Evolving evangelical attitudes to abortion.

[lilith]

I don't know if anyone has posted this link yet, couldn't find it.

This is an interesting article on the complete change in evangelical attitudes to abortion since the seventies. I wasn't aware of this, and enjoyed the article, especially in view of this change coinciding with the beginning of the isolationist homeschooling fundie movement. It seems a certain percentage of American protestants took a very conservative turn around this time.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivis ... appy-meal/

Link not broken, very much doubt they will mind us linking to them.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Thanks for posting! I always find the revisionist history of backlash politics interesting.

[meda]

Why do you feel it's revisionist? Is there a different narrative that should be written instead?

[debrand]

That year, Christianity Today — edited by Harold Lindsell, champion of “inerrancy†and author of The Battle for the Bible — published a special issue devoted to the topics of contraception and abortion. That issue included many articles that today would get their authors, editors — probably even their readers — fired from almost any evangelical institution. For example, one article by a professor from Dallas Theological Seminary criticized the Roman Catholic position on abortion as unbiblical. Jonathan Dudley quotes from the article in his book Broken Words: The Abuse of Science and Faith in American Politics. Keep in mind that this is from a conservative evangelical seminary professor, writing in Billy Graham’s magazine for editor Harold Lindsell:

God does not regard the fetus as a soul, no matter how far gestation has progressed. The Law plainly exacts: “If a man kills any human life he will be put to death†(Lev. 24:17). But according to Exodus 21:22-24, the destruction of the fetus is not a capital offense. … Clearly, then, in contrast to the mother, the fetus is not reckoned as a soul.

Thank you for that article. I'm going to show it to my conservative friend who struggles with the fact that she doesn't think abortion is wrong but she has been told that Chrisitans don't believe in abortion.

Some of what the modern evangelical community believes doesn't seem based on the bible but is instead, part of a modern American view of Christianity.

[debrand]

I also thought this comment was interesting and would probably make an interesting thread on its own.

I've always thought twinning and chimerae are the strongest arguments against the idea that we are ensouled at conception. Otherwise when the fertilized egg splits to form twins, does God say, "Oops!" and stick in an extra soul? If two fertilized eggs fuse to form a chimera, does God say, "Oops!" and delete the extra soul?

(I talk about when we're ensouled rather "When does life begin?" because I think the former is the relevant question. The sperm and egg were both alive, after all... so really, life began 3.5-4 billion years ago, give or take. And most pro-life activists are fine with destroying living things -- their chicken sandwich stopped a beating heart, after all. IMO the relevant issue is "When does the fertilized egg acquire whatever property by virtue of which it is immoral to kill a human being" which I suspect most evangelicals would take to be the soul. YMMV.)

[devilsadvocate]

IMO the relevant issue is "When does the fertilized egg acquire whatever property by virtue of which it is immoral to kill a human being" which I suspect most evangelicals would take to be the soul. YMMV.)

I have to disagree with this idea that injecting religious views into the abortion debate is okay when those views coincide with the pro-choice agenda.

You can make any topic involving killing into a religious debate (war, death penalty, etc.) but making public policy on people's subjective opinions about something that by definition requires faith and not reason is a terrible idea.

I was just reading about an abortion debate at the Texas Freethought Convention. While you might disagree with the pro-life atheist who participated in the debate, I think this is what more abortion debates should look like. Considering that there are non-religious pro-lifers and religious pro-choicers, there is no need to invoke religion at all in talking about the abortion issue.

My view is that the only reason religion does get brought up all the time in abortion debate is because it serves the purposes of two groups: Religious conservatives who want to be able to use the pro-life issue as a vehicle for shoving their religious views on everyone else, and pro-choicers who want to be able to dismiss the pro-life view by dismissing it as purely religiously-motivated. I am firmly of the view that rational discussion of the issue requires putting aside completely subjective religious views.

[formergothardite]

I wish pro-life people would just own their beliefs and call themselves anti-choice. I'm pro-life too, but I am pro-choice. I don't know anyone who is all "Yeah! I'm pro-death and pro-abortion! Let's kill tons of people and have as many abortions as possible." Pro-choice people just think women should have the choice with happens to their body and anti-choice(the athiest included) don't think women should have a choice with what happens to their body.

[lilith]

I think it's interesting too, Debrand. Not necessarily as something to take into account for public policy, but an interesting theological debate.

I wonder what the "it's a human being with full rights from the moment of conception" folks think about frozen embryos. Do they think that a soul is within those frozen cells, trapped and unable to grow and learn? That would be a pretty horrific situation if one believed that, it makes me understand Zsuzsanna's rabid anti IVF stance, even though I don't agree with it or believe that embryos are ensouled.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Why do you feel it's revisionist? Is there a different narrative that should be written instead?

Maybe I didn't phrase that right? I meant that with backlash politics, there is a tendency to invent history. It's not just with the abortion issue. We see it with the imagining of a history of gender relations that never existed. I've also noticed it when it comes to "forgetting" the more liberal trends that existed in religious movements.

How many fundies, for example, know of the role of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (an evangelical group) in getting women the vote?

How many Santorum supporters know exactly why JFK was opposed to judging political candidates on the basis of their faith?

How many ultra-Orthodox Jews aren't taught about the diversity of religious and political outlooks that existed in the their traditional villages in Eastern Europe?

How many radicals Muslims have no idea that there were once thriving Jewish communities in Muslim countries?

[desertvixen]

How many fundies, for example, know of the role of the Women's Christian Temperance Union (an evangelical group) in getting women the vote?

I was just reading a book on this for class this last week, and all I could think was hey, these people sound familiar.

[Minerva]

I have to disagree with this idea that injecting religious views into the abortion debate is okay when those views coincide with the pro-choice agenda.

You can make any topic involving killing into a religious debate (war, death penalty, etc.) but making public policy on people's subjective opinions about something that by definition requires faith and not reason is a terrible idea.

I was just reading about an abortion debate at the Texas Freethought Convention. While you might disagree with the pro-life atheist who participated in the debate, I think this is what more abortion debates should look like. Considering that there are non-religious pro-lifers and religious pro-choicers, there is no need to invoke religion at all in talking about the abortion issue.

My view is that the only reason religion does get brought up all the time in abortion debate is because it serves the purposes of two groups: Religious conservatives who want to be able to use the pro-life issue as a vehicle for shoving their religious views on everyone else, and pro-choicers who want to be able to dismiss the pro-life view by dismissing it as purely religiously-motivated. I am firmly of the view that rational discussion of the issue requires putting aside completely subjective religious views.

I agree with all of this, but I don't think that's what the author of that comment was directly doing. The last sentence, especially, where they specify that evangelicals would care about souls, makes me think they were pointing out a flaw in religious anti-choicers' logic. As opposed to saying ensoulment at fertilization is illogical therefore abortion is a right.

[Curly Girl]

I wonder what the "it's a human being with full rights from the moment of conception" folks think about frozen embryos. Do they think that a soul is within those frozen cells, trapped and unable to grow and learn? That would be a pretty horrific situation if one believed that, it makes me understand Zsuzsanna's rabid anti IVF stance, even though I don't agree with it or believe that embryos are ensouled.

Many people who believe that life begins at conception are also against IVF because the frozen embryo is a full person with a soul, etc.

So yes, in Zsu Zsu's mind, her anti abortion and anti IVF positions are consistent. Many Catholics believe the same way.

[Minerva]

Many people who believe that life begins at conception are also against IVF because the frozen embryo is a full person with a soul, etc.

So yes, in Zsu Zsu's mind, her anti abortion and anti IVF positions are consistent. Many Catholics believe the same way.

I thought pro-lifers were anti-IVF because embryos are often destroyed if they're not used and the couple is done having kids. I wonder how frozen embryos fit into their whole "life" ideology. Seeing as they're not technically alive while frozen.