Abortion and Genocide

from a thread comparing abortion today with the violence in the Old Testament:
http://blog.sojo.net/2009/05/21/discovering-common-ground/?dsq=9946314#comment-9946314
I don't think Hammerud or I are anywhere close to saying slaughter is something to be emulated today "in some circumstances". While Old Testament faith, like Gideon's, is clearly to be desired, the Holy Spirit empowers us to use Gideon-like faith in OUR situation, on this side of the Cross, in the third millennium, not to see how many soldiers we can cause to be slaughtered in one day. As for justifying it, I'm saying it's a mystery to me, while Hammerud seems to be throwing out one or the other of the various less than satisfactory explanations of “Why in the world did God command that?!” But command it He did! Am I to judge God? It is certainly OK for you and me to scratch our heads and say “I don't get it” and to ask God why He did so, either now or in Heaven!

Suffering and Education

I'm a wimp when it comes to pain—physical and mental. I won't bore you with examples. How can we avoid pain? Education, perhaps: Which sports are the most likely to cause painful injuries? Should I look both ways before crossing the street? [umm, where I live, that's a lifestyle choice, by the way—last week, while driving slowly and quietly through a residential area, a man stepped out between parked cars in front of me on a diagonal path, such that even his peripheral vision had no chance of including me. He finally noticed my car after I slammed on the brakes, and cast me an annoyed (or was it bored) look, as if I had no business driving on the street he intended to wander across. Perhaps I should commend his chivalry, as he took this risk rather than his wife/partner/girlfriend/sister/business associate/?, who was following him at a safe distance. I guess she's the smart one!] Should I smoke to look cool, taking on the distant risk of spending the last years of my life struggling desperately to breathe against my emphysema? Education is great, and answers all of the above questions rather definitively. I've been to grade school, middle school [ugh], high school, college, and even what some folks call a rather distinguished graduate school [see above comment about middle school.] More questions: what do my chromosomes say about the kind of children I might have? Amniocentesis anyone? Fetoscopy? Wow, I can avoid the pain of spending my life tending a dying child; just educate me! Now, I do not have a special needs child, and it is a dreadful prospect, this pain-avoider admits it. Check out www.pwsausa.org for some difficult yet hopeful details on the child two of my friends are raising. So, education will make sure Dean will never be taunted in school, right? Well, maybe—I'm an optimist. But kids also know that kids who are different can be aborted before they ever take up space in a classroom. For every adult who genuinely tries to appreciate human differences, there are a score who are “glad it's not me” or, worse still, wonder why the stupid parents didn't use amniocentesis to, well, nip this problem in the bud! Kids aren't stupid—they pick up these cues from adults. And the do-gooders that inevitably populate groups like my school's “Respect for Human Differences” committee may be sincere, but can they be effective? How many Prader-Willi babies and children are featured in Gap commercials? Abercrombie? American Eagle? Let's see, clothing stores and movie studios spend billions every year to promote “cool.” The Respect for Human Differences committee has a budget of, oh, a few hundred dollars—is that going to outweigh Hollywood and Madison Ave.? Now, there is common grace for every human of every religion. Some things are just wrong, and people know it. So there is a chance that the well-meaning RfHD folks will strike that cord of of grace and do some good. But they are fighting against original sin. Sadly, most RfHD committees are dominated by folks who deny sin, and have a totally unrealistic view of the power of education. In fact, they may be engaging in mis-education in that they promote lifestyle choices as genetic conditions. Or they may promote innate conditions as neutral or positive that are, in their own way, as damaging and destructive as Prader-Willi Syndrome. So, what makes my friend's child valuable? What makes those with poor lifestyle choices valuable? All are made in the image of God. Yes, that comes under “education”—sort of—but it's not a tenet of the ruling elites, so it won't be featured in any educational presentation by the “Respect for Human Differences” committee. And in the background is the not-so-subtle roar of “beautiful is better” “cool is cool” and “life begins when the baby is wanted.” Unwanted babies don't leave the hospital in car carriers festooned with balloons; they leave in medical waste containers.

More or less Priceless

In an online forum, I was taken to task vigorously for my initial posting, pointing to Planned Parenthood's origin in the eugenics movement. Finally, neuro_nurse asked what Planned Parenthood does that I oppose [not that whether or not I personally oppose something is particularly important]
Let me tell you a story first, from one of the many missionaries to Haiti supported by our church over the years. Her biggest challenge in preventing “risk taking” behavior among young women in Haiti is convincing them their life is worth preserving from the danger of AIDS! If your life is of little value, why not have fun while you can? How profoundly different from my friend's attitude is the raison d'etre of Planned Parenthood—their consistent purpose year in and year out is to measure the value of individual lives, created in the image of God, and to prolong or terminate that life based on a scale of worth that is inimical to my values and I suspect to yours as well. Nothing has changed except the increasing sophistication of their slogans. The main value that is placed on an unborn life is simply “is this baby wanted” and that, of course, correlates with everything BUT that child's value in the eyes of God. I'm glad rich parents decorate nurseries for their wanted babies, and pass around “baby's first picture” even if it's just an ultrasound. But the unplanned pregnancy looks the same to the baby whether it's wanted or not. We're told there will be less suffering if these lower class babies are “terminated”—that is, there is no intrinsic worth in the baby or ultimately in anyone. So the link to decades past is clear, with no repentance. “Every child a wanted child” “Family Planning” are just better slogans. So that's what I don't like about them—they seem to have fooled many well meaning folks, including you.
Blessings for peace, SHALOM—God's wholeness for all of his creation,
Witness_for_Peace
http://blog.sojo.net/2009/05/18/thoughts-on-obamas-notre-dame-address/#comment-9578078

Chubby cheeks or the horrible alternative

Suppose I am a female living inside another female's uterus in January 2009. Whether I end this year wearing a diaper and having my chubby cheeks kissed and nuzzled, or in a landfill having been incinerated as medical waste depends largely on how much money my mother and her family have. This seems a horrible case of injustice, yet most of the Robed Emperors don't allow themselves to look at it that way. It's not a matter of law or courts or legislatures even, it's whether I am “wanted.” If today I am unwanted, I can still end up the year being nuzzled by a family unrelated to my birth mom, bless her heart, through the gift of adoption.

The Radical Middle

Isn't there a Beatles song about dreaming about....please enlighten me with a comment, anonymous or otherwise. Anyway, my dream is buried in this exchange from sojourners
http://www.sojo.net/blog/godspolitics/2009/01/16/look-whos-praying-at-the-inauguration/?disqus_reply=5378002

A frequent problem is the oppressed becoming the oppressor. By framing gay issues as civil rights issues rather than religious disagreements, the trends you mention could well end up with me being despised as a bigot, much as many people now look down on a good 'ole boy with a Confederate flag on his pickup(i.e. assuming he's a racist). Legally, a sermon on the Ten Commandments could be viewed by a court sympathetic to GLBT issues as an incitement for a drunk to beat up a gay person in a bar nearby that evening. If such a crime actually occurred, the victim could sue and compel the pastor/church to spend a fortune on a legal defense. In California a fertility clinic was successfully sued for referring a lesbian couple to a different clinic for religious reasons. Also in California, people are being denied their right to vote in citizen petitions. So as fervently as I want you to be physically safe, I don't support much of what is now occurring. Your psychological well-being is important, but freedom and the democratic process are important to the nation as a whole.
A plea for Christians to work for the physical safety of GLBT folk overseas even as we oppose gay marriage here in the US for religious reasons. This is the sort of radical middle thing that should appeal to Sojourners Magazine; unfortunately they are more just the Christian left these days. Which is their right, of course, but a disappointment to folks like me who were big fans of Jim Wallis back in the 1980's

I would also like to affirm JamesM: "So many people dehumanize others and think that that is what they are called to do. Maybe if they had a real heart-to-heart with people who have experienced what you have, they would change their tune."///More on hate crimes:Perhaps you[a person I'm debating on sojo.net] support hate crimes legislation for honorable reasons. I oppose it from the reasons given by this Jewish letter writer, published in response to Cornel West: September 29, 2007
CORNEL WEST and Sylvia Rhue's arguments about hate crimes legislation border on hatred itself, such as when they accuse people who oppose this legislation as being guilty of "falsehoods and bigotry" ("Fabricated fears about hate crimes legislation," Op-ed, Sept. 25).
Hate crimes legislation is unnecessary. A crime is a crime. Hate is a motive. Making a motive a crime is legislating thought. Matthew Shepard was murdered. That was the crime. Perhaps hatred of homosexuals was the motive. Every crime has a motive. Greed can cause theft. Jealousy can cause people to kill the lovers of their mates. Anger can lead to assault and battery. Anger, jealousy, and greed are not crimes. Assault and battery, murder, and theft are crimes. Hate also should not be a crime. We need to keep our senses, even if we don't like the reason that someone commits a crime.
B. M. C.

Six Billion Monotheists?

The Unitarians tell us:

“One God, Many Names.”
Really?
The power to name is the power to control. If I call my god “Ned” after my favorite rich uncle, who gave me a Porsche when I was 16, my deity is very very different from the God of the Jews and Christians. That God is a Holy God, and loves me too much to indulge my every whim, then or now. If I'm really a monotheist, I have to decide which God is “The One.” Perhaps the Jewish/Christian deity is a figment of our collective imagination, and the one true deity really is rightly called Ned. Or perhaps s/he has so many faces that we have no idea which if any is the real one. But that starts to look like polytheism. H_LL, it IS Polytheism! The Unitarians and their liberal Protestant fellow travelers are NOT monotheists! They think the world contains a different god for each human!
Now, each of us looks at God in a slightly different way.
Of course: each individual is unique, and uniquely loved by the Jewish/Christian God. [We'll call him YHWH since he revealed himself with those four Hebrew letters in the Jewish Scriptures. It's unpronounceable without adding some vowels, I'm told by those who know, or ought to.] This God's self revelation has brought meaning to a large proportion of those 6 billion, and to billions before them across many different cultures. But those who believe look at ONE God from many viewpoints, not an infinite number of gods from infinite viewpoints. Some see more clearly than others, just as individuals differ in other ways. We can know which viewpoints are helpful, and true, by comparing each vision to God's self revelation, and thus learn a lot about ourselves, and about the God who LOVES US ENOUGH TO REVEAL HIMSELF! Finite humans could never handle a complete self revelation, but we have a remarkably coherent library of 66 books about Him, AND we can see what He was like when He walked this earth. (Hint: think of a Palestinian Jew named Jesus. John 14:6)

So, Unitarians and theological liberals can't believe in grace, because they don't believe in sin [see post below] and they are not monotheists because that would require a specific, self-revealed God—their worst nightmare! An outta control god! Ten Commandments—soon they'll be thousands, they cry—misunderstanding the Commandments, which are actually part of God's self revelation. (Which ones are binding today requires some study of the NEW Covenant. Most Christians and Jews say “all Ten” although Jesus himself relaxed the 4th Commandment a wee bit, while tightening up the rest a lot [Lust=Adultery, Anger=Murder from Matthew 5-7].) Thank God, I believe in grace. I confess my total inability to obey any of them—I cast myself upon his mercy and—here's the good part—not only do I know this one God in a personal way, but sometimes I actually want to obey His commands! I'm still tempted, but God empowers me to resist—I'm not alone with Uncle Ned. In case you're wondering: Ned—the god, the uncle—neither exists. I didn't get a Porsche, I got a Schwinn 10-speed, for which I am very grateful. Thanks Mom, thanks Dad! And thank God.
More on self revelation: I use “He” for God because that's the pronoun exclusively used in both Jewish and Christians Scriptures. From the very beginning, God has declared that BOTH male and female reflect his image, which (I think) is why there are two genders, and why marriage is a picture of the persons in the Godhead. And I sometimes capitalize the pronouns because it's a bad habit I picked up from the King James Bible. It also helps me sort out my antecedents, but of course the Greek and Hebrew texts don't use capitals in that way—they aren't even punctuated!

IS THERE GRACE WITHOUT SIN? Thoughts on Modernism and Sojourners Magazine

Kudos to Brian McLaren for his prediction of an Obama win and difficulties among his friends in holding the new President accountable. Here's one reason why this will be nearly impossible: it actually goes back to the Modernist controversy of the 1920's in American Protestantism (rather than the more recent Postmodernist debate). Let me define modernists as Secularists, plus their counterparts within the Catholic and Protestant traditions. But it's the same conflict as Martin Luther faced in the Middle Ages: Grace v. Works. The works of the priest, the transubstantiation of the Mass were religious works, at least as the Reformers understood them, and probably as many if not most practitioners did. Today's liberals, whether secular or “Christian” are also legalists! What? They are anti-Ten Commandments, so they are anti-legalism, right? NO! There is NO GRACE without sin. Modernists do not believe in sin, so they CANNOT believe in grace. Grace , though entirely opposed to legalism, is not its mirrored opposite. Grace is not “no laws” as opposed to “lots of laws.” Grace is God's gift to those who heed His call to repentance from SIN. Through the Law we become conscious of sin. But if we deny the law, that is, IGNORE it, there is no consciousness of sin. Modernists fervently believe, like good legalists, that sin is “what those bad, bad guys do.” George Bush, Jim Dobson and the waterboarding crowd are BAD because of what they do. They are judged by modernists, both secular and religious, using a different, "up-to-date" law. This “New Law” is nothing like grace. Its function is identical to Old Testament law even if most or every law is radically different. It differentiates the good guys from the bad guys, us versus them. The Modernists are the new Pharisees. Now, I am painfully aware that a conservative Protestant such as myself is sorely temped by legalism and Phariseeism. I acknowledge this temptation and my frequent failures. But that doesn't mean that my theological opposites have an opposite temptation—you have the SAME temptation, and your failure is to judge by your new, more “Reason”able standard. Many times, the Wallis/MacLaren crowd is simply judging by a new law. They cannot be recipients or advocates of grace because they do not acknowledge sin as an offense against a Holy God. In liberalism's eye, God's standards are outmoded, and God has been reduced to their favorite uncle in a tweed jacket. (Or some feminist hero for the more radical crowd). This judging is ANYTHING but Grace. “God is dead” proclaimed the most honest liberals of the 1960's. The sentiment was never contradicted by the mainline liberals; only the words were changed. IF this is indeed what you have done, you have created a god in your own image, violating the first and second commandments. While a kinder word would be to describe some of this would be “modernist/Christian syncretists,” it would also be accurate to describe those who believe this way as idolaters. Now, there are many good people posting at SojoNet; I only offer these thoughts as a warning, and as a “If the shoe fits” challenge. Some of these thoughts are from J. Gresham Machen's Christianity and Liberalism” He acknowledged that Christianity and Modernism would've also been an accurate title, and today it would be much more accurate since this is only vaguely related to politics. It's
Grace v. works. Some of the Confessions have embarrassing condemnations of Catholicism, necessitating explanations and qualifications in the Introductions that the PC(USA) uses to annotate their consititution. http://www.pcusa.org/oga/constitution.htm This sort of updating is good, because practicing Catholics (as opposed to “We Are the Church” de-facto protestants) have more in common with biblical religion than do modernists. Modernists include Secularists, and their counterparts within the Catholic and Protestant traditions. But it's the same conflict: Grace v. Works. The works of the priest, the transubstantiation of the Mass were religious works, at least as the Reformers understood them, and probably as many if not most practitioners