John Stonestreet – Page 13

How Abortion Corrupted the Democratic Party: Guest Column

Aug 26, 2024John StonestreetAbortionAbortion, Life, Pro-life, Sanctity of Human Life

From “safe, legal, and rare” to openly celebrating evil.

Last week, at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Planned Parenthood offered free abortions and vasectomies in an RV parked outside of the convention hall. According to CBS News, this abortion clinic on wheels served between 20 and 30 patients in just the first two days and also distributed abortion pills and emergency contraception. The point of the RV, according to a Planned Parenthood spokeswoman, was to fill “healthcare gaps” for people who had traveled to the convention from states that had restricted abortion since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision.

Attendees to the convention were also greeted by a 20-foot-tall inflatable intrauterine device named “Frieda Womb.” It was placed in the entrance hall of the convention center by the group Americans for Contraception, in order to “bring awareness to the threat to contraception and abortion access in the country following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade…”

In a cartoonish-yet-ghoulish display, the Democratic Party of 2024 has proclaimed an absolute fealty to abortion. While Republicans are guilty of gutting their party’s platform on issues of life and marriage this year, there’s no question which party is committed, with a religious zeal, to the most extreme, liberal positions on these issues. After all, the party’s presidential candidate is the most stridently pro-abortion politician ever to run on a major party ticket.

It wasn’t always like this. Commenting on the DNC abortion RV, Bishop Robert Barron noted the “remarkable evolution” of leading Democrats on abortion in recent decades. According to Bishop Barron, “When I was a young man, Democrats as prominent as Sen. Edward Kennedy, Rev. Jesse Jackson, and yes, Joe Biden were enthusiastic pro-life advocates.”

Even those not old enough to remember when those men changed their views might remember Bill Clinton’s admonition, somewhere in the 90’s, that abortion ought to be “safe, legal, and rare.” However, when his wife ran for president in 2016, she supported state-funded abortion up to the moment of birth. Former New York governor Mario Cuomo reportedly claimed to have “wrestled mightily with his Catholic conscience” over abortion, but his son Andrew lit up skyscrapers in New York City to celebrate so-called “reproductive rights.” We’ve come a long way baby.

And where are we, exactly? Last year, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz signed a bill into law to remove the longstanding requirement that doctors offer life-saving treatment to babies born alive after botched abortions. In other words, he legalized infanticide. Walz is now, of course, the Democratic candidate for vice president of the United States.

According to Bishop Barron, this year’s Democratic National Convention represents the “appalling declension” of a party that once admitted that abortion was tragic or at least regrettable. No more. Abortion is to be celebrated, even given away like candy at a parade.

This decline has been awful to watch, but the journey to that awful should be noted. In the first chapter of Romans, Paul described how human beings “suppress the truth” through unrighteousness. As a result, they become “futile in their thinking.” Their foolish hearts are darkened, which leads to more unrighteousness. The moral descent continues with humans practicing even more unspeakable things and, in the end, giving “approval to those who practice them.” Put differently, they not only commit evil, they celebrate it.

This is the story of the Democratic Party on sexuality and abortion. Practicing abortion led to accepting it, not as a regrettable choice but as a celebration of absolute bodily autonomy. Once politicized, the idea that human beings are detached, self-determining individuals without natural duties or dependence on others corrupted sex, turning it into a zero-sum power struggle between men and women, and between women and children. Bloodshed was always inevitable in this way of thinking.

However, human beings aren’t detached bundles of rights in an eternal power struggle with each other. We are interdependent, never more so than in the radically asymmetrical bond between a mother and her preborn child. Babies, in and out of the womb, remind us of this truth about who we are, but the only way to maintain absolute autonomy is to suppress that truth. In the end, the prevention and disposal of babies becomes a kind of political sacrament, celebrated to a cartoonish degree.

Clearly, a corner has been turned on abortion in this nation. Of course, there is much good news to report of good work being done in so many places to protect and preserve innocent life. Praise God for that. But we should not so quickly turn away from the ghoulish display in Chicago last week. Not only is it a reminder of all that is at stake in this issue, but it also reveals what happens to people and to parties and to nations that suppress the truth in unrighteousness.

This Breakpoint was co-authored by Shane Morris. If you’re a fan of Breakpoint, leave a review on your favorite podcast app. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.

Pete Buttigieg Says It Out Loud : Guest Column

Aug 19, 2024John StonestreetAbortionAbortion, Life, Pro-life, Sanctity of Human Life

With less than three months remaining until the election, Vice President and Democratic Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris is working hard to garner the support of white voters. In the past month, Harris’s campaign has hosted Celebrity-studded virtual rallies aimed at this demographic. In her “White Women for Harris” rally on Zoom, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and actress Connie Britton called on all “Karens for Kamala” to use their “privilege” to help everyone. Shannon Watts, who helped organize the call, said that the rally was vital because white women “in recent presidential elections have voted in a way that upholds White supremacy … [and] upholds the patriarchy.”

Also worried that progressives have been “ceding white men to the MAGA right for far too long,” organizers of the “White Dudes for Harris” online rally encouraged participants to steer the country away from President Trump’s “dangerous, dark path” for the country. Star Wars actor Mark Hamill made an appearance, saying, “I’m Luke Skywalker. I’m here to rescue you.”

However, the Harris campaign’s unprecedented commitment to advance abortion undermines the rhetoric employed in these rallies about advancing women’s rights, using one’s privilege to help others, and working to end the “patriarchy.” For example, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg explained to the “White Dudes for Harris” rally participants that they should vote for Harris because “men are also more free in a country where we have a president who stands up for things like access to abortion.” Intentional or not, Buttigieg’s comment echoed concerns expressed decades ago by first-wave feminists who opposed abortion.

Abortion, to borrow progressive terminology, is a “tool of the patriarchy.” Far from advancing women’s rights, abortion enables self-centered men to pursue what they want without consequence. Though sold as a necessary “choice” for women, many report choosing abortion because they were pressured to do so. Thus, abortion harms women and ends the lives of countless preborn humans.

Whether chemical or surgical, abortion severs the natural link between intercourse and procreation. Legalizing abortion allowed men to “freely” engage in intercourse without the obligation to and responsibility for any children that result. The more abortion is normalized, the more that men are “freed” from any expectation to care for the women they get pregnant or the children they beget.

Buttigieg simply said out loud what has long been assumed within the ideologies of the sexual revolution and third-wave feminism. Sexual liberation is, in fact, not liberation at all, at least not for women and the unborn. Though sold as an aspect of women’s health and a means to ensure women’s rights and freedom, the reality is far different. As theologian Frederica Mathewes-Green said in a segment from Focus on the Family’s Family Project, “Women were promised autonomy, and what they got was abandonment.”

The early feminists issued this warning about abortion. Scholar and author Erika Bachiochi has noted that “first-wave” feminists understood how “the burdens and privileges of reproduction and early caregiving [fall] disproportionately on women.” Men, therefore, needed to embrace their roles as husbands and fathers. Because of the unique differences between men and women, especially in childbearing, the state needed to uphold these responsibilities and obligations. Because abortion undermines these responsibilities and obligations, most feminists of the “first-wave” opposed it.

Buttigieg is right that abortion makes men “free,” but not in a good or life-giving way. This is freedom from obligation, consequence, and responsibility, a freedom that enables the worst vices of “patriarchy” and “toxic masculinity.” The “freedom” afforded by abortion is a license that empowers men to live for themselves without regard for others, and therefore is a license that leads to pain, abandonment, and death.

True freedom is freedom for, not freedom from. Freedom for recognizes the inherent, God-given place of sex within a marriage oriented for the good of others, especially the children that may result. This is true freedom for all parties involved.

This Breakpoint was co-authored by Jared Hayden. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org. And check out this What Would You Say? video on how to make a pro-choice argument in 60 seconds.

Voting: Lesser of Two Evils vs. Lessening Evil: Guest Column

Aug 12, 2024John StonestreetElectionsElections

Both sides of the presidential race are (finally) set, and Americans remain historically dissatisfied with both options. Of course, considering the flurry of events of just the last few months, it’s not impossible that something may change yet again. Whether we fall into the category of being so sick of politics already or being unable to look away, every citizen has two choices. First, whether to vote and, second, how to vote.

After his White House days, Chuck Colson never publicly endorsed a political candidate. The Colson Center remains committed to that practice. He did, however, tell Christians to vote, and why. “It’s our duty as citizens of the kingdom of God,” Chuck wrote, citing St. Augustine, “to be the best citizens of the society we live in. To do that, we must vote.”

There are some Christians who disagree, and their hesitation is understandable. Since the Republican Party scrubbed pro-life and pro-family commitments from its platform, voters who prioritize life and family are left to choose between pro-abortion and pro-choice options. The Democratic nominee is the first sitting vice president to visit an abortion clinic, with a vice presidential choice who has aggressively pushed dangerous gender ideology in Minnesota schools. The Republican nominees have each stated that the choice to terminate preborn lives should be left to the states.

Even so, not voting in order to “keep our hands clean” is a form of pietism, not Christianity. James is clear that if there is good that we can do, we should. To not do the good we can is sin. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, even in the face of far worse political realities than ours, rejected pietism as being contrary to Christian responsibility. Because Christianity is an incarnational faith, he wrote, it must be lived in “the tempest of the living.”

But how then should we vote? Often, Christians and other citizens of conscience describe voting as choosing between “the lesser of two evils.” My former colleague Kevin Bywater suggests a better approach.

Christians, he said, should think of voting as a way of “lessening evil.” Not only does this approach better fit the political realities of our particular context, it recognizes the inherent limits of politics even while maintaining principle. Also, voting to lessen evil acknowledges the moral inadequacies of candidates while still seeking to accomplish good through voting.

In the American context, the “lesser of two evils” approach tends to exaggerate the importance of the oval office. “Salvation,” Chuck Colson often said, “will never arrive in Air Force One.” Neither, for that matter, will the apocalypse. On the issues that matter most (such as life and family), state and local races and ballot initiatives are incredibly important, especially now. Voting to lessen evil recognizes these cultural realities.  

Of course, the Office of President is important, but more so because of the 3,000-5,000 personnel—especially the unelected, rule-making department heads—that come with each administration. The heads of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Department of Education (ED), and the Department of Justice (DOJ) have been incredibly consequential in every recent administration, as are judicial nominations. For example, under President Obama, the HHS Secretary forced employers to provide contraceptives and abortifacients to employees free of charge and irrespective of religious beliefs. Without Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, or Coney Barrett there would be no Dobbs ruling. And since Dobbs, there have been all kinds of department-level maneuverings to advance abortion at the state and federal levels. Title IX regulations are interpreted and reinterpreted under each administration by unelected officials that are appointed by the president.  

A system that allows unelected officials to hold such power is flawed, as are the candidates who appoint, and the leaders appointed. Voting to lessen evil should never be about excusing bad character. It should be our best attempt to enable the best outcomes possible while recognizing that the most important work the Church will do won’t be political.

Years ago, Chuck Colson observed, “[T]he church has allowed itself to become dangerously polarized into two camps: politicized and privatized views of faith. [N]either view has anything to do with historic Christianity.” To address both these errors, the Colson Center has produced a free video series, Why Vote? Courageous Faith in an Election Year. For a free download, visit colsoncenter.org/why vote.

Christ, not politics, is our hope. He’s called us to engage, to discern, and to the best of our abilities, uphold good and lessen evil. 

If you’re a fan of Breakpoint, leave a review on your favorite podcast app. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org. 