I was appalled to notice an old friends status update on Facebook that read “Obama: pro-death, McCain: Pro-Life. The moral issues are clear.” Right away, I dropped the smarmy response, “Yeah dude, Capital Punishment and the Bush Doctrine – that’s my kind of Pro-Life!” I didn’t want to leave it at that, so I went ahead and left a more developed comment on his wall, to which he responded. After going back and forth, I consolidated my comments as a note, which generated a great deal of debate, and finally ended with my friend revealing his true cards: Obama is not an American citizen, and he was once a Muslim, therefore the Christian cannot vote for him.
This, then, is my attempt to present to my friend the moral reasoning of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, who came up with the metaphor of the “Seamless Garment.”
Just because Republicans happen to have the right stance on abortion doesn’t mean they deserve our allegiance as Christians. We need to advocate a consistent ethic of life, “a seamless garment” in which we stand for the gift of life across the board, and prophetically denounce all of its violations, whether it be abortion, or born children living in destitution and poverty; whether it be abortion or the death penalty; whether it be abortion or the children killed by land mines or bomb shrapnel as “unintended consequences” of our wars to make the world safe for democracy – come to look at it, Republicans seem to support life in only this one particular instance. Abortion isn’t the only moral issue. Torture, poverty, war, health care – are these not moral issues?
We are right to be outraged at the horror of abortion in America – the perverse under belley of our idolization of choice and freedom and lack of constraints. But we must be careful in attributing to people what their actual moral stance is on something based on their political stance. Obama himself (just like Hillary before him) has said clearly that Abortion is not “fine with him,” that it is a moral issue, and so forth, but that from his perspective the government is not to be the instrument for combatting it. I think this is wrong, but as Christians, where should we be directing our energy? In the political system, trying to force people to live in a way that doesn’t jive with their ideology, or should we spend all of this time and money on trying to change the scenarios that give rise to unwanted children. I mean, what if the church took a mother Teresa stance on it, and just said that we will adopt any unwanted child in america. If you don’t want your baby, we the church will take care of it – there will be no such thing as an unwanted child in America. Wouldn’t things look different? Wouldn’t our witness be more credible?
Why do we assume that the only legitimate outworking of our moral stance should be through power politics? What happened to the Kingdom, the reign of God on earth with Christ as our King? Do we honestly think that’s the same thing as the United States? We have to get beyond the way that democracy constrains our imagination, the way it lies to us in telling us that we have a voice, that we are free to vote for anyone we want, blah, blah. We are always constrained by democracy to advocate for relative goods (such as anti-abortionism) at the expense of other things we have to stand up for as Christians (loving our enemies, forgiveness of sinners, justice for the oppressed).
What if we placed our hope in what the Lord is doing on earth through the church, and not a political candidate who has no vital allegiance to Jesus?
[...] The Seamless Garment: A Consistent Ethic of Human Life « Loretta’s Basement. [...]
Hmm… I’m surprised no one commented on this one yet.
I would agree that we need to have a seamless ethic about life, and not put our hope in politics. I have two things I’d like to point out.
1. Some folks use arguments like the one you propose here to simply justify voting blindly for the “feel-good” candidate. “Wow, here’s a guy that’s sharp, charismatic, and touches all my feel good buttons- oh, but he’s pro-abortion. Well, that’s ok! None of the candidates have a consistent stance on life, so that means I can vote for him and feel good.” (Excuse my over generalization here.)
A consistent ethic on life and politics means we may have to vote for “None Of The Above.” We should be against needless wars, we should be against the slaughter of children, and we should vote that way. But, we also need to realize that politics is the wrong focus. The best we can hope for in the political arena is find people who want to shrink government and get it off our backs.
2. Being for the death penalty isn’t a denial of the sanctity of life, but, in my opinion, is an affirmation of it. By society drawing a hard line on murder makes a very clear message that we won’t tolerate those who don’t value life.
Don’t be too hard on the Republicans… As a Canadian, there is not a single political party (and, subsequently, no candidate) that I can vote for that will be pro-life. The “right to choose” is so firmly entrenched here. A woman in Canada can destroy her child from conception throughout the entire months of gestation, and doesn’t need a reason other than that she wants an abortion. Personally, I’m unsure if I should even be voting. I’m only a younger guy (19) so I’ve only voted in one federal election, but even then, I felt awful.
Americans are fortunate to have a party that is pro-life. Our “Conservative” party lost their spine on the issue long ago.
I agree that there is more we, as the body of Christ, can do to end abortions besides legislating against them. But, personally, I don’t see it as an “either or” situation. We can alleviate the need for them while still making a clear, definitive statement that the slaughter of innocents is unacceptable.
Of course, our hope is (or at least should be) ultimately in the King of Kings, and not the kings of this world. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t participate in the public forums of politics.
Beautifully stated and you have my wholehearted agreement. As Jim Wallis said. “God is not a Republican. Or a Democrat.” I hope more Christians look at the issues in the deeper way you have presented here.