RSSA Couple Personal Notes for the DRC Reading Community
Caleb Stegall
I’ve started a weekly column here.
Probably the most significant abortion litigation in the country right now just became public: story here. (Let ‘er rip, SteveZ!)
Adventures in politics here. Email me if you want to contribute!
Regarding the last, and the previous post and comment—for all you BFers, I hear Chellis has political aspirations, you need to recruit him for Beaver County DA.
stevez
May 7th, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Sorry, let what rip? Despite the typical, swirling comments around whatever this is that is going on, sure sounds to me like America is working, more or less. Maybe not to the satisfaction of the various observers here and there who may have been duped by the notion of exact justice and the stuff of paranoid punditry and fantastical sensationalism which attends it. But something tells me such dissatisfaction means America is working. I’m good. Should I not be…?
Best on your aspirations; looks like heady times for the good Father.
D Hart
May 12th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Shucks, I was hoping for a food fight.
stevez
May 13th, 2008 at 9:23 am
With all due respect to John Belushi, Darryl, all things done in a good and decent order. Besides, I’m still wiping mashed potatoes from my ears.
stevez
May 14th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
I wonder if I was supposed to say something about how Calvinism might suggest a veer from typical abortion discussions, like how so-called “pro-life” rhetoric can, in an age that outfits children in head-to-toe crash gear to pedal twenty-three feet to a neighbor’s, end up championing the doctrines of creaturely comfort and ease; or the denial of the realities with which all sinners must live; or the idea that one class of human beings somehow deserves to be less subject to the sort of discomforts, pains, sufferings and death the rest are? Or how, if the reasoning is an appeal to the dignity of life, why are some entitled to less of its indignities than others? Or was I supposed to ask whether it is really so unfathomable that a policy could reasonably be in place wherein some of us might end up losing our lives? I mean, it seems to me that happens every day and very few bat an eye. I realize certain forms of political correctness say we ought not ask such questions or that they are to be easily dismissed without merit.
But is that how one starts a food fight?
Andrew Matthews
May 16th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
Well, Steve, I for one am interested in how you think Calvinism contributes anything at all the the abortion discussion. Isn’t the W2K line that Christianity has nothing unique to contribute to political questions?
I’m also interested in seeing how you argue that “pro-life rhetoric” ends up championing the social ends of creaturely comfort and ease, and how belief that the most vulnerable among us should be protected translates into a denial of the harsh realities of life. It seems very possible to me to deplore and work against the “culture of comfort” while at the same time honoring and protecting the image of God.
Does Steve, the fire-breathing Calvinist, have a robust doctrine of man that goes along with his doctrine of God?
You also asked Steve, “how, if the reasoning is an appeal to the dignity of life, why are some entitled to less of its indignities than others?”
It’s hard for me to understand what you mean here. Are you asking why unborn children should be less exposed to life’s indignities than others? Or, is this obfuscation to cloak the fact that you think unborn children should enjoy less legal protection than the born?
You also asked, “Or was I supposed to ask whether it is really so unfathomable that a policy could reasonably be in place wherein some of us might end up losing our lives?”
By “reasonable policy”, I suppose you mean the legal right to have an abortion. While it is true there are many policies where “some of us…end up losing our lives,” I can only think of one (policy) where the intent is to positively sanction the taking of human life (or the choice to do so) for convenience’ sake. And in this lies the vast moral difference between legal abortion and other policies that inadvertently result in loss of life.
What good is Calvinistic tough-mindedness when simple moral distinctions such as this can’t be made?