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Hello, fellow wayfarers. Polls show that abortion isn’t the motivating issue it once was on the Right, and that’s bad news for everybody. … What I learned in baptizing my son on Halloween … And books … This is this week’s Moore to the Point.
Russell Moore
 
Why the Eclipse of the Pro-Life Evangelical Is Bad News for Everybody

In less than a month, the Supreme Court will take up arguments on a Mississippi case that might well mean the end of the almost 50-year precedent of Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion as a constitutional right. At the same time, the justices signaled that they were perhaps dubious of a Texas law that sought to restrict abortion through civil liability measures. For the first time in a while, it seems that abortion is at the forefront of conversation in the United States. And yet, some surveys suggest that abortion is not the motivating factor for evangelicals that it once was.

Some who disagree with me on abortion might assume that a lessening of evangelical priority on the pro-life issue is good news for them—a cooling down in the culture wars that might lead to a less polarized America. Such people would be wrong. As a matter of fact, this trend, should it continue, is bad news for everybody.

This summer, the widely respected political scientist (and American Baptist pastor) Ryan Burge highlighted polling data from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), compared with data from the Association of Religion Data Archives, asking respondents how they would rank the relative priority of various issues. Burge noted that, over time, the priority among white evangelicals has decreased on issues of abortion and increased on matters such as restricting immigration.

Most of this data was gathered before the onset of critical race theory and COVID-19 controversies, but anecdotally, many pollsters and activists say they see far more energy on questions of race, masks, vaccines, and so forth than on the question of abortion. David Frum has pointed out how the culture war has shifted from questions of life and family and religion to questions of race, ethnicity, and nationalism.

Some would argue that, whatever the polling, this has always been the case. Religion scholar and Episcopal priest Randall Balmer, for instance, argues in his book Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right that the idea that Roe mobilized evangelicals into political action is a myth. He contends that the real motivator was the threatened removal of tax exemption for colleges that practiced racial discrimination and that abortion was a cover for the politics of white racial grievance.
In relation to some of the political strategist leaders, that may well be true. But I remain skeptical of Balmer’s thesis, largely because, even with the most cynical view of political-religious activist leadership (and I think I’ve earned the right to some cynicism here), there has to be a reason why such leaders would choose to emphasize abortion to the grassroots. The question isn’t whether political strategists could manipulate the issue but rather what there was to manipulate. One can mobilize people only with an issue they care about.

A week or so ago, I was talking with a friend who disagrees with me on abortion and who asked, with genuine curiosity, “Why do you all want to impose your religious views on everyone else by restricting abortion?” I responded that this would be a fair critique if evangelicals and other pro-lifers wanted to enact blue laws that banned Sunday commerce for everyone based on the text of Leviticus. The debate about abortion, though, is not about whether society should protect the vulnerable but about how many vulnerable people need to be protected in this situation. In a pro-choice view, only one vulnerable person is involved: the pregnant woman who must decide what to do with her body. Those of us who are pro-life have the view that two vulnerable people are involved here: the pregnant woman and the child within her womb—and we have responsibilities to both.

Former US representative Barney Frank (D-Mass.) famously quipped that pro-lifers believe that “life begins at conception and ends at birth.” This might well be true in direct-mail fundraising operations, but it is not true on the grassroots level—for those to whom this issue is a matter of real-life action, who actually deal with pregnant women in crisis and with children in need of families and safe homes.

As a matter of fact, these pro-life people are some of the most sensitive to a holistic vision of human life and dignity. They are usually the ones working on job training and childcare and health care for women, so that no woman thinks she must choose between her life and the life of her child. They are usually the ones involved in the foster-care system and in caring for disabled people.

When I talk—as I do every day—with those serving among the poor or with foster or adoptive parents giving their lives in service to people they love who are ravaged by fetal alcohol syndrome, infant drug addiction, or severe mental illness, I find that, almost always, these individuals learned to love and extend care in this way because they are pro-life.

When anchored biblically, rather than merely as a partisan political strategy, a pro-life viewpoint contradicts the social Darwinism that sees human value in inverse proportion to human vulnerability. The Ayn Rand conception of the poor as losers and takers is absolutely contradicted by the Sermon on the Mount (and the rest of the Bible). So is a framework that sees human rights as conjoined with “viability”—that is, the ability to live on one’s own, independent of the womb and the life of another. People who follow a crucified Christ must recognize that none of us are “viable” in that way. We leave one womb for another: that of our mother to that of the biosphere around us, all of us dependent on oxygen and water and nutrition and on each other.

At its best, a pro-life vision reminds us of why Jesus was “indignant” when his disciples saw children as a distraction from his mission. Jesus pointed out that “the kingdom of God belongs to such as these” and that those who do not “receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” And then he took the children—other people’s children—and “blessed them” (Mark 10:13–16).

The entire rest of the Bible shows us why this is. We come before God as those who, in our utter dependence, cry out, “Abba, Father!” (Rom. 8:15), and we learn to receive others as we have been received (Rom. 15:7). That means, in following Christ, we, like him, see the people we otherwise would want to keep invisible: the poor, the stranger, the vulnerable, the “unviable,” the “un-useful.” We see the folly of human boasts of strength—be it in one’s net worth, one’s physical attractiveness, or one’s “stage of development,” whether in a mother’s uterus or in a nursing home forgotten by everyone.

Human dignity is not an earned right but a signpost in every human life to the God who took on flesh and dwelled among us. That’s why each of us must continually ask, “Who are the people in my life that it would be inconvenient (in terms of social status, financial security, religious tribe, political identity, and so on) for me to even see?”

The priest and the Levite in Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan probably did not think of themselves as the antagonists in the story of the beaten man on the Jericho Road (Luke 10:25–37). They probably just averted their eyes and saw him as a minor character, soon forgotten, in the stories of their lives—for the same reason the “goats” in Jesus’ teaching on Judgment Day have no idea who the poor, the naked, the hungry, and the imprisoned are that they’ve neglected (Matt. 25:31–46).

This is why some of us have been so concerned about political movements that celebrate “winning” and denigrate the weak—whether the disabled or refugees or the elderly—and why some of us believe that waving away credible claims of sexual promiscuity and even sexual assault cannot sustain a pro-life movement long-term, no matter how many good judges are appointed.

If we judge people by their usefulness, the unborn become dispensable as soon as they don’t win elections for people. Any time we say “These are the people who matter” and “These are the people who don’t,” we have lost the possibility for a culture of life or “family values” or human rights or “social justice.” All we are left with, then, are constituencies to reward and enemies to punish.

At its best, the pro-life movement on the ground went counter to the trajectory of polarized culture wars. Despite the publicized images in popular culture of angry protesters screaming at women outside abortion clinics, most of the time this did not happen—for the very reason that most pro-life activists doing actual pro-life work needed to persuade women to choose life for their children. You cannot do that if you demonize or intimidate or overpower people. To be true to itself, the pro-life movement had to be about loving the neighbor, not about owning the libs.

Racial grievance and fear of those different, by contrast, are not about one’s neighbor but about self. When these things become the badges of identity, human life starts to be defined not in terms of the image of God but in terms of likeness to us. And then we start defining us more and more narrowly. That way is the way of Cain, especially when the way of Abel, the way of the Cross, starts to look “weak.”

In his new book, A World after Liberalism: Philosophers of the Radical Right, Matthew Rose points with data to a phenomenon many of us have intuited for a while in so-called “populist” movements in Europe and now in North America. Many of these groups claim Christian identity or symbolism because such things help to ground people’s ethnic or national identity in a struggle for “Western civilization” or “Judeo-Christian culture.” But, often, the figures driving the ideas behind the scenes are hostile to Christianity—not because Christianity is too narrow, too moralistic, or too intolerant but because Christianity is too “globalist” and “egalitarian.” Christianity upends ethnic and national superiorities because it requires all people to “adopt the sacred history and even the deity of another community, connecting their deepest beliefs to the unique experiences of a foreign people,” namely, the people of Israel.

And, most importantly, these post-religious illiberal movements ultimately revolt against what Rose calls “the essence of the Christian Question,” which is this: “Christianity denied what antiquity had serenely assumed: that the strong are destined to rule the weak, that we have no obligations to strangers, and that our identities are constituted by our social status.”

Rose warns that a post-Christian populism would “give defiant expression to primordial passions, once disciplined by religion, that liberalism tried to repress—about preserving cultural differences, punishing enemies, and deposing disloyal elites.” In other words, this is what Ross Douthat once warned secular America: “If you dislike the religious right, wait till you meet the post-religious right.”

If human dignity and the sanctity of human life are replaced in priority of passion with the will to power, the unborn will suffer. And they will not suffer alone. Every vulnerable person whose dignity isn’t justified by his or her power will suffer too. We will find ourselves in a place where we don’t argue about abortion anymore—not because we’ve settled the issue but because we’ve set Zeus or Thor or Baal (the god of power or thunder or fertility and tribe) in place of the One of whom we have learned to say, no matter how weak or invisible we are, “Yes, Jesus loves me; the Bible tells me so.”

Jonah Goes Under the Water

This past Sunday, I baptized several new believers at my church, Immanuel Nashville. In every case, I stood in awe at reciting words spoken in uncountable languages for over two thousand years: “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” In one case, though, I caught the sound of my voice trembling with gratitude—as I baptized my fourth son, Jonah.

Jonah, now 14, was born three weeks early, prompting me to rush from Nashville to our former home in Louisville, Kentucky, to outrace his birth. I made it in time and joked that he would be my favorite child since he got me out of having to sit through a denominational executive committee meeting. (This joke became funnier and funnier to us over the years, until it stopped being so.) I also joked about how out of character it was for this calm, tranquil child to be born on Mardi Gras.

Now the son of Mardi Gras has been baptized on Halloween. Now the one named for the prophet Jonah bears the sign of Jonah—one who, in Christ, has gone beneath the waters of death and is raised to newness of life.

When I was baptizing people every week in a traditional baptistery in a Southern Baptist church, I learned to repeat something I had heard from an old preacher in my tradition: to end the baptisms by turning to the congregation and saying, “And yet, there is room for more.”

I believe that now more than I ever have.

The last few years have taught me more than I ever dreamed I would know about the joy of “one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” Every year, as I grow older, I am more awed by the gospel I both heard preached to me and felt enveloping me in the waters of that baptistery back in my boyhood congregation. And now, for the fourth time, I have been able to see my prayers realized in looking at my son and calling him my brother.

Grace is everywhere. I am grateful still that, despite it all, there is room for Moore.


Desert Island Bookshelf

This week’s submission comes from Peirce Baehr of Tasmania, Australia. Peirce writes, “I notice many fellow readers send beloved works of fiction and theology. While I love and read plenty of both, as someone with serious ADHD, part of me would die if I only had the same fiction and theology works to read for the rest of my life. My ideal shelf would contain works I could pore over again and again to help me explore and engage with the world around me. It would also contain a wide mix of different topics and activities. … Welcome to my shelf.”

The Great World Atlas: I love getting lost in an atlas. Even an old map can hide vast treasures to discover.

Natural History (Smithsonian): This book touts itself as “the ultimate visual guide to everything on Earth,” and it very nearly is. So many amazing things to visually explore, from gems to primates. Check out the nearly headless Mexican burrowing toad on page 365. How awesome is God’s diverse creation!

The Chronicle of Western Costume by John Peacock: Covers fashion from ancient history to the present in intricate detail. Excellent reference when reading or writing historical works.

The World Encyclopedia of Calligraphy by Christopher Calderhead and Holly Cohen: Calderhead and Cohen cover major scripts—both beautiful and practical—from the West to the East, often teaching multiple styles of each. Packed with activity for the desert-island dweller.

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards: The classic, complete education in drawing for nonartists

The Mysteries of Harris Burdick by Chris Van Allsburg: An almost-wordless picture book from the master of imagination, with titles but no stories. Excellent for writing prompts … and daydreams.

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition: The opposite of the previous book in word count but every bit as inspiring. The Indo-European and Semitic roots appendices are pure poetry to any linguist’s heart.

Origami by Hideaki Sakata: As a simple guide to basic origami forms, this is one book I’ve outgrown. But it can stand in for the origami compendium I’d take along.

Wild Mushrooming by Alison Pouliot and Tom May: The newest book of the bunch. My kids told me it had to be in the picture to help me not die on the island. It is an excellent guide to the dangers and joys of foraging for mushrooms.

Hoyle’s Rules of Games edited by Albert Morehead and Geoffrey Mott-Smith: Like many books on my shelf, this classic has traveled with me for years. The perfect introduction to a huge number of (mostly) card games, for every skill and age level—with plenty of island-suitable solitaires.

The Bible by God (via many): On its own, the Bible is a given—a library unto itself that never grows old, even for a person with ADHD. Add to that, for some reason, because of the way God has built me, I take intense joy from learning other languages. (It’s hard to describe how intense.) I also profoundly love the incarnational effects of Bible translation for people all over the world. So, if I were stuck on a desert island, I’d bring a collection of Bibles to study in different languages. In the picture I show nine: a stack with Chinese English (dual), Spanish, Italian, Arabic, German, and Korean; a Greek NT at the end of the row; and a Japanese Bible on the table. Some of these languages I already know; I’ve only scratched the surface of others. But I long to spend time with all of them.

The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien: Because I need a token work of fiction on my shelf (bad pun). Seriously, though, this work captures my heart. Either this or the collected works of Jane Austen would make it along.

Generations by James McAuley: An expertly chosen English poetry collection, spanning from Chaucer to the present, presented by the expert Australian poet and Christian James McAuley

Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot: A poem ideally suited to a desert island, this unrivaled work repays constant study in spades. But I’d actually pick a compendium of Eliot so as not to miss any of it (and hopefully, one day, actually understand The Waste Land).

Total Truth by Nancy Pearcey: And here is my token book of practical theology/philosophy. Truly, though, this is no token work but a formidable tome, crammed full of variegated, resplendent, polymathic goodness. A footnote in this book reshaped my life—it’s that powerful.

Stars and Planets (Smithsonian Handbooks): I’ll end with my favourite guide to the stars. My copy is getting on in years, and the charts are outdated. But it’s such a perfectly sized and organized compact guide to the night sky.

What do you think? If you could have one bookshelf with you to last you the rest of your life, what volumes would you choose? Send a picture to me with as much or as little explanation of your choices as you would like.

Quote of the moment

The speeches that I and others were forbidden to give were not a danger to our country; the danger to our country was the silence that they wanted to command of us.
—Karl Barth

 

Currently Reading

Paul Harvey, Martin Luther King: A Religious Life (Rowman & Littlefield)

Scotty Smith and Russ Masterson, Searching for Grace: A Weary Leader, a Wise Mentor, and Seven Healing Conversations for a Parched Soul (Tyndale)

Roger Seethaler, A Whole Life (Picador)

Toby Faber, Faber & Faber: The Untold Story (Faber & Faber)

Currently Watching

The Way Down, an HBO documentary series about Gwen Shamblin and the Remnant Fellowship church, which is right down the road from me

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Onward,
Russell Moore

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