Friday, March 19, 2010

Some Days I'm Embarassed to be an Evangelical

Like today, for instance, when several prominent Evangelicals such as Ron Sider and David Gushee, along with faux (former) Evangelicals like Brian McLaren and Jim Wallis jump into the health care debate along with liberal Catholics at a crucial moment in order to provide cover for the pro-abortion politicians and the pro-life ones who are being pressured to vote for the biggest expansion of abortion funding since Roe v. Wade. From the Weekly Standard:
"Rehashing their lobby for a proposed abortion compromise in the U.S. Senate version of Obamacare in December, liberal Catholics and Evangelicals are now urging the U.S. House of Representatives to pass the Senate version of the bill.

The self-professed evangelical and Catholic “pro-life leaders” insist that the Senate’s version of Obamacare sufficiently safeguards against abortion funding. They also try to rebut its pro-life critics and imply they are guilty of misinformation. But, instead, they illustrate that some “social justice” Catholics and evangelicals prioritize a government take-over of health care over firm protections for the unborn.

“As Christians committed to a consistent ethic of life, and deeply concerned with the health and well-being of all people, we want to see health care reform enacted,” wrote the religious activists in their open letter to Congress. “Our nation has a rare and historic opportunity to expand coverage to tens of millions of people, make coverage more affordable for all families, and crack down on many of the most harmful practices of the health insurance industry.”

Signers this time around, as in December, include liberal evangelicals such as Jim Wallis of Sojourners, Emerging Church guru Brian McLaren, Ron Sider of Evangelicals for Social Action, David Gushee of New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, Glenn Stassen of Fuller Seminary, and Florida megachurch pastor Joel Hunter, who is a prominent board member of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). Notably absent this time were other NAE leaders such as Christianity Today editor David Neff and immigration activist Samuel Rodriguez."

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops, all real pro-life groups, Evangelical groups like the Family Research Council and Conservative Evangelicals of all kinds are implacably opposed to the bill currently before Congress for a variety of reasons. But all oppose it because it promotes abortion, which is exactly why NARAL, Emily's List, NOW and other radical, leftist, pro-abortion groups are so highly supportive of it. The only time in this process that these groups growled was when the Stupak-Pitts Amendment was passed to the House bill. Why? Because it took abortion funding out of the bill. After these groups protested and besieged the White House, the Senate bill put abortion funding back in and the protests subsided.

It is ironic that these left wing Evangelicals portray themselves as pro-life when they don't stand against the murder of the innocents. And it is disgusting that they use the slogan "social justice" to describe a position that condones legalized private killing for convenience. When words are twisted so as to lose their meaning so completely, language is becoming useless. Orwell's vision is coming true before our eyes: "pro-life means killing" and "justice means murdering the innocent." When Evangelicals are party to this kind of "fascism with a smiling face" then I am deeply ashamed to be an Evangelical. It is time to pray, fast and do penance for Evangelicalism.

3 comments:

Gordon Hackman said...

One ironic aspect of all this is that for years now we've been hearing from the evangelical left about how you can't be a one issue voter regarding abortion, but it now seems that a simplistic notion of "helping the poor," understood in liberal terms, has become the single issue that trumps all others for those on the evangelical left.

Craig Carter said...

Gordon,
Sometimes a single issue is enough to sway a vote and pretty much every point on the political spectrum does it in at least some situation.

But there is a tremendous difference between a disagreement on a prudential judgment (what is best to do when there is no clear right or wrong) and a question of doing a act which in inherently, morally evil. Complicity in direct killing of the innocent is never excusable and can never be the subject of political horse trading.

Gordon Hackman said...

"Complicity in direct killing of the innocent is never excusable and can never be the subject of political horse trading."

Agreed. This is precisely why I find the evangelical Left's equivocation on the issue of abortion to be so disingenuous.