Since I seem to be kinda political this week, let me mention one other story that got my attention recently: Frank Schaeffer, scion of intellectual fundamentalist demigod Francis Schaeffer, has come out in support of Barak Obama…on pro-life grounds. Here are a few salient excerpts from his Huffington Post Column:
“I am an Obama supporter. I am also pro-life. In fact, without my family’s involvement in the pro-life movement it would not exist as we know it. Evangelicals weren’t politicized until after my late father and evangelical leader Francis Schaeffer, Dr. Koop (Reagan’s soon-to-be Surgeon General) and I stirred them up over the issue of abortion in the mid-1970s. Our Whatever Happened to the Human Race? book, movie series and seminars brought the evangelicals into the pro-life movement.
“In 2000, we elected a president who claimed he believed God created the earth and who, as president, put car manufacturers and oil company’s interests ahead of caring for that creation. We elected a pro-life Republican Congress that did nothing to actually care for pregnant women and babies. And they took their sincere evangelical followers for granted, and played them for suckers…the “pro-life” ethic of George W. Bush manifested itself in a series of squandered opportunities to call us to our better natures. After 9/11, Bush told most Americans to go shopping while saddling the few who volunteered for military service with endless tours of duty (something I know a little about since my son was a Marine and deployed several times). The Bush doctrine of life was expressed by starting an unnecessary war in Iraq that has killed thousands of Americans and wounded tens of thousands more.
“Today when I listen to Obama speak (and to his remarkable wife, Michelle) what I hear is a world view that actually nurtures life. Obama is trying to lead this country to a place where the intrinsic worth of each individual is celebrated. A leader who believes in hope, the future, trying to save our planet and providing a just and good life for everyone is someone who is actually pro-life.”
Read the entire, quite stunning, column here.
As has been well documented, evangelicals are no longer beholden to any one political party line. This will hopefully be a coming of age for evangelical involvement in the public sphere.
This in many ways mirrors my own life’s journey. I was raised staunchly pro-life, to believe that ‘abortion stops a beating heart.’ And you know what? While I see far more nuance in the abortion question than I did as a homeschooled kid (thanks to voices like my friend Hal Miller), I still believe this.
But you know what else? Lots of other things stop beating hearts too. Like climate change, war, poverty, and the arms trade. Disregard for human life goes deep and runs rampant; we need holistic solutions that address the whole of humanity. Some of us have begun to argue for a robust approach to “life advocacy” which we call being consistently pro-life–inculcating and celebrating life in all her many forms, from conception to the grave.
How do we do this? No matter who we vote for (or if we choose to vote at all), I think we need to approach this as Schaeffer encourages us: “The real solution to abortion is to change the heart of America, not the law. We need to stop seeing ourselves as consumers. We need to stop seeing ourselves as me and begin to think of we.”
Thanks for the piece–I’m pro-life, anti-war, anti death penalty and refuse to eat Pop Tarts–I am a middle-aged whie-male (sorta’ brain-damaged), but, I too like Obama. I asked him today in a blog just under yours to Not Fold The Tent..tomvickers@suddenlink.net
Hey thanks for this post. It is a good addition to the conversation and helps me think I’m not alone in in “consistent pro-life” position.
I’m pro-life too but I don’t hear much substance from Obama. The things he says are what any politician would say. Because of that I don’t hardly believe the ‘change’ that he promises. Frank Schaeffer? It’s peculiar to me that he is trying to lobby evangelicals. He didn’t exactly put himself in a good position to do that in his book “Dancing Alone: The Quest for Orthodox Faith in the Age of False Religion”.
I agree that a consistent pro-life position would involve the abolishment of our imperialist foreign policy, but I hardly see voting for Obama as part of a consistent pro-life position. Obama is pro-choice! Trust me, I’m disgusted with the death of our many American soldiers plus the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, but let’s not forget the holocaust against the unborn, 40 million and counting.
Mirrored my journey in this area - I started as pro-life and I remain as such while having a deeper understanding of the many variables surrounding abortion.
I read an article recently in TIME magazine (must post it on my blog as its just flat out brilliant) that said our views regarding ‘life’ boil down to the stage at which we attach existence to.
To me, life (not just the potential for it) is created when an embryo is formed. Therefore it stands to reason that I am passionately (but also compassionately) against any action that will rob that life of its right to live and choose its existence.
Abortion takes that right away, as does war and poverty and disease.
Bring on the visionaries who view human life in a holistic manner! It is a revolution in thinking and action that is growing with emerging generations.
I’m actually pretty disillusioned with the whole political process in this country. I’m going to throw out my Hauerwasian card and say that the only alternative to the nihilism, apathy and hatred of today’s American culture is to form and nurture communities that embody and display alternative ways of being human that reflect the face of Christ, the Hope of the world.
A.T.
(Sigh)
I just can’t see anything positive about buying into Liberation Theology by another name. Franky’s love for Obama is touching, true, but to borrow from his father’s grand methodology, simply “antithetical” to his stated World view. Francis, I am confident, for whose deep work so many, including Franky, appear to wish to take credit, would have certainly insisted on speaking truth and known the Senator for what he is: an unabashed radical Socialist and, like his opponent, a dedicated student of Sail Alinsky.
Dr. Schaeffer insisted the Body of Christ should not ally or be identified with any one political party or mass movement, as a whole. He insisted the dangers of the Right are dangers of the Left, and like Eric Hoffer, spoke often of how interchangable Mass Movements are with one another. He would have spoken for being Salt, a preservative in interaction, “in the society of one another,” which is, after all, the only real society that has any objective existence.
Obama must truly a blank slate upon which anyone can project their particular Utopian vision if even Franky can swoon and see his own hopes, his “A Time for Anger” projected upon that screen. That’s charisma, indeed.
But Obama’s vision is his own, not yours or mine nor anyone else’s, and in the end, we are electing a president to perform a duty, not “making a statement.”
Voting is a responsibility, and rarely, if ever, a privilege.
It’s just too odd to hear Obama Supporters. They sound like they know him when in fact no one really knows him. His quality is not having much record and talking the talk of what the listeners wants to hear. I believe in someone with record and set of decisions that one made. Him being world successful doesn’t quite mean much to me. Brilliant man. I wish I knew him and decisions he made. At the age 46, there must be some record other than spending all time making himself successful.
Senator Clinton worked on Universal Health Care. I know the choices that she made, good and bad. Senator McCain is a war vet who has large voting record that show his true character. Senator Obama don’t quite have a record that can define him. He is smart and did well making himself successful.
I do not have any substance to support him and I am puzzled by those swayed by the words. I simply am not in business of trusting other’s words instead of their actions. I wish I had known him making decisions and acting on issues. We have plenty of issues that someone can take on. None that I care, he fought for it in the open. Maybe he did fight in the back room. I don’t know and that’s a problem.
I WANT A PRESIDENT WHO REPRESENTS ALL AMERICANS
Here is Pastor Wright’s ‘Black Value System’
posted at his website. This is what Barak Obama
pledged an oath to for the past 20 years:
http://www.tucc.org/black_value_system.html
Pastor Wright gave Louis Farakan a life time
achievement award. Here is what Louis Farakan believes:
Posted at his own website.
http://www.noi.org/muslim_program.htm
Mother (now Blessed) Teresa of Calcutta said, “Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. This is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion,” at the National Prayer Breakfast, February 3, 1994. Here’s a link to her full speech:
http://www.priestsforlife.org/brochures/mtspeech.html
She said “GREATEST destroyer.” Barack Obama might very well kiss photographs of G.W.B., dead soldiers, and Iraq each and every single day he awakens, as this grave error of Bush’s is why B.O. has been able to gain so much popularity. But when Gianna Jessen was asked to reflect on Mr. Obama’s candidacy, she paused, then said, “I really hope the American people will have their eyes wide open and choose to be discerning. . . . He is extreme, extreme, extreme.” Source:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121261107480446197.html
Barack Obama is FOR allowing “doctors” to ignore a born alive botched aborted baby to remain in some corner to die without receiving aid. And the wounding of their mothers is “life-long” catastrophic. Just because you can’t photograph it like you can a dead baby, doesn’t mean the torturous aftermath isn’t there. Pro-life and pro-Obama DO NOT go hand-in-hand, unless the hand stretched out to you is the hand of the devil.
J. O’Toole
http://cathlete.net