Monthly Archives: November 2023

Can Fifty-Seven Percent of the People of Ohio Transform Evil into Good?

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On Tuesday, November 07, 2023, the people of Ohio voted by a margin of 57% to 43% to enshrine the right to abortion in their state constitution. What does this act mean? First, let me be clear right up front: A state possesses no power to transform an immoral activity into a moral one. A state can declare that black is white, up is down, evil is good but it cannot make them so. And a person may engage in an activity that incurs no guilt according to legislated law—or even garners praise—but that incurs profound guilt according to moral law and condemnation according to God’s law. Abortion is profoundly immoral, irresponsible, and sinful. And no rationalization can justify it. But Ohio declared it to be a constitutionally protected right. And that makes it so; that is, it really does make it a constitutionally protected right. But to make use of that humanly invented right is as immoral and sinful today as it has always been. And the divine Judge does not care in the least what the constitution of the State of Ohio asserts.

Why a Constitutional Right?

I am sure I am oversimplifying it. But I see a difference between activities that a state declares (1) illegal (2) obligatory, (3) matters of positive right, and (4) matters it leaves unregulated. In a just state, the legislative authority makes illegal only those activities it considers seriously deleterious to the common good (e.g., armed robbery) or obligatory only those activities it considers necessary to the common good (e.g., paying taxes). The state leaves the vast majority of life’s activities unregulated (4). To leave an area unregulated assumes that no serious threat to the common good is at stake one way or another. Or, another way to put it is that leaving certain areas unregulated is itself advantageous to the common good.

But what about (3) positive rights? If the State of Ohio did not want to make the immoral act of abortion illegal, it could have left it unregulated or regulated it within specific limits. Instead, however, it made abortion a positive right. What does giving abortion this particular legal status say about the State of Ohio’s understanding of abortion in relation to the common good? A positive right is a freedom for a certain activity that a person may make use of or not. Like activities the state leaves unregulated, engaging in the privileged activity is left to individual discretion. Moreover, it is assumed not to damage the common good. But unlike unregulated activities, it is specifically named. Naming a right—rather than lumping it in with other unregulated activities—indicates that protecting this right has been recognized as of great value to the common good. Making it a constitutional right reinforces this conclusion. For no state legislature can make a legitimate law contravening the constitution of that state. Think of other positive rights: freedom of religion, assembly, and speech. These rights must be protected because their exercise enhances the common good.

How does exercising the constitutional right to abortion enhance the common good in analogy to exercising speech, religion, or assembly? Do fifty-seven percent of the people of Ohio believe that aborting a child is a good thing? Perhaps fifty-seven percent of the people of Ohio are utilitarian in their ethics and think that limiting population or reducing poverty by way of abortion is a good thing. (Utilitarianism asserts that whatever produces the most good for the greatest number is also good.) But I doubt that very many of the good people of Ohio are self-conscious utilitarians. I don’t think Ohioans, believing that abortion itself is a good thing, wanted to maximize the number of abortions in their state. What, then, is the good the fifty-seven percent see produced by their action? I think they take the freedom to choose as such, without regard to what you choose, as a higher good than minimizing the number of children aborted. Apparently, they were willing to make that trade, which is a very Utilitarian thing to do! What they may have lost sight of is that exercising freedom in an immoral act is itself an immoral act. And freely cooperating to grant a positive right to commit what you know is an immoral act (as opposed to leaving areas unregulated) is itself an immoral act.

Conclusion: Seminarian Meets Progressive Bishop for a Third Time

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Setting: Our anxious seminarian returns for a third visit with the progressive bishop. The bishop’s office door is open. They make eye contact.

Bishop: Come on in. I’m just finishing my midmorning coffee. Would you like a cup?

Seminarian: No thanks. I’ve had two cups already.

Bishop: What’s on your mind today?

Seminarian: Since we last spoke, I had a conversation with one of my former professors. Our paths crossed quite by accident, and he asked me how things were going. A few minutes into the conversation, I decided to risk telling him about my doubts and my conversations with you. (I didn’t disclose your identity.)

Bishop: Oh really? And what did he say?

Seminarian: I imagined I would hear the same old assertions you’d expect from an uncritical traditionalist. You know: The Bible is the inspired, infallible Word of God, heresy is insidious, and doubt is spiritually dangerous. But he challenged me in ways I did not expect.

Bishop: How so?

Seminarian: Well, in essence he asked me to explain how progressives can justify calling a religion “Christianity” that contains no authoritative Bible, no incarnation, no miracles, no resurrection, no supernatural revelation, and no resurrection of the dead. He urged me to consider what is left of the faith documented in the New Testament when all of these elements are excluded.

Bishop: And what did you say?

Seminarian: Actually, I didn’t know what to say. Oh, I remembered your explanation: that is that the supernatural elements of the New Testament are not essential to the Christian message and that the miracle stories teach important moral and spiritual lessons in a metaphorical way. But I could not bring myself to say this.

Bishop: Why not?

Seminarian: In that moment I couldn’t think of a way to defend the idea that the supernatural elements of the New Testament message are superficial features that can be removed without changing its essential nature. When I think about how the gospels tell the story of Jesus, I doubt that the gospel writers would agree with progressive Christianity’s view of Jesus. They seem to think that it is very important that Jesus healed the sick, raised the dead, exorcised the demonic forces, that his death was part of a divine plan to save the world, and that God raised him from the dead. Paul, John, Peter, and the writers of Acts and Hebrews, while viewing Jesus’s ethical teaching as authoritative for the community, place his divine nature, atoning death, and resurrection at the center of their message. In fact, the first generation of Christians seems to view the Christian gospel primarily as a message of supernatural salvation from sin, death, and the devil.

Bishop: You’re scaring me! Let’s think this through. Perhaps the gospel writers, Acts, Paul, Peter, and the writer of Hebrews would not have agreed completely with progressive Christianity, if they had encountered it. I don’t deny this. But keep in mind that they did not have access to the discoveries made by modern natural science or the moral progress made by modern liberation movements. Progressive Christianity developed by incorporating these new perspectives into a Christian framework. Surely, we should not view those elements in the New Testament that are based on ignorance, superstition and prejudice as of the essence of religion! In removing such superstitions, we actually purify the original Christianity and make it better.

Seminarian: You misunderstand. I didn’t say I changed my mind. Still, I think my former teacher asks some good questions. If, as you admit, progressive and “purified” Christianity would be unacceptable to the original apostles and likely to Jesus himself, why is it legitimate to present it to the world as authentic Christianity? The first generation of evangelists proclaimed Christianity as a message of supernatural salvation from sin, death, and the devil whereas progressive churches present Christianity as a message of humanly-achieved social justice. New Testament Christians worshiped Jesus as the Messiah of Israel and risen Lord and Savior whereas progressive Christians admire Jesus as a purely human champion of the oppressed. I have to admit that I have a hard time thinking of a Christianity stripped of all supernatural elements as having much in common with its original form. Perhaps it’s time for progressives to admit that progressive Christianity is not Christianity at all but a kind of religious humanism, that is, progressive culture infused with vague spirituality expressed in traditional Christian language understood metaphorically. In any case, before I enter a career as a clergyman in a progressive church, I’d like to get clear on this matter. Maybe I would be better suited for a career in political advocacy, social services, or education.

Bishop: I think I see now what’s troubling you. You haven’t given up your progressive views to return to the supernaturalism of your fundamentalist past. It’s too late for that. You are bothered, instead, by the apparent duplicity of working for secular progressive causes within an institution that presents itself as a Christian church continuous with the historic church all the way back to the apostolic era and that speaks to its members in traditional Christian language—miracles, resurrection, incarnation, the Spirit, the Holy Trinity—but takes it all metaphorically. Right?

Seminarian: Yes. That’s pretty much it. I am attracted to the institution of the church because of the opportunity it affords for influencing society in a progressive direction. But I also recognize that most people that are attracted to progressive churches view them as gentler and more enlightened—but genuinely Christian—alternatives to the harsh fundamentalism of conservative churches. Herein is the dilemma of the progressive clergyman: if we teach the congregation what we really believe—that we do not believe the apostolic faith—most of them would be shocked and would leave our church. We would lose our audience and our influence. On the other hand, in every service when we read the Bible, recite the Nicene Creed, perform baptisms, and celebrate the Eucharist, Christmas, and Easter, we allow the people to believe that we affirm the literal truth of these things when we mean them only as metaphors expressing humanistic aspirations and values. I’m not sure I can do that.

Bishop: We do believe them, just not literally. Think of it this way: we endure the pains of conscience provoked by our duplicity because we love our members. We want them to be happy. Like Jesus Christ in traditional theology, we bear their sins and weaknesses. That is our cross. There is no need to trouble their already troubled lives with further doubts and questions. We ease their troubled consciences by reassuring them that God wants them to be happy. We tell them that they don’t need to follow the Bible’s rules about sex, gender, marriage, and divorce in a legalistic way…if they lead to unhappiness. Pursuing a love that leads to happiness can’t be wrong. Okay, we don’t really know this, but it helps them to hear it. We allow them to believe in miracles and divine providence and to hope for life in heaven after they die. True, we don’t believe. But they do. And without explicitly denying their beliefs, we can channel their moral energy toward the causes of justice, equity, and peace. And that is a good thing, isn’t it?

Seminarian: Humm. I see your logic. But I am still troubled. I may have rejected the supernatural religion I was taught as a child, but there is one thing I can’t shake off from my fundamentalist background. And I thought progressives believed it too. My Sunday school teachers presented Jesus as an example of someone willing to die for the truth rather than tell a lie, even for a good cause, and he reserved his greatest scorn for the religious hypocrites who pretended to be one thing when in their hearts they were another. I gave up the clarity and comfort of my childhood religion because I thought keeping my integrity required it. Now I discover that becoming a successful progressive clergyman demands that I give that up too. I don’t think I can do that.

Bishop: Well, that is your decision to make. Perhaps you have not really thoroughly purged your mind of your fundamentalist upbringing. Maybe we can work on that next time.

Seminarian: I don’t know about that, but I am pretty sure that a religion that can be sustained only by deception and dissimulation can’t be the answer to the world’s problems. Oh, is that the time! It’s almost one o’clock. I need to return to my job.

Bishop: Will I see you again?

Seminarian: I don’t know, but I think not. I will show myself out.