ProLife

*Sigh*

Abortion… I’m so sick of hearing about it, yet my mathematically-inclined mind is driven to believe that this problem has a solution. And like all solutions to profound problems, I doubt it will be as simple a solution as some would lead us to believe.

Like so many other hot-button issues in the Christian world, I’m almost afraid to ask these tough questions for fear of judgment and criticism from my Christian peers. But I know God wants me to reason through this life with Him so those who have a problem can take it up with Him I suppose. So here it goes:

1) Does life really begin at conception, according to God? Is the abortion issue even relevant to our spiritual journey? I honestly don’t mean to suggest that it isn’t–this isn’t a rhetorical question. I genuinely don’t know the answer. I do strongly believe that the issue is used and abused as cannon-fodder for our political hate game. I do find fault with Christians (and non-Christians, but I tend to hold those who “speak for God” at a higher standard) for taking an issue that truly affects people in a real and emotional way and use it with false sincerity as a means of attacking an opponent. Before we can do good, I think we have to want to do good. Change really does begin within us. We really need to grow up.

2) Should the government meddle in the matter? (Or: can I oppose abortion as a moral choice like I can oppose lying, and oppose government involvement in the matter?) I can see this question as having many different answers. I’m inclined to believe that abortion is murder (not in a judgmental way derived from Christian dogmaticism, but from my own personal thought processes). Because of this, I would say that a government should have as much right to forbid abortion as it does any other kind of intentional killing, for the most part. However, I’m also increasingly inclined to believe that (from a spiritual perspective) Government should really have very limited control over anything. I think that our desire for order via laws and government speaks volumes about our legalistic nature–our desire for rules and laws over freedom–in a way that is directly comparable to our preference for rules from God over a free relationship with Him. The important issue here, I think, is that we question exactly what our government should do, control us with many laws or free us with few. It appears to be a continuum on which we sacrifice something no matter what we choose (except unless we choose to accept the idea that selflessly loving people will change them thereby building the kingdom of God and making government unnecessary, but let’s ignore that and be realists. /sarcasm). I think this thought process has a lot of implications outside of abortion and is actually very profound in nature so both as a result and because of this, I’m not going to go too in depth with it here.

Honestly, I don’t know… I can’t sincerely tell you that I feel strongly about the abortion issue in terms of national policy. Much like homosexuality, I’m against it morally, but I don’t think it’s the government’s job to enforce the “laws” of the Church (that is to say, I don’t think the government should ban it on spiritual grounds any more than I think they should ban homosexuality “because the Church says to”). After writing this little diddy, I can’t help but feel like the real problem isn’t abortion, it’s an America who pretends to give a damn about the issue so as to hurt the other team. A dogmatic and divided nation of equally ignorant, opposing beliefs. This is why I (and probably Rick Warren and millions of other Americans) like Obama–we may disagree with his policy, but we find value in our beliefs that he is honestly seeking righteousness and not just supporting his team dogmatically. But then again, that’s just our opinions of him.

What do you think? (about the whole issue, not specifically Obama).

Rick Warren

Edit: Shit. Not five minutes after I wrote this did I see that Tink has already spoken on the topic and, being far more deep, intellectual, and insightful than myself, his write up is pretty amazing. If you don’t want to read a lot, just read his. Don’t even read mine. Seriously. Link.

PS: Tell me if that link doesn’t work and I’ll copy/paste the contents in here.

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Edit2: On the topic, I just came across this little piece of awesome.

 

Open mouth. Insert foot.

 

 

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Dammit. My keyboard is in French again.éèÉ^çà Okay. So there’s a lot of controversy surrounding this Rick Warren guy. The conservatives tend bash him because he won’t be ignorant and the liberals bash him because they’re confused about how a person can be Christian and still be tolerant or how a person can disagree with another group’s viewpoints and still respect them (specifically the pro-homosexual movement, a part of which Mr. Warren decidedly is not).

I think it’s funny. Mostly because after researching Mr. Warren from a skeptical perspective (the guy is the author of the book “Purpose Driven Life”, which is embraced by many “Christians” in my area and that is generally enough to make me skeptical; then add to that the fact that he’s the pastor of a super church and I become even more skeptical), I came to realize that he seems to be more tolerant and open-minded than most liberals and that confuses them a lot. And he’s also more fundamental (in the sense that he does what Jesus did) than most conservative “Fundamentalists”. (Actually, in my experience, conservative Fundamentalists have always been opposed to the real person of Jesus just like the religious people in Jesus’ time were opposed to Him). So to me, the fact that the conservatives are against him is no surprise but the fact that the liberals are against him is amusing.

Probably my favorite thing about Mr. Warren is that he actually does what he preaches. Look here:

Warren survives the pounding partly because of his personal integrity. He donates 90 percent of his many millions in book royalties back to the church. He says he stopped taking a salary from Saddleback six years ago. No scandals have tainted his ministry.

Also, Warren is doing his part to fight AIDS in the most destitute places in the world. And more than that, he has enough faith in God that he is secure in partnering with non-Christian organizations who also want to be Jesus-like (even though they may not know it) to the poorest people in the world.

Moreover, the fact that he is mature and confident in his political views enough to host an unbiased bi-partisan conference is pretty amazing to me (given my stigma against wealthy pastors). It seems like both He and Obama are actually interested in the causes in which they claim to be interested (as opposed to just wanting to be seen as right or correct) enough to partner with eachother to overcome partisan ignorance. I feel like anyone who hates politics for all of its two-faced-ness and blame-game-playing-ness should love both of these guys. As the above article points out:

It is no surprise that he and Obama have become friendly. Each tries to operate outside a strict liberal-conservative divide, and has risked angering his supporters to do so.

So I’m going to give you some vids to watch and chew on because I’ve found that I respect this guy a lot, even though I don’t necessarily agree perfectly with his views of homosexuality–he genuinely is seeking the truth and not using the Bible as an excuse to hate a group of people.

And watch the video at the top of this page. It’s good. I specifically like what he thinks about Fundamentalism.

PS: “We believe in the separation of Church and state, but we do not believe in the separation of faith and politics.” – Rick Warren at the 2008 Presidential Forum at Saddleback Church. Now I’m going to post this before I watch the rest of that damn video or I’ll end up regurgitating it to you verbatim.

Peace!