A recent article in Salon magazine describes
When evangelicals were pro-choice and the NRA was pro-gun control: A history of hypocrisy. About evangelicals and the abortion issue it says:
quote:
For evangelicals (rather than Roman Catholics), the entire premise of the moral crusade against Roe is utterly bogus. Here’s how Jonathan Dudley, author of "Broken Words: The Abuse of Science and Faith in American Politics," explained it on CNN’s Belief blog in 2012:
quote:
In 1968, Christianity Today published a special issue on contraception and abortion, encapsulating the consensus among evangelical thinkers at the time. In the leading article, professor Bruce Waltke, of the famously conservative Dallas Theological Seminary, explained the Bible plainly teaches that life begins at birth:
God does not regard the fetus as a soul, no matter how far gestation has progressed. The Law plainly exacts: 'If a man kills any human life he will be put to death' (Lev. 24:17). But according to Exodus 21:22—24, the destruction of the fetus is not a capital offense. Clearly, then, in contrast to the mother, the fetus is not reckoned as a soul.
The magazine Christian Life agreed, insisting, The Bible definitely pinpoints a difference in the value of a fetus and an adult. And the Southern Baptist Convention passed a 1971 resolution affirming abortion should be legal not only to protect the life of the mother, but to protect her emotional health as well.
So evangelicals were once pro-choice. The change in position is
reported here by Max Blumenthal:
quote:
"What changed their mind was Jimmy Carter's intervention against the Christian schools, trying to deny them tax-exempt status on the basis of so-called de facto segregation."
...
As evangelical leaders formed common cause with Catholics on topics like feminism and homosexuality, they began re-interpreting the Bible as teaching the Roman Catholic position on abortion.
Falwell’s first major treatment of the issue, in a 1980 book chapter called, significantly, The Right to Life, declared, The Bible clearly states that life begins at conception. (Abortion) is murder according to the Word of God.
With the megawatt power of his TV presence and mailing list, Falwell and his allies disseminated these interpretations to evangelicals across America.
In other words, evangelicals flipped their beliefs in the 1980's, adopting the Catholic view on abortion and becoming anti-abortion.
Faith and Belief, please.
--Percy