Abortion: Conversations, Not Killings

Please read Ps. 139, where God knew us when we were in our mother's womb. It's all too easy to "play" the role of God when it suits our fancy.

Gareth, I largely agree. We have all heard it said, 'Thou shalt not murder,' but Jesus says to us that when we in anger shut down and lash out the other person we do the same (my bad paraphrase).

"The same hate machine I was part of...." Franky Schaeffer

Is the identification of a "hate machine" an act of love? I don't know to what exactly he refers. If he was involved in using language/images to nurture a hatred towards others--that involved a harsh, stereotyping, simplifying assignment of evil to some non-specific group.

What does his current language now legitimate? If there is a 'hate machine' turning out murderers--how can we step back from bringing this full machine to justice--for starters the Roman Catholic church?

I was not real keen on elevating Franky on the shoulders of his father--and I am not keen on elevating him now.

I am perplexed again by Franky (Frank) Schaeffer's propensity to make every issue an opportunity to impugn his parents - this is a process that started, for him, long ago, and his professed insincerity in his former political activities, as he has stated on other occasions. leads one to ask, "If he was lying then, is he lying now?"

Here is one thing he writes that tells me that either he is cavalier with the truth, or is very forgetful )in a way that conveniently happens to buttress his current opinions.

Frank spoke at a pro-life rally in Miami Florida in 1989 that I attended. He was in full-throat denunciation of the sort he now writes he left behind in the "mid-eighties." He was angry to the point that he used coarse, vulgar language of the sort not usually expressed publicly in Christian circles - which means that it is very likely, that for him, he was stirring up the sort of thing that I agree is completely unproductive. I remember wondering if something were wrong with him - he did not express the love and reason I always read and heard from his father - but with the mantle of his father about him, we were willing to treat it as a call to not be complacent.

However, nowhere in Francis' Schaeffer's works that he refers to, do I find this same angry attitude that pervaded Frank's own psyche. I was inspired by these same works to take seriously the erosion of respect for human life - all human life, including that of those we disagree with and those who we would in the purely human realm of error consider our "enemies."

I also think impugning Dr. Koop with the same broad brush is highly unfair. Dr. Koop was a tireless pioneer in medical procedures for saving infants with severe health issues. In fact, his own reputation was pilloried early on in his tenure as Reagan's Surgeon General over his compassion and practicality in dealing with AIDS and other sexual issues. He was a pragmatist for life, not an ideologue, and the "far-right" "base" of that time turned against him. Thus Frank is being highly unfair to lump Dr. Koop in with an unthinking "violent right" contingent - probably I have to think, only for the reason that for personal reasons he has written in his novels of unresolved anger issues with his father, that Dr. Koop was Francis' Schaeffer's friend and is therefore guilty by association with "Dad."

Frank overstates his importance to the "cause" in any case - revealing the wound he carries of resentment of being the son of a father who was a famous theologian. No doubt all are important, but Frank not only disavows his own sin, but aggrandizes himself to saying that his sin is the pivotal and outsized influential one. All of us are sinners, but this is not the sort of bragging that Paul was engaging in when he considered himself "chief among sinners." That Francis Schaeffer's real sin before Frank is that his father was more influential than he and he never managed to take that mantle for himself. If only he could have realized, it was enough just to be himself, all along.

Frank also made a second career in the past few years as a writer of arguably jingoistic "War Jesus" patriotic propaganda - no matter how sincerely he holds those views - and achieved best-seller status for the memoir about his son joining the armed forces to do battle in Iraq in the Cheney/Bush war of choice. Few of his readers even realized that this was the Franky Schaeffer who was once an evangelical Christian and who had now converted to Greek Orthodox. Frank still believes, if that's what he did, unlike the Savior's personal example, that violence is "sometimes" redemptive - like torture, perhaps, wrong until you need to do it.

One thing that is completely falsifiable and therefore true is that violence is never redemptive. I would even disagree with Gareth and argue that part of that statement he said can't be disproven is easily disproved by examining the context of history:

"...ultimately, violent conflicts are solved only through either negotiation or the total destruction or disempowerment of one party and its supporters."

The latter part of that statement is not true. Tempted to it throughout history (with no
exception made for Christians' so-called "Just War Theory," which when put to the test always "just means war") practicing genocide or
domination always comes to a bad end - there is never any Final Solution achieved.
There is only the endless heaping up, along with all the bodies, of the direct causes for endless back and forth violence and attempted futile retribution.

Frank Schaeffer, please reread Matthew 5, 6 and 7. Violence is NEVER redemptive.

The sooner those who are calling themselves Christian start to try to follow the Son's clear commands and teaching on this the sooner that we who have come to be the scandal that is American evangelicalism will actually start to win the hearts and minds of our fellow sin-sufferers on our common journey.

I appreciate Gareth's attempt to first define terms before using them. It sounds like he's put some thoughts into this. So many terms, many of them inflammatory, are thrown around in public debate that they do tend to lose some meaning over time and also stoke passions rather than help dialogue. He's right on here. I wish more commentators here would try to define terms they use ("prophet" is one I wish someone would define before using it). While I don't agree with Gareth's definition of terrorism or terrorist, at least I know what he means when he uses the term.*

I don't disagree with Schaeffer of Gareth that words have consequences. How debates are framed have consequences to how people view people on opposing sides of political and/or moral issues. We should all watch out words. Were I disagree is when Schaeffer says that "the people who stir up the fringe never take responsibility", implying that they are. Calling an abortionist a murderer if you believe that human lives are being ended in abortion is not the same thing as advocating that someone kill abortionists. That's not to say it's helpful to the anti-abortion cause to go around shouting "murderer!", but we can't blame anti-abortion protestors for Tiller's death. Schaeffer and others are not responsible for that, just as people who denounce Israel's occupation of Palestine as unjust/genocidal/akin to apartheid/etc are not responsible for the deaths of innocent Israelis when a radical Palestinian blows himself up in a public market. I also wouldn't hold Jim Wallis or his father responsible if someone attacked Dick Cheney after the Wallis' said that Cheney is "evil" or that "the vision of America that Cheney offers is decidedly evil, and has helped to spread even more evil around the world."

We all should watch the type of discourse we are encouraging though. Politicians of all political parties and all religions are guilty of stoking fears and passions unnecessarily. But this also shouldn't prevent us from calling things what they are when it's needed. I don't know where to draw the line ahead of time; it's always much clearer when we've gone too far after the fact.

*My definition of terrorism would be more stringent than just "an act whose purpose or consequence is to create terror." A man who beats his wife creates terror, but I wouldn't call him a terrorist. For an action to called terrorism, in my mind, it must meet at least three criteria (I'm open to other criteria as well and adjustments if good examples are provided):
:
1) It has to have a political goal.
2) It is perpetrated against civilians or other non-combatants.
3) It falls outside conventional military engagement and is perpetrated by individuals unaffiliated with a conventional military.

This doesn't mean I think that anything that doesn't fit my definition of terrorism is justified, legal or acceptable but just that it shouldn't be called terrorism. If the term is defined too broadly it loses all meaning.

"Let's have a conversation about what is really happening here:"

What's happening is this. The anti-abortionists have been throwing around violent, inflammatory language for years. Words like "murder", "slaughter", "baby-killer" work nicely to keep each other in a frenzy. Unfortunately, people on the edge of reality don't recognize that language for the hyperbole that it is, and they think they have to take matters into their own hands.

I have said this before on this blog. Words mean things.

I am willing to grant that "terrorism" is also hyperbole. What would be another word that describes actions designed to keep a specific group of law-abiding people terrified for their lives?

Jane

The man was murdered in his own church . Prayers to his family .

I watched Olberman last night , that was so far beyond what I thought I would ever hear on a Cable news Station . I really don';t think you can say CNBC even is mainstream liberal cable station anymore . I hope not . That was sickening . Hateful.

Our state when Partial Birth Abortion was on the ballot to be ended, lost by a high margin . I am not sure how people rationalize this procedure,.

But folks like Olberman or pro life activists that promote hatred or somehow promoting we are more righteous then you attitude often leave me wanting out of the conversation . or lump pro life beliefs or pro abortion beliefs into groups of negative caricatures as terrorists or godless leaves almost all of us out of the real conversation that should be had .

Gareth , whats up with the movies ? You sure have been very serious as of late .

Well said, Eric. I expected an article like this to come from Sojo after this happened, but it seemed they left it to Frank Schaeffer to get their point across. But the point is illogical: the prolife movement is no more responsible for Tiller's death than the anti-war folks are responsible for "inciting" the recent murder of that US soldier.

And is considering Tiller a "murderer" really that extreme?? There are polls showing that over half of Americans consider abortion (EVERY abortion, not just late term abortions) "murder." I agree that it doesn't help the prolife cause to throw around the word "murder," but at the same time I think it's not irrational to do so. (I should note that every mainstream prolife organization avoids the use of that word)

Also, Gareth...if you're serious about calling for an end to inflammatory rhetoric, you really shouldn't be defending Olbermann in any way. The man lives to inflame.

NMRod: "this does not sound like dialogue of the sort involving mutual respect as Obama has encouraged us, but more demonizing..."

Thank you for your reply

The dialogue I would like to have is about the use of inflammatory language to incite. I think I stated it pretty clearly and I tried not to let sarcasm take over. Apparently I failed.

Reading the other comments, I see that Olbermann must have gone on a rant about terrorism. I don't watch tv, so I missed that. I don't think I would use the word terrorism; my question regarding a better word was genuine.

Interestingly, last week there was a thread on this very blog about "finding common ground" to reduce abortions. A very large number of anti-abortionists came on the thread to state that there was no need to discuss murder.

Jane

I join you in affirming Gareth for writing with clarity--for thinking/writing through the issue he chose to address.

I agree his 'terrorism' definition gets very broad. I guess we use 'terrorize' quite loosely. I know I have lived in neighborhoods terrorized by street gangs--places routinely terrorized by violence, threats, beatings, and murders. In a sense, the term may not be overused; but the amount of murder, mayhem and terror may have turned our hearts so inside-out we can't encounter it honestly.

Albert Mohler ends his blog posting today with, "Murder is murder. The law rightly affirms that the killing of Dr. George Tiller is murder. In this we must agree. We cannot rest until the law also recognizes the killing of the unborn as murder. The killing of Dr. George Tiller makes that challenge all the more difficult."

I would side with Dr Mohler with the essential moral stance and distinction he makes. i.e. Equating abortion with murder and clearly rejecting the use of personal violence to stop or oppose it.

But I think the spirit of what Gareth brings to us is not only the technical definitions of our words--but how we employ them. Jesus highlighted us all as murderers--but did so with a love that was greater than the judgement. There is a love or hatred we have towards others that is quite distinct from our moral assesments of their behaviors--but somehow this love or hatred often becomes the vehicle which carries our actual words.

If there are persons whose words about Dr Tiller nurtured a heart and mind that decided to murder him--i have a suspicion it is not because of the precise words those leaders used--but whether those words were carried by a vehicle of love or of hatred. It is Jesus' instruction that those words carried by a vehicle of angry hate are murder--in and of themselves.

That's a good point about how words of criticism are used. Are they used in constructive love or destructive hate. Although it's an awful lot harder for us sinful humans to do the "constructive love" criticism correctly than Jesus.

Many write about the awful places they came from, the awful people they used to be, etc. In some ways these "insider tales" are told by the most credible eyewitnesses--since they saw the "awful" from the inside-out and can now stand back from it, free from its influence, and speak truth. Yet there are always other possibilities. If persons participated in such awful things--what makes them a particularly trustworthy witness? e.g. "Yes I was a mafia hitman, but now you can trust me. I'm changed." "Yes I was a Democrat........................." "Yes I was a sex addict.............." "Yes I was a hating zealout................." I have several friends whose identities and incomes are wrapped up in these kinds of insider testimonies. I love them and my trust in their words runs at about 50%. People caught in sickness are often sick. Sometimes their conversions make them well--other times their conversions involve giving up one sickness for another.

After reading NMRod's comment it caused me to remember I too heard Franky speak about some of his activity "back in the day." I was not comfortable with what I heard from him--the spirit behind the words. It seemed out of sync. I don't even remember the exact context. I did not give it a great deal of thought as he was not the "main show." I think I passed it off as "Angry-young-man-syndrome."

I likely reject 90% of the rhetoric/propoganda that comes out of both extremes of the abortion debate. So I don't really need more ammo to give me adequate cynicism. I think both sides have absolutely legitimate issues that largely can be reconciled by transcendent values and the rhetoric gets in the way.

I can't judge Franky. My reason for giving pause before digesting his views is that something felt wrong before--something feels wrong now. He seemed to elevate his voice before by attaching his voice to a cause--when the spirit I heard did not match up. And now he seems to elevate his voice by attaching his voice (in criticism of) to the same cause. This is my reason for pause as to how I accept his words.

Frank Schaeffer has made sound, cogent arguments to support what he is saying. His book is well documented. He also supported with fact his apology. His interview with Maddow was nothing less than compelling.

You may not like the messenger but at least consider the message.

I am perplexed again by Franky (Frank) Schaeffer's propensity to make every issue an opportunity to impugn his parents - this is a process that started, for him, long ago, and his professed insincerity in his former political activities, as he has stated on other occasions. leads one to ask, "If he was lying then, is he lying now?"

Here is one thing he writes that tells me that either he is cavalier with the truth, or is very forgetful )in a way that conveniently happens to buttress his current opinions.

Frank spoke at a pro-life rally in Miami Florida in 1989 that I attended. He was in full-throat denunciation of the sort he now writes he left behind in the "mid-eighties." He was angry to the point that he used coarse, vulgar language of the sort not usually expressed publicly in Christian circles - which means that it is very likely, that for him, he was stirring up the sort of thing that I agree is completely unproductive. I remember wondering if something were wrong with him - he did not express the love and reason I always read and heard from his father - but with the mantle of his father about him, we were willing to treat it as a call to not be complacent.

However, nowhere in Francis' Schaeffer's works that he refers to, do I find this same angry attitude that pervaded Frank's own psyche. I was inspired by these same works to take seriously the erosion of respect for human life - all human life, including that of those we disagree with and those who we would in the purely human realm of error consider our "enemies."

I also think impugning Dr. Koop with the same broad brush is highly unfair. Dr. Koop was a tireless pioneer in medical procedures for saving infants with severe health issues. In fact, his own reputation was pilloried early on in his tenure as Reagan's Surgeon General over his compassion and practicality in dealing with AIDS and other sexual issues. He was a pragmatist for life, not an ideologue, and the "far-right" "base" of that time turned against him. Thus Frank is being highly unfair to lump Dr. Koop in with an unthinking "violent right" contingent - probably I have to think, only for the reason that for personal reasons he has written in his novels of unresolved anger issues with his father, that Dr. Koop was Francis' Schaeffer's friend and is therefore guilty by association with "Dad."

Frank overstates his importance to the "cause" in any case - revealing the wound he carries of resentment of being the son of a father who was a famous theologian. No doubt all are important, but Frank not only disavows his own sin, but aggrandizes himself to saying that his sin is the pivotal and outsized influential one. All of us are sinners, but this is not the sort of bragging that Paul was engaging in when he considered himself "chief among sinners." That Francis Schaeffer's real sin before Frank is that his father was more influential than he and he never managed to take that mantle for himself. If only he could have realized, it was enough just to be himself, all along.

Frank also made a second career in the past few years as a writer of arguably jingoistic "War Jesus" patriotic propaganda - no matter how sincerely he holds those views - and achieved best-seller status for the memoir about his son joining the armed forces to do battle in Iraq in the Cheney/Bush war of choice. Few of his readers even realized that this was the Franky Schaeffer who was once an evangelical Christian and who had now converted to Greek Orthodox. Frank still believes, if that's what he did, unlike the Savior's personal example, that violence is "sometimes" redemptive - like torture, perhaps, wrong until you need to do it.

One thing that is completely falsifiable and therefore true is that violence is never redemptive. I would even disagree with Gareth and argue that part of that statement he said can't be disproven is easily disproved by examining the context of history:

"...ultimately, violent conflicts are solved only through either negotiation or the total destruction or disempowerment of one party and its supporters."

The latter part of that statement is not true. Tempted to it throughout history (with no
exception made for Christians' so-called "Just War Theory," which when put to the test always "just means war") practicing genocide or
domination always comes to a bad end - there is never any Final Solution achieved.
There is only the endless heaping up, along with all the bodies, of the direct causes for endless back and forth violence and attempted futile retribution.

Frank Schaeffer, please reread Matthew 5, 6 and 7. Violence is NEVER redemptive.

The sooner those who are calling themselves Christian start to try to follow the Son's clear commands and teaching on this the sooner that we who have come to be the scandal that is American evangelicalism will actually start to win the hearts and minds of our fellow sin-sufferers on our common journey.

"Let's have a conversation about what is really happening here:"

What's happening is this. The anti-abortionists have been throwing around violent, inflammatory language for years. Words like "murder", "slaughter", "baby-killer" work nicely to keep each other in a frenzy. Unfortunately, people on the edge of reality don't recognize that language for the hyperbole that it is, and they think they have to take matters into their own hands.

I have said this before on this blog. Words mean things.

I am willing to grant that "terrorism" is also hyperbole. What would be another word that describes actions designed to keep a specific group of law-abiding people terrified for their lives?

Jane

In all sincerity and due respect for your perspective, Jane, this does not sound like dialogue of the sort involving mutual respect as Obama has encouraged us, but more demonizing from a place of anger that can never lead to reconciliation.

Such can never bridge alienation or offer reconciliation.

I personally have observed that people most condemn others' sins, not their own, but that an objective view from outside would have such an observer wondering on what principles any of them actually differ - they seem to have a common need to denounce, fight and dominate.

The dual life is symptomatic of the cultural hate machine. I have seen it literally hundreds of times especially among the children of conservative evangelicals.

Well said, Eric. I expected an article like this to come from Sojo after this happened, but it seemed they left it to Frank Schaeffer to get their point across. But the point is illogical: the prolife movement is no more responsible for Tiller's death than the anti-war folks are responsible for "inciting" the recent murder of that US soldier.

And is considering Tiller a "murderer" really that extreme?? There are polls showing that over half of Americans consider abortion (EVERY abortion, not just late term abortions) "murder." I agree that it doesn't help the prolife cause to throw around the word "murder," but at the same time I think it's not irrational to do so. (I should note that every mainstream prolife organization avoids the use of that word)

Also, Gareth...if you're serious about calling for an end to inflammatory rhetoric, you really shouldn't be defending Olbermann in any way. The man lives to inflame.

The reason this issue will never go away is that the Roe ruling was an over-broad court decision that makes abortion legal even in the last weeks of pregnancy.

Having skimmed the ruling, I'm not sure this is correct -- it is my understanding that, under Roe, only first-trimester abortions may not be regulated but second- and third- may (and in fact almost always are). And besides, anti-abortion groups know the first is when most abortions take place, which is why the PBA issue is generally a red herring.

That said, I actually agree more with Jane. While I hate abortion and wish it would be banned, with its rhetoric the anti-abortion movement has historically actually created more problems than is solves.

Thank you for the careful post. I too recall quite directly the work of Francis Schaeffer--and was touched by what both he and Dr Koop were raising--which was far beyond the solitary issue of abortion.

It was frankly through the recent journey with my wife as she battled for life for several years that I was moved much more deeply to stand for the dignity of all persons. Coming face to face with so many health professionals who stand with and for dying people every day I came to appreciate them so much more. But it was still rare to find the Dr. Koop's of the profession in which it was obvious these persons had been touched, inspired, gifted and empowered to gracefully and powerfully work for life. To any way connect this kind of life with a 'hate machine' is beyond comprehension (in my thinking).

I join you in affirming Gareth for writing with clarity--for thinking/writing through the issue he chose to address.

I agree his 'terrorism' definition gets very broad. I guess we use 'terrorize' quite loosely. I know I have lived in neighborhoods terrorized by street gangs--places routinely terrorized by violence, threats, beatings, and murders. In a sense, the term may not be overused; but the amount of murder, mayhem and terror may have turned our hearts so inside-out we can't encounter it honestly.

Albert Mohler ends his blog posting today with, "Murder is murder. The law rightly affirms that the killing of Dr. George Tiller is murder. In this we must agree. We cannot rest until the law also recognizes the killing of the unborn as murder. The killing of Dr. George Tiller makes that challenge all the more difficult."

I would side with Dr Mohler with the essential moral stance and distinction he makes. i.e. Equating abortion with murder and clearly rejecting the use of personal violence to stop or oppose it.

But I think the spirit of what Gareth brings to us is not only the technical definitions of our words--but how we employ them. Jesus highlighted us all as murderers--but did so with a love that was greater than the judgement. There is a love or hatred we have towards others that is quite distinct from our moral assesments of their behaviors--but somehow this love or hatred often becomes the vehicle which carries our actual words.

If there are persons whose words about Dr Tiller nurtured a heart and mind that decided to murder him--i have a suspicion it is not because of the precise words those leaders used--but whether those words were carried by a vehicle of love or of hatred. It is Jesus' instruction that those words carried by a vehicle of angry hate are murder--in and of themselves.

So is coming back at those (I am not sure about your "large number of anti-abortionists" comment) with whom you most vociferously disagree the way past inflammatory language.

I always find conversations curious that go something like this:

A: You don't want to talk.
B: No, you don't want to talk.
A: No, you don't want to talk.
B. No, you don't want to talk

So busy talkin' we don't talk.

I fully agree with you regarding inflammatory language. Persons beyond the edge may not be stopped or started by certain language. Copycat violence may be triggered by what is seen--but may also just define the way and shape the violence went down. But I don't think any of us can be condemned or absolved of our use of language by providing some proof as to what the language produced.

Think what a different world we might have if our words were simply characterized by a truthfulness always outpaced by love; spoken with grace and measure. Cannot our tongues be a raging fire? We are absolutely accountable and responsible for our words--big and little--in all places.

More persons who go over the edge likely turn their violence in on themselves before murdering others. If we think about it--we probably all have known persons who have gone into such darkness. There are persons, young and old, weak and strong, well and sick, who receive our words; and to them we should be life and not death.

I absolutely affirm your stance on inflammatory language (if I am not being clear).

Maybe you should read his book "Crazy for God" to understand where he is coming from. Having worked with the top echelons on the movement, I am confident that Frank Schaeffer knows what he is talking about.

Reading David Brock gave me some insight into the process. As many of you know, he was the right-wing journalist who later left the conservative movement and wrote a book, from which I've quoted here occasionally, about his experiences when he was part of it. People ask him today, "If you were lying then, how do we know that you're not lying now?" The answer: He made it clear that independent sources which had nothing to do with him corroborated whatever he said.

I think that's how we should just Schaeffer's comments -- if anyone who also was there is saying the same thing it must be actually true.

Hi Jeff -

Your insights as always are appreciated.

I guess if you've read Frank's books - which I have, over a thirty year
period, taking him seriously - then we simply brought some different
views away with us. Maybe if I had a chance to sit down with him he
would be able to explain in person why I have misunderstood him.

I don't think you can make a blanket statement that this discredits
"all" he has to say.

However, as his publicly expressed thoughts have changed, I have tried
to follow his reasoning
over the years. Honestly, since he is now seemingly as much as an
ideologue as before, but along completely different lines, I'm reluctant
to "buy" into it. Certainly, while respecting the Greek Orthodox
tradition (I have admired Russian Orthodox writers from Dostoyevsky to
Solzhenitsyn) his reasons for conversion leave me unconvinced and the
reasons for his political conversion even more so - even if practically
speaking his position is not far from my own.

I don't think I should be accused of character "assassination" - there
we go with these violent and extreme analogies again - since I only
responded because of the disparagement in his complete Huffington
article (not all of which were included on Sojo) of Dr. Everett Koop, in
addition to his father. I think since Frank has decided to put his
family laundry "out there" and for political purposes, then analysis of
it is fair game, in quest of the truth.

For all we know, and it's likely, given his past, Frank is likely to
surprise us all again with the unexpected.