Christianity's "War on Women"?

Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, announced on January 20, 2012, that, as part of preventive health services for women, all health plans must provide no-cost coverage—including deductibles and co-payments—for all contraceptives and sterilization procedures approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Her announcement ignited an immediate furor from conservatives and Catholic groups complaining that this regulation—part of Obamacare—impinged on their first amendment right to religious freedom.

Besides the fact that it is against Catholic teaching, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops argued that contraception is not basic healthcare but "an elective intervention that stops the healthy functioning of healthy women's reproductive systems." Conservative commentators railed that requiring taxpayers to fund contraception is essentially forcing citizens to pay other people to have sex.

Not long thereafter, the Obama administration granted religious institutions an exception: An employee of such an institution that does not provide reproductive healthcare can seek it directly from the insurance company at no additional cost. On March 1, the Democrat-controlled Senate rejected 51-48 a proposed amendment to the healthcare law extending this exception more broadly.

The absurdity of the contraception mandate was revealed on February 16, when Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University Law Center graduate student, was asked to speak before the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee (not a formal Congressional hearing). She argued that religious institutions, even those with moral objections, should provide free contraception in their health insurance. She claimed that birth control could cost $1,000 per year (or as she specifically said, $3,000 over three years), stating that four out of ten of the university's female students suffered financial hardship because the student health insurance plan does not cover it. Many low-income students must go without contraceptives, she averred, because the women's free health clinics cannot meet the need.

Critics like Rush Limbaugh pummeled Fluke on the air, highlighting the ridiculous nature of her claims, especially the cost of contraception. As Cathy Cleaver Ruse, a Georgetown Law graduate, wrote in an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal:

But an employee at a Target pharmacy near the university told the Weekly Standard last week that one month's worth of generic oral contraceptives is $9 per month. "That's the price without insurance," the employee said. (It's also $9 per month at Wal-Mart.)

. . . Should Ms. Fluke give up a cup or two of coffee at Starbucks each month to pay for her birth control, or should Georgetown give up its religion? Even a first-year law student should know where the Constitution comes down on that.

Limbaugh ran afoul of the media after he used terms to describe Fluke that he later regretted saying and apologized for. However, his outburst was enough to alter the angle of the debate. Jesse Ferguson, spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, complained, "Rush Limbaugh has come to Republicans' defense in their war on women." Fluke herself opined in a statement on March 1, expanding the field of those attacking "all women": 

Unfortunately, numerous commentators have gone far beyond the acceptable bounds of civil discourse. No woman deserves to be disrespected in this manner. This language is an attack on all women, and has been used throughout history to silence our voices. The millions of American women who have and will continue to speak out in support of women's health care and access to contraception prove that we will not be silenced.

That same day, The Washington Post ran a guest editorial by Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite titled "All about Eve: The Christian roots of the GOP's war on women." She writes:

This attack on women is, and I am grieved to say it, driven by a particular Christian theological perspective that denigrates women and holds them responsible for sin, particularly sexual sin.

GOP politics today is, in fact, all about Eve.

The GOP war on women will continue precisely because of the conservative Christian theology that drives wedge politics in a campaign season has a fundamental contempt for women and their equal dignity and worth.

We in the church of God realize that it is not all Eve's fault. In I Timothy 2:14, Paul clearly writes that Eve sinned because she was deceived and implies that Adam sinned willingly (see Genesis 3:6). Further, the apostle states in Romans 5:12 that "through one man sin entered the world," and he repeats this in verses 15, 17, 18, and 19, naming Adam as the sinner. Thus, a "Christian" theology that puts women down for "Original Sin" is not based on biblical teaching.

The Bible consistently teaches that it is the man's responsibility to set the moral tone in his marriage and family, which Adam failed to do. This morality in relationships begins even before marriage. A young man looking for a wife must be scrupulous in his courting of a young woman, keeping the seventh commandment firmly in mind (Exodus 20:14).

And this brings us back to the controversy over the contraception mandate. Americans are embroiled in this argument because of promiscuity—illicit premarital sex by both men and women. The sexual revolution has borne more bitter fruit, this time endangering one of the fundamental freedoms granted to citizens by the Bill of Rights: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." It has become evident that a large segment of the American population values their sexual freedom more highly than their religious freedom—to the detriment of those of us who do not.

Jeremiah 13:26-27 confirms this as a sign of the end, as God promises destruction: "Therefore I will uncover your skirts over your face, that your shame may appear. I have seen your adulteries and your lustful neighings, the lewdness of your harlotry, your abominations on the hills in the fields. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! Will you still not be made clean?"

Unfortunately, at this point, national repentance seems unlikely. Is it not ironic that, in a country that values freedom so much, a kind of liberty—libertinism—could be so instrumental in bringing it down?

The Specter of Transhumanism

Maximum Ride is a popular science-fiction/action-adventure series, ultimately to be eight books, written by novelist James Patterson. These books, aimed at teens, are loosely based on two novels for adults, When the Wind Blows and The Lake House, also by Patterson. The central conceit in all ten books is that a secret biotechnology laboratory, after many horrible failures, successfully “created” several human-bird hybrids through some sort of genetic engineering. The resultant children—highly intelligent, exceptionally strong, and able to fly due to their having wings—are neither truly human nor truly birds. They are presented as beyond human, better than human. Modern bioethicists would call them posthuman or transhuman.

This idea of evolving or transforming beyond humanity is on a great many minds these days. It is suffused throughout popular culture in books, movies, and television shows. Whether it is accidental enhancement giving Peter Parker spider abilities, succumbing to the bite of a vampire, or growing the next super-race in a test tube, imaginative minds are dreaming about the next step in human development. No matter what the source of the enhancement, there always seems to be an underlying admiration of the resulting superpowers.

We could just laugh these matters off as far out manifestations of the minds of sci-fi writers who drink too many Red Bulls and get too little sleep. Unfortunately, the idea of transhumanism has reached beyond the imagination to the potentially practical, and highly placed and influential people are taking it seriously. Dr. Thomas R. Horn writes in “The Hybrid Age”:

An international, intellectual, and fast-growing cultural movement known as transhumanism supports this vision, as does a flourishing list of U.S. military advisors, bioethicists, law professors, and academics, which intend the use of genetics, robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and synthetic biology (Grins technologies) as tools that will radically redesign our minds, our memories, our physiology, our offspring, and even perhaps—as Joel Garreau, in his bestselling book Radical Evolution, claims—our very souls.

The Brookings Institute, a leading Washington, DC, policy think tank, has published a book, Constitution 3.0: Freedom and Technological Change, in which the authors tackle various issues that “by the year 2025 could stress current constitutional law. The resulting essays explore scenarios involving information technology, genetic engineering, security, privacy and beyond.” The American government, specifically the National Institute of Health, is planning for that day, granting $773,000 to Cleveland’s Case Law School to begin developing guidelines for policy on “genetic enhancement,” as they call the next step in human evolution. Even National Geographic speculated in 2007 that the world would witness the advent of “human non-humans” within a decade. A website, Transhumanist Resources, provides an idea of how extensive transhumanist ideas have permeated today’s world.

Back in 2004, the editors of Foreign Policy asked eight foreign policy intellectuals, “What ideas, if embraced, would pose the greatest threat to the welfare of humanity?” Francis Fukuyama, Olivier Nomellini Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University, author of Our Posthuman Future: Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution, and a former member of the George W. Bush’s President's Council on Bioethics, chose to write about transhumanism. He classifies it as “a strange liberation movement” that seeks “nothing less than to liberate the human race from its biological constraints.”

The idea, he admits, is intriguing and attractive. Who would not want to be better, stronger, faster, smarter, and/or healthier than we are now? And is not the story of humanity—under the evolutionary way of thinking—one of change and progress for the better? He writes:

The seeming reasonableness of the project, particularly when considered in small increments, is part of its danger. Society is unlikely to fall suddenly under the spell of the transhumanist worldview. But it is very possible that we will nibble at biotechnology's tempting offerings without realizing that they come at a frightful moral cost.

Fukuyama concludes his article, “If we do not develop [a humility concerning our humanity] soon, we may unwittingly invite the transhumanists to deface humanity with their genetic bulldozers and psychotropic shopping malls.”

There is also a fear that the public will have little or no say about “progress” in transforming humanity. A June 9, 2008, article in Wired, “Top Pentagon Scientists Fear Brain-Modified Foes,” suggests that military expediency may drive research on these lines:

There’s concern in some corners of the U.S. military about “enemy activities in sleep research,” neuro-pharmaceutical performance enhancement, and “brain-computer interfaces.” And it’s not coming from the Pentagon’s scientific fringe, or from some tin-hat kook with a Defense Department badge. The celebrated scientists on the Pentagon’s most prestigious scientific advisory panel, JASON, are the ones worried about adversaries’ ability “to exploit advances in Human Performance Modification, and thus create a threat to national security.”

In other words, some see a kind of arms race heating up—not over nuclear, chemical, or biological weaponry, but over creating better soldiers, ones that can stay awake longer, perform better, and directly interface with weapons technologies. Who can tell what kind of being will be unleashed upon the world as a result?

While these advances may still be years away, the potential for them is becoming more likely all the time. How long until cloning and genetic engineering are done on human beings—or are secret labs or the proverbial mad scientists already experimenting on these things? Will some pharmaceutical corporation come up with a pill that will enhance strength or agility or the ability of one or more of the senses? Will engineers find a way to meld computers or robotics with human tissue to make a cyborg of sorts? People are working on projects that may lead to these kinds of “advances.”

God does not tell us whether He will allow such things to happen or not, but when He saw what was happening at Babel, He said, “Indeed the people are one . . . and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them” (Genesis 11:6). Even back then, He had to take drastic action to keep mankind from “progressing” to today’s potential and beyond. Perhaps this time, He will send His Son to stop the madness.

"Potential Persons" and "After-birth Abortions"

The latest abomination to come down the medical-ethics pike is the February 23, 2012, publication of “After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?” in the Journal of Medical Ethics. This article is written by two ethicists, Alberto Guibilini and Francesca Minerva, both of whom are now working in Melbourne, Australia—he, at Monash University, and she, at the University of Melbourne. Both have ties to Oxford University in Great Britain.

The abstract of their article runs as follows:

Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus’ health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.

Yes, they actually wrote that in a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal. These two ethicists—who do not deserve the title—advocate infanticide on the same level that abortion is “largely accepted.” They generally conclude that the same arguments that can be marshaled in support of killing a fetus in the womb can be applied just as well to killing a child who has recently left the womb. Without apology, they argue that since, in their way of thinking, fetuses and newborns are only “potential people” and not actual ones, “the interests of actual people (parents, family, society) to pursue their own well-being” override any rights the fetuses and newborns allegedly have.

They go on to say that adoption is not a valid alternative to infanticide because “the interests of the actual people involved matter.” Thus, for example, since the birthmother may suffer “serious psychological problems due to the inability to elaborate [her] loss and to cope with [her] grief” in giving her baby up, her interest trumps the newborn’s right to life. Does that make any sense at all? To them, it does because they do not believe that the newborn is a person capable of having interests. In their minds, the newborn is sub-human, to borrow a term from eugenics, for in calling them “potential persons,” they are assigning them not-quite-human status.

We might think that their logic is horribly convoluted, but it is actually quite “sound” in the sense that they are not guilty of employing any readily apparent logical tricks. They are simply following accepted definitions and practices to their “logical” conclusions. What is wrong—indeed, terribly evil—are the foundation and suppositions of their philosophy. Since the original beliefs and assumptions are false, all of their subsequent conclusions take them further from the truth, though they may be ably reasoned using the accepted rules of argument.

As Jesus Christ admonishes us in Matthew 7:24-27—His parable of building on the rock—our beliefs must be solidly built on a true and immovable foundation. The thinking of Guibilini and Minerva is akin to the “foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall” (Matthew 7:26-27). In this case, the house is liberal Western society, and under beliefs like “after-birth abortion,” it will come crashing down in utter ruin.

A reading of the article brings out that the authors ignore the foundational question of the sanctity of life. They make no argument regarding the salient question, “When does life begin?” It is apparent that they have already resolved and accepted the position that embryos, fetuses, and newborns do not have a right to continued life unless “actual persons” grant it to them. “God is in none of [their] thoughts” (Psalm 10:4). Having rejected God’s very existence, and thus His revealed instructions for abundant living, they have set themselves—human beings—up as the highest authority, arbiters of life and death. With such power, they can decide by their own values and reasoning processes how and when any biological entity becomes a person deserving of a future existence.

What a brave new world men and women have created for themselves in their desire to live without God!

The sixth commandment, “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13), covers this transgression quite adequately once we accept that the newborn child is certainly a living human being—and has been for many months. While the Bible contains no direct statement that life begins at conception, many passages show that God is involved in people’s lives before they are born (see Psalm 139:13-16; 51:5; Isaiah 49:5; Jeremiah 1:4-5) and that the fetus is aware and responsive to God (Luke 1:41, 44). God even commands life for life if a fetus is miscarried after a fight (Exodus 21:22-24). The weight of biblical evidence falls on the side of life and full humanity for fetuses and newborns.

Actually, this brave new world of abortion and infanticide on demand is simply the modern equivalent of ancient pagan practices like the abhorrent idolatry of the Canaanites in Old Testament times. Pagans would sacrifice their children to their gods to “ensure” that the living would have better lives. They would make a child “pass through the fire to Molech” (an act obviously forbidden by God; Leviticus 18:21) to supplicate the god to give them fertile fields, victory in battle, or some other blessing. Ironically, these ancient people held the life of a child as more dear than today’s uber-selfish individuals do, as the latter most often abort babies merely for their own convenience.

Concerning this horrible sin, God says of the people of Judah in Jeremiah 32:35, “And they built the high places of Baal which are in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molech, which I did not command them, nor did it come into My mind that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.” As punishment, Jerusalem was “delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence” (Jeremiah 32:36). When such practices become commonplace, the society is ripe for destruction, as God intimates in Genesis 15:16 and Leviticus 18:24-29; 20:22-23.

There is nothing ethical about “potential persons” and “after-birth abortion.” They are the products of the twisted thinking of human beings tuned in to the broadcasts of a hateful Satan the Devil (Ephesians 2:2-3). He wants to destroy human life. Hundreds of millions of abortions are not enough to sate his appetite, so he has deceived people into taking the next step toward annihilation, infanticide. Could there be any better reason to increase our prayers to God to send His Son soon?

RBV: Job 30:13

They break up my path,

They promote my calamity;

They have no helper.

--Job 30:13

This verse appears in the midst of a long response from Job, answering the final argument proffered by Job's three "friends," Bildad's short, six-verse diatribe in Job 25. In the intervening chapters Job has told off Bildad (what a miserable counsellor he was), averred that he has remained righteous, and become sentimental about his happy, prosperous past. Here in chapter 30, he is letting everyone know just how deeply his present circumstance was humiliating him.

The chapter begins with Job describing his tormentors, the youths who taunt him as he sits in the dust, scraping his painful boils with a potsherd. He paints a picture of a group of outcasts, young men of no reputation and no lineage--as he says in verse 1, "whose fathers I disdained to put with the dogs of my flock," meaning that he thought less of them than even dogs, which were considered to be the basest of creatures in that part of the world. These low-lifes are gaunt and feeble from living off the land, and they dwell in caves or whatever shelter they can find. The townspeople drive them off when they wander too close.

Yet, in his miserable state, Job has become even lower than they--to the point that the off-scourings of the earth belittle him! They do not consider him to have fallen to their level, not by a long shot! No, they stand aloof, as if they are his betters, and spit in his face (verse 10)!

In Job 30:13, the verse in question, Job is illustrating the method of their assault upon him by using the metaphor of attacking a stronghold. In the previous verse, he says that "they raise against me their ways of destruction." By this, he means that they are building their engines of war and throwing up their own earthworks to enable them to destroy his defenses, thus they are plotting and planning his ruin.

Verse 13 continues the comparison to a siege. "They break up my path" suggests that they have blocked or demolished every escape route he might have taken to avoid destruction. He has nowhere to run.

He next says, "They promote my calamity." The NASB renders this, "They profit from my destruction." The NET Bible translates this as, "They succeed in destroying me." Keil and Delitzsch say it is more like, "They minister to my overthrow." The idea seems to be that these social and economic outcasts, who have no skills and never do anything well, are actually succeeding in bringing him down.

Thus the next phrase becomes more explicable: "They have no helper." They may be otherwise helpless, but in this matter, they do not need anyone to aid them. They are doing quite well on their own, thank you very much! Another idea may be in this phrase also: that it generally means that they are worthless persons, and no one from general society would stoop to help them--but in this case, the helpless need no help!

And so, Job goes on to say, he is ruined. He has no defenses against them, so he must succumb to their assault. His honor is gone, as is his prosperity. He has nothing and is nothing. How miserable Job must have been!

A Unique Blog Idea

I have a new idea for blog postings to set this one apart from the crowd. I'm a fair hand as an exegete, so I thought I would find a random verse generator--one that would pop up a random verse from anywhere in the entire Bible, not just from a selected list of verses--and utilize it to pick a verse to comment upon. I would take the first verse that came up, no matter how obscure, no matter what the topic, and explain it in context.

This seems pretty challenging to me, and might make a fairly interesting set of comments. It may also be a good way to come up with sermon topics and article ideas, which are just about the hardest part of my job, week in and week out. After so many years of speaking and writing, coming up with something "new" is an arduous task (not quite as tough as those of Hercules, but near enough). So, if I can use this means to spark ideas for my real work, I come out ahead.

In addition, this will also be a way of studying the Bible more thoroughly in areas that I would not normally be attracted to. I tend to gravitate toward the gospels and the historical books of Scripture, so the fact that the choosing would be random and quite out of my hands makes this a bit of a prod to venture outside my comfort zones.

Perhaps this is the answer to my questioning blog a few weeks back. I did get the idea as I was praying last night, so that may be a clue that this is a direction God wants me take.

Anyway, here goes!

"Sipping" God's Word Through a Firehose

Since the end of 2011, I have been engaged in following a Bible-Reading Plan developed by Professor Grant Horner in 1983. Unlike other plans in which a person reads, say, a chapter from the Old Testament and one from the New, this system has one read ten chapters each day. The Bible is divided into ten "lists" of books, and each day one chapter from each list is read. So, one reads a chapter from the gospels, a chapter from the Pentateuch, a chapter from the Psalms, a chapter from Paul's epistles, etc.

What a challenge this is! Even a speedy reader like me has to devote a good half-hour or more to this task each day. I am not looking forward to the day I have to read Psalm 119 in addition to nine other chapters! However, it does allow one to make connections between ideas in various sections of the Good Book, and if a person reads from his regular Bible, he quickly comes to recognize where certain verses or passages are.

But it is sometimes almost overwhelming. As someone once said, it is like trying to drink the water of God's Word through a firehose! It can seem to be too much, especially on busy days when the stresses of life are pressing down on the mind to get to other matters that must get done!

It is good that Professor Horner recommends that a person should simply read the chapters, neither skimming them or trying to glean too much from them. The idea is just to read God's Word to familiarize oneself with its content, and our amazing minds, a wonderful gift of God, does the rest. Without our realizing it, our subconscious is working with the material we have gone over, and that knowledge is stored away for use later. As we read it again and again, it becomes more firmly fixed and more easily used.

Even though it is a struggle at times, it is well worth the effort! There is no one standing over us with a whip if we miss a day or only have time to read a few chapters. We can always catch up when we have the time to do so.

So come join me by the fire hydrant for a good soaking in the Word of God!

Forty Days and Forty Nights

I heartily recommend The King's English blog as an excellent commentary on the various phrases from the King James Bible (also known as the Authorized Version) that have become part of our cultural vocabulary over the last 400 years (although I do not agree with some of the theology). I found this one on the phrase "forty days and forty nights" especially intriguing due to the author's highlighting of the outcomes of these periods of testing and trial. Here is the main point from the blog entry:

There are seven prominent periods of 40 days in the Bible.
The first “40 days” was the time of the flood-waters that fell in judgement on the earth. (Genesis 7:4)
Moses fasted 40 days on the mountaintop before entering God’s presence.
Israel sent 12 men to spy out the land of Canaan. They spent 40 days doing reconnaissance of the promised land.
Goliath taunted Israel for 40 days before David stepped forward to bring victory.
Jonah came to Nineveh with a message – in 40 days the city would be destroyed. But, because they repented, God visited not with judgement but with salvation.
For 40 days Jesus entered the desert (a place of trials and temptations) and emerged victorious.
Finally, there were 40 days between Jesus’ resurrection and the time of His ascension to heaven. It was a time when He proved Himself to His followers, showing them tokens of the resurrection life He promises to all.
40 days seems to be a time of testing and transition. For those who pass the test there is a new world to enjoy:

A world washed clean.

Face to face with the LORD.

A land of milk and honey.

Victory over the enemy.

Salvation.

The defeat of the devil.

The new creation.

This just shows that we should not despair if we find ourselves in a long spate of trouble, particularly if we come to realize that it is from God (and not necessarily something we have brought on ourselves by stupidity or rebellion). There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and the world we will see when we finally come out into the sunshine again will be one of great reward. So do not despair! A trial is not forever, and if we pass it in good order, we will really enjoy the result!