Associated Baptist Press - Opinion: Fact and fiction on the abortion-reduction bill

By David Gushee, Joel Hunter and Ronald Sider Monday, September 14, 2009

(ABP) -- We are pro-life evangelical Christians with long records of ministry and scholarship in which we have stood up for the unborn and for a society in which every child is welcomed into life and provided the opportunity to flourish. But we also recognize the legal and cultural realities in our nation right now in relation to abortion law.

We believe it is appropriate for us as Christians to support practical strategies that can reduce the demand for abortion even as we continue to hope and work for broader legal and cultural changes. And we feel compelled by our faith in Christ to look for the best in other people, to seek common ground where we can, and to be open to the surprising winds of God's Spirit that sometimes blow us into common effort with surprising partners.

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As a pro-life, consistent-life Christian, I am always glad to see any reduction in the number of abortions; I deplore the culture of convenience that makes abortions normative and easy; and I mourn the abandonment of political progressives of what I always felt was rightfully their cause.

I cannot wrap my mind around any philosophical position that sees abortion or the taking of human life for any reason as desirable or tolerable.

However, I don't think the fight to end abortion has made much progress as it has been conducted. Any time people are severely polarized, characterized, and demonized they become radicalized.

Thus, everyone becomes further entrenched in their positions and nothing changes.

If we continue to fight the battle for life the way we have been fighting it, more and more unborn children will be aborted. The normal reaction of anyone being pushed is to push back.

There is an assumption that I believe is generally false, that the pro-choice camp loves abortion and wants to see more babies aborted. I have never heard that from anyone in that camp with whom I have spoken face to face. No matter how drastically I disagree with them, I have no right to assign to them views they do not hold.

Therefore, I make the assumption that some, maybe not all, but some people who want to keep abortion legal, also want to reduce the number of abortions. To the extent that they want to do that, I want to help them.

At the same time, I think people should speak their minds, be prophetic, proclaim justice against the grain of popular opinion, and maintain the integrity of their biblical and moral beliefs. But that does not license them (or us) to misrepresent the facts.

Good arguments do not need to be embellished, sensationalized, over generalized, or given in anger in order to be more effective and convincing. Good arguments can stand on their own.

And if we truly believe, as I do, that we have the Word of God on our lips when we speak scriptural truth, we can trust the Holy Spirit enough to deliver that Word with a quiet spirit, gracious heart, and a gentle tongue. We know that the Word itself has the power to convince the heart without our extra help.

One problem is that we start trusting sources who trust sources who trust sources who somewhere along the line have made inaccurate statements either intentionally or unintentionally. However, because we trust the source passing it on, we adopt it as the absolute truth.

Then, we weaken our arguments.

We do so when we, who say we believe in the power of God to use His Word and touch the hearts of men, employ and trust in the same manipulative techniques which the rest of the world embraces without thought.  Our message gets lost in a noisy, bitter exchange of godless rhetoric.

We make a grave and subtle false assumption when we believe that we cannot cooperate with people toward a common goal unless we can agree with them about every other notion that they espouse.

So nothing gets done.

I will teach and preach sexual purity and abstinence, but I do not expect that the be preached by those who do not believe in it.

I will teach a preach standards of behavior for believers in Jesus that seem very odd to the rest of the world, but I do not, for a moment, presume that they will be adopted by the rest of the world.

Frankly, I believe in helping to prevent pregnancies before the issue of abortion is raised and helping poor mothers to carry their children to term once they become pregnant. I remember the day when most conservative evangelicals felt the same way.

Are we primarily interested in saving lives or making political hay?