on the hypocrisy of white evangelical christian voters regarding abortion

on being recently replayed a 2008 episode that was a debate between three white christian men. krista said the 2008 conversation had even more relevance today given how influential white evangelical christians were in putting trump in the white house. while i learned that chuck colson is a believer in the type of blind christianity that repulses me and my generation, it was nice to remember that there are christians in the world like shane claiborne and greg boyd. they really believe in interrogating the bible, especially when it doesn’t seem to support justice in their daily realities. anyway, the interview it gave me three post ideas. today’s is on “being pro-life.””

early on in the episode, the question about being a single-issue voter came up. the discussion was basically about how people, especially around abortion, will refuse to vote for a candidate that they disagree. many christians simply refuse to vote for pro-choice candidates.

shane and greg basically called that out as being bullshit (my word). between the two of them, they made some really good points. for example:

• if you claim to be pro-life, but are also pro-war and pro-death penalty, that is hypocrisy. you can’t be against killing babies but then be for killing adults.

• if you claim to be pro-life, but do nothing to support women who have children outside of their own decision, you are wrong. if you are going to sacrifice nothing to help young mothers carry their babies to term and then support them and the child thru child rearing, you are not pro-life. joan chittister says it more eloquently than most:

“I do not believe that just because you’re opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don’t? Because you don’t want any tax money to go there. That’s not pro-life. That’s pro-birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is.”

i really appreciated those points and i see this happen in my old florida christian community all the time. people rant and rave about being pro-life, go and have multiple children of their own, and then do literally nothing to support other mothers and parents. people will go bankrupt and live off their parents to have their own children, but then they turn around and picket sexually oppressed women and girls who want abortions to save their lives and avoid a baby being brought into a really terrible position in the world.

i can’t remember who either shane or greg dropped mother theresa as the ultimate pro-life example. she spent years caring for young mothers and their children. she gave her life for that. but rich white christians who just want to have their own kids while scorning and foresaking other people who struggle with theirs?

gtfoh.

and, of course, none of this is to say that anyone is even capable of being a perfect christian. but if that’s how you’re going to define your vote and then you’re gonna vote for someone who is so clearly against life for so many different groups of people… well, just don’t fucking talk to me about it. if you’re gonna flatten the complexity of our political system to a single issue and then put someone like djt in the white house… can’t even.