My apologies for not posting on my debate with Nadine Strossen (President of the ACLU) last Wednesday night. I missed almost two night's sleep and I'm way behind getting ready to embark on a 13-day mission trip to the Dominican Republic. (I'm taking my two oldest sons and three of their friends.)
Thankfully, Amy Hall at Stand to Reason attended the debate and has a summary. Meanwhile, Jivin J's thoughts from a former Strossen debate apply here as well.
I'm glad Amy beat me to the punch because I'm mentally tired right now, too tired to write constructively. I'll post something on the exchange in a few days when I'm more refreshed.
Personally, I thought the event went very well....
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
Re: What's Wrong? [SK]
Jay,
I would suggest only one small change to your excellent post: The title should be "What's Wrong with the Church?"
I rarely--very rarely, in fact--say critical things about the church. My preference is to equip Christian leaders rather than criticize them. Yet you've raised a good point: If you talk to any pro-life group reaching out to students, you'll soon learn it's now axiomatic that with rare exception, campus fellowship groups want nothing to do with the pro-life movement. Generally speaking, they are too afraid they might turn people off if they get involved saving innocent human lives.
Well, at Cal Poly, the response of Christians to the abortion controversy did in fact turn-off at least one non-Christian, but not for reasons campus fellowship groups might expect. One of the students responsible for organizing the debate expressed her dismay that Campus Crusade would not attend the event or get behind promoting it with its members.
She asked me directly why I thought that was so. She thought for sure the Christians would show up and she was puzzled that they didn't. Their refusal to get involved turned her off.
I didn't know what to tell her. Perhaps CC had good reasons for not attending and I hold out hope it did, though it's hard for me to imagine what those reasons might be.
As Joe Carter suggested a few weeks back, one reason for the church's non-involvement is that Evangelical leaders by and large aren't all that troubled by abortion. It's simply not a priority for them:
And then we bemoan the fact that few people take us seriously.
Wasn't it Woody Allen who once said that "eighty percent of success is just showing up?"
I would suggest only one small change to your excellent post: The title should be "What's Wrong with the Church?"
I rarely--very rarely, in fact--say critical things about the church. My preference is to equip Christian leaders rather than criticize them. Yet you've raised a good point: If you talk to any pro-life group reaching out to students, you'll soon learn it's now axiomatic that with rare exception, campus fellowship groups want nothing to do with the pro-life movement. Generally speaking, they are too afraid they might turn people off if they get involved saving innocent human lives.
Well, at Cal Poly, the response of Christians to the abortion controversy did in fact turn-off at least one non-Christian, but not for reasons campus fellowship groups might expect. One of the students responsible for organizing the debate expressed her dismay that Campus Crusade would not attend the event or get behind promoting it with its members.
She asked me directly why I thought that was so. She thought for sure the Christians would show up and she was puzzled that they didn't. Their refusal to get involved turned her off.
I didn't know what to tell her. Perhaps CC had good reasons for not attending and I hold out hope it did, though it's hard for me to imagine what those reasons might be.
As Joe Carter suggested a few weeks back, one reason for the church's non-involvement is that Evangelical leaders by and large aren't all that troubled by abortion. It's simply not a priority for them:
If evangelicals--and Christians in general--truly cared about this issue, abortion on demand would not be the law of the land....Imagine if every pastor in America had the courage to stand in the pulpit and deliver the Gospel-centric message that God abhors this slaughtering of the innocent and that for the church to tolerate this sin is a fecal-colored stain on the garment of Christ's bride.As I've said before, Christian leaders have it all wrong. My own experience suggests that far from turning people off, a persuasive pro-life case, graciously communicated, suggests to non-believers that maybe, just maybe, the Christian worldview has something relevant to say to the key issues of our day. But when we fail to even put in an appearance at key debates, the message to non-Christians is that we simply don't care about the big stuff.
But it will never happen because the evangelical church isn't committed as the church to rectifying this grave injustice. We never have been.
And then we bemoan the fact that few people take us seriously.
Wasn't it Woody Allen who once said that "eighty percent of success is just showing up?"
What's Wrong with the Pro-Life Movement: Exhibit A [Jay]
The views expressed in this post are entirely my own and are not reflective of any organization with which I work. As my mouth is getting me into trouble more and more lately, please direct any irritation over my opinions to me. THX, Jay.
Scott Klusendorf, our fearless leader at LTI Blog, debated Nadine Strossen, the president of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), at California Polytechnic State University (CalPoly) on Wednesday night in front of hundreds of students and faculty members as described here in the CalPoly school paper write up. In reference to the title of my post, this is not a bad thing but a good thing.
The day of the debate the MustangDaily.net ran this story in preparation for the event. In it they discuss that the student body was polled on what topic they would most like to see addressed in this format. Abortion was the overwhelming winner receiving 29% of all votes versus a mere 9% represented by the topic that came in second. That means with the choices of gun control or the Middle East peace process or others not mentioned the student body of CalPoly overwhelmingly wanted to address the issue of abortion through a civil and intellectual debate. This is not a bad thing but also a good thing.
So what is the bad thing promised? Where is the “Exhibit A” mentioned in the blog post title? Well for that we must go to Jamey Pappas, campus director of Campus Crusade at CalPoly. That’s right, our Christian brother and head of the organization committed to bringing Christ and to the student body of CalPoly is quoted as saying the following:
"I think it's a great thing to come to campus," … However, he said most of Cal Poly's Crusaders probably won't make it to the debate because the group's weekly meeting coincides with the event.
What?!! Let me get this straight. You are the leader of a group that wants to reach your campus for Christ and presumably help transform the culture of the college life for the students. Abortion is most often sought by women who fall into the age demographics of college students. (On Average 45% of all abortions are performed on women 18 – 24 Years of age per Guttmacher) Your campus has overwhelmingly spoken out that this is the topic they are most interested in discussing and has brought in a passionate and articulate Christian man to defend the pro-life position versus the president of the ACLU. Your response to this is that you have a WEEKLY MEETING and you cannot go?!!
I have no way of knowing whether or not Jamey and his friends did or did not attend the debate, but this is the type of truly missing the point that makes this fight so much harder. Lets keep our eye on the ball people. And if you are planning on muffing this badly as an organization, whatever you do, please don’t tell the local reporter about it before hand.
Lest you think that I am picking on this one chapter of Crusade and Jamey Pappas let me be very clear. They may have changed their mind and gone to support the event. But this type of inability to engage in real concrete terms by the body of Christ on the most important moral issue of our age, what it means to be a human being, is indicative of a larger problem. On behalf of people that are fighting to see the end government endorsed abortion in the United States in our lifetime I want to say the following to some of our brothers and sisters who are sympathetically pro-life. Sometimes supporting the effort means you actually NEED to show up.
Scott Klusendorf, our fearless leader at LTI Blog, debated Nadine Strossen, the president of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), at California Polytechnic State University (CalPoly) on Wednesday night in front of hundreds of students and faculty members as described here in the CalPoly school paper write up. In reference to the title of my post, this is not a bad thing but a good thing.
The day of the debate the MustangDaily.net ran this story in preparation for the event. In it they discuss that the student body was polled on what topic they would most like to see addressed in this format. Abortion was the overwhelming winner receiving 29% of all votes versus a mere 9% represented by the topic that came in second. That means with the choices of gun control or the Middle East peace process or others not mentioned the student body of CalPoly overwhelmingly wanted to address the issue of abortion through a civil and intellectual debate. This is not a bad thing but also a good thing.
So what is the bad thing promised? Where is the “Exhibit A” mentioned in the blog post title? Well for that we must go to Jamey Pappas, campus director of Campus Crusade at CalPoly. That’s right, our Christian brother and head of the organization committed to bringing Christ and to the student body of CalPoly is quoted as saying the following:
"I think it's a great thing to come to campus," … However, he said most of Cal Poly's Crusaders probably won't make it to the debate because the group's weekly meeting coincides with the event.
What?!! Let me get this straight. You are the leader of a group that wants to reach your campus for Christ and presumably help transform the culture of the college life for the students. Abortion is most often sought by women who fall into the age demographics of college students. (On Average 45% of all abortions are performed on women 18 – 24 Years of age per Guttmacher) Your campus has overwhelmingly spoken out that this is the topic they are most interested in discussing and has brought in a passionate and articulate Christian man to defend the pro-life position versus the president of the ACLU. Your response to this is that you have a WEEKLY MEETING and you cannot go?!!
I have no way of knowing whether or not Jamey and his friends did or did not attend the debate, but this is the type of truly missing the point that makes this fight so much harder. Lets keep our eye on the ball people. And if you are planning on muffing this badly as an organization, whatever you do, please don’t tell the local reporter about it before hand.
Lest you think that I am picking on this one chapter of Crusade and Jamey Pappas let me be very clear. They may have changed their mind and gone to support the event. But this type of inability to engage in real concrete terms by the body of Christ on the most important moral issue of our age, what it means to be a human being, is indicative of a larger problem. On behalf of people that are fighting to see the end government endorsed abortion in the United States in our lifetime I want to say the following to some of our brothers and sisters who are sympathetically pro-life. Sometimes supporting the effort means you actually NEED to show up.
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Patrick Lee Soundbite [SK]
Ryan Anderson reports on a bioethics forum featuring Peter Singer, Patrick Lee, Robert George, and others at Princeton University. The topic of the forum was, "Is it Wrong to End End Early Human Life?" and Ryan's piece does a great job summarizing the arguments presented. I love how he summarizes Patrick Lee's opening shot:
Patrick Lee opened the panel in good philosophical style with a thought experiment: Would it be wrong, he asked, to kill someone after a surgery that would irreversibly erase all his memories and leave him unconscious for several months? Yes it would, he argued, even though he would be in the same psychological position as a human embryo or fetus. For he would still retain, as a human being, the basic natural capacity for personal acts—even if the immediate ability to perform them would be delayed. Similarly, the human embryo or fetus has that same personal nature; she just needs time to develop herself to the point where she can exercise it. Lee summarized his argument in three simple steps: 1. We are intrinsically valuable from the moment we come to be. 2. We are essentially animal organisms of a rational sort, so that all human beings are persons. 3. Human organisms come to be at fertilization. Conclusion: Every whole human organism (meaning human beings, not human parts)—including embryos—is intrinsically valuable as a subject of rights.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Embryonic Stem Cells Obsolete? [SK]
I won't go so far as to say they will never work, but Nature has this to say about Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (skin cells reprogrammed to function like ES cells):
HT: Jivin J
The ten-year head start human ES cells got on human iPS cells has effectively shrunk to zero, says Thomson, because so much of the legacy of ES cells — reagents, culture media, hands-on expertise and experimental history — is transferable to iPS cells.But as I've said before, don't expect the liberals in Congress to care one bit. They are determined to spend your money killing human embryos, no matter what science tells us.
HT: Jivin J
Monday, May 12, 2008
GRTL Responds [Jay]
I will post more on this later, but I wanted to quickly share something in regards to my last post. Dan Becker, the President of Georgia Right to Life, called me today and graciously spent two hours on the phone with me answering the questions that I asked while explaining the process that GRTL went through leading up to the failed advancement of HR536.
I will briefly say that I am encouraged by the work that was done by GRTL leading up to this and understand more fully how all of this happened. They did have reason to be optimistic that HR536 would pass and as such it is not fair to characterize the endeavor as foolish or not thought through. They are also in the midst of a campaign that though it was not designed for failure in the Georgia House, the plan did anticipate the possibility and has a clear series of progressions to continue toward a specified goal. While I am still not certain that this plan will have the results the GRTL wishes that was never the point of my confusion.
As to his answer on the timing of the Glenn Richardson press release, he acknowledges that he would have preferred that it not initially come forward through hearsay, but that Dr. Alveda King is now giving her first person accounts of the events and he was honestly trying to do the right thing as a Christian in alerting the public to what he had heard.
I maintained that the overall misunderstanding was due to a failure to effectively communicate these ideas and that as I took my information from an individual that was officially representing Georgia Right to Life then GRTL is ultimately responsible for that miscommunication. Dan acknowledged that this was a problem. It is a colossal understatement to say that talking to Dan Becker was a different experience than the lunch meeting I attended. It is almost inconceivable that they were both communications from the same organization.
Dan also rejected the idea that incrementalism is responsible for 50 million dead unborn human beings and identified himself and his organization as incrementalists. Ultimately, Dan and I agreed on the overwhelming majority of things and we were left with an honest disagreement as to the timing of HR536. I will post a more detailed account later, but I want to prayerfully consider all that Dan shared with me before doing more than clarifying where he honestly addressed my areas of concern.
I will briefly say that I am encouraged by the work that was done by GRTL leading up to this and understand more fully how all of this happened. They did have reason to be optimistic that HR536 would pass and as such it is not fair to characterize the endeavor as foolish or not thought through. They are also in the midst of a campaign that though it was not designed for failure in the Georgia House, the plan did anticipate the possibility and has a clear series of progressions to continue toward a specified goal. While I am still not certain that this plan will have the results the GRTL wishes that was never the point of my confusion.
As to his answer on the timing of the Glenn Richardson press release, he acknowledges that he would have preferred that it not initially come forward through hearsay, but that Dr. Alveda King is now giving her first person accounts of the events and he was honestly trying to do the right thing as a Christian in alerting the public to what he had heard.
I maintained that the overall misunderstanding was due to a failure to effectively communicate these ideas and that as I took my information from an individual that was officially representing Georgia Right to Life then GRTL is ultimately responsible for that miscommunication. Dan acknowledged that this was a problem. It is a colossal understatement to say that talking to Dan Becker was a different experience than the lunch meeting I attended. It is almost inconceivable that they were both communications from the same organization.
Dan also rejected the idea that incrementalism is responsible for 50 million dead unborn human beings and identified himself and his organization as incrementalists. Ultimately, Dan and I agreed on the overwhelming majority of things and we were left with an honest disagreement as to the timing of HR536. I will post a more detailed account later, but I want to prayerfully consider all that Dan shared with me before doing more than clarifying where he honestly addressed my areas of concern.
Friday, May 9, 2008
Georgia Right to Life and HR536 [Jay]
Let me preface this post by saying that I have met many people at Georgia Right to Life over the years and have never walked away from those meetings doubting for one moment their dedication to the cause of life or the honesty and spirit in which they seek to advance their agenda. In everything that I say following this statement my confusion is one of tactics and not one of a personal nature. Also, this post represents my personal opinion and is not representative of any institution or organization with whom I am affiliated either professionally or personally.
I recently attended a meeting with Mike Griffin who has worked this past Georgia congressional legislative session as the Legislative Director of Georgia Right to Life. That is particularly important because this past session was when Georgia Right to Life spearheaded the campaign to pass House Resolution 536 otherwise known as the Personhood Resolution or The Human Life Amendment. You can read their own material on this resolution here, but in brief the resolution says that all human beings are persons from fertilization through death and that all considerations and rights afforded to persons ought to extend to all those human beings not currently protected under Georgia law.
This particular meeting was to discuss why this resolution failed to advance and ultimately died in committee without coming to the floor for an up or down vote. Mr. Griffin gave 4 reasons to explain:
1 – The Republicans were not unified on this issue.
2 – Georgia House Speaker Glenn Richardson was against the resolution.
3 – The resolution was sent to an unfriendly committee that was certain to bury it. (Judiciary)
4 – Pro-lifers were not unified on this issue.
Everything I am about to write here I said to Mr. Griffin at the meeting, so I am not sniping at him or Georgia Right to Life. If we look at those four reasons as given by GRTL I think we can sort them out a little more easily. Issue 3 is a byproduct of issue 2. The House Speaker was against the resolution and so he made certain that it was placed in an unfriendly committee. That means there are now three major issues that undermined the resolution. The House Speaker was working against it, the Republicans were not unified, and the pro-lifers were not unified.
But are these really three separate issues? Let’s set aside the House Speaker and whether or not his resistance on this issue was foreseeable and focus on issues 1 and 4 on our original list. Are all Republicans passionately pro-life? Of course not, and even some of the Republicans that are pro-life in sentiment do not support restrictions on abortion in the cases of rape and incest. Do I agree with their position? Again, of course not, but I am aware of these dynamics and understand that politicians respond to their own consciences and external pressure. The less external pressure applied on any given issue the more you are dependent upon their consciences to influence them to vote pro-life.
I loathe discussing politicians as if they were not pro-lifers by classification. Some of our congressional representatives are passionately pro-life and ought to be included in all discussions as functioning members of the pro-life family. To that point we get to issue 4, the pro-life community was not unified on this issue. You see the obvious connection here on issues 1 and 4. If pro-lifers were not unified then Republicans by definition were not unified. This clearly undermines the external pressure to support the resolution which means that you are relying on the consciences of the representatives to do the majority of the work and you already know that some of them are not sympathetic to your full mission.
So here is my confusion and what I asked Mr. Griffin at this meeting:
Jay : “You have stated the 4 reasons that this resolution failed to pass. I think that issue 3 logically follows issue 2 so unless you or anyone else here objects let’s say there are actually 3 major issues. If you could not foresee House Speaker Richardson’s objections, did you or GRTL have reasons to believe that the pro-life movement or the Republicans would be unified on this resolution?”
Mr. Griffin: “There was a lot of work that went into this prior to my coming on board and I was just here for the legislative session.”
Jay: “I understand that you came on board in the midst of this push, but in GRTL’s evaluation have you heard anyone say that they had good reasons to believe that the Republicans and the pro-life community were unified on this issue?”
Mr. Griffin: “I do not know.”
Jay: “You see the problem here? When I first heard about this resolution a year and a half ago my first response was that it will die in committee because there is no unity on that bill amongst pro-lifers and that means there is zero political pressure for the Republicans to support it against their reservations of conscience. If I could see that then others could as well, which means that 66% of the reasons that you say this resolution failed to advance were problems that were obvious BEFORE pursuing it.”
Mr. Griffin: “So you are saying I was sent on Pickett’s Charge?”
Jay: “Absolutely, I am saying that most of what killed this resolution was known prior to pushing it and that it was an errand that was designed for failure.”
Whether or not I support this resolution on its merits, which I currently do not, the tactical approach is fundamentally flawed. Why intentionally fail? What possible good can that produce? Not to mention all of the political ill will that has been stirred up as a result of this plan. Georgia Right to Life is publishing articles denouncing House Speaker Richardson as a racist eugenicist who wants black babies aborted. That charge is an inflammatory personal attack on Richardson that does not seem likely to persuade him that his position is wrong and win his support for future legislation. In fact, it smacks of the kind of divisive rhetoric and tactics that have so long tainted this discussion.
The Georgia pro-life movement must do better and I hope that Georgia Right to Life as the most visible representative of that movement thinks very hard before setting into motion another plan that relies solely on a miracle from God to succeed.
I recently attended a meeting with Mike Griffin who has worked this past Georgia congressional legislative session as the Legislative Director of Georgia Right to Life. That is particularly important because this past session was when Georgia Right to Life spearheaded the campaign to pass House Resolution 536 otherwise known as the Personhood Resolution or The Human Life Amendment. You can read their own material on this resolution here, but in brief the resolution says that all human beings are persons from fertilization through death and that all considerations and rights afforded to persons ought to extend to all those human beings not currently protected under Georgia law.
This particular meeting was to discuss why this resolution failed to advance and ultimately died in committee without coming to the floor for an up or down vote. Mr. Griffin gave 4 reasons to explain:
1 – The Republicans were not unified on this issue.
2 – Georgia House Speaker Glenn Richardson was against the resolution.
3 – The resolution was sent to an unfriendly committee that was certain to bury it. (Judiciary)
4 – Pro-lifers were not unified on this issue.
Everything I am about to write here I said to Mr. Griffin at the meeting, so I am not sniping at him or Georgia Right to Life. If we look at those four reasons as given by GRTL I think we can sort them out a little more easily. Issue 3 is a byproduct of issue 2. The House Speaker was against the resolution and so he made certain that it was placed in an unfriendly committee. That means there are now three major issues that undermined the resolution. The House Speaker was working against it, the Republicans were not unified, and the pro-lifers were not unified.
But are these really three separate issues? Let’s set aside the House Speaker and whether or not his resistance on this issue was foreseeable and focus on issues 1 and 4 on our original list. Are all Republicans passionately pro-life? Of course not, and even some of the Republicans that are pro-life in sentiment do not support restrictions on abortion in the cases of rape and incest. Do I agree with their position? Again, of course not, but I am aware of these dynamics and understand that politicians respond to their own consciences and external pressure. The less external pressure applied on any given issue the more you are dependent upon their consciences to influence them to vote pro-life.
I loathe discussing politicians as if they were not pro-lifers by classification. Some of our congressional representatives are passionately pro-life and ought to be included in all discussions as functioning members of the pro-life family. To that point we get to issue 4, the pro-life community was not unified on this issue. You see the obvious connection here on issues 1 and 4. If pro-lifers were not unified then Republicans by definition were not unified. This clearly undermines the external pressure to support the resolution which means that you are relying on the consciences of the representatives to do the majority of the work and you already know that some of them are not sympathetic to your full mission.
So here is my confusion and what I asked Mr. Griffin at this meeting:
Jay : “You have stated the 4 reasons that this resolution failed to pass. I think that issue 3 logically follows issue 2 so unless you or anyone else here objects let’s say there are actually 3 major issues. If you could not foresee House Speaker Richardson’s objections, did you or GRTL have reasons to believe that the pro-life movement or the Republicans would be unified on this resolution?”
Mr. Griffin: “There was a lot of work that went into this prior to my coming on board and I was just here for the legislative session.”
Jay: “I understand that you came on board in the midst of this push, but in GRTL’s evaluation have you heard anyone say that they had good reasons to believe that the Republicans and the pro-life community were unified on this issue?”
Mr. Griffin: “I do not know.”
Jay: “You see the problem here? When I first heard about this resolution a year and a half ago my first response was that it will die in committee because there is no unity on that bill amongst pro-lifers and that means there is zero political pressure for the Republicans to support it against their reservations of conscience. If I could see that then others could as well, which means that 66% of the reasons that you say this resolution failed to advance were problems that were obvious BEFORE pursuing it.”
Mr. Griffin: “So you are saying I was sent on Pickett’s Charge?”
Jay: “Absolutely, I am saying that most of what killed this resolution was known prior to pushing it and that it was an errand that was designed for failure.”
Whether or not I support this resolution on its merits, which I currently do not, the tactical approach is fundamentally flawed. Why intentionally fail? What possible good can that produce? Not to mention all of the political ill will that has been stirred up as a result of this plan. Georgia Right to Life is publishing articles denouncing House Speaker Richardson as a racist eugenicist who wants black babies aborted. That charge is an inflammatory personal attack on Richardson that does not seem likely to persuade him that his position is wrong and win his support for future legislation. In fact, it smacks of the kind of divisive rhetoric and tactics that have so long tainted this discussion.
The Georgia pro-life movement must do better and I hope that Georgia Right to Life as the most visible representative of that movement thinks very hard before setting into motion another plan that relies solely on a miracle from God to succeed.
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