6 Top Christian Blog Posts of the Week: The Pro-Life Edition
Linking you to the top 6 Christian blog posts of the week—posts that provide robust, rich, and relevant insights for living.
Today we focus on posts that interact with the statements made by U.S. Senate candidate in Indiana, Richard Mourdock.
Life, Death, and Lies on the Campaign Trail
Al Mohler:
• Provides a snapshot of the background and shares what Mourdock actually said:
Mourdock, the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in Indiana, was debating his opponent, Rep. Joe Donnelly, this past Tuesday night, when the issue of abortion emerged. Both candidates claimed to affirm that life begins at conception, but Mourdock called for the end of abortion on demand. He then extended his remarks with these words:
“This is that issue that every candidate for federal, or even state, office faces, and I too stand for life. I know there are some who disagree and I respect their point of view and I believe that life begins at conception. The only exception I have [for abortion] is in that case [where] the life of the mother [is threatened]. I struggled with it for a long time, but I came to realize that life is a gift from God. And I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape that it is something that God intended to happen.”
Immediately, Mourdock was charged with claiming that God intended a rape to happen. A spokesperson for the Obama campaign said that President Obama “felt those comments were outrageous and demeaning to women.” Democratic operatives and media voices denounced Mourdock as hateful, extremist, and worse, and even many of his fellow Republicans scattered and ran for cover. Some demanded that Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney should pull an ad supportive of Mourdock.
A closer look at Mourdock’s comments reveals that the candidate was not in any true sense calling rape “something that God intended to happen.” Everything Mourdock said in that answer flowed from his stated presupposition that life begins at conception, and that every human life is a gift from God.
Nevertheless, the liberal media went into full apoplexy, painting Richard Mourdock as a woman-hating extremist with reprehensible views on an issue as serious as rape.
Almost none of those who quoted Mourdock in making these charges used the full quotation, much less the audio of its delivery in the debate. The full quote reveals that the candidate was affirming the full dignity of every human life, regardless of the circumstance of conception.
• Provides a sensitive and clear perspective on the Christian pro-life viewpoint.
The issue of exceptions that might justify an abortion cannot be discussed carelessly. Furthermore, any reference to rape must start with a clear affirmation of the horrifying evil of rape and an equal affirmation of concern for any woman or girl victimized by a rapist. At this point, the defender of the unborn should point to the fact that every single human life is sacred at every point of its development and without regard to the context of that life’s conception. No one would deny that this is true of a six-year-old child conceived in the horror of a rape. Those who defend the unborn know that it was equally true when that child was in the womb.
Read Mohler’s full post at The Mourdock Moment: Life, Death, and Lies on the Campaign Trail.
The Press and Abortion Revisited
In The NY Times Opinion page, commentator Ross Douthat notes both the media’s disconnect with much of the US and the moral theory Mourdock was attempting to explain.
In the case of Mourdock, the [liberal media] disconnect has manifested itself in two ways. First, there’s the near-complete failure to acknowledge that his religious point, about God having the power to bring good even from the worst of human crimes, is much more commonplace than controversial — since the alternative would be to claim that children with rapists for fathers are somehow uniquely disfavored by an otherwise all-loving Almighty.
Second, there’s the disproportionate focus on what’s “extreme” about his specific position on the legal issue. It’s not that the press is wrong to call Mourdock’s views controversial, since his opposition to abortion in cases of rape really does place him well outside of the mainstream: Per Gallup’s abortion polling, only about 22 percent of Americans agree with him. But the same polling also shows, as a for instance, that only 24 percent believe that second-trimester abortion should be legal (as it is almost without restriction under current law), and only 10 percent believe that it should be legal in the third trimester. In both cases, the Democratic Party’s position is starkly at odds with the public’s, yet you almost never see a national Democrat pressed the way Republicans have been pressed on the rape issue in this cycle, or a pro-choice politician pinned down by tough follow-up questions during a high-profile debate. The problem isn’t necessarily that Mourdock’s comments have become a big story, in other words: In a closely-fought battle for control of the Senate, maybe they deserve to be. It’s that President Obama’s similarly outside-the-mainstream views and votes on abortion have always been a non-story outside the right-wing press, which leaves the president and his party free to make hay out of Republican extremism without paying much of a price for their own.
Read his complete opinion piece at The Press and Abortion Revisited.
Media Embarrassingly Ill-Equipped to Discuss Rape and Theodicy
Media critic, Mollie Hemingway, explains the basic Christian theology of suffering and evil:
So everyone open your Bibles and go to Genesis. We’re hoping to end up around Genesis 50:20. In the preceding chapters, we learn about Joseph, one of Jacob’s 12 sons. His brothers really hated him and were filled with jealousy so they conspired to kill him before deciding instead to sell him into slavery. Jacob, believing Joseph had been killed, was left in anguish and grieving.
Joseph somehow becomes the most powerful man in Egypt next to Pharaoh. He does all sorts of wise and judicious things and saves all sorts of people from a brutal famine. Long story short, he ends up meeting up with his long-lost brothers again. They are really worried that he’s going to react poorly. And so:
But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.
“As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” is one of the most well-known passages in Scripture. The teaching that God causes good to result from evil is just basic, basic, basic stuff.
You don’t have to agree with this verse if you’re a reporter, but you should be familiar with it. If you are a reporter and you’re not familiar with the story of Joseph, or the story of Job, or the story of Jesus, you may be surprised at how easy they are to quickly catch up on. I’m not saying you’ll be able to plumb the depths in an evening, but just read Genesis, read Job, read the Gospels. These are foundational to understanding how the vast majority of the people you cover understand God’s will. With further study, you may learn about how Jews and Christians have struggled with understanding God’s will over the millennia. Turns out there is a lot written about it. Books, papers, you name it.
Read her complete piece at Media Embarrassingly Ill-Equipped to Discuss Rape Theodicy.
10 Questions a Pro-Choice Candidate Is Never Asked
Trevin Wax at The Gospel Coalition provides 10 Questions a Pro-Choice Candidate Is Never Asked.
Do Christians Support Aborting Children Conceived in Rape?
Joe Carter at The Gospel Coalition addresses the question, Do Christians Support Aborting Children Conceived in Rape?
Me and Douthat on Mourdock
Denny Burke addresses the words of Mourdock and the response of the media in Me and Douthat on Mourdock.
Join the Conversation
Which post impacted you the most? Why? What additional blog posts about the pro-life issue do you want to share with others?
RPM Ministries: Equipping You to Change Lives with Christ’s Changeless Truth
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