This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

Heck, I would say that an unjust war is exactly like abortion. That is our problem...there is no single issue, as you demonstrate. Most pundits make it so because it is easier to get elected that way. If you muddy the waters with a variety of perspectives, conflated ideas or a web of connection then you are deemed a flip-flopper (everyone running has been called this, including Bushy himself.).

I think this election only demonstrates that our election system was designed for 14 year old boys. Note: 14 year old boys do not vote.

My how this sucks. F%#*K.

Tripp:

I reject your unjust war-abortion comparison most vociferously. In part: How many abortions take place each year? about 1.2-1.5 million. How many since Roe v. Wade? About 45 million. Let's say Iraq is, indeed, an unjust war. Given the dispute as to actual numbers of innocent deaths (*innocent* deaths, i. e., non-military, non-terrorist, non-complicit citizens, born and unborn), it would be difficult to make comparisons. But it's easy to see which is worse.

Note: I'm not arguing a principle in terms of numbers, but using numbers to make a point.

More to the point, however, is: is Iraq an unjust war? No Christian can say definitively. You can offer your opinion, but that's all you got. For you, I know that's all you need. I, for one, however, find voting on eternal verities in terms of personal opinion deeply unsatisfactory.

I don't think there's any reasonable Christian opinion that can rank abortion above (even unjust) war.

Um...why is an innocent death deemed more horrific than another? Are you capable, like God, to judge innocent deaths? I certainly would say that you are not. You certainly would agree.

One innocent death makes it a horrific tragedy. One accidental bombing of a house where children are killed makes it equivalent to abortion.

A just war - there simply is no such thing.

You know, I wonder how the most powerful nation in the world will ever experience martyrdom when it does nothing but kill its enemies in spite of the injunction to love our enemies? There is not hope for martyrdom. There is no hope for anything but salvation by might and justification by killing.

Show me how this war is just. Show me how Bush loves Saddam. Really. How is he loving AlQuaeda. Is he? Are you? Am I? Heck no. We would not dare. It would be martyrdom.

Love me and wish me dead. That is a just war. This is not a just war. This has forever been a "love us and wish them dead" war. If that is just then I say toss the Gospel.

This is an interesting article about world poverty and the number of people who die of starvation every day.

35,000...

That is 12,460,000 people a year.

Are you as ferocious in your feelings about poverty as you are about abortion, or are you falling into the trap of holding one issue (many faceted as it is) over another (many faceted as it is)? Probably. That would make you human.

But my fear is that somewhere in your mind you are thinking that it is okay that all these people die of starvation (50% children) and that si okay because they are not innocent.

Be ferocius about your stance on abortion, but be equally so when any life is snuffed out by the willful action of another...or the systemic evil that suggests that one economy is to be so lauded that it cannot be dismantled to provide without repayment so that others may live...

Oy. On that I am off to Virginia.

Peace and all good things to you and yours.

http://www.catholic.net/RCC/Periodicals/Inside/12-96/news.html

oops

Your analysis of war (just or, as you claim, never just) is sadly mistaken, and thus your argument simply empty. You should carefully read through the arguments of Augustine and other Christian thinkers, leaders and saints on just war. Then compare that thinking against your own anti-war arguments.

The comparison of innocent war deaths and abortion is simply nonsensical. I agree with you. So one doesn't win by arguing about innocent deaths. I clearly stated that my argument is not founded on such a comparison, only to show that the impact of abortion is at least as great as war--precisely because it's impact is not seen. We have no nightly videos of abortion deaths. We didn't have a news program devoted to naming the names of all the babies aborted this week or this month. Why? Because we don't see the visual and visceral impact of abortion. Not like we do the war.

Since we cannot argue the priority of war over abortion in terms of innocent death, then on what grounds do we argue?

How about the actual reasons given for both? What was the stated objectives for the war? What is the stated objectives of abortion? How do the proponents intend to accomplish those objectives? Do their intended and actual actions violate known Christian principles?

Ultimately the question will be found to focus on: which is motivated by a formal and material evil?

"which is motivated by a formal and material evil?"

Both.

Tripp:

Truthfully: I'm probably not as ferociously oriented toward poverty as I am abortion. More the sinner that makes me.

But on what dogmatic Christian truth must I address the candidates in terms of poverty? Does Scripture give me any guidance here? What if I think both candidates are bums when it comes to poverty? If I choose to give to the poor directly and through my parish, is that any differing than someone who chooses to let the government do it for them?

On the other hand, if I vote for a candidate who is on record as promoting abortion, if I vote for him and not for his opponent who is on record as beeing against abortion and in supporting efforts to restrict it, isn't that a great evil?

btw..."innocent" was your word and not mine.

And Augustine may have som questions about original sin in all this. Oy. It is a tangled web.

In what way would Augustine's doctrine on original sin alter the terms of the debate?

Tripp:

You don't believe any war is just. I think you need to look at historic Christian teaching on this, but fine.

I presume you also believe abortion is unjust. And poverty.

I also assume that you believe the government is to be an agent in rectifying these injustices.

You have also removed practical considerations from the table (we're all tainted with original sins, so every action will be sinful in some way).

In short, everything, on your terms, is made equivocal; all are equal in terms of voter consideration.

So, how will you vote? (A rhetorical question.) You will need to make some choice. What are your criteria?

If it is true that when we are judged by God we must give account of every careless word, how will you justify to God your vote (or lack thereof)? Will you have by voting the way you do, or not voting at all, knowingly cooperated with evil? How will you justify that?

Well, first, the logic is much easier if one can feel, as I do, that he is voting for a candidate who correctly opposes abortion and who is also prosecuting a quite just war. Second, I hope that no one actually feels the need to justify being a "single issue" voter. Your vote is yours to use as you wish. You get to use whatever process you want in making your voting decisions. This fact is part of your heritage; it should not be taken lightly. I'd say that anyone who criticizes your voting choices, single-issue or whatever, deserves the same reaction as someone who criticizes your choice of spouse or religious belief. (Overall, I've been curious about the degree of moral anguish the "unjust war" people expressed when Saddam Hussein gassed the Khurds and killed or mutilated large numbers of people who were lukewarm toward his regime. However, I wouldn't presume to tell these folks how to go about voting.)

Just focusing on the poverty issue, to assume that somehow Kerry/Democrats are anti-poverty and Bush/Republicans are pro-poverty is just buying into faded stereotypes that have very little basis in reality. Both sides believe in a combination of public and private initiatives to combat poverty, all shades of the same basic philosophical/political position.

Ever since Lyndon Johnson fought (and lost) the War of Poverty, it has all been the same song, second, third, fourth verse.

David:

This has been, in large part, my point: on issues of war, poverty, and other matters, there is rarely a clear Christian choice, because what is at issue is rarely Christian dogma, but rather are the pragmatics of the thing. And pragmatics are legitimate matters about which to disagree.

But on abortion, there is a single clear Christian dogma. And in terms of the presidential candidates, it is clear who advocates for legal abortion through all trimesters and who rejects abortion and does what he can to limit abortion in the current U. S. reality.

Other life issues are just as clear: embryonic stem-cell research, euthanasia and so forth. One candidate (or at least his running mate) promises (in the absence of hard fact) miracle cures from killing embryonic humans, the other has prohibited federal funds for embryonic stem-cell research (excerpt for lines already in exisence at the time of the ruling).

I should have also added that neither presidential candidate is going to refrain from the activities of war: Kerry has promised to go to war against the terrorists as has Bush. The only difference is whether it's done so in Kerry's way or Bush's.

So even the anti-war folks can't use war as a basis of choosing between candidates: both candidates are and/or will be conducting war.

Just to clarify (back in town btw), I do not see the just war issue as a way to choose between candidates. I think that both of these candidates are culpable for the mess we are in. Kerry's rhetoric is insane.

That being said, how is Christian tradition any more clear on abortion over and above any other issue? I am still not certain that I agree with your arguments.

If you ask the Catholic Church what their stance is they will tell you. They will also tell you that by the same logic (pro-life), state executions are also eggregious sins. So, how do Catholics choose? I dunno what Kerry's record is on this, but W has a very clear stance.

I brought forthe the issue fo poverty simply to illustrate that the use of numbers to craft a logic is faulty...as you also claim. If you want to judge the issues by the stance of the tradition, then great. Let's ask Augustine what do do with the quasi-Donatist controversy in the ECUSA right now. Shall we lock 'em up and burn 'em.

I realize that this is an absurd statement on my part, but the question I am raising is that the lack of clarity on an issue, I think, should cause one to rest on the side of life. Thus, even if it is unclear to some that this is a just war, why stand in our lack of clarity? Shall we take the same chance you say that one may be taking if one votes for Kerry? Are you also gambling?

It is possible that the war is a sin...an awful sin and we will all pay dearly. Why take the risk of supporting a candidate just because you think the two of you agree on the abortion issue? The abortion issue is one permutation of the wider issue of not despairing but having hope and faith that God can work through all his creation. That would include Osama bin Laden. To stand with life one one issue and against it on another is simply faulty logic.

Donatism: The charge that what's going on in Anglicanism is a rehash of the Donatist controversy has been put to rest by abler commentators than me. So it's not about Donatism. Augustine won't help us here.

War: The Church is equivocal on it; this is manifestly clear from the history of the Church. We can form various conclusions about these "discrepancies" but that's just my point. We can form disagreements on this matter and still be within the mind of the Church. For any single Christian, or group of Christians, to assert that one or the other position (pacificsm--properly understood of course--or just war) is *the* position of the Church is to ascribe to themselves an authority they do not have.
Poverty: The Church is unequivocal on it, but the pragmatics of how it gets done is up for legitimate discussion and Christian disagreement.
Abortion: The Church has been unequivocal on it, both on substance and pragmatics. There can be no Christian disagreement here.

Re the killing in war: it is subtantially and essentially different than the killing done in abortion, and on this point it derives its greater moral evil. The killing of innocents in war is manifestly different in kind than the killing of innocents in abortion. In war, the killing of innocents is nearly always an unintended consequence of other actions. In abortion, the very act of abortion is defined by the intention killing of an innocent human being--every time. In this way, abortion is a greater evil than war.

Um, so one sin is greater than another?

All sins damn, but not all sins damn equally. The Church has always recognized this. Yes. There is an hierarchy of evil.

So, then abortion is a sin against the Holy Spirit and warfare is not? Am I understanding you rightly? What piece am I missing?

No, both may be called sinful--though one must note that one is a worse evil than another. A hierarchy of evil does not presuppose that one sin is not a sin, and the other remains so. It says both are sin, but both are not equal. This is a vital and important moral distinction.

It is a distinction, yes, but is it a Christian distinction. The only heirarchy of sin I know is where there are sins against the Spirit and there are others. So, thought you may posess some heirarchy through utilitarian or some other subjective heirarchies, I am still not certain how they are connected with the teachings of the church.

One sin is not worse than another. It is all sin. You may hold one to be worse than another, but does the tradition? Really?

All sins are forgiven...except sins against the Spirit. All sins are judged by God. All sins are treated with the same judgment. There is no seperate claims court for less offensive sins. All are the same.

amartia: missing the mark. Is this not how the Orthodox see sin? All sin is missing the mark...no?

I am confused. I have not heard you speak of sin in this way before. It disturbs me.

A reading of the Church's canons and the disciplines given for various sins clearly shows that the Church understands there to be a hiearchy of evil and sin.

This distinction between sins has always been held by the Church; note Paul's comments in 1 Corinthians 3:9-17, 2 Corinthians 5:9-11 among other passages.

Thus the hierarchy is not mere utilitarianism (which I've attempted to prove in comparing the sort of killing of innocents done by war and abortion), nor mere subjectivism, since the Church has made these distinctions based on the Apostlic record and Faith.

All sins damn. I believe that unequivocally. But not all sins damn equally, I believe that as well.

I'm sorry that this disturbs you, but apart from a belief in the hierarchy of evil one cannot make important and essential moral judgments.

I see a heirarchy of evil as problematic not because calling your brother a putz is the same as genocide, but because God forgives both. Does God forgive differently for each sin? Does God punish differently? It is not the nature of sin I am concerned about but the nature of God.

Sin is missing the mark. We can miss wildly or not so much. But it is always sin, thus we must take all we do seriously and not fall back on some understanding that one sin is less a sin. You and I agree on this. Where we do not seem to agree is whether one is more or less separated from God or if God has different responses to sin.

You seem to imply that there is a difference. Am I prepared to vote for a pro-abortion rights candidate? What about my soul?

Indeed, what about it? Will not God forgive? You seem to think not. You seem to think that we are to be judged, found wanting by varying levels depending on the number and nature of sins I have committed. What you say about God in this is what troubles me, not so much what you say about sin.

Wow.

Okay, so abortion is sexual immorality? Is this what Paul was speaking about or your extrapolation? I am still not sure how you make the leap. I am not trying to be vague or argumentative, but I do not see how abortion is *worse* than another loss of life. It is no different. Truly.

I was not equating abortion with sexual immorality, though clearly most abortions result from sexual immorality.

Abortion is worse than war, as I indicated above, because of the very nature of the act over against the nature of the act of war.