This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

Defense of marriage as a man-woman institution. With the acceptance of gay-marriage as a constitutional right, public schools eventually will have to accept this redefinition of marriage and teach it. The traditional view will be termed "religious doctrine" and ruled as unsuitable for public schools, and perhaps considered as "hate speech."

My mom is a 5th grade teacher, and unfortunately, this is already being pushed in public schools to a certain degree. The normalcy of homosexual "experimentation" and activity is openly advocated for in the sex-ed materials her district uses.

Ah, so I take it Kushiner is not voting for Bush?

?????

Basil:

I've read through some of your posts and comments, and now think I have a better understanding of where you're coming from. But you will doubtless still need to correct some of my misunderstandings.

First: I don't actually know who Jim is voting for. I haven't read any declaritive statements, nor has he told me. Based on what he has said, I can speculate that he will vote for Bush.

Second: I believe your analysis of why Bush is not a "pro-life" candidate, and why voting for other candidates is a better option, is seriously flawed.

I will not tell you how to vote, nor will I rely on the argument that a third-party vote is cooperating with evil. I will say that if your vote ends up being for a party or candidate that condones legalized abortion, because you falsely believe there is no pro-life presidential candidate, it will be a seriously misinformed vote.

I haven't read the article so won't comment there, and I'll grant you that given your list it is a bit disenginious to label your vote single issue voting. Though I am not sure how many pro-life folks would make all those links.
But I do have a question, should are vote ignore racial economic wellbeing and poverty issues, not to mention possible unjust war. Why do those issue outweigh the ones you present. You should know I am one of those not voting in part because I feel coraled by our political process to choose between competting issue that in my own convictions simply aren't competing issues.

Larry:

With regard to the war: There is no clarity in the Christian world as to whether or not it was a just or unjust war. And there is also no clear Christian teaching against just war--indeed, greater saints than I have argued that Christians can wage just war.

With regard to economic wellbeing and poverty: It is clear that the Gospel requires of Christians care for the poor, and the working of justice in their lives. But there is no clarity as to how to do that. Do we care for the poor through government structures? through personal efforts and the Church?

So on two of those issues you mention, there is no clear Christian consensus. Some Christians will, in good conscience vote for Bush on this issue because they believe that the principles on which he addresses these issues are better pragmatically than Kerry's. Conversely, other Christians, on this issue, will vote for Kerry in good conscience because they believe the government is the best tool for accomplishing Gospel ends. (I assume a two party dynamic here, but recognize that some Christians will vote for third-party candidates.)

There is clearly no consensus on the war. Part of the difficulty is that there is disagreement first on whether Christians can be involved in war at all, second whether or not this is a just war. Christians will, in good conscience, vote for either candidate. (Again: two-party assumption.)

On abortion and life, issues, however, Scripture and Church tradition is unequivocal: abortion is murder, as is cloning, embryonic stem-cell research, euthanasia, assisted suicide; and gay marriage is a violation of the natural order and of the divine nature of marriage. There is no equivocation. For a Christian to vote for a candidate that advocates what our God has declared to be sin is to formally cooperate with evil. And this can never be remotely considered an act done in good conscience.

Larry -

"But I do have a question, should are vote ignore racial economic wellbeing and poverty issues, not to mention possible unjust war. Why do those issue outweigh the ones you present."

Do you mean why don't racial & poverty issues, as well as the possibility of unjust wars, not outweigh the issues Clifton listed? If that is your question, there are a variety of possible responses. On the war issue - to date in Iraq, there have been less than 20,000 casualties; this includes US military as well as Iraqi civilian deaths. In the US, we have at least that many abortions every week or two, so on a strict numerical basis, abortion is a more pressing issue with many thousands of more deaths than the Iraq war. Factor in the potential of embryonic stem-cell research, and the number of deaths could expand considerably.

Now, racism is not something that can be legislated on without impinging on our freedoms. Even then, it only pushes the racism underground. The KKK still exists, even though Jim Crow laws have been off the books for decades. Poverty, of course, is a real issue, and there can be little debate about its prevalence in some minority communities in our country. However, the "fix" for that problem is not as self-evident because the causes are multi-faceted and not very well understood. Hence, the solution of one party is not necessarily morally superior to that of the other. Life issues (abortion, stem-cell research, human cloning & euthanasia) are morally clear, and hence, one party can (and does) have a morally superior position. That is not to say that position is perfect, or that the party's other positions aren't in need of serious reform or adjustment, only that on these issues, one party has a clear moral advantage.

Larry:

The title was punctuated with a question mark to make the very point you raise: pro-life/anti-abortion is NOT a single issue. It relates to a whole host of concerns, among them the ones listed.

I know I didn't intend to be disingenuous, and given the question mark, don't think I actually was.

As to whether other pro-lifers make the connections: they should. I hope ones who don't read this post (and Jim's article), and realize it is about more than just abortion.

Cliff, I was agreeing with you. I was saying that givne your argument it is indeed disingenous for others to label voting based on pro-life issues as single isssue voting.
I was not saing you were being disingenuous.
Actualy the discussion here is the first time I have encountered a fairly good arguement for basing ones vote primarily on pro-life issues.
However, given that my sense of voting as a Christian has more to do with personal conscience than what the tradition and Christian consensus can be certain of, I still find it difficult to vote for a either party. Wow, I think I might be sounding Baptist. Tripp would be proud. ;-]

Larry:

Thanks for the clarification. Sorry I misunderstood.

Oh my, more individualist Christianity?! ;-)

Seriously, I vote from my own conscience as well. Perhaps the difference between you and I is that I do not take my conscience as more authoritative than the collective witness of the Scriptures and the Church (and here I speak of the Church very broadly). This means that I attempt to align my conscience with the witness and proclamation of the Church militant and triumphant. Sometimes this actually means voting against my conscience, because my conscience has been misformed. Thankfully, though, my upbringing was such that much of what my conscience tells me does conform to the historic and present witness of the Church.

Well I guess though, with the nuance, that actually it is a Protestant emphasis on Scripture and Jesus' teaching in the Gosples that informs my conscience and trumps the colective witness of the Church.
This attitude is in process in myself.
It is interesting I am not this Protestant in other areas, but Politics and voting my conscience very protestant.
You see Jesus' word about peacemakers and loving enemies is on the same level to me as the collective witness to the Church. Thus abortion and issues of war are equally wrong in my mind. But then as I have said on my blog I am not voting for either candidate, based on the inability in part to choose between issues.
I am very influenced by the ethics of pacifism, or rather the nuanced version of it known as "just-peacemaking."

Larry:

Thanks for your clarification.

I guess I would follow up with, how do you know that your understanding of Jesus' words is more correct than the collective witness of the Church?

Pacifism is certainly a respectable theologoumena in the Church, and far be it from me to disabuse you of it.

But I wonder how it is that you equate abortion and war. Tripp wasn't very clear in his replies on the other post. What say you?

I do not mean to equate abortion and war, but see it as contradictory that a party and president who seem so concerned about life have seemed so bent on dominace through war.
It just seems to me that a consistent and thorough going "pro-life" stance would include an opposition to one of the most generaly destructive and death dominated human institutions. As I see it the logic of war is the obliteration of the enemy. The limitations that Geneva conventions and Just War theory place on war show it to be a tool of death and destruction. It like abortion shows a breakdown in the right order of things and the dominance of death.
It is in fact my pacifist stance and concern for poverty and economic justice that has lead me back to question abortion as an option.

Larry:

I was a little unclear on that last sentence. What I take you to mean is that from your convictions regarding poverty and economic justice you now have some stance in opposition to abortion. Is this right? Or, were you once opposed to abortion, but now, with your convictions regarding poverty and economic justice, you consider abortion as a viable ethical option?

Cliff,
Your first take on that sentence is closest to what I was trying to say.
Its akwardness had to do with attempting to communicate a journey from opposition to abortion (I'd say pro-life except that my position was simply opposition to abortion). As questions of poverty, justice (including reproductive rights) and pacifism were introduced to me and I embraced them, for a time taking this position lead me to accept abortion as at least something that had to be allowed (I don't think I was ever compeltely pro-choice either since I always saw it as something of an evil though a lesser evil than other things). However, since I grounded my pacifism and concern for poverty and justice in an afirmation of life I was faced with the inconsistency of saying so and supporting the availability of abortion.