The Case for Life E-Book

Scott Klusendorf

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Beschreibung

Pro-life Christians, take heart: the pro-life message can compete in the marketplace of ideas-provided Christians properly understand and articulate that message. Too many Christians do not understand the essential truths of the pro-life position, making it difficult for them to articulate a biblical worldview on issues like abortion, cloning, and embryo research. The Case for Life provides intellectual grounding for the pro-life convictions that most evangelicals hold. Author Scott Klusendorf first simplifies the debate: the sanctity of life is not a morally complex issue. It's not about choice, privacy, or scientific progress. To the contrary, the debate turns on one key question: What is the unborn? From there readers learn how to engage the great bio-tech debate of the twenty-first century, how to answer objections persuasively, and what the role of the pro-life pastor should be.

Leseprobe

The Case for Life

Copyright © 2009 by Scott L. Klusendorf

Published by Crossway Booksa publishing ministry of Good News Publishers1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.

Cover design: Amy Bristow

Cover photo: Life Issues Institute (www.lifeissues.org).

First printing, 2009

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are taken from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible: English Standard Version®). Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations from The New American Standard Bible® are used by permission. Copyright © by The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977.

All emphases in Scripture quotations have been added by the author.

ISBN PDF: 978-1-4335-0553-9

ISBN Mobipocket: 978-1-4335-0554-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Klusendorf, Scott, 1960–The case for life : equipping Christians to engage the culture / Scott Klusendorf.p. cm.Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 978-1-4335-0320-7 (tpb) 1. Abortion—Religious aspects—Christianity. 2. Pro-life movement—United States. II. Title HQ767.25.K58            2009 261.8'36—dc22

2008041696

VP 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09

14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Stephanie,my beloved wife,who has never wavered in her support for my pro-life workand whose love gives me courage to confront ideasthat diminish us all

CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

Part OnePro-Life Christians Clarify the Debate

1 What’s the Issue?

2 What Is the Unborn?

3 What Makes Humans Valuable?

4 Is Embryonic Stem Cell Research Morally Complex?

Part TwoPro-Life Christians Establish a Foundation for the Debate

5 The Ground Rules, Part 1: Can You Name My Claim?

6 The Ground Rules, Part 2: Is Moral Neutrality Possible?

7 Foundations: Does God Matter? (Or Am I Just Matter?)

8 Dead Silence: Does the Bible Justify Abortion?

Part ThreePro-Life Christians Answer Objections Persuasively

9 From Debate to Dialogue: Asking the Right Questions

10 The Coat Hanger Objection: “Women Will Die from Illegal Abortions”

11 The Tolerance Objection: “You Shouldn’t Force Your Views on Others”

12 The Single Issue Objection: “Pro-Lifers Should Broaden Their Focus”

13 The Hard Cases Objection: “Rape Justifies Abortion”

14 The “I Don’t Like You” Objection: “Men Can’t Get Pregnant” and Other Personal Attacks

15 The Bodily Autonomy Objection: “It’s My Body, I’ll Decide”

Part FourPro-Life Christians Teach and Equip

16 Equip to Engage: The Pro-Life Pastor in the Twenty-First Century

17 Healed and Equipped: Hope for Post-Abortion Men and Women

18 Here We Stand: Co-Belligerence without Theological Compromise

19 Can We Win? How Pro-Life Christians Are Making an Extraordinary Impact

Appendix: Training Resources

PREFACE

THIS BOOK BEARS THE MARKS of two men who mentored my early development as a pro-life apologist.

Gregg Cunningham, executive director of the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, made the first investment, though I doubt he knew it the first time we met.

The setting was a Saturday breakfast for pastors in November 1990. At the time I was an associate pastor in Southern California, and organizers from the local crisis pregnancy center and right-to-life affiliate invited me and a hundred others to hear a pro-life message aimed at equipping church leaders to think strategically about abortion.

Four of us showed up.

Undeterred by the dismal attendance, Gregg, with his background in law and politics (he served two terms in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives where he wrote the bill ending tax-financed abortions in that state), launched into the most articulate case for the lives of the unborn I’d ever heard. That was impressive enough.

But then he showed the pictures. Horrible pictures that made you cry.

In the course of one seven-minute video depicting abortion, my career aspirations were forever altered, though it took me a few months to realize it. Gregg asked us to think of the two religious leaders in the Parable of the Good Samaritan who, although they most likely felt pity for the beating victim, did not act like they felt pity. Only the Good Samaritan took pity, thus proving he truly did love his neighbor.

For the next several months, I followed Gregg to many of his Southern California speaking events. I memorized huge portions of his talks and devoured his writings. Six months later I left my job as an associate pastor (with the blessing of the church) and hounded Gregg even more until he put me on staff as his understudy, a position I was privileged to hold for six years. Watching him dismantle abortion-choice arguments in front of hostile audiences, I lost my fear of opposition. Watching him sacrifice the comforts of this life so he could save unborn humans, I lost my desire for an easy job. Both losses have served me well.

Gregg’s signature quote haunts me to this day: “Most people who say they oppose abortion do just enough to salve the conscience but not enough to stop the killing.” That’s a staggering truth. Every time I am tempted to quit, I remember it.

While Gregg Cunningham taught me courage, Greg Koukl taught me to be a gracious ambassador for the Christian worldview. Koukl is not only a top-notch apologist, he’s also one of the most winsome guys you’ll ever meet. His mission is to equip Christians to graciously and incisively defend truth. That’s refreshing, as too many Christians lack the diplomatic skills needed to effectively engage listeners.

I first heard Greg on the radio back in 1989. I thought, Wow, this guy is really smart! By 1993 his Sunday afternoon show was my personal clinic in clear thinking. In 1996 we met for the first time at a pro-life conference in Pasadena, where we were both presenters. In 1997 we met again, this time for lunch. Later that same year I joined his staff at Stand to Reason.

Shortly thereafter, Greg taught me a valuable lesson that continues to pay off each time I write or speak. The setting was the University of Illinois (Champaign), where I was scheduled to debate author and political science professor Eileen McDonagh. (I discuss McDonagh’s views in Chapter 15.) Campus abortion-choice advocates did not want the debate to transpire and tried numerous ploys to stop it. First, they claimed that debates only serve to legitimize the “anti-choice” position. If you won’t debate slavery advocates, why on earth debate pro-lifers? When that didn’t fly, they went after me personally with a series of editorials in the school newspaper. Every one of those stories falsely claimed I was associated with groups advocating violence against abortion doctors, while some even claimed that I hated gays.

In response, I typed out a heated reply that shot down each of those lies and sent it off to Greg for a quick review before faxing it to the school paper.

That was a smart move. Greg graciously suggested that I tone things down a bit, or a lot. Instead of anger, I should communicate sadness that a fine university committed to the free exchange of ideas would even think of censoring a debate over a legitimate public policy question. His advice saved the day. I revised the letter, and instead of looking like angry victims, the pro-lifers on campus now appeared reasonable and willing to debate while the abortion-choicers looked like cowards out to suppress academic freedom. The school paper even hinted as much in a subsequent write-up after the debate was canceled. (I showed up anyway and after making a defense for the pro-life view took questions from critics, which made abortion-choicers look even more unreasonable.) The comic drawing alongside the story suggested that those censoring the event were “pansies.”

From that day forward I had a Koukl filter. Even if I’m hundreds of miles away, I hear Greg asking if the piece I’ve just written or the talk I’ve just given communicates in a winsome and attractive manner. When the answer is no, guess where I go?

Back to his radio show. Back to the CDs. Back to the commentaries on the Stand to Reason website. It’s there I recover my ambassador skills.

I thank God for both of these men. They are responsible for saving countless lives and equipping many others for effective Christian service. I am but one they’ve impacted for eternity.

I am also indebted to others who played a direct role in this book. Steve Weimar, my associate and friend at Life Training Institute, not only works tirelessly organizing (and promoting) my speaking events, he’s also my number one sounding board. Many pages in this book were strengthened with his critical eye.

Throughout the writing process, Jay Watts, Stephanie Gray, Steve Wagner, and Rich Poupard made valuable contributions, refining the contents of the original manuscript. Patrick Lee at the Franciscan University of Steubenville also made helpful suggestions.

These are challenging days for pro-life advocates. The executive and legislative branches of the federal government are now firmly in the hands of those deeply committed to the proposition that an entire class of human beings can be killed simply because they are in the way of something we want. Even as I write, liberal lawmakers are crafting legislation designed to sweep away every limitation on abortion and destructive embryo research. If that weren’t bad enough, a small but vocal group of “pro-life” leaders now says we might as well give up the fight to legally protect unborn humans.

Yes, they are right about one thing. Things are bad.

But surrender is not an option. We must equip ourselves to engage.

My prayer is that the words found in this book will give you courage to do just that.

INTRODUCTION

RIGHT NOW AS YOU ARE reading this sentence, the United States (and to some degree, Great Britain and Canada) is having a huge argument over two key questions that will impact you, your children, and even your grandchildren for decades to come. How we answer these questions will do nothing less than determine the future of human beings.

First, we’re arguing about truth. Is moral truth real and knowable, or is it just a preference like choosing chocolate ice cream over vanilla? Second, we’re arguing over human value. Are you and I valuable for what we are intrinsically or only valuable for what we can do functionally?

The question of truth and the question of human value are driving our national debates on abortion, cloning, and embryonic stem cell research (ESCR). The debates are contentious because they involve deep worldview commitments that get to the heart of who and what we are as people. But the debate itself is not complex. Either you believe that each and every human being has an equal right to life or you don’t.

Pro-life Christians provide one answer. Although humans differ in their respective degrees of development, they are nonetheless equal because they share a common human nature that bears the image of their Creator. Humans have value simply because they are human.

Secular critics like David Boonin provide a radically different perspective: Although you are identical to the embryo you once were—meaning you are the same being now as you were then—it does not follow that you had the same right to life then as you do now. Being human is nothing special, meaning your right to life is strictly accidental. You have it because of some acquired characteristic you have that embryos do not. To make sure we get the point, Boonin includes this chilling passage:

On my desk in my office where most of this book [A Defense of Abortion] was written and revised, there are several pictures of my son, Eli. In one, he is gleefully dancing on the sand along the Gulf of Mexico, the cool ocean breeze wreaking havoc with his wispy hair. In a second, he is tentatively seated in the grass in his grandparents’ backyard, still working to master the feat of sitting up on his own. In a third, he is only a few weeks old, clinging firmly to the arms that are holding him and still wearing the tiny hat for preserving body heat that he wore home from the hospital. Through all of the remarkable changes that these pictures preserve, he remains unmistakably the same little boy. In the top drawer of my desk, I keep another picture of Eli. This picture was taken . . . 24 weeks before he was born. The sonogram image is murky, but it reveals clearly enough a small head tilted back slightly, and an arm raised up and bent, with the hand pointing back toward the face and the thumb extended out toward the mouth. There is no doubt in my mind that this picture, too, shows the same little boy at a very early stage in his physical development. And there is no question that the position I defend in this book entails that it would have been morally permissible to end his life at this point.1

So what makes us equal? Here’s Boonin’s problem: If humans only have fundamental value because of some characteristic they possess in varying degrees, those with more of it have greater value than those with less.

My own thesis is that a biblically informed pro-life view explains human equality, human rights, and moral obligations better than its secular rivals and that rank-and-file pro-life Christians can make an immediate impact provided they’re equipped to engage the culture with a robust but graciously communicated case for life.

Making that case is what this book is about.

Part 1 helps pro-life Christians simplify debates over abortion and embryonic stem cell research. These issues are not morally complex, though they are often presented that way. Can we kill the unborn? Yes, I think we can, if. If what? If the unborn are not human beings.

Part 2 explains why moral neutrality is impossible. In a typical abortion debate, the pro-life advocate will be grilled incessantly on every one of his starting points. His critics will demand to know how a right to life can stand apart from fundamental religious underpinnings, why those underpinnings should be allowed to inform public policy, and why anyone should suppose that just because I exist as a human, I have a right to life that others are obliged to respect. The truth is, both sides bring prior metaphysical commitments to the debate and are asking the same exact question: What makes humans valuable in the first place?

For Christians fearful they’ll get caught with nothing to say on abortion, Part 3 provides answers to the most common objections including appeals to the hard cases, assertions of bodily autonomy, and personal attacks that ignore the real issue. Pro-lifers who stay focused on the one question that truly matters, the status of the unborn, won’t be sidetracked.

Part 4 addresses questions related to the pastoral side of pro-life advocacy. First, what is the role of the pro-life pastor? To make an impact on culture, pro-life pastors must not only understand the times but pursue four vital tasks that I outline in some detail. Second, are evangelicals who work with Catholics, Jews, and others to reform culture compromising the gospel? Some evangelicals say yes. I say no, provided we draw careful lines between co-belligerence and co-confession. Third, how can post-abortion women and men find hope? Many precious pro-life advocates I meet are trying to atone for past abortions with tireless activity. There’s a better way. It’s called grace. Finally, I conclude with three goals designed to lay a foundation for victory.

I do not pretend to have written an exhaustive defense of the pro-life view. That’s been done already by selected authors I cite throughout the text. My purpose is different. This book will take those sophisticated pro-life defenses and put them in a form that hopefully equips and inspires lay Christians (with or without academic sophistication) to engage the debate with friends, coworkers, and fellow believers.

Admittedly, a book about pro-life apologetics may not appeal to some lay Christians. It seems many believers would rather focus on end times rather than these times. That’s a mistake. Humans who ignore questions about truth and human value may soon learn what it really means to be left behind.

1 David Boonin, A Defense of Abortion (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), xiii–xiv.

PART ONE

PRO-LIFE CHRISTIANS CLARIFY THE DEBATE

1

WHAT’S THE ISSUE?

The abortion controversy is not a debate between those who are pro-choice and those who are anti-choice. It’s not about privacy. It’s not about trusting women to decide. It’s not about forcing one’s morality. It’s about one question that trumps all others.

EMILY NEVER SAW IT COMING. A fifteen-year friendship was on the brink of disaster over one word. Abortion.

She met Pam at a Christian college, and the relationship paid off immediately. Emily excelled at language and history, while Pam was a math and science whiz. Together they could tackle any required course, and they did. Both graduated with honors a semester ahead of their classmates. Within a year they both married their college sweethearts. Later, when kids came along and budgets got tight, they swapped baby clothes and enjoyed occasional sack lunches together. Even when a job change forced Pam to move fifty miles away, they still managed to meet for coffee at least once a month. Emily looked forward to her times with Pam. She needed escape from the kids, not to mention the endless grind of household chores. Pam was easy to talk to, optimistic, and always lifted Emily’s spirits. Sometimes they shared prayer requests.

Now Emily wondered if they would ever feel connected again. For the hundredth time that night, she replayed the conversation that started it all.

Pam: Emily, did I tell you that my niece, Sarah, is pregnant?

Emily: What? You mean the one in California? We’ve never met, but you talk about her a lot.

Pam: Yes, that’s the one. You’d love her. She’s nineteen and a freshman at college. Sweet, sweet girl. Smart as a whip and drop-dead gorgeous. I would have never thought . . .

Emily: Did her parents have any clue she was in trouble?

Pam: None. Sarah attends church religiously and never had a serious boyfriend before Jack. They met over the summer and attend the same university. He swept her right off her feet.