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The Religious Left's Abortion Gospel

The Religious Left's Abortion Gospel

By Andrew E. Harrod
https://juicyecumenism.com/2017/07/21/religious-left-abortion-gospel/
July 21, 2017

"The compassionate aspect of Christianity is what compels me to act," stated Dr. Willie Parker concerning his abortion practice while presenting at the Center for American Progress' (CAP) conference room on July 12 in Washington, D.C. He and other panelists spoke at the event "At the Intersection of Faith and Reproductive Justice," which pleased the largely leftist, overflow audience of over 100 people and gave disturbing insight into the Religious Left's bizarre support for the abortion gospel.

Many might wonder how the often physically brutal extermination of unborn life qualifies as compassion for Parker, yet would presumably make little impression upon his inverted morality and belief in the abortion gospel. As CAP Senior Fellow Jocelyn Frye noted in introducing Parker, he flaunts obscene awards bearing the names of the racist eugenicist Margaret Sanger and the murdered late-term abortionist George Tiller (the "Killer"). Conversing with his fellow African-American Frye, Parker incongruously referenced Martin Luther King, Jr.'s comments on the Good Samaritan to support abortion, even though King and many other civil rights leaders were pro-life.

To "call evil good" also characterized Toni Bond Leonard, a "Founding Mother of Reproductive Justice," under whose leadership abortion's euphemism of "reproductive justice got birthed."

"At the heart of reproductive justice is this intersectional analysis," she stated while invoking the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for the injustice of the abortion gospel. "All of these various inalienable rights are central to women's existence," including apparently the right to sex-selective abortions of girls.

Mirroring Parker's illogic on the abortion gospel, Leonard stated that "my Christian tradition is grounded in a code of love" that somehow does not include the unborn. Her abortion-affirming version of Jesus seemed more of a Social Justice Warrior than Savior. "Jesus walked amongst the disinherited, Jesus was poor, Jesus ministered to those who were dispossessed and had their backs up against the wall and who lacked access to healthcare."

Contrary to Jesus' concern for the "least of these," Leonard appeared to suggest that "quality of life" criteria determined a life's value. "It is not just about bringing children into the world, they have to do more than survive, they have to thrive and flourish." Political activist Katey Zeh similarly mentioned the "ability to create the family of your desires."

The panelists like CAP's Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative Vice President LaShawn Warren dismissed any Judeo-Christian objections to abortion advocacy. "There are conservatives who will raise a few biblical passages primarily from the Book of Jeremiah and Job about reproductive healthcare," yet the "Bible has very little to say about abortion." The "trained theo-ethicist" Leonard concurred that the "Bible didn't say anything about abortion," despite numerous Biblical passages indicating that the Bible's concern for innocent human life included the unborn. Such passages helped inform Christianity's longstanding opposition to abortion, even before modern science made clear that human life begins at conception.

Surprising many Bible readers, Zeh announced that "there aren't any stories in the Bible about abortion, but there are plenty of stories about reproductive repression." She thereby discussed Hebrew midwives saving Hebrew babies from the pharaoh in Exodus and Abraham's use of Hagar as a concubine surrogate mother, but failed to link these narratives to support for abortion. "Those are some of the most powerful narratives that we never talk about in church that I want to shout from the rooftop," Zeh stated, as if these Bible stories were obscure.

Zeh also entertained bizarre conspiracy theories about "justifications for upholding patriarchy and white supremacy" that imputed evil motives to pro-lifers. She alleged pro-lifers promoted a "narrative of women, white women, ought to stay home and to raise lots of children, that is about replenishing a generation of white males who will then come into political power." Leonard similarly decried that women's "fertility has been controlled according to whatever the economic goals have been of this country at any given time." Parker referenced the "patriarchal custom of controlling women's lives by primarily controlling their reproduction."

Such stern censure contrasted with the relativism of panelists like Leonard who applied a "womanist, theo-ethical lens" to the Bible that recalled the Left's fungible "living constitution." She stated that the "beauty of the text is that the text is a living text, those of us from the Christian tradition call it a living text, and it is applicable to everyday lives," a hermeneutic that ignores Galatians 1:8. Parker meanwhile advocated for Christians a public-private moral duality (salt and light?): "Christians in general are morally and socially conservative, but that doesn't necessarily translate into a big 'C' politically conservative."

Putting the Bible aside, Leonard emulated the New Age philosophy of the nonsensical "mystery clause" penned by Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy to defend the abortion gospel. "All human beings have a moral capacity and the moral authority to make decisions about their bodies, their autonomy, and that has been given to us by our Creator." Accordingly she embraced the anarchic assessment that "we all have our internal moral codes or value systems, and that those should not be legislated."

Parker likewise answered with relativism an audience question about his "ideal community of faith that was supportive of reproductive justice." This would be a community that was definitive but not narrow, that they were clear about the religious and spiritual framework and orientation that they held, but that they were clear that it was unique to their lived experience and that it was not one that stood in superiority to other faith traditions.

Critics of CAP's George Soros-funded abortion gospel should beware that CAP's moral relativism ironically encompasses an absolute refusal to countenance any reservations about abortion in public policy. National Women's Law Center President and CEO Fatima Goss Graves dismissed "some vague understandings of moral objections" against abortion contained within a leaked Trump Administration religious liberty memorandum. Like many Leftists, CAP Executive Vice President for External Affairs Winnie Stachelberg ominously diluted religious freedom from a principle encompassing all of life to a mere matter of personal worship. "Authentic religious liberty maintains that everyone has the right to worship and believe according to their conscience but does not insure that they can use those beliefs to harm or discriminate against others."

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