Interview with Stephen Wagner, Part 1

March 25, 2008 Posted by Roger Overton

Stephen Wagner speaks to and trains a variety of audiences on pro-life and bioethics issues as part of the ministry of Stand to Reason. His new book, Common Ground Without
Compromise: 25 Questions to Create Dialogue on Abortion, challenges advocates on both sides of the abortion issue to have more respectful and fruitful conversations. Though the book is available on Amazon, we encourage you to support Steve's work at Stand to Reason by ordering through their website. The conclusion of the interview will be posted on Thursday.

As the title indicates, the point of your book is to build common ground
between pro-life and pro-choice advocates. Many people on both sides of the
issue simply want to persuade their opponents- why should they be interested in
finding common ground?

I
don’t see a person who disagrees with me primarily as a sort of potential
convert. I see her as a human
being. Human beings deserve to be
treated with respect; they deserve to be heard.
It’s troubling that some Christians take the Great Commission as a
directive to think of non-Christians as “gospel fodder,” people who are only
valuable if converted. Greg Koukl at
Stand to Reason coined that term and I’ve found it helpful in my thinking about
the abortion debate. I am a pro-life
advocate, but I don’t see the pro-choice advocate simply as a future notch in
my pro-life belt.

Now,
is it important to persuade people of the pro-life position? I believe the pro-life position is true, and
surely it’s vital to help people come to see it as true. But if I don’t come with an attitude of
listening and appreciating this human being as a fellow truth seeker, I’ll miss
the forest for the trees…or the human for the ideas. Since persuasion is important, though, common
ground is all the more important. It’s diplomatic
common sense. Take the pro-life volunteers
I trained for a recent outreach in Arizona. As we shared stories of our interactions,
many of the volunteers shared about how common ground helped them move the
dialogue forward to discuss disagreements in a productive way. In the book I picture common ground as the
fuel in a car. You’ll need it at the
beginning of a conversation. And you’ll
need to refuel with common ground along the way in order to keep the
conversation moving.

Early on in the book you state, “I believe that you and I are both seeking
truth, so we have at least one item of common ground.” (p17) I suspect
that some pro-lifers won't like this because that they believe pro-choicers are
more interested in convenience than truth. Why should we believe people we
disagree with are interested in seeking truth? Do you honestly believe every
person you talk with is seeking truth?

Anyone
who’s spent even a few hours talking to college students, or people of any age
for that matter, knows that many people value convenience or pleasure or
entertainment more than the search for truth.
That’s uncontroversial and I’d be a fool to claim otherwise. I think it’s also uncontroversial, though,
that every human seeks truth on some level. You can be just as certain that the college
student who seems to only care about sex or entertainment also cares deep in
his soul about knowing what’s true. No
one wakes up in the morning and says, “I’d really like to find someone who will
deceive me today.” People care about not
being deceived, and conversely, they care about knowing the truth. Our job, as those who believe there’s truth
about abortion, is to help people bring their innate love for truth to the
surface, so they can fix their conscious gaze on it and evaluate their beliefs.

You spend most of your time in the book exploring 25 questions you believe will
help build common ground. Why are questions so important in this endeavor?

It’s
interesting that you would use a question to ask why questions are so important!

Questions
are the only way that dialogue happens.
It’s the way we signal to others that we want to hear their
opinion. It’s also one way to signal
that we are positioning ourselves as partners rather than enemies (although this
also requires asking the question with a certain kind of attitude). I framed the content of the book in a series
of questions because I wanted to help the reader see in a tangible way how to
start a conversation and how to keep it productive. Asking people what they think and why
is much more likely to help them change their minds than telling them
they are wrong.

The first question you pose in an effort to build common ground is “What
do you think about late-term abortion?” You cite a 2003 Gallup poll that suggests “68% of
Americans oppose abortion in the second trimester and 84% oppose it in the
third trimester.” (p39) Why do you think these polls statistics are so
high?

Your
question is a great one…to ask anyone we’re in dialogue with. “If you are against late-term abortion, or
think it should be illegal…why?” I think
responses to that question are varied. Many
people just think the unborn is a baby at this point. Some people think the fetus in the second or
third trimester looks like older human beings.
Essentially, “It looks like me, so I’m repulsed by killing it.” Others cite the fact that the fetus likely
has higher cortical activity in the late second and third trimester. So, this question gets us quickly back to the
main issue in the abortion debate: Is the unborn a human being who has the same
rights as the rest of us? Many say “yes”
in the last half of the pregnancy.

You note that we often hear this common sentiment presented in the media:
“The majority of Americans are 'pro-choice' and oppose restrictions on
abortion.” (p62) Do you believe there is a 'pro-choice' bias in the media?

I’m
not sure I’d put it that way. I think
the media’s treatment of the abortion issue shows a “pro-shallow” bias and a
“pro-controversy” bias. People in the
media usually have only seconds to communicate ideas and must use sound bites. Plus, on television, a simplistic
representation of extremes plays better than complex dialogue. So, it’s easy to report poll results, but
thorough analysis takes too long. Neil
Postman was right when he criticized the television medium as being
intrinsically an entertainment medium that makes it difficult to get accurate
facts. People in the media could minimize
this liability, though, by only publicizing polls that ask specific questions
about specific abortions at specific times in pregnancy. Only then can we really understand what
people think.

But
the fault is not all the media’s.
Pollsters typically serve up polls that ask very vague questions about whether
people are for or against abortion, pro-life or pro-choice, for or against Roe
v. Wade. As I explain in the book, the
polls rarely define what all of these terms and court decisions mean, so the
poll results actually portray an inaccurate picture of public opinion. But when the media publicizes this inaccurate
picture, it becomes a part of our collective consciousness about public opinion
on abortion. We come to believe that
what the media reported is “just the way it is.”

The
most serious problem with polls and the media, though, is not the polls or the
media. It’s us, the viewers. If many of us believe these shallow and
inaccurate public opinion polls, it’s our own fault. We should be more careful.

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A Good Friday Prayer – From The 1662 Book Of Common Prayer

March 22, 2008 Posted by Roger Overton

Almighty God, we beseech thee graciously to behold this thy family,
for which our Lord Jesus Christ was contented to be betrayed, and given
up into the hands of wicked men, and to suffer death upon the cross.

Almighty and everlasting God, by whose spirit the whole body of the
church is governed and sanctified: receive our supplications and
prayers, which we offer before thee for all estates of men in thy holy
church, that every member of the same, in his vocation and ministry,
may truly and godly serve thee, through our Lord and savior Jesus
Christ.

O Merciful God, who hast made all men, and hatest nothing that thou
hast made, nor wouldest the death of a sinner, but rather that he
should be converted and live: Have mercy upon all unbelievers, and take
from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of thy word;
and so fetch them home, blessed Lord, to thy flock, that they may be
saved among the remnant of the true Israelites, and be made one fold
under one shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with
thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end, Amen.

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Calvin And Hobbes

March 21, 2008 Posted by David N

I just couldn't resist. For someone who grew up reading Calvin & Hobbes comics and is now a philosophy/theology nerd…this is priceless.

Prints are available from the artist.

Category Posted in David's Posts, Main Page 5 Comments »

The Marines, Code Pink, and Mercy

March 6, 2008 Posted by Amy Hall

You probably heard about the Berkeley City Council passing a motion declaring the Marine recruiters in their city “uninvited and unwelcome intruders” and about Code Pink’s aggressive, ongoing protest against those recruiters, which includes carrying a banner with the words “No military predators in our town,” calling the recruiters traitors, and physically blocking anyone trying to enter the recruitment center (as the police stand by, remaining “neutral”).

But yesterday, I was told about a story you might not have heard. Eamon Kelley, a Marine who was present at the continuing protest last week, witnessed an incident he described in an email to a friend:

While we were at the protest in Berkeley from 12 to 4 p.m., a white Volvo drove by and a man spat upon Code Pink. They chased him down the street and got into a verbal altercation. The police were NOWHERE in sight. That’s not the best part, ready for this? Medea Benjamin [co-founder of Code Pink] yelled, and I quote, “Marines!” She actually yelled for our help because this man had stepped out of his car. I even asked her if she was yelling Police and she told me, “I said Marines” then put her arm around my friend Allen (the Marine Vet). Ironic?

As I was listening to my roommate tell me about this, I admit I was hoping for some juicy justice in which the Marines said sadly, “I’m sorry, we’ve decided you were right. You don’t need us, and we should go away. Good luck with your problems, there.” Nobody can deny that’s exactly what they deserved. But my snickers of anticipation were silenced when I heard there was no witty comeback from the Marines. Apparently, they helped her.

The whole story ended up making me weep. I wept at the strength, and mercy, and goodness of men who would risk their own safety to help a person who hated them, mocked them, picketed them, and demanded angrily that they leave town. How, how were they able to do this in the face of such bitter and stark unfairness?

I wept because I then saw the face of Jesus in these men–a beautiful, powerful, deeply humbling mercy towards me, His enemy. In a new and biting way, I saw what I deserved, and the mercy of His self-sacrifice was suddenly beyond imagining.

I wept because I didn’t see Him in me. Lately, in dealing with those who mock the truth, I’ve been acting more like the spitting passerby who hated the protesters and wanted to punish them than the Marines who steadfastly persevered in serving them. Oh, Lord, help me! I don’t know how to love people like that. I can’t love people like that.

I wept for the people of this world who continue to scream at Jesus to leave them alone, stubbornly suffering the daily consequences of a life lived without Him. There will be an end to God’s patience, and the full, righteous, deserved justice will come.

May God have mercy on us all.

Category Posted in Amy's Posts, Main Page, Miscellaneous, Theology 5 Comments »

What Would Obama Do?

March 5, 2008 Posted by David N

During a “town hall” style meeting this past Sunday at Hocking College in Nelsonville, Ohio, Senator Obama was asked to reconcile his social policies (which many evangelicals are attracted to) with his positions on same-sex unions and abortion. The questioner didn't specifically refer to those two issues by name, but called them “litmus test” issues for many Christian voters. This was Obama's response on abortion:

“On the issue of abortion, that is always a tragic and painful issue. I think it is always tragic, and we should prevent it as much
as possible …. But I think that the bottom line is that in the end, I
think women, in consultation with their pastors, and their doctors, and
their family, are in a better position to make these decisions than
some bureaucrat in Washington. That's my view. Again, I respect people
who may disagree, but I certainly don't think it makes me less
Christian. Okay.”

This sounds like a very sensible strategy, but like most liberal responses in the past decade on this issue, it completely misses the point. Obama readily admits that abortion is a “tragedy”, but he doesn't say why. Is it a tragedy because the unborn child is a human person and abortion would constitute murder? If so, what could someone's pastor or doctor possibly say to change that? In the end, Obama's answer amounts to little more than evasive rhetoric.

And his response on same-sex marriage:

“I will tell you that I don't believe in gay marriage, but I do think
that people who are gay and lesbian should be treated with dignity and
respect and that the state should not discriminate against them. So, I believe in civil unions that allow a same-sex
couple to visit each other in a hospital or transfer property to each
other. I don't think it should be called marriage, but I think that it
is a legal right that they should have that is recognized by the state.
If people find that controversial then I would just refer them to the
Sermon on the Mount, which I think is, in my mind, for my faith, more
central than an obscure passage in Romans. That's my view.”

This is, by far, the most interesting political statement I've ever heard. A Presidential candidate engaged in bad theology.

The obvious question to ask here is what the Sermon on the Mount has to do with same-sex unions? The report at crosswalk.com suggests some possibilities: perhaps he's referring to the Golden Rule, or maybe Jesus' oft-quoted command not to judge. In any event, the better question to ask is what's so “obscure” about the passage in Romans? It's the very first chapter of what most evangelicals would consider to be Paul's most important epistle. Not only that, but the passage in question is extremely clear in its condemnation of homosexuality as unnatural and sinful.

Now, I actually find myself in agreement with Obama on a few points. C. S. Lewis said in Mere Christianity that Christians shouldn't be trying outlaw divorce by legislation. The church is clear on its position, he said, and we would know who was really a follower of Christ and who wasn't by their conduct, so there was no point in trying to force people to obey Christian morality. After all, he went on, we wouldn't like it very much if the “Mohammadans” came in and tried to outlaw alcohol!

These comments by Lewis should be, at the very least, thought provoking, if not downright controversial (he was talking about divorce, but there is an obvious application to gay marriage lurking around the corner). I'm not entirely sure I agree with him. But there is at least a ring of truth there. And the same goes for Obama. I may not support gay marriage, but there does seem to be something wrong with not allowing a gay person to visit his/her significant other in the hospital, simply because they're gay. And it will only hurt our witness to the gay community if we persist in denying them such rights.

Obama is certainly unique as a liberal candidate in his simultaneous support of same-sex “unions” and opposition to same-sex “marriage.” There is definately something seductive about this position to the evangelical community. The only question I still have is whether or not this is a distinction without a difference. What are we really protecting if the only difference is the name?

Category Posted in David's Posts, Main Page 8 Comments »

Providence and Time on Lost

March 3, 2008 Posted by Amy Hall

(Warning: Spoilers ahead, touching on the last couple seasons. If you don’t watch Lost, turn off your computer now and go rent Season One!)

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve always been interested in stories that involve time travel of some sort, so I’ve enjoyed the direction Lost began to take last season. But there’s something different about this series. Normally, the type of time travel described in a story will fall into one of two categories: 1) The people who go back in time change things, thereby creating a new future or even a new parallel universe (e.g., Back to the Future), or 2) The people go back in time, but the actions they take there don’t change anything in the future because it was always the case that their actions in the past led up to the future they’ve always known. That is, time is set–all of history already happened, and they already acted as a part of it (e.g., the ending of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure).

The time travel in Lost, on the other hand, describes a third kind of time–one governed by Providence or fate. Certain characters go back in time and can change things (history is still fluid, as it is in Type 1), but no matter what they do, they can’t ultimately thwart the purpose of God or fate (just who is in charge remains to be seen). So, Desmond can keep changing the future by repeatedly saving one of the characters from death, but eventually, the death of that character will be accomplished by the one who is governing the flow of history, moving it in a precise direction for a purpose.

It would seem, at first glance, that J.J. Abrams (the creator of Lost) believes in God or some sort of designer. But, as with his other work (e.g., Alias), he creates a scenario that I suspect reflects a kind of battle going on in his own head: Some characters see intelligent design and/or evidence of the supernatural in what’s happening, and some see only naturalistic explanations. In Lost, that inner-Abrams battle is characterized as “faith” vs. “science,” Locke vs. Jack, purpose vs. random circumstances. What’s interesting is that you’re never quite sure which side will win, or even which side should win.

It’s as if Abrams wants the supernatural to be true, but he can never quite get there because he loves science and can’t see a way to bring the two into harmony–and even though he feels a pull towards the supernatural, he’s a little suspicious of the people who embrace it. They seem somewhat…unstable. So he keeps the two perspectives (supernatural and natural) existing side by side, almost as two separate stories, with each pretending the other doesn’t exist–never touching, except to occasionally butt heads.

Sounds like Abrams’s ideas are a good reflection of what our culture has done with religion and rationality (which they wrongly equate with naturalism), and it’s a sad, compartmentalized way to live. The two can be brought together; we can live as whole, integrated people who embrace God and rationality because they embrace each other in an integrated, whole reality. “Live together, die alone,” right? Someone send this man a copy of Total Truth.

Category Posted in Amy's Posts, Culture, Main Page 7 Comments »

Following Jesus Is Easy!

March 2, 2008 Posted by David N

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

-Matthew 11: 28-30

One only need flip a few chapters ahead in Matthew to Jesus' trial and death before the head scratching begins. How exactly is Jesus' burden light? Easy?? And just one chapter back (and again in chapter 16) Jesus tells his disciples that they must take up their crosses in order to follow him (not an image that evokes thoughts of ease and lightness!).

And if we turn to Acts things get even worse. The Apostles spend the majority of their lives suffering for the cause of Christ. Many of them are executed (some in unpleasant ways). All things considered, their lives appeared to get much harder after Pentecost, not easier.

It light of all this, it seems very unlikely that Jesus means to suggest that following Him will be a walk on the beach. Enjoying the best life now is never something that Jesus Himself nor His closest followers ever had in mind (unless by “best life” you mean “a life of sacrifice devoted to furthering the Kingdom and always looking forward to the life yet to come“).

But consider Jesus' words from a slightly different angle. He is calling out to all those who are “weary” and “heavy laden.” It's doubtful that Jesus only has in mind those who do physical labor for a living. More likely, He is calling out to all men. And what is it that burdens all men?

Sin.

Jesus is offering freedom. Freedom from sin. It is one of the many paradoxes of Scripture that we are to become “slaves” to God in order to be “free.” By taking Jesus' yoke upon ourselves, we throw off the yoke of sin. And it is sin that weighs us down. It is sin that makes us always weary, always burdened.

Compared to sin, Jesus is freedom. Sin is heavy, Jesus is light.

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Os Guinness Reviews Crazy for God

February 27, 2008 Posted by Amy Hall

There has been some talk about Frank Schaeffer's new book about his father, Crazy for God. Os Guinness's review is now posted on the Books and Culture website:

The problem is not so much that Frank exposes and trumpets his parents' flaws and frailties, or that he skewers them with his characteristic mockery. It is more than that. For all his softening, the portrait he paints amounts to a death-dealing charge of hypocrisy and insincerity at the very heart of their life and work. In Frank's own words, his parents were “crazy for God.” Their call to the ministry “actually drove them crazy,” so that “religion was actually the source of their tragedy.” His dad was under “the crushing belief that God had 'called' him to save the world.” Because of this, his parents were “happiest when farthest away from their missionary work.” Back at their calling, they were “professional proselytizers,” their teaching was “indoctrination,” and it was unclear whether people came to faith or were “brainwashed” and “under the spell” of his parents. Frank's own arguments in their support, he now says, were a kind of “circus trick”. . . .

For six years I was as close to Frank as anyone outside his own family, and probably closer than many in his family. I was his best man at his wedding. Life has taken us in different directions over the past thirty years, but I counted him my dear friend and went through many of the escapades he recounts and many more that would not bear rehearsing in print. It pains to me say, then, that his portrait is cruel, distorted, and self-serving, but I cannot let it pass unchallenged without a strong insistence on a different way of seeing the story. There is all the difference in the world between flaws and hypocrisy. Francis and Edith Schaeffer were lions for truth. No one could be further from con artists, even unwitting con artists, than the Francis and Edith Schaeffer I knew, lived with, and loved.

Guinness gives some interesting thoughts in his review on what he thinks happened in the Schaeffer family to bring them to this point, with lessons for anyone trying to simultaneously guide a ministry and raise a family.

(HT: Between Two Worlds)

Category Posted in Amy's Posts, Apologetics, Main Page, Miscellaneous No Comments »

The Root of Experience is Knowledge

February 26, 2008 Posted by Amy Hall

It’s funny to me that while William Wilberforce needed to argue in his book, A Practical View of Christianity, that the religious affections–love, gratitude, joy, hope, trust, etc.–are a necessary a part of our relationship with and service to God, we have the very opposite problem only a couple of centuries later. Today, knowledge about God, not emotion, is looked on with suspicion. Many postmodern Christians prefer a fuzzy image of a God who is beyond our understandable categories, and they resist definitions that might “limit” Him.

But Wilberforce’s words, though they were written to argue for emotion (i.e., the experience that postmoderns seek), also reveal the absolute necessity of knowledge as the foundation of true experience:

To ascertain [the genuineness and strength of the religious affections in a person] we must examine whether they appear to be grounded in knowledge, to have their root in strong and just conceptions of the great and manifold excellences of their object, or to be ignorant, unmeaning, or vague. . . .

Religious affections are only sustainable if they are attached to a real God who is known to be worthy of those affections; they simply can’t carry themselves for very long. But when knowledge is in its proper place, and the perfect and beautiful, solid and known truths about Him are meditated upon, desire for God inevitably follows; and that desire, in turn, fuels more intellectual pursuit of the truths of God.

Wilberforce charges that we all know this interplay between knowledge and affections exists, and it’s the way any person would encourage another to continue on in a difficult task of any kind (not just religious):

Weigh well (he would say) the value of the object for which you are about to contend, and contemplate and study its various excellences, till your whole soul be on fire for its acquisition. . . . Accustom yourself to look first to the dreadful consequences of failure; then fix your eye on the glorious prize which is before you; and when your strength begins to fail, and your spirits are well nigh exhausted, let the animating view rekindle your resolution, and call forth in renewed vigor the fainting energies of your soul.

Why, Wilberforce argues, should this be different only in the case of religion? Knowledge is the root of love, passion, service, and perseverance. With knowledge, you get all of these things. Without knowledge, you’ll have none of them.

Category Posted in Amy's Posts, Emerging / Emergent Church, Main Page, Religion (General) Comments 1 Comment »

Souled Out to Propaganda and Hypocrisy

February 22, 2008 Posted by Amy Hall

A friend alerted me to a description of Souled Out: Reclaiming Faith and Politics after the Religious Right after the author, E. J. Dionne Jr., was featured on an hour of the Hugh Hewitt Show. From the publisher, Princeton University Press:

The religious and political winds are changing. Tens of millions of religious Americans are reclaiming faith from those who would abuse it for narrow, partisan, and ideological purposes. And more and more secular Americans are discovering common ground with believers on the great issues of social justice, peace, and the environment. In Souled Out, award-winning journalist and commentator E. J. Dionne explains why the era of the Religious Right–and the crude exploitation of faith for political advantage–is over.

Now, this is amazing. If you vote on the right because you believe in those positions–and, in fact, believe they better reflect Christian values and goals–you are “selling out,” and “abusing faith,” and (from the next paragraph) you are a “prop for the powers that be” who is being “crudely exploited for political advantage.” But all this would be over if you would only learn to vote on the left! If you favor positions on the left for exactly the same reasons, then you're just doing the right thing. I think I know why people like Dionne are unable to see the unbelievable hypocrisy of this, and I'll explain in a moment. But first, another excerpt:

Based on years of research and writing, Souled Out shows that the end of the Religious Right doesn't signal the decline of evangelical Christianity but rather its disentanglement from a political machine that sold it out to a narrow electoral agenda of such causes as opposition to gay marriage and abortion. With insightful portraits of leading contemporary religious figures from Rick Warren and Richard Cizik to John Paul II and Benedict XVI, Dionne shows that our great religions have always preached a broad message of hope for more just human arrangements and refused to be mere props for the powers that be.

The idea that all politically conservative Christians care about is abortion and same-sex marriage is an embarrassingly misguided one, and yet very widespread (I believe this goes back to the left's unwillingness to understand people on the right or take them at their word). Dionne is honestly unaware that people could possibly think that the issues of justice (including economic) and social good are all better addressed by conservative positions than liberal ones. Have they ever even heard of the Acton Institute? No, for Dionne and many of the religious left, the only possibility is that conservative leaders have deviously trapped gullible religious people in a “narrow electoral agenda.”

One has to make a deep, unexamined assumption to end up with this inexcusable blindness. The assumption is: liberal policies are obviously moral and conservative policies are obviously immoral. Therefore, they conclude, if any religious person thought about anything other than abortion and same-sex marriage, then naturally, he would be on the left instead of the right. Therefore, widening his scope of issues would keep him from voting for conservative candidates and thereby becoming a “prop” of the right. (How it could be that taking on and promoting uniquely leftist policies would not simply cause these newly leftist Christians to become “props” of leaders on the left is never actually explained.)

It's amazing–and a little scary–how rarely people on the religious left examine themselves and their rhetoric and how little they understand conservatives. This doesn't bode well for robust and productive debate anytime in the near future.

Category Posted in Amy's Posts, Culture, Main Page, Politics 5 Comments »