The ‘biblical view’ that’s younger than the Happy Meal

[salvorhardin]

What do American evangelical Christians believe about the beginning of life and abortion? Easy answer right? Only if you're talking about the last 24 years, because sometime between 1979 and 1988 the evangelical stance on abortion turned 180 degrees. Here's Dallas Theological Seminary professor Harold Lindsell writing in Billy Graham's magazine Christianity Today in 1979:

"God does not regard the fetus as a soul, no matter how far gestation has progressed. The Law plainly exacts: “If a man kills any human life he will be put to death” (Lev. 24:17). But according to Exodus 21:22-24, the destruction of the fetus is not a capital offense. … Clearly, then, in contrast to the mother, the fetus is not reckoned as a soul."

Check out Fred Clark's blog post for more details on the evolution of evangelical beliefs about abortion.

Click over to Dr. Norman L. Geisler’s website and you’ll find all the hallmarks of a respected figure in the evangelical establishment. You’ll see that Geisler has taught at Trinity Evangelical Seminary, Dallas Seminary and Southern Evangelical Seminary. You’ll see a promotion for his newest book, Defending Inerrancy, with recommendations from such evangelical stalwarts as Al Mohler and J.I. Packer, as well as a link to an online store offering some of the other dozens of books written by Geisler. And you’ll see a big promo for the anti-abortion movie October Baby, because Geisler is, of course, anti-abortion, just like Mohler and Packer and every other respected figure in the evangelical establishment is and, of course, must be.

But back in the day, Dudley notes, Geisler “argued for the permissibility of abortion in a 1971 book, stating ‘The embryo is not fully human — it is an undeveloped person.’” That was in Ethics: Alternatives and Issues, published by Zondervan. It’s still in print, kind of, as Christian Ethics: Contemporary Issues and Options. And now it says something different. Now it’s unambiguously anti-abortion.
Link: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/02/18/the-biblical-view-thats-younger-than-the-happy-meal

[CanonRay]

1. Thank you for the post, very informative

I didn't know any of that.

[MinneapolisMatt]

2. Thank you for sharing this.

Very, very interesting!

[Pholus]

3. Fascinating! I loved the comment on slacktivist about twins and chimerae

If the soul is implanted at conception ifthe egg splits does God then rush to add a second soul?

When two fertilized eggs merge what does God do with the "extra" soul?

Of course, evangelicals these days have no problem with truthiness. They'll say what feels right and then stick to it.

[DCKit]

13. Good Twin/Evil Twin.

Sometimes God doesn't deliver on time. That would also explain the total lack of empathy so many people display. Apparently, God wouldn't make it as a Domino's driver.

In another reference I recently read, 150 years ago, abortion was acceptable up until 45 or 90 days (I forget which). A respected Catholic theologian was of the opinion that was how long it took for a fetus to become "ensouled".

As much as the Catholics and fundamentalist Xians have changed their teachings over the past few decades, the majority of what they've done seems to be regressive - A last grasp at those who want to live under an authoritarian system. They've lost everyone else.

[ewagner]

4. Thanks for the clear thinking

I was too lazy (I suppose) to go browsing through the Bible to find those references....

Also...didn't St Ronald of Reagan contribute to the sudden and dramatic shift in definition of the beginning of life when he proclaimed that he believed that life began at conception? Or was he pandering to a growing fundamentalist movement? Was the a leader or a panderer?

[salvorhardin]

8. Hard to tell

Regan signed the 1967 California Therapeutic Abortion Act when he was Governor, but, if his biographers can be believed, he did so reluctantly and it was over the next ten - twelve years that his views on abortion crystallized around the anti-choice pole.

[tanyev]

5. Wow.

This needs to go viral.

[Kurmudgeon]

6. Why don't you reread Exodus 21:22-24?

Exodus 21:22-24 King James Version (KJV)
22If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.
23And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life,
24Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,

Now what part of that leads you to believe that killing an unborn child is not considered a capitol offense in Exodus?

[salvorhardin]

7. My views are not stated

I am quoting Fred Clark's blog post, and in the excerpts I include here, he is quoting or stating the beliefs of prominent evangelical Christians prior to 1988 when the transformation seems to have completed.

Just for the record: I'm an atheist and think the Bible is largely Bronze Age nonsense. That makes me pretty much incapable of interpreting the Bible in context of theology. I posted this because there obviously has been a major shift in the evangelical beliefs about abortion and I found it interesting that change can be traced to the early-mid 1980s.

[2ndAmForComputers]

18. It's interesting the poster you're replying to doesn't offer any comment about such change.

Oceania Christianity has always been at war with Eurasia abortion.

[_ed_]

9. Why would anyone care what people in the Bronze Age

thought about this? You wouldn't use their medical theories, right? So why use their legal / moral theories?

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. The bit where it says "he shall pay" is the giveaway

That shows that, in the case of termination through accidental injury to a pregnant woman (during an 'illegal' fight), there's a penalty to be decided by the husband and the court. "Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth" etc. clearly refers to injury to the woman - a fetus doesn't have teeth, for instance. The point is that this unintended termination is not 'mischief' itself.

[TalkingDog]

11. Break it down: Causing the miscarriage is a lesser offense.

In english:

If men "strive" (try?) and hurt a pregnant woman, causing a miscarriage, but nothing more, he will be punished to the degree that the husband and judges determine to be fair.

If the men do anything more to the woman (rape, beating... IDK) then it will be eye for eye, tooth for tooth.

So the punishment is for hurting the woman, NOT killing the fetus.

[Thats my opinion]

14. If we are reduced to proof-texting out of the Levitic code, we have a world of problems.

Nobody--I mean nobody, including the most Orthodox of the Orthodox really lives by those primitive tribal rules.

[2ndAmForComputers]

19. This is the correct answer.

Although the comical mental gyrations involved in such parsing do amuse me.

[2ndAmForComputers]

17. In your opinion, what does "if mischief follow" mean? Looks pretty vague.

[TalkingDog]

20. The men don't JUST cause a miscarriage. They harm her in a substantial way.

Causing her to lose an eye, toe, causing death.

Which supports the idea I presented upthread. Causing the miscarriage (aborting the fetus) is a lesser offense than harming the woman.


On Edit... I see that you were responding to the poster upthread.... didn't mean to thread jack your question.

[Sal316]

24. Numbers 5 is why.

Drinking of an abortificient is the test/punishment for an unfaithful woman.

[muriel_volestrangler]

27. Interesting - a literal reading of that would support abortion after rape

in the modern world, I'd think.

[rhett o rick]

12. Help out an ignorant non-religious person.

Do Evangelicals follow the Old Testament? Didnt Jesus disagree with a lot of the Hebrew Bible? Is the subject of abortion mentioned in the New Testament?

[Thats my opinion]

15. The only place in all the Bible where abortion is dealt with is Numbers Chapter 5.

This sexist nonsense describes how an abortion can be produced if a man thinks his wife has been unfaithful.

[TalkingDog]

23. So if you ask Rick Santorum if abortion is acceptable under those conditions

I wonder what his response would be?

[TalkingDog]

22. No evangelical here, (most of them have never read the Bible) but I have read it.

Twice. And had a minor in Religion. Which puts me at an acolytes understanding of the Bible. But... that said. Christ disagreed with a few things, but on the whole he accepted the rule of God's Law as given by the Torah. For instance, the 10 commandments, which is OT, is still part of the Christian tradition.

So anything that God "SAID" or "COMMANDED" could not be abandoned, because Christ IS God. And it would be inconsistent, to say the least, to have God going against himself.

Anything to do with outward, social ritual was up for grabs. That is why Christians no longer observe Passover, among other things.

The Law (Torah) is about rules and obedience to those rules because they are God's will.
The New Testament (The Gospels) is about God's forgiveness of sin and removal of the threat of eternal "damnation" (there was no Hell in the OT, that's a Christian thing) under the condition that one accepts Christ as the Savior and Son of God.

The NT says absolutely nothing about abortion, when life begins and etc.

[starroute]

16. I love that blog

Clark was raised as an evangelical and has been doing his best to salvage some part of the religion he was brought up with by systematically redefining Christianity in terms that any progressive could admire. I don't think he's going to succeed in rescuing Christianity from the termites boring away at it from within, but the effort makes his blog one of the more fascinating places on the Net.

Here he is in today's entry connecting the Biblical concept of Jubilee with a recent recommendation for debt cancellation by David Graeber, the anarchist who played an important role last year in launching Occupy Wall Street: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/02/20/jubilee-proclaim-the-year-of-the-lords-favor/

And here's a tasty bit from yesterday slamming the false courage of the religious right:

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/02/19/the-munchhausen-martyrdom-of-rick-warren-chuck-colson-and-fr-jonathan-morris/

These folks aren’t driven by religion. They’re not really even driven by politics.

It’s just a big fantasy role-playing game.

Rick Warren, Charles Colson, Richard Land and Father Jonathan Morris all might as well be playing World of Warcraft. . . .

Rick Warren is a fantasist. That fantasy allows him to stroke his own ego, but it also makes him appear ridiculous to anyone not caught up in the fantasy with him. He claims to be a martyr but reveals himself to be Baron Münchhausen.

Good stuff.

[salvorhardin]

21. I admire Clark's writing too

Being an atheist, it's great to get Clark's insider perspective on evangelical Christianity and the way it has been usurped and perverted. It's hard to remember sometimes that the growth in evangelical Christianity was fueled in large part by liberal theological interpretations that appealed to crunchy granola '60s counter-culture types.

I'm reading Graeber's book Debt: The First 5000 Years right now and it's a fascinating eye-opener that upends almost everything we were taught about economics in high school. It's a bit heavy on the preachy moralizing philosophy for my tastes, but I can easily overlook that for all I've learned about how ancient economies operated. My only reservation with the book is that, unlike Graeber, I'm not an anthropologist, and anthropology is so far afield of my college education, that he could be spouting complete bullshit and I'd have no way of knowing.

[cbayer]

25. Fascinating. I had no idea about this. Thanks for posting.

[rug]

26. The Didache is pretty explicit.

"Chapter 2. The Second Commandment: Grave Sin Forbidden. And the second commandment of the Teaching; You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not commit pederasty, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal, you shall not practice magic, you shall not practice witchcraft, you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is born. You shall not covet the things of your neighbor, you shall not swear, you shall not bear false witness, you shall not speak evil, you shall bear no grudge. You shall not be double-minded nor double-tongued, for to be double-tongued is a snare of death. Your speech shall not be false, nor empty, but fulfilled by deed. You shall not be covetous, nor rapacious, nor a hypocrite, nor evil disposed, nor haughty. You shall not take evil counsel against your neighbor. You shall not hate any man; but some you shall reprove, and concerning some you shall pray, and some you shall love more than your own life."

Yes, I know it forbids pederasty as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didache

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/text/didache-roberts.html

[TalkingDog]

28. Yah... most evangelicals have read the non-canonical works

relating to early Christianity... that's where the ideas are coming from....