than the symptoms. Simply outlawing abortion while doing nothing to address the underlying causes of abortion and would only push the procedure into the back alley, making it more lethal and dangerous for women.”
This is wrong, wrong, and wrong again. Morality, moral “dilemmas” are not “causes” and do not have “effects” as such. Morality, and the way we are to live in the world with God and our neighbor does not fit into “cause and effect” categories. Even the Old Covenant and it’s “Law” does not justify the Law in these categories (Job repents in “dust and ashes”, he does not get an “explanation” – a “cause” and “effect”). We are to follow the COMMANDS of God, not be effected by causes.
This thinking of course does not take into account the most important category of moral reasoning, the WILL. Not only does Dean leave this out, he positively dismisses it in his personal and recommend (to the “pro life movement” he wrongly critics) praxis (later in his post)!! The will, or some reduced concept of it, is even taken into account by many materialist philosophies. Even “scientifically”, the will – the human person as a moral actor who can intervene in what otherwise would be a metaphysical necessity, “cause and effect”, is a REAL account of reality. Dean would have us buy into a superstition.
The law of the land of these fifty states, being much wiser and deeper than “cause and effect” thinking, takes into account the will. It boldly “simply outlaws” revenge for example. If I could take the law into my own hands, say when someone cuts me off in traffic or murders my wife, the murder rate would be much higher (30 or 40 million annually easily, instead of 20 thousand or so). “Simply outlawing abortion” is the best way to “reduce” abortions because it, even scientifically, is a better account of the moral and practical situation we find ourselves in.
Simply outlawing abortion the only practical solution because it accurately reflects what man is – a moral actor with a will. Poverty, emotional and physical trauma, dysfunction, hardship, etc. ect. are not causes of abortion, just like they are not causes of revenge, or lust, or jealousy, or any other sin. Pushing murder into the back ally is not an excuse for pushing it into the street. Dean speaks with the serpent here – his thinking on abortion has NOTHING to do with Orthodoxy, Christianity, or even common gentile decency (“the law written on the heart”)…
Dean, we ask again, “What is man?”
Why would pro-life groups want to commit the same error of ignoring the underlying public health issues, by treating women as criminals?
WHAT??? of course these women (and men – the fathers, doctors, Dean, etc.) are criminal because MURDER is not a correct reaction to any public health issue. Repeat after me: Murder is not a response to a dilemma, disease, or any other problem. Dean, stop channeling the Satan!!!
“Virtually every pro-life activist I know believes strongly in addressing the underlying causes of abortion.”
Ms. Wintheiser,
Don’t buy into Dean’s (and Satan’s) premise here. Hardship does not “cause” abortion any more than virtue “causes” salvation. Without freedom (both man’s and God’s) nothing is wrong because nothing is permitted – it is simply “caused”…
I’m new to this site; I must have missed something else in this thread. Which pro-life groups want to ignore the underlying public health issues and treat women as criminals???
Mr. Wintheiser,
Again, don’t buy into Dean’s (and Satan’s) premise here. Dean is saying that unless one accepts his reasoning, then one is ignoring the rest of morality. Unless one accepts that abortion is “caused” by the economy (thought of course in neo-Marxist categories) then one is hardhearted and does not care for “women”. He regularly indulges in the lowest species of rhetoric when he discusses abortion – not exactly unexpected from someone channeling Satan…
Christopher…
Thank you for your enlightening “take” on this. You’re absolutely right. You’ve got to the crux of the issue and I had got distracted from it. I am such a reactionary and I am so polemical that a lot of the time I can get led around by the nose in a discussion like this if I’m not careful.
However, I can see that at times I am going to need to stick my tongue more deeply into my cheek so that you will be able to see it better… : ))
You can call me
Ronda… (It’s better than Mr. Wintheiser! : )) )
Christopher- It’s probably a waste of time reminding you that there is a strong statistical association between the per capita incidence of abortion and level of income – that is as income decreases, the per capita incidence of aborion increases. In your dogma-based, rather than evidence-based world, where abortion is not influenced by economic forces, there would be no other way to explain this phenomenon then to say that the poor people who have abortions must necessarily be “bad” people and wealthier people who have fewer must be “good” people.
Intuitively, we know there has to be an association between income and abortion. A middle or upper income teenager may receive validation and affirmation from acedemic or athletic accomplishment, or praise from parents or teachers. A lower income teen-ager may only be able to be able to obtain validation or affirmation as an object of sexual attraction from a member of the opposite sex. A middle or upper income teenager has more access to information on contraception and the causes of pregnancy or STD’s. A lower-income teenager would have less to have that information.
Should she become pregnant, a middle or upper income teenager may have a supportive family network to help see her through the crisis, arranging an adoption or helping her raise the child. A lower-income teenager from a single-parent home may not have the same supportive family network.
Lower-income women are more likely to come into contact with predatory or abusive males. Middle or upper income women are more likely to associate with males who are bound by the social conventions of their peers to behave like gentlemen.
A middle or upper income woman with an unintended pregnancy is more likley to have the financial means to raise a child. A lower-income income woman with an unintended pregnancy is less likely to have the financial means to raise a child and more likely to feel totally incapable of assuming the responsibility.
The solutions to the problems faced by lower income women are neither strictly liberal or conservative. Certainly the conservative emphasis on stronger families would be a big part of the solution. Dan Quayle’s much ridiculed comments on Murphy Brown’s unwed pregnancy are proven more correct every day. Conservatives are also correct that it should be mandatory for Family Planning agencies to provide information on adoption. But more “progressive” proposals to provide teens with better sexual and repoructive information, improve the quality of education and expand economic opportunities for lower-income youth, would also have a positive impact on reducing unwanted pregnancies.
You insist that the only moral approach to abortion is the most extreme approach, and anything less is collaboration with Satan. It’s as if you would also believe that someone advocating reducing cigarette smoking by imposing a five dollar a pack tax, rather making cigarette smoking illegal and hanging smokers from gallows in the public square, must secretly be in favor of Cancer. However as the Prohibition against alcoholic spirits of the ninetween twenties demonstrated, you cannot stop a behavior simply by outlawing it. You have to change the underlying culture first.
But Dean, without Prohibition our country would not have been blessed with the astute political leadership and high moral role models of the Kennedy family.
Christopher, your characterization of Dean as “channeling Satan” is unjust. You owe him an apology. No matter how much I disagree with Dean I am convinced that he has a good heart and cares sincerely and deeply about the poor from a Christian understanding of our duty to care for the poor. I only argue with him about his solutions and about some of the causes he perceives for poverty, but I never question his genuine concern.
He shares the Cup with us Christopher. He has a right to be accorded more respect that your comments give him.
In your dogma-based, rather than evidence-based world, where abortion is not influenced by economic forces, there would be no other way to explain this phenomenon then to say that the poor people who have abortions must necessarily be “bad” people and wealthier people who have fewer must be “good” people.
Dean, your the dogmatic Marxist, not I. Abortion is murder whether done by rich or poor, white or black, tall or short, pet owners or non-pet owners, or rather your address is odd or even.
You insist that the only moral approach to abortion is the most extreme approach
And you use this word “extreme” as if it means something. Murder is ‘extreme’, but simple outlawing (with real punishment) is not? That’s not extreme, it’s just silly.
“It’s as if you would also believe that someone advocating reducing cigarette smoking by imposing a five dollar a pack tax, rather making cigarette smoking illegal and hanging smokers from gallows in the public square, must secretly be in favor of Cancer.”
Stop channeling Satan Dean! Smoking is not murder, Abortion is. Abortion is not Prohibition Dean, it’s murder.
No matter how much I disagree with Dean I am convinced that he has a good heart and cares sincerely and deeply about the poor from a Christian understanding of our duty to care for the poor.
First, what does “cares sincerely” exactly mean? Is it simply an emotional impulse? Why separate it from works? Is it a “free pass” where normal moral censure does not apply because “the concern was genuine”? What havoc is now allowed or overlooked because it was done “with the best intentions”?
His alleged “Christian understanding” is a farce. He has not displayed “Christian understanding” at all. He has displayed the same “concern” Marx had for the “poor” and “the workers” as he sat in the library writing while his family starved. His concern arises from something true, but let’s be honest and admit it’s “Christianity” is accidental at best – and as I argue inspired by Satan (or one of his servants).
I will not apologize because pointing out Satanic thinking is nothing to apologize for. I am not arguing we burn Dean at the stake or anything like that 🙂 But let’s point out the moral disaster (nothing short of a holocaust) that his erroneous thinking leads to – and for goodness sake let’s not confuse something vague like “good intentions” with Christianity…
Christopher – we both want to get to the same destination. You want to take the interstate, the most direct route on the map. I want to take the more circuitous side streets and avoid what I see as the inevitable traffic jam. But we both want to go to the same place and we are arguing over strategy and not objectives.
Dean and Christopher:
Christopher
Marxists don’t give a damn about the poor, the poor are just canon fodder for the Marxists desire for earthly power. Dean is attempting to honestly respond to the Biblical commandment that we care for the poor. That he does not understand the difference between neo-Marxist, statist emotionalism and the spiritual economy of the Church speaks more to the mind of the Church in this country than anything else. If he grew up in an upwardly mobil, politically liberal Greek social club rather than being formed for Christ and the Church by sober teachers, it is not surprising he has the confusion he has. He now has the choice–continue in the worldly mind or really take on the mind of the Church–study, repent, all that. Converts have a distinct advantage, we can come to the Church in the ideal and it is easier to see the errors that exist, at least the ones that we don’t share ourselves. Our disadvantage is that we frequently do not understand the actual milleau that our elder brothers have struggled with, sometimes with little success for years.
To be “Satanic” requires intent to turn one’s back on Jesus Christ for one’s own desire. Dean’s reasoning is certainly worldly and therefore easy prey for Satan, but your retoric is still excessive. If you really believe it, follow the Biblical way. Since you have approached him personally, albeit in a public, impersonal fashion on the net, go to his bishop or priest, don’t rabble-rouse and loose restraint and respect. It reminds me of the type of intemperate language Dean used when he first started posting. He’s calmed down a lot. You’d be wise to follow his example.
Dean,
You are wrong unfortunately, you and Christopher do not want the same things. We do not serve the poor to help them and to eliminate poverty. We serve the poor because they are human beings in need of salvation just as we are. By serving them, we serve our Lord and thereby participate in the salvific process. Alexander Schmemann said that the Church is not meant to “help” but to save. IMO that is the key piece you are missing. The state is not nor ever will be friendly to the Church. The state is of this world, the Church is not. That does not mean that the Holy Spirit cannot animate and use people in state functions to help bring about salvation, but the state is not an organ of salvation.
Now if you want to return to the Byzantine model of Church and State synergy, good luck. It didn’t really work then when monarchy was all that was known really. It certainly won’t work now when the idea of the ruler being responsible to a higher authority is totally lost.
Michael writes: “We serve the poor because they are human beings in need of salvation just as we are. By serving them, we serve our Lord and thereby participate in the salvific process. Alexander Schmemann said that the Church is not meant to “help” but to save.”
My understanding is that the point of caring for the poor is not that the poor are saved, but that we are.
Here the King saves those who showed compassion to the poor:
“Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in . . . ”
Here the poor welcome those who helped them:
“Let us then show him mercy in the persons of the poor and those who today are lying on the ground, so that when we come to leave this world they may receive us into everlasting dwelling places, in Christ our Lord himself, to whom be glory for ever and ever.” Gregory of Nazianzen
Christopher writes: “let’s not confuse something vague like “good intentions” with Christianity… ”
Good intentions flow from Christianity and sincere faith. The Christian who cares for the poor doesn’t do so with any particular “end” in mind, not even his own salvation, but simply because such care flows from his heart of compassion. In other words, he cares for the poor because he has a commpassionate nature. It is what he does. “A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things.” (He literally has a “thesaurus” in his “cardio” in which his treasure and valuables are kept.)
“What is a merciful heart? It is a heart on fire for the whole of creation, for humanity, for the birds, for the animals, for demons, and for all that exists. By the recollection of them the eyes of a merciful person pour forth tears in abundance. By the strong and vehement mercy that grips such a person’s heart, and by such great compassion, the heart is humbled and one cannot bear to hear or to see any injury or slight sorrow in any in creation.” St. Isaac of Syria
Michael: ” . . . the state is not an organ of salvation.”
Christianity emerged from the context of Judaism. In Jewish religion care for the poor was not just a matter of personal charity but was also written into the law (note the word “law.”) For example, personal debts would be cancelled during the Sabbatical Year. Farmers were commanded to leave part of the harvest so that it could be gleaned by the poor. (Lev. 23) Charity was commanded: “When there will be a needy person from among your brothers in any of your gates in your land which the Lord, your God gave you, don’t harden your heart and don’t close your hand to your needy brother” (Deut. 15). Again in the Torah, this wasn’t just a good idea; it was “the law.”
The tradition of community charity continued even during the Roman occupation of Israel: “In the postbiblical period, charity developed in new directions as Jewish society surrendered its predominantly rural and agrarian character, and craft-based and commercial urban life slowly emerged. . . . At a time, therefore, when the pagan Roman world knew nothing of a concept of benevolence based on pity for the poor, Jews, out of empathy, organized communal relief efforts so that those in need would not starve, lack basic clothing, or go without shelter.”
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i8049.html
Christians continued this tradition:
“Pre-Christian Greek and Roman philanthropy had little to do with pity for the poor–with charity as we know it. . . . there was no ethos of pity, of helping these people just because they were indigent. Things changed, however, with the coming of Christianity and especially the Christianization of the pagan Roman Empire beginning in the fourth century. Drawing upon its Jewish roots but carrying the legacy in new directions, the Church and the Christian Empire constructed charity as a response to pity for the poor.”
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i8049.html
So there is a Jewish and Christian tradition of care for the poor by the larger community that extends back almost 3,000 years. Granted that the U.S. is neither the chosen people nor the Christian church, it seems perfectly reasonable to me that a Christian would look to the resources of the larger community in offering assistance to the poor.
This is also consistent with the teachings of the Catholic church. Note in particular John Paul II’s 1987 encyclical Sollicitudo rei socialis:
“Likewise the leaders of nations and the heads of international bodies, while they are obliged always to keep in mind the true human dimension as a priority in their development plans, should not forget to give precedence to the phenomenon of growing poverty. Unfortunately, instead of becoming fewer the poor are becoming more numerous, not only in less developed countries but-and this seems no less scandalous-in the more developed ones too. . . .
“It is necessary to state once more the characteristic principle of Christian social doctrine: the goods of this world are originally meant for all. The right to private property is valid and necessary, but it does not nullify the value of this principle. Private property, in fact, is under a “social mortgage,” which means that it has an intrinsically social function, based upon and justified precisely by the principle of the universal destination of goods.”
http://www.vatican.va/edocs/ENG0223/__P7.HTM
Note 23. Jim is correct. The poor save us. See the criteria of the Final Judgment in Matthew 25. St. John Chrysostom taught the wealth is a blessing given to us on behalf of the poor.
Social philanthropy was most developed in Byzantium (St. Basil developed the concept and execution of hospitals, orphanages, etc) and carried forward into present day. Not much on the internet about this unfortunately although here is something: International Society for the History of Medicine. Also, Dr. Demetrios J. Constantelos wrote a book that has becomes a definitive source of sorts: Byzantine Philanthropy and Social Welfare (Studies in the Social and Religious History of the Medieval Greek World, Vol 1.
I agree with Michael that Marxists (and Marx’s philosophical child — Progressivism) don’t care about the poor. Marxism created unprecedented deprivation and death. Progressivism champions itself as a friend of the poor but its policies institutionalize poverty rather than eradicate it.
Michael,
You seem to only disagree with the substance of my posts on the point of whether Dean is “channeling Satan”. You say:
“To be “Satanic” requires intent to turn one’s back on Jesus Christ for one’s own desire.”
I think Dean does exactly that by refusing to examine his anthropology and politics as related to the Church. I am not sure yours is a distinction with a difference. However, I am sensitive to your assertion that my tone has been excessive. I am also sensitive to Dean’s remarks, as they are based on worldly foundations and people are so easily led down that dark road. He has been posting his worldly and disastrous philosophy here for years. It’s a bit disappointing, in that it distracts from applying something resembling Christianity to our social/political lives.
I guess my question to you is, what “tone” should we use with Dean when he posts such dribble? I submit that doing more of the same will get us exactly… more of the same. I think (perhaps) you are setting up a false civilly.
Christopher: I’ve mentioned a number of practical and proven public health and government policy tools for reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies and abortions in this country. You have summarily dismissed them as satanic and Marxist. Locking people up and pushing women into the back alley to be hacked and mutilated are the only two remedies that appear to merit your approval.
It makes me wonder whether you are are actually in favor of lowering the number of abortions at all. Perhaps you are more fearful of having to give up the abortion issue as a cudgel with which to beat your ideological foes. If Democrats like me also want to reduce abortions, then maybe we are not as evil as you say, then you can’t slander us with the baby-killer epithet anymore. What will you do?
Michael: You seem to think that I am dogmatically attached to government solutions as remedies to all problems. I’m not. I have an MBA. It would thrill me if the private sector could come up its own comprehensive solution to our nation’s health care woes, for example. I have seen my community pull together without any government prompting to support a number of charitable activities, such as the local Food Bank where I volunteer.
However, I do see government solutions as preferable to neglect and inaction, and if implemented correctly, capable of serving as a reflection of our more noble impulses and desires as a people.
Abraham Lincoln said that
http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm
If government is the enemy then we are our own enemy. If all government is now to be regarded as the enemy, then the thousands of Americans who fought for a “government of the people, by the people, for the people” really did die in vain.
Christopher, you can’t turn away from something you don’t know. You tend to think Dean is apostasing, I think he has never penetrated into the heart of the Church sufficiently to understand the difference. It is possible Dean is an example of the person who is ethnically righteous in his devotion without attending to essence of faith. As converts, you and I were forced to study, so we think we know the real Church.
How much patience should be displayed? How much does Jesus give you and me with our sins or how much patience do we ask of Him? Hey, I know some of the heretical beliefs I’ve entertained over the years and how hard it has been for me to let go of them. I’ve seen Dean change, or at least I think I have. He keeps coming back. He is either learning something; he really enjoys getting yelled at; or, like you say, just enjoys getting us all in a twit. Who knows, maybe he’s not even Orthodox at all.
Rather than talking like he isn’t here: Dean, which is it, did you at some point decide that the liberal politcal ideas were superior to the Church and then attempt to wrap them up with Othodox theology? Did you assimilate liberal Protestant theology without seeing the difference between their foundations and the Church or do you think them more profound and correct? Or did you just grow up in a politically minded, liberal Greek community interested in assimilating and being upwardly mobile in worldly terms. If in the latter there would be a natural gravitation toward the prevailing political mind in California that you seem to demonstrate.
Why do you not even attempt to explain your anthropology? Why do you change the subject when you are substantively challenged instead of engaging in dialog? All of these are legitimate questions if you wish or expect me to continue to respond to you. Would you agree Christopher?
Dean, good legitimate questions:
Government or at least national government no longer has any of the characteristics of the people, by the people or for the people. You constantly remind us of the tyranny, corruption, skulduggary and incompetence you see in the conduct of economic and foreign policy–I just happen to share your view when it comes to domestic policy.
National politicians suck all of our money away to Washington then use it along with demogogic rhetoric and dirty tricks to stay in power while at best do nothing but feather their own nests. I can’t think of a nationally known politician in any party that I trust right now. Maybe Lieberman has the right idea–get rid of the party power structures and really try to govern instead of just remaining in a cynical zero sum game of musical chairs.
My father had an Masters of Public Health from Harvard and a M.D. from the University of Kansas. He believed in the necessity and power of government to assist people to stablize and improve their lives. For him, there were no poltical issues, everything was a public health issue, everything could be solved applying good principals of community health. The emphasis is on community, the more local, the better, the more personal the better. Hands on, day to day education in living helping to create competence and dignity whether it be personal hygene, taking care of one’s home (in cooperation with landlords on rental property), literacy, preventive health practices such as immunizations, quick reporting of STD’s and aggressive follow up with sexual partners so that all could be tested and receive necessary treatment, good pre-natal care for expectant mothers marshalling whatever resources the community had to support them, dental care and mental health services, violence reduction, the list goes on and on and is almost endless.
Planned Parenthood was anathema in his eyes because he knew that they would politicize, atomize, and nationalize an issue that needed to be dealt with on a local, personal level following an integrated, organic, holistic approach. During the 23 years he served as the Director of the Wichita/Sedgwick County Department of Community Health, he developed many successful and innovative programs that really addressed community needs. He had to use all of his considerable intellectual power and dominating energy to extract funding from the city, county and state governments for his programs despite the unwillingness of the elected representatives to understand what he was doing. He routinely rejected federal money, because of the bureaucratic restraints. Within 6 months after his forced retirement, most of his programs had been gutted and turned into bureaucratic excuses for help and federal money became dominate. He predicted it, he documented it. Since he left in 1973, the department he created contiunes to exist, but has become an adjunct of welfare, and a home for government “inspectors”, little more. Planned Parenthood became the principal “health agency” for family planning with its offices, not in the middle of the ghetto like the health department, but just on the fringes.
You are correct to a point, simply outlawing abortion would not be sufficient. It does need to be taken off the national political stage. The repeal of Roe vs. Wade would be a step in that direction. Your old school, feminist rhetoric however does not lend itself to genuine dialog and solutions. You need to examine the frame of mind that allows you to persist in using bumper sticker slogans from the left in place of Christian thought. You need to recognize the work of thousands of sincere Christians like Ms. Wintheiser who labor to establish a network of support for women so that they can keep their babies or at least allow them to be born. A network that includes, but is not limited to intelligent use of available government programs and money. It is they who are doing the type of public health work which my father loved and championed. Men and women like her who also are willing to risk their personal freedom in an attempt to stop the killing.
You should help to put George Tiller out of business, he is a barbarian of the worst sort who refuses even to abide by the limited government oversite provided for under Kansas law. He operates under the guise of “patient autonomy” by the way as well as a whole host of other ethical euphemisims and disgusting politics. Tiller provided the resourses to defeat Kansas Attorney General Phil Kline who was trying to enforce the laws which applied to the abortion mill’s operation. Tiller does not give a damn about the health of those that come to him nor the science of gestation–all he wants is his $5000. As long as your science and public health approach includes an adament rejection of the attitude and the practice of such as George Tiller, we might have something to talk about.
We cannot expect to snap our fingers and have all abortion go away. We will have to, unfortunately, live in repentance with the fact that many more children will be killed in the war to stop our country from completely annihilating its soul as well as its children. Our own ineffectiveness to do Christian things to prevent abortion, then falling into the trap of allowing the abortionists to politicize and nationalize in a truely Marxist way the killing of unborn children, then further allowing them to solidfying that same killing in the capitalist ethos of the United States as a powerful industry, has to be recognized.
As far as health care, my impression is that you are dogmatically attached to a vast government program as the solution. I have heretofore seen nothing to suggest otherwise that I recall. You have not resonded at all to any of the practical, existential experience I have as a health insurance salesman or the knowledge I have from my father. Perhaps your MBA education has blinded you to the value of small numbers and individual activity and wedded you too comfortably to the value of scientific systemization and large operations. If you expect us to respond positively to your ideas and insights, you will have to show the same humility and courtesy. There is a Christian solution which can be strenghtened and made functional within the politics of this country, but it has to be Christian, not political. It cannot be political ideology dressed up in Chrisitan clothes.
Your approach almost always comes across as the latter. I know you can do better. I know your concern for the poor is not Marxist, but your sloganeering rhetoric makes it almost impossible to do anything with what you propose but reject it. Just because this is a blog does not mean we have to act like so many of the ignorant, irrational bloggers that wander around in cyber space.
Michael writes: “Christopher, you can’t turn away from something you don’t know.”
More to the point, people can’t respond to something that has not been presented. Notably absent from the conservative side of many of the discussions is any reference to the Bible, liturgy, church history, or the church fathers. Dean at least references the gospels.
Christopher simply makes assertions about Orthodoxy. He writes in an ex cathedra manner, as if he is the keeper of the tradition and his particular interpretation needed no further explanation. He rarely tries to make a case for anything using the Bible or any other church literature. When challenged, he responds with personal attacks and labels couched in religious language. He bluntly labels Dean as a secularist, heretic, apostate, materialist, Marxist, and so on. Of course, Christopher never makes the case for any of that. He makes assertions without attempting to justify anything.
For Christopher, the game is always played in the other guy’s court. When his position is questioned, his standard is that the other person obviously doesn’t understand anything, with the attitude that he cannot be burdened to correct such pathetic ignorance. His approach in this reminds one of the presuppositionalism of the Christian reconstructionists. Christopher doesn’t have to present any kind of evidence for his worldview. He doesn’t even have to explain the content of his worldvlew. He simply asserts that since Dean’s beliefs are contrary to his worldview, Dean must be wrong.
When presented with specifics, Christopher and many others here respond with silence. I recently provided an argument that a social and governmental care for the poor is part of both the Jewish and Christian traditions. I quoted scripture from the Torah, and the response was silence. I cited a Jewish historian on the social care for the poor in the first and second centuries, and the response was silence. I cited the fact that the Christians continued this tradition in the fourth century, and the answer was silence. I quoted a modern papal encyclical talking about the role of government in caring for the poor, and the response was silence. I cited another portion of the encyclical noting what the pope called the “social mortgage” on wealth, and the response was silence.
While Christopher cannot be bothered to defend his own theological opinions with evidence and argument, the rest of his posts are completely consistent with right-wing ideology. He is not bothered by the incineration of hundreds of thousands of noncombatants during war. He puts a happy face on global warming. While denouncing Dean, He appears that he would be good drinking buddies with Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.
Going forward, I would suggest that anyone who wants to instruct Dean and anyone else on the higher path should have the minimal courtesy of actually presenting evidence and making a case. Even though there is not a strong philosophical tradition in Orthodoxy, I think it must be possible to cite specific materials and then explain how those materials support the positions being advocated.
Michael: “As converts, you and I were forced to study, so we think we know the real Church.”
Having been thus educated, perhaps you and Christopher would be so kind as to enumerate the details of what you studied.
Dean, good legitimate questions:
Government or at least national government no longer has any of the characteristics of the people, by the people or for the people. You constantly remind us of the tyranny, corruption, skulduggary and incompetence you see in the conduct of economic and foreign policy–I just happen to share your view when it comes to domestic policy.
National politicians suck all of our money away to Washington then use it along with demogogic rhetoric and dirty tricks to stay in power while at best do nothing but feather their own nests. I can’t think of a nationally known politician in any party that I trust right now. Maybe Lieberman has the right idea–get rid of the party power structures and really try to govern instead of just remaining in a cynical zero sum game of musical chairs.
My father had an Masters of Public Health from Harvard and a M.D. from the University of Kansas. He believed in the necessity and power of government to assist people to stablize and improve their lives. For him, there were no poltical issues, everything was a public health issue, everything could be solved applying good principals of community health. The emphasis is on community, the more local, the better, the more personal the better. Hands on, day to day education in living, helping to create competence and dignity whether it be personal hygene, taking care of one’s home (in cooperation with landlords on rental property), literacy, preventive health practices such as immunizations, quick reporting of STD’s and aggressive follow up with sexual partners so that all could be tested and receive necessary treatment, good pre-natal care for expectant mothers marshalling whatever resources the community had to support them, dental care and mental health services, violence reduction, the list goes on and on and is almost endless. Some criticize this approrach as paternalistic, and it could be that way. At some point, however, all education is paternalistic–the educator parents the one being educated.
Planned Parenthood was anathema in his eyes because he knew that they would politicize, atomize, and nationalize an issue that needed to be dealt with on a local, personal level following an integrated, organic, holistic approach. During the 23 years he served as the Director of the Wichita/Sedgwick County Department of Community Health, he developed many successful and innovative programs that really addressed community needs. He had to use all of his considerable intellectual power and dominating energy to extract funding from the city, county and state governments for his programs despite the unwillingness of the elected representatives to understand what he was doing. He routinely rejected federal money, because of the bureaucratic restraints. Within 6 months after his forced retirement, most of his programs had been gutted and turned into bureaucratic excuses for help and federal money became dominate. He predicted it, he documented it. Since he left in 1973, the department he created contiunes to exist, but has become an adjunct of welfare, and a home for government “inspectors”, little more. Planned Parenthood became the principal “health agency” for family planning with its offices, not in the middle of the ghetto like the health department, but just on the fringes.
You are correct to a point, simply outlawing abortion would not be sufficient. It does need to be taken off the national political stage. The repeal of Roe vs. Wade would be a step in that direction. Your old school, feminist rhetoric however does not lend itself to genuine dialog and solutions. You need to examine the frame of mind that allows you to persist in using bumper sticker slogans from the left in place of Christian thought. You need to recognize the work of thousands of sincere Christians like Ms. Wintheiser who labor to establish a network of support for women so that they can keep their babies or at least allow them to be born. A network that includes, but is not limited to intelligent use of available government programs and money. It is they who are doing the type of public health work which my father loved and championed. Men and women like her who also are willing to risk their personal freedom in an attempt to stop the killing.
You should help to put George Tiller out of business, he is a barbarian of the worst sort who refuses even to abide by the limited government oversite provided for under Kansas law. He operates under the guise of “patient autonomy” by the way as well as a whole host of other ethical euphemisims and disgusting politics. Tiller provided the resourses to defeat Kansas Attorney General Phil Kline who was trying to enforce the laws which applied to the abortion mill’s operation. Tiller does not give a damn about the health of those that come to him nor the science of gestation–all he wants is his $5000. As long as your science and public health approach includes an adament rejection of the attitude and the practice of such as George Tiller, we might have something to talk about.
We cannot expect to snap our fingers and have all abortion go away. We will have to, unfortunately, live in repentance with the fact that many more children will be killed in the war to stop our country from completely annihilating its soul as well as its children. Our own ineffectiveness to do Christian things to prevent abortion, then falling into the trap of allowing the abortionists to politicize and nationalize in a truely Marxist way the killing of unborn children, then further allowing them to solidfying that same killing in the capitalist ethos of the United States as a powerful industry, has to be recognized.
As far as health care, my impression is that you are dogmatically attached to a vast government program as the solution. I have heretofore seen nothing to suggest otherwise that I recall. You have not resonded at all to any of the practical, existential experience I have as a health insurance salesman or the knowledge I have from my father. Perhaps your MBA education has blinded you to the value of small numbers and individual activity and wedded you too comfortably to the value of scientific systemization and large operations. If you expect us to respond positively to your ideas and insights, you will have to show the same humility and courtesy. There is a Christian solution which can be strenghtened and made functional within the politics of this country, but it has to be Christian, not political. It cannot be political ideology dressed up in Chrisitan clothes.
Your approach almost always comes across as the latter. I know you can do better. I know your concern for the poor is not Marxist, but your sloganeering rhetoric makes it almost impossible to do anything with what you propose but reject it. Just because this is a blog does not mean we have to act like so many of the ignorant, irrational bloggers that wander around in cyber space.
Jim, When I said, “we think we know what the Church is” I was being a little sarcastic, the point being that it easy to believe one is more competent that one is. The fact is that many converts have just a distorted view of the Church as do those who grew up in her without really attempting to penetrate her mystery. The way I’ve learned about the Church the most is by participating in her life, especially the Divine Liturgy, contemplating the icons, listening to the sermons from my priest and our bishop (especially our bishop)–many of these can be found on my parish’s web site http://www.stgeorgecathedral.net/
The most valuable book I have read other than the Scriptures is St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation written in the early 4th century. Being linguistically challenged, I have to read the English translation, but it is a fantastic book that has many layers. I’ve been through it 3 times now and I find more material each time.
I haven’t said anything about your post, because I haven’t had the time to really read it. It takes longer for me to digest that type of post and make intelligent comments (if I can). I’ll get to it soon.
Jim in #23 you say:
I do not have any problem with using government resources for the poor, I do have a problem when those resources are not used intelligently and in fact worsen the situation rather than improve it. So often the government programs are used to buy votes rather than to intelligently address specific situations. They have nothing to do with fostering dignity, increasing competence and strengthening families and communities, quite the opposite. I have a problem with Christians abdicating our resposibility to care for the poor to the government especially when the “charity” is linked to policies such as abortion on demand that are antithetical to Christianity. Not to be overlooked is that the most vocal advocates of government programs for the poor are often the ones who also want to eliminate the Chrisitan voice from the public square.
When the governement was a theocratic or at least a theocentric monarchy, what you say makes sense, but when there is a state that disavows faith altoghether especially Christianity, I have a hard time supporting policies that will do nothing but enlarge a power that is against my faith and do nothing substantial for the poor.
At the same time, it is just as un-Christian to support a libertarian idea that puts an out of balance emphasis on capitalism without much restraint. Policies that allow big business to ignore its employees and the communities that depend on the jobs and further waters down our ability to be self-sufficient in important technology and resources is just as bad.
I read the passage in Matthew personally, I think it is meant to be personal. Jesus Christ is a person who calls other persons to communion with Him. He comes down to us and lifts us back up. We respond best to His commands when we carry them out personally, and as locally as we can.
Attempting to integrate any type of faith into the public policy of a pluralistic secular governmental system is quite difficult. I do not feel it can be done successfully by putting a blind trust in the governement to do it well. That has always been my argument with Dean.
Michael,
Dean says:
It makes me wonder whether you are are actually in favor of lowering the number of abortions at all. Perhaps you are more fearful of having to give up the abortion issue as a cudgel with which to beat your ideological foes.
to which (in part) you say:
Dean, good legitimate questions:
You are coddling my friend, and misapplying “patience” and other Christian virtue’s in my opinion. Your explanation, that Dean’s hyper liberal and/or ethnically confused “Orthodoxy” does not go very far either, as he has been posting here for years. Fr. Jacobse, Missourian, yourself, and who knows who else have spilt countless electronic ink to explain to Dean the very basics of all sorts of things (Orthodoxy, Christian anthropology, etc.). It is now time to move beyond “explaining”. Not sure what you can do on the internet, but you CAN call a spade a spade, and the Devil’s thought what it is.
I submit your not helping here. Look at the absurdity of the above lines. It’s pure rhetoric, not worthy of a middle school debate class. And that’s all this site is to Dean the vast majority of the time. He needs to be bent over his mothers lap and spanked for garbage like this. His Orthodoxy is not apparent to me. As you say, perhaps he is not Orthodox at all.
So why not call him on it? Let’s clear the air, and say what we all know – that his thinking is Satanic (when it comes to abortion) and not to be tolerated, or at least not spoken about? I think this is my main point of contention with you – that Dean’s rhetoric/satanic channeling should be tolerated – something akin to the patience of the Lord with our sins. Yet, I could cite “harsher” biblical injunctions against ungodly behavior all night long.
Dean is a troll (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll) – I for one am not going to treat him otherwise…..
Christopher: What is you plan to reduce the number of abortions in the United States?
How would your plan reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, and how specifically would you increase the number of women, contemplating abortion, who decide instead to carry to term?
Describe why you think would government assistance would not be not beneficial in communicating positive messages to women on avoiding unwanted pregnancy, seeking information regarding adotion or obtaining economic assistance for a new child they may have difficulty caring for.
Lastly, Explain how your own plan is practical, realistic and attainable.
Note 34:
Dean, you troll – must you continue to flame bait??
From the Didache:
Emphasis mine.
Dean, do you agree with the Orthodox principal that abortion is murder since it has been specifically forbidden in writing from the time of the Didache (circa A.D. 100) to the present?
Christopher, I cannot contenance the type of rhetoric you are using against anyone, it goes far beyond reproving and into the realm of hate which is also specifically forbidden in this same commandment from the Didache. I don’t believe the fact that they are written about together is an accident.
Dean, any plan to effectively deal with abortion has to have a goal that eliminates all abortions. That will not happen this side of the Second Coming, but it has to be the goal. It should be recognized as the murder that it is with appropriate penalties. Personally for the doctor or other provider I would call it murder for hire which is a capital offense in states with the death penalty. For the mother, it could be as little as manslaughter and in some cases the criminal penalty would not be attributable to the mother but the incestuous creep who impregnated her or the rapist.
As an economia, I believe that there could be cases in which an abortion could be allowed, but only under the strictest of criteria with each one being adjudicated individually.
Genuine education in the nature and consequences of sexual activity
Cultural policies that work to rebuild and strenghten the family, encourage marriage and the family rearing of children in that marriage included extended famlies. This involves far reaching economic and cultural and educational changes. There are no polices I have seen from any party which even begin to address the types of change necessary. However, the Democrat and other left policies do nothing but to encourage the continued atomization of life, family and culture which will lead to nothing but more violence against women, abortion, incest, etc.
The federal government, at the very least, has to get out of it altogether unless they want to pass a constitutional amendment that defines being human as from conception. That is both the theological and scientific reality.
Actually as it stands now abortion is a form of hate crime is it not? A whole class of people singled out for possible destruction simply because of their gestational age? Where is the hue and cry for hate crimes legislation to include those prior to gestational age 9 months?
Michael, quoting the Didache, writes: ” . . . thou shalt not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is begotten.”
I think the issue that Dean has tried to raise is what is the proper Christian response to abortion in a society in which abortion is not considered to be murder. To that end I offer a few quotations from other church fathers:
“What reason would we have to commit murder when we say that women who induce abortions are murderers, and will have to give account of it to God?”
Athenagoras, second century.
Note that Athenagoras says that the punishment for abortion is that the woman will have to “give account of it to God.” He does not say that the Christian should petition the government to outlaw abortion.
“Those who slew the unborn children will be tortured forever, for God wills it to so.” The Apocalypse of Peter, second century
Again, the author appeals to God’s punishment, not that of the State.
“To the governors of Roman provinces and to the Emperor Septimus Severus, defending Christianity against various charges: ‘That I may refute more thoroughly these charges [‘we are accused of observing a holy rite in which we kill a little child and then eat it’, Apologia 7.1], I will show that in part openly, in part secretly, practices prevail among you which have led you perhaps to credit similar things about us. . . . In our case, murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the foetus in the womb . . .”
Tertullian, Apologia 9.1, second – third century
Tertullian offers the Christian opposition to abortion as a defense against a slander against Christianity, but does not suggest that abortion should be outlawed by the Roman government.
“Let her that procures abortion undergo ten years’ penance, whether the embryo were perfectly formed, or not.”
Basil, The First Canonical Epistle of Our Holy Father Basil, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia to Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium, fourth century
Here again the punishment occurs within the church but it not administered by the government.
“Why a woman who procured an abortion would be punished: -Because “it might appear scandalous that she should be able to deprive her husband of children without being punished”.
Justinian, Digest 47.11
Note here the Justinian’s concern is the deprivation of the husband of children.
“Thou shalt not use magic. Thou shalt not use witchcraft; for he says, ‘You shall not suffer a witch to live’ [Ex. 22:18]. Thou shall not slay thy child by causing abortion, nor kill that which is begotten. . . . [I]f it be slain, [it] shall be avenged, as being unjustly destroyed” (Apostolic Constitutions 7:3 fifth century,
Note here that witches should also be put to death. And here the fetus is “avenged,” but not by the government.
“The knowledge, therefore, which is given to us for the purpose of walking in this way, is the following….Thou shalt not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shalt thou destroy it after it is born.” Letter of Barnabas 19, first century.
Note that the anti-abortion knowledge is given “for the purpose of walking in the way.”
“”Women who were reputed to be believers began to take drugs to render themselves sterile, and to bind themselves tightly so as to expel what was being conceived, since they would not, on account of relatives and excess wealth, want to have a child by a slave or by any insignificant person. See, then, into what great impiety that lawless one has proceeded, by teaching adultery and murder at the same time!” Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, third century.
Note that here again there is no call for governmental intervention.
All of the above quotations are from the Priests for Life web site.
Given that the Orthodox Church considers abortion to be murder, I find no evidence in the early church fathers that this should be a matter for the government to address. Instead, the injunction is that the woman will have to “give account to God,” and that this is a matter for the church to deal with. It is a matter of Christians “walking in the way.” Any suggestion that Christians should try to completely outlaw abortion using the power of the State is something is not taught in the church fathers — at least not in my reading of them.
The rate of abortion lowers when consciences are awakened towards the high value of unborn life. Government cannot force this change, but neither should government undermine this ethic which it routinely does by subsidizing Planned Parenthood, promoting abortion in the third world (the Clintons were very agressive with the most noxious form of cultural arrogance, Bush stopped it, Hillary will be certain to reinstate it), and other examples. From the other side, parental notification laws, increasing efforts to bring abortion clinics under proper health care inspections, investigations and if necessary criminal investigations of Planned Parenthood for hiding pregnancies of minors by rape, incest, and other forms of abuse, should be undertaken.
The government is necessarily involved here, because unlike the Roman Empire, American government in particular is often a court of ajudication of the great moral questions of the generations. Decisions go back and force until a consensus is reached of course, but America is not Rome or Byzantium so the conclusion that American government has no role here doesn’t work in any meaningful sense.
Dean writes:
Abortion is first a moral issue, just like sexual promiscuity among teens. Look at the billions pumped into safe-sex campaigns. Has it reduced pregnancy? A bit since condoms do that. Has is reduced sexual activity among teens? Not one bit. What is the ultimate result of approaching teen sex as an educational and financial issue (free condoms!)? An explosion in STD’s, cervical cancers, infertility, etc.
Two things you need to read: First: Teen Sex is Killing Our Kids; and Our Culture, What’s Left of It: The Mandarins and the Masses (read the review, then read the book).
A better question would be given the dismal failure of the economic approach towards teen promiscuity, what makes you think government assistance will have any impact on abortion rates?
Jim, by your logic, governement should never have any law that is founded upon moral or spiritual principal simply because God will take care of it in the end. What is law about if it is not to form a moral and ethical lattice of acceptable and unacceptable behavior by using the power of the sword to punish and the power of the purse to reward?
What is the foundation of morals and ethics?
Jim I really don’t think you are as dense as you have seemed to be in your response to my post using the Didache. But just in case you are: I thought the particular quote from the Didache was relevant because it brought into focus in one brief quote both the essentialy non-Orthodox view of abortion that Dean often advances while still professing he is Orthodox AND the non-Christian approach of hate filled words that I feel Christopher has lately engaged in.
You also completely ignored the end of my post on to Dean on the abortion question that abortion is a form of hate crime as those who advocate hate crime legislation promulgate the idea.
Michael,
It’s not “hate” and it’s not “rhetoric”. As I said upstream, I am not advocating burning Dean at the stake. It is not “hateful” to recognize Dean does not have a ‘good will’, at least towards his activity on this blog. it is simple reality. Where you and I disagree is as to how to “reprove” Dean. I am past the point where I am going to buy into his terms, definitions, and premises and refute the point by point – we have already done that for several years now. I am past the point where I am going to explicitly point the above fact out, and kindly ask him to join us in examining his un-Christian premises – we have already done that for several years now. I am past the point where I do any of the above simply for the benefit of others – we have already done that for several years now. I am to the point where I am going to call him out – Dean is a troll, who intentionally flames (and thereby insults) others. As you point out, he may not even be Orthodox! What we do know is that he simply counters everything on this board with non-Christian philosophy, and “debates” any and everything. It is one thing to do this with relatively unimportant issues, but with the holocaust of the unborn?!?! It is time to try something else, for everyone’s benefit (Dean’s included). It is time to call Dean out – he is a troll (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll)
Let’s be hones – Dean does not have a good will…
“Dean, any plan to effectively deal with abortion has to have a goal that eliminates all abortions.”
Michael,
You are buying into the activity of a troll – redefine the premises and terms to his unchristian world view. Morality, the law of the land, etc. is not a pseudo-scientific enterprise designed to “reduce” sin. Laws against murder, and the punishment thereof, would be there if they did not “reduce” anything. They are there because of the inherent value of the life taken. Morality is not based on pragmatism.
Why are you engaging Dean in this way?? Prediction: If you continue on this course, you will be writing the same thing 1, 3, or 5 years from now…
I truly don’t understand how you can describe my view of abortion as “un-Orthodox”. My primary motivation for urging that we use the power of government to undertake to reduce abortion is the moral disaster that it represents. There are social and economic problems related to abortion that we as a society need to address, but the fundamental problem with abortion is it’s violation of the core Judeo-Christian value that every human life is precious. I am not sure how this is inconsistent with the position of the Church.
I have never disagreed with my conservative friends that secular values on abortion are in opposition to Orthodox Christian values. The Supreme Court’s declaration in Roe v. Wade, that the fetus is not a person, is a statement severely at odds with the teachings of our Church. As a people we sometimes collectively embrace soothing myths and untruths to protect ourselves from harsh truths. We don’t want to know that the cocoa beans for the chocalate bar we are about to eat were most likely picked by child slaves in Africa, or that the new white shirt we are about to put on was stiched together by a sweatshop worker living in a dirt-floor shanty in a third-world slum. “The fetus is not a person” is a secular, liberal version of one of those terrible untruths.
My difference of opinion with you is over strategy and not objectives. Do we want to cure the disease or merely treat its symptoms? If we want to effectively reduce the number of abortions we have to address the underlying causes of abortion, and not just drive the procedure underground.
Government offers us the tools – they are waiting right there waiting for us to pick them up. Additionally, as government begins to send out messages urging people to prevent unwanted pregnancies and seek assistance to carry babies to term, the faith-based value – that every human life, including prenatal life, is precious – will subtly and indirectly be expanded to become a secular value, as well. This will be the ultimate defeat for the abortion-on-demand extremist of the far left.
I’m not urging that this government effort replace the Christian mission to introduce a new moral vision. I’m saying that practical and pragmatic government initiatives can complement the effort to change moral views and help achieve more rapid results.
We have had thirty years of name-calling, scolding, political extremism and gridlock with only modest progress at best to show. Abortion rates have fallen among upper-and middle-income women, but remain stubbornly high among lower-income women facing social and economic difficulties. Instead of bickering, let us pick tools that we have and finish the job. What is so “un-Orthodox” about that?
Michael writes: “Jim, by your logic, governement should never have any law that is founded upon moral or spiritual principal simply because God will take care of it in the end. What is law about if it is not to form a moral and ethical lattice of acceptable and unacceptable behavior by using the power of the sword to punish and the power of the purse to reward?”
The point that I wanted to make — which I did not make explicitly because the post was getting rather long — is that there is no obligation mentioned in the early church fathers for the Christian to address the issue of abortion at the governmental level. Instead, the issue of abortion, serious as it is, is seen as a matter for church discipline, divine judgement, and “walking in the way.”
That said, I think it’s fine if a Christian wants to work for governmental restrictions on abortion, if he or she is so moved by personal conviction. It’s just that there is no obligation for the Christian to address the issue at that level or to advocate for specific policies. In other words, governmental restrictions on abortion is certainly one approach, but it is not an approach mandated or even suggested by the church fathers. Clearly the Orthodox Christian is enjoined from getting an abortion or directly participating in one.
The opposition to abortion in the early church is seen by the church fathers as one of the distinctives of the Christian faith. It is one of the things that separates the church from the world. But there is no indication that the believer is supposed to make the world live up to the standard of the church, through governmental enforcement of the church’s moral teachings.
Michael: “Jim I really don’t think you are as dense as you have seemed to be
. . . ”
I’ve been taking anti-dense pills.
Michael: “I thought the particular quote from the Didache was relevant because it brought into focus in one brief quote both the essentialy non-Orthodox view of abortion that Dean often advances while still professing he is Orthodox . . . .”
Yes, I figured that out. My position is that the early church fathers clearly oppose abortion for the Christian. It is not something that the Christian can do or participate in. As I mentioned before, abortion is seen as falling in the scope of church discipline and divine judgement. Beyond that the Christian is not obligated to promote any particular action of the State to bring about an end to abortion in the larger society. That simply is not in the early church fathers as I read them.
Dean has a particular set of ideas that he believes would reduce the number of abortions. Maybe he’s right, maybe not. But from the point of view of the early church fathers, there is no reason why he can’t advocate for that position, nor is there any obligation for him to advocate for some other position, nor is there any obligation for him to hold any particular ideas on the topic of what the government should do. If you can show otherwise from the ancient texts, I’m all (electronic) ears.
Michael: ” . . . AND the non-Christian approach of hate filled words that I feel Christopher has lately engaged in.”
I’ve been involved in religious discussions of various kinds on the internet for over ten years. In that time I have come across many “Christophers.” There are fundamentalist Christophers, Catholic Christophers, secular Christophers and atheist Christophers. Every ideology and theology has its own Christopher. It is a personality type. What they all have in common is a certain abrasive ad hominem style of discussion (or non-discussion) driven by a feeling of moral and intellectual certainty, along with the sure knowledge that their abrasive comments are more than justified by the spiritual or intellectual depravity of those whom they oppose. Being bullies by nature, they typically target “nice people” like Dean, who are perceived as weak and whom they know won’t resopnd in kind. Those who fail to applaud the abrasive comments and join the feeding frenzy are also perceived as weak, and eventually become targets.
Michael: “You also completely ignored the end of my post on to Dean on the abortion question that abortion is a form of hate crime as those who advocate hate crime legislation promulgate the idea.”
Well, yeah, I read it, but didn’t know how to respond. I get your point, but it seems like a stretch to me.
Dean, I said un-Orthodox because you seem to dance around fundamental truths. You stated one in your post that “the fetus is not a person” is a lie. That’s great.
Let’s take it one step further: My priest has said on more than one occasion that anyone who believes in “a woman’s right to choose” cannot approach the Cup.
Government can have an impact on moral issues such as slavery, racial discrimination, etc. by saying unequivocably that such actions are wrong and governemt will not tolerate them. The government now, especially under the Democrats, takes just the opposite course. I have never once seen you reject such support and in fact have openly supported politicians who would, if elected, do everything in their power to expand abortion and make it more acceptable.
Jim, the Orthodox Church seldom tells her people specifically how we should act or specifically what we should do. We actually have both the freedom and the responsibility to act in accord with the principals and truths the Chruch teaches and reveals. One thing we are not allowed to do is compromise those principals with the world and call them true.
Christopher, your perdiction is wrong. I will not be writing the same things if only because I have friends who kick me up side the head every once in a while. Since I have a thick head, it takes some heavy kicks. I engage Dean simply because I believe he has the capcity to change. Obviously you don’t
I also think it is more effective to state what one believes as clearly and forcefully as possible let God handle the rest.
Did you happen to read #37.
Abortion is a symptom of grave sin–a denial of God and His mercy that is heinous. That same sin infects every aspect of our life in the world, we are all covered in blood.
To effectively counter that sin, however, even in our own lives requires that we maintain some sense of sobriety.