. Abortion Crucial Religious Right

The Love Off-Switch – Say “But Abortion” and You Don’t Have to Love Your Neighbors!

If you mention any social issue needing attention, that does not involve abortion agitation, some people come back with – “Well, there are more abortions than there are victims of that issue.”

We’re grown-ups.  We can do more than one thing at a time.  And we can do good here and now even while we have not yet solved other suffering going on now.
So? We’re grown-ups.  We can do more than one thing at a time. Do you think we should do nothing about anything until the abortion problem is solved?  No. We can do important good here and now even while we have not yet solved other suffering going on now.

Abortion - the Great American Christian Morality Shut-Off ButtonSadly, in actual practice, by this “but abortion!” standard, I literally can ignore my neighbor whom, as it says in 1 John, I “CAN see” – because some people somewhere offend against unborn children.

Maybe you didn’t realize that anyone sinning anywhere – if it’s a sin you particularly hate – is license for YOU to refuse to love your actual present suffering neighbors. These are neighbors God loves, for whom Christ died, and whom Christ commands us to love and care for.

I didn’t realize that.  In fact, I don’t think it’s true.  But it’s true that many think – or at least operate – this way.

I’m not making this up. I watch them and listen to them.  They in practice turn off virtually all practical concern for our Christian duty to love the neighbor “you can see”, and they do it just by mentioning one issue!

Now, I am not pro-abortion.

I may disagree with the “Christian right’s” narrow politicized solution to the issue, but that’s because I believe there are MUCH better ways to go about it. And I will counsel against abortion and try to find resources to that end, but sometimes the most necessary “resources” are medical. It is surely an issue where the big bossy clueless nose of big government should not be welcome!

But I don’t use it as a cop-out,

to avoid the much more frequent, non-abortion-related, obvious and equally destructive forces operating against a whole lot of my neighbors.

“I realized I care as much about a child on the border of Texas as I do about one still in its mother’s womb.”
It makes me sad to call it a “cop-out”, but that is how it in fact works.  They don’t just neglect other weighty matters that are right now damaging their own neighbors; often they even RESIST expressing any concern or taking any action, political or otherwise, on behalf of those neighbors. The “I vote pro-life” approach obviously makes some folks believe they  do not have to make moral judgments about ANYthing else!, or moral commitments to ANYone else!

They just say “But what about abortion?”, then “vote pro-life”, and they can deflect public concern from what’s happening in plain sight here and now,

  • to the white neighbors down the street who are trying to survive on a low-wage job, and/or after the loss of health insurance,
  • and the darker-skinned neighbors, usually in another part of town, who are facing much more direct violent threats to their finances, their families, their bodies, their freedom,
  • and all other neighbors, within US borders or beyond them,
  • all those, that is, whom we are commanded to love as we love ourselves, to treat as we would wish to be treated.

That is actually how this strategy works for them. Relief from confusion!  Freedom from (many kinds of) worry! And self-assumed righteousness and superiority all in one fell swoop.

Of course abortion is a huge social disaster area.

Of course it’s very disturbing –

  • for those who want it to cease,
  • for those who feel they have to or had to choose it for simple survival or other reasons of  concern to them, their loved ones, and their medical counselors.
  • for those who wrestle with public policy questions about it,
  • and for those who have to deal with all the pastoral implications of the whole thing.

But that’s no excuse to despise these many other kinds of suffering of our own neighbors in our own towns.

I read a news story somewhere today quoting a woman angry that she had voted for Trump, saying something like “I realized I care as much about a child on the border of Texas as I do about one still in its mother’s womb.” Yes.

We act like we don’t have to even THINK about those other people – our neighbors – because some OTHER people practice or promote abortion – or some other behavior we do not approve of.  Even if they don’t promote abortion, they get slandered – falsely accused – and Presto! we are absolved of all social responsibility, to them or anyone else.  See?  It really IS a cop-out.

Republicans are, after all, mistakenly believed to promote life and health for the helpless. What a handy way to ignore the clear teachings of Jesus and much of the rest of the Bible.
Except they will, of course, vote Republican. At least they vote.  But many of them will act as if that’s their only responsibility – partisan enthusiasm.  Republicans are, after all, mistakenly believed to promote life and health for the helpless.

What a handy way to ignore the clear teachings of Jesus and much of the rest of the Bible.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”We don’t even THINK about our neighbors. After all, some OTHER people promote abortion. If they don’t promote abortion, we say that they do – and Presto! we are absolved of all social responsibility.” quote=”We don’t even THINK about our neighbors. After all, some OTHER people promote abortion. If they don’t promote abortion, we say that they do – and Presto! we are absolved of all social responsibility.”]

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3 Comments

  • I have always loved your Public Christian blog. But lately it seems that ypu are becoming like those you gently but strongly rebuke. If some have a concern about something like Drag Queens reading books to children, you say, “but what about guns?” Isn’t that the same deflection?

    • Thank you for the nice compliment!
      Well, we each have to be convinced of where the greatest and most imminent danger lies. To me, and to very many Americans, that is clearly with our cultural pattern of randomly blowing our kids apart in the schools.
      It could very easily be argued that neither science nor Scripture supports the idea that gays are anywhere near such a danger. That LGBTQ behavior is distasteful to some should not deflect any of us from working to see done what we know we could do to stop the bloodshed. The distinction in danger levels, and avoidance of the issue, is deeply disturbing.

      • But it is still the same thing. You are deflecting my very serious concern about presenting the drag queen lifestyle to young children as perfectly normal and acceptable by saying “but what about guns in school?” and yet this article is calling out the deflection of “but what about abortion?” when you are talking about loving your neighbors. It is exactly the same thing.

        We all need to respond directly to the topic at hand rather than deflecting with any other topic. You have a vast knowledge of Scripture, and you know more than anybody I know, that wisdom comes from looking at the big picture.

        I am concerned that you too have fallen prey to those friends of yours who welcome many kinds of immorality and smile and say “God loves us!” And not only that, they encourage children to do the same. I think the extreme statement that “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” is grounds for my concern to be taken very seriously and not deflected.