The applause might make you think John McCain scored the most points at the Saddleback Civil Forum Saturday. His crisp life begins "at conception" answer to the abortion question left the Rev. Rick Warren looking particularly pleased. As cameras panned the crowd, all the people seemed jubilant.
Compare that to the gasps Obama received with his "above my pay grade" answer, and it seems a cinch for McCain.
But don't count on it. These are church people. What they say and what they do often doesn't match. I'm not criticizing them for that. I'm just stating the facts. None of us meets our highest aspirations. At least they have aspirations. Unlike the rest of us in this anything-goes world, they are under considerable pressure to make sure their lapses don't become public.
As loudly as they may have applauded McCain's straight talk about abortion, a lot of women in that audience have had abortions. A lot of their mothers, their sisters and their daughters have too.
How do I know?
I know because evangelicals who've studied each other have shown again and again that evangelical behavior differs very little from that of the rest of the country. They may go to church more and they do give more to charity. But evangelicals have sex outside of marriage, divorce, take drugs, drink, gamble, lie; they do all the shady things the rest of us do.
At best their young people wait to have sex a few months longer than other young people. And not every study shows even that. It's become a joke to say that evangelical kids have oral sex and don't consider it sex. But oral sex leads to other kinds of sex, the kind even they know is real sex.
Evangelical kids are likely to have had fewer talks with their parents about their true sexual behavior. They're likely to have more guilt about sexuality and as a result they are less likely to plan having sex. If sexually active people don't plan, they don't protect themselves, and they get pregnant.
Evangelicals talk plenty about moral epidemics. Pornography addiction, which appears to be the epidemic du jour, is so bad within the church that treatment programs are being aimed at church members and staff.
There's an epidemic of sex outside marriage. There's an epidemic of abortions.
There isn't, however, an epidemic of unwed mothers in the evangelical churches. Why is that do you think?
It's because evangelicals have abortions. The highly respected Guttmacher Institute's studies show that evangelical women make up one out of every five women having abortions. The true number is certainly higher than that because many evangelicals aren't going to claim their faith on abortion clinic forms. Some of them are getting two and three abortions. They feel guilty. They feel sinful. They're ashamed and secretive. They repent.
And maybe they vote for candidates who crisply condemn them by saying that human life begins at conception. But then again, maybe they don't.
Just as nobody knows how many white people will let racism influence their vote once they're in the privacy of the voting booth, nobody knows how men and women who've experienced abortion will vote once they have the same privacy. Racism and abortion may be the biggest secrets in America.
Women are notoriously willing to vote against their own interests. Evangelical women might be even more willing than other women. They've accepted already that they are to submit to male authority.
But maybe not. Maybe they will consider that if evangelical churches really wanted to cut abortions in this country, they could start honoring women who have babies outside of marriage. They could set up special days to fete them, to bring them forward in the church, to laud them for their courage and fortitude. Churches might have intact families "adopt" those honored women and their precious children, giving them the love and support that women of such strong conscience deserve for their self-sacrifice in the service of human life.
It would not be without precedence. Evangelical families who want to adopt children are happy to give such support to unwed mothers willing to give their children up. Honoring women who elect to keep their children shouldn't be such a big step.
But it won't happen.
Because as much as evangelicals say they care about saving unborn children, making sure women "pay" for what they've done is more important.
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Christine Wicker is the author of The Fall of the Evangelical Nation: The Surprising Crisis Inside the Church. Her website is ChristineWicker.com
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
This is the great and first commandment.
And a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
On these two commandments the whole law hangeth, and the prophets." (Mat 22:37-40)
It takes a GENUINE change of heart to switch from the juvenile mentality that requires the letter of the law to spell out the simplest of moral statues to the mature mentality of the SPIRIT of the law. And it's really sad to see how very few REAL Christians there are!
Thank you, Christine, for your heartfelt article!!!
They may go to church more, but do they really give more to charity? Most evangelicals are Republicans and it seems to me they live more by the "God helps those who help themselves" statement that has been attributed to Benjamin Franklin than the words attributed to Jesus Christ that talk more about loving your neighbor and giving to the poor. In my experience, evangelicals are some of the most uncharitable people I know, in so many ways.
One of the overriding realities of church going Christians (as it is among flag-waving patriots), is hypocrisy. Along with hypocrisy goes denial. Thus an evangelical woman who got an abortion may be likely to feel guilty about what she has done (perhaps more than once), and will vote for someone who wants to deny her the right to an early term abortion. I hope I'm more wrong than right, but I do know a few people like this.
But maybe not. Maybe they will consider that if evangelical churches really wanted to cut abortions in this country, they could start honoring women who have babies outside of marriage. They could set up special days to fete them, to bring them forward in the church, to laud them for their courage and fortitude. Churches might have intact families "adopt" those honored women and their precious children, giving them the love and support that women of such strong conscience deserve for their self-sacrifice in the service of human life.
It would not be without precedence. Evangelical families who want to adopt children are happy to give such support to unwed mothers willing to give their children up. Honoring women who elect to keep their children shouldn't be such a big step.
But it won't happen.
Because as much as evangelicals say they care about saving unborn children, making sure women "pay" for what they've done is more important."
This is my biggest anger.
The WOMEN ENABLE IT. The ENABLE THE PATRIARCHAL MODEL of psychological abuse of women.
You do NOT need religion to have faith or believe in a higher source.
Lysistrata may be an excellent model for this day and age
Read it and be amazed:
http://drama.eserver.org/plays/classical/aristophanes/lysistrata.txt
The Evangelicals and conservatives liked what they heard from McCain, and say he won. I'm guessing most Americans watched the Olympics, not Saddleback's event. But they agree with Obama on choice, the Supreme Court, and waging endless Yankee jihad in Iraq. And Obama showed guts in the GOP lions' den..
On Nightline Monday night, Warren told a reporter he wouldn't endorse either candidate. She followed with "Could you vote for either McCain or Obama based on what you know?" After a few awkward seconds, a lame "I don't know."
That was hard for him. Warren genuinely wants to be an honest broker. But an Evangelical pastor probably cannot support a pro choice candidate, no matter how much he likes him on a host of other issues. Evangelicals see the world differently than most other people. Had Warren answered "Heck no, Obama is pro choice!" he's just another Evangelical pastor.
Is this one of those stories whose propagation and assimilation by others is simply too great a temptation to pass up? You know, the story with an unclear provenance, that everyone adapts as a statement of their own life, because well, who can say it didn't happen?
I was standing in line at Starbuck's the other day, feeling like I'd lost my freedom, and the bathroom-cleaner guy came and stood by me. He must have known how I felt, because after standing in companionable silence for a while, he used the toe of his abused sketchers to trace the cross-like intersection of the faux-italian floor tiles. Then he walked away without a word.
Now in fairness, this IS the sort of thing that might work its way deeply into a prisoner's fantasy life, in a situation in which fantasy assumes more and more significance.
And I'd expect that to be the McCain Camp's GOOJF card, if someone happened (probably difficult at this point) to prove where it first came from.
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kill tv
As for separation of Church and State, this kind of does not fall into that. He was not asking the candidates to place their religion to run the country, however we have to understand that what they believe, not religion, but actually what they believe the world view is will shape the direction of this fragile country.
It is possible to argue that access to abortions serves the state by allowing families to be planned so that the children born make a better fit to their families and the state. Speaking as a man, I find it hard to see why any woman would care to go through childbirth, but I know most think it well worth the pain. Childbirth should always be a joyous occasion though, as it is in the interest of the state (and it should seem that it is) tolerable is close enough.
Sex belongs in education because knowledge is always an asset. People should be respected because they have to be the ones who make things work. Contraception and abortion are empowerment.
Lower the amounts of unwanted pregnancies and that will lower the amount of abortions.
Wow.
Also, I'd like to see someone put pictures of the zygotes of humans and several other animals like cows and apes side by side, and see how many people would be able to tell which is which. And why stop at life begins at conception? Doesn't every egg and sperm have the potential of making life as well? Oh wait! The Bush admin is already headed down that road now that they are trying to put into law that using contraceptions is the same as having an abortion.
How odd those evangelicals do not have a problem with in-vitro fertilization and selective reduction?
How queer is it that evangelicals don't care about the millions of embryo left abandoned in fertility clinics cryogenic storage?
The evangelicals are hypocrites and are just a reflection of the hypocritical republicans whom they elect.
Then I thought maybe he meant that even a president doesn't have the power to overrule the Supreme Court. Also a good point.
The biggest mouths against the right to choose are men's. The pointiest fingers are men's. Men take for granted the right to play golf and to leave their families and babies. Just like mccain.
and...ps:
CHURCH AND STATE SHOULD BE SEPARATE!!
I think the line about making women "pay" for what they've done gets to the real heart of the matter. Let's elect a president who actually likes and respects women. Not one who makes vile jokes about them and discards them when they no longer look like beauty queens.