Varieties of Choice, and Whether Christians Can Be For Them
Jun 21st, 2008 by Micah Tillman | 9 Comments |
Dr. Gene Chase, my academic advisor and mentor from my undergraduate days, pointed out to me that my friend from the same era, Anthony DeRosa, has written up some thoughts that are rather consonant with my own re the legalization of same-sex marriage.
I tried to leave a comment over at Anthony’s blog, but the log-in system rejected me. So, I figured why not use my own blog? That’s why I have one, right?
Summary:
Anthony argues that it’s inconsistent to be in favor of religious freedom of choice (e.g., praising the 1st Amendment), and yet to want your own religion’s positions enforced by law. This means that if we Christians accept our fellow Christians’ being “pro-choice” on the matter of religion, we shouldn’t be surprised (necessarily) when fellow Christians are “pro-choice” on other issues.
If those other issues have a religious foundation for us, then our own support for religious freedom negates our own desire to not let other people choose different ways of handling those issues.
That’s the summary. You can read the post yourself to see if I misspoke.
Comment:
1.
There is a logical and semantic aspect to the “freedom of religion” issue. Logically, Anthony is correct that those of us who love the 1st Amendment are “pro-choice” religiously. However, semantically, I think it would be more accurate to say this:
It’s not so much that we want everyone to be able to choose whatever religion they want. It’s that we don’t want other people using force to make us believe whatever religion they want. So, we like the fact that government, that most powerful of pseudo-entities, is barred from making us believe whatever religion it wants.
On the tension between logic and semantics, see my post on semantic leakiness.
2.
Given Comment 1, I would argue that it’s best to frame the situation as follows:
When dealing with any issue, we must keep the question, (1) “What should government do/not do?” separate from the question, (2) “What should people do/not do?”
For example, I think I shouldn’t punish criminals, but think the police should. I think you shouldn’t make laws, but think the legislatures of our country should.
So, when I ask myself, “What religion should people choose?” it’s no surprise that my answer to that may be different than my answer to, “What religion should government make people choose?”
Anthony does a good job of showing how your being politically “pro-choice” doesn’t necessarily imply you’re personally “pro-choice.”
3.
There may be some issues on which your answer to Questions (1) and (2) above are the same. But that doesn’t necessarily imply that you’re mixing your personal (e.g., moral, religious) beliefs with your political beliefs. (On the distinction between moral and political issues, see my article on the subject.)
Even if you’re in favor of religious freedom, you may (for instance) believe that people should not abort babies because God says not to murder, and that government should not help people abort babies (and should even stop them from doing so) because it’s government’s job to stop murder.
And that would be perfectly legitimate, so long as you don’t use God to argue that abortion is murder while making your political case. The question is, “When and what is a person?” And there can be both religious and a-religious answers to that question.
So, your being religiously “pro-choice” does not necessitate your being pro-choice in any other area. It just means you have to use arguments for your answers to Question (1) which do not involve religion.
But if you can’t do that, consistency would demand that you refrain from arguing that government should get involved.
4.
Remember, just because you don’t think government should be against something, doesn’t mean you think it should be for it. Both of those options would require the issue to be “legalized” (i.e., to be something about which a law, whether for or against it, be made).
The third option is for the issue in question to be de-legalized (i.e., for it to be something about which government has no say, one way or another).
I am of the opinion that most things in life should be “de-legalized.”
Yikes! Just a few thoughts….
1. The government doesn’t give us choice over religion, necessarily, God Himself does (do I accept the free gift of grace or not?).
2. From Anthony:To be “pro-choice” is to give others the grace to make the right decision for themselves, even when their choices are wrong and destructive. That makes sense for part of the time, but not when the choice involves the life of another human being (such as abortion), regardless of how “formed” that person is.
3. As far as same – sex marriage, it’s about choice, sort of, but also validating that choice and raising it to the same level of God-ordained marriage, which freaks evangelicals out.
4. Now, I agree with you, Micah, that the gov’t should fairly stay out of church marriages. I think legal rights for unions for all persons should be ok, but only for reasons like tax and estate purposes. Pastors need to be waaaaaaaaay more selective about who they marry in a church anyway….
Sounds right to me.
On 1:
Instead of talking about government “giving” you a choice, it’s more accurate to talk about government staying out of your way (allowing vs. giving).
On 2:
Indeed. If you’re a Lockean, like me, you think government has two jobs: protecting people from physical attack by other people, and protecting people’s property from physical attack by other people.
On 3:
Fortunately, since government doesn’t speak for God, it can’t actually validate anything. It can only claim that it is doing so. So if it tried to validate murder (”if”?), it would fail. People might think it had validated murder, but it would just be lying to everyone. Murder would still be wrong.
Fortunately we don’t need government to teach us morality. We’re all grown up, as I wrote once, and can think for ourselves.
On 4:
Good point about pastors!
To copy you:
On 1: Totally!
On 2: I have no idea what I am; I feel like I’m evolving constantly!! :P
On 3: I like being grown up. :)
On 4: Thanks!
:) Hope you and the Wife are doing wonderfully!
When you run for public office some day, Amanda, I’m going to accuse you of being an “evolutionist” because you said you were constantly evolving, and it will ruin your chances.
And then I’ll win, and will take over world!
Mwah hah hah!
*cowers in fear*
*grins cheekily*
Micah!
How good to hear from you, even if it was by way of an email notifying me of possible spam on my blog! I approved your comment by the way (how could I not?!).
Thanks for summarizing and responding to my thoughts above; your entry has helped me better understand exactly what I was thinking. My blog entry was a persuasive essay, and the audience was myself! The essay may not have been convincing enough, though, because I wouldn’t consider myself pro-choice regarding abortion or same-sex marriage. However, I have learned that making “good” laws is tricky business in a pluralistic society and that people of good will often exist on both sides of a given issue.
I look forward to reading the other entries in your blog, especially the ones regarding government. Let’s get together some time. I hear that you’re at AMU. Prisca and I (and Josiah and Anderson) live in Columbia, MD. Drop me a line, you now have my email address with the submission of this comment.
Take care,
Anthony
Not a disagreement so much as an addition I’d like to throw into the conversation:
Well before I was a Christian, I looked at the fact that many folks, but particularly evangelicals wanted to use governmental mechanisms to push forth their agendas.
It appeared to me that these people did not trust the arena of public discourse to convince me that abortion was wrong, or that same-sex marriages shouldn’t be sanctioned by the government.
It seemed to me that there are only a couple potential reasons that they would not trust that arena:
A) they must think I’m too stupid to get it.
B) They must realize that they have no leg to stand on.
The way I viewed things might have been a bit of an oversimplification. But the fact is that there is an evangelistic/public relations component to the ways we use government. When things don’t go our way and we turn to legislation we run the risk of looking like a school kid who’s running off to the teacher as soon as things don’t go his way.
Anthony–
Sweet! That sounds like a fantasmagorical idea :-D
And on the issue of writing for oneself, I find I often don’t figure out exactly what I think until I’m done writing; so even if one has no audience in mind other than oneself, I think writing is always a great exercise. So I approve. ;-)
Jeff–
Great points, IMO. Conservatives have the same feelings about government-mandated charity (e.g., “entitlement programs”).
Jeff,
I read an article on CNN today that reminded me of your post above.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/06/24/evangelical.vote/index.html
The summary is that Obama gave a speech in which he basically says that one cannot use the Bible to legislate. James Dobson responds and says that Obama is taking things out of context and that Christians should be able to attempt to legislate anything they want in a Democracy, no matter how unpopular.
I agree with Dobson, that people should be able to have a voice no matter how unpopular their opinions, but I think Jeff’s point above is well taken. Christians must have a better argument than “because the Bible says so” in a society where the Bible is not very popular.
I also agree with Obama in that our government should defend itself as opposed to turning the other cheek. Christ’s words in the Sermon on the Mount were directed towards people for sure, but I’m not convinced they were also directed towards governmental entities (I’m not a pacifist).
This all gets back to Micah’s comment (2), how do you draw the line between what you think people should do versus what the government should do.
-Anthony