The Violent Hypocrisy of Some Peace & Justice Evangelicals

The "peace and justice" Christians are insistent in telling us they don't wish to move away from issues such as the protection of unborn Christian life. They simply seek to "expand" Christian social witness away from a truncated "Religious Right" focus on abortion and marriage. We're not pro-abortion, groups such as Sojourners and leaders such as Jim Wallis assure us. It's just that we believe that life doesn't begin at conception and end at birth. We believe, they say, that global warming and quality day care and an increased minimum wage are pro-life issues too! Next time you hear this kind of rhetoric, just spend some time looking at the kind of political activists drawn to the big tent of the evangelical Left.

Last summer I mentioned here the sad case of the Rev. Donna Schaper, pastor of Judson Memorial Baptist Church, an American Baptist congregation in New York. Rev. Schaper wrote in Tikkun magazine about aborting her daughter, a daughter she named "Alma." She wrote in the article that she doesn't apologize for or even regret her decision. She further argued that abortion has been a positive development, allowing sex to be "recreational" for both men and women.

In a chilling line, Rev. Schaper wrote:

I did what was right for me, for my family, for my work, for my husband, and for my three children. I happen to agree that abortion is a form of murder. I think the quarrel about when life begins is disrespectful to the fetus. I know I murdered the life within me. I could have loved that life but chose not to. I did what men do all the time when they take us to war: they choose violence because, while they believe it is bad, it is still better than the alternatives.

Now, Rev. Schaper writes in recent days for Jim Wallis's "God's Politics" blog on the subject of, of all things, responding to violence. In light of the Virginia Tech massacre, Schaper offers a "small guide for good worship" for Christians in response to acts of violence. These include her suggestion to involve 'diverse constituencies" in the worship. As she puts it: "This (in my view) is not the time to invoke the name of Jesus so much as the name of the God beyond God. Don’t alienate people who may never have wanted religious connection before!"

It would be appropriate and commendable for Jim Wallis to ask a self-confessed murderer to speak to the issue of violence. After all, a repentant and forgiven murderer stands as one of the pillars of the foundation of the church, the former Saul of Tarsus. A repentant killer could speak to the horror of violence, as one culpable and redeemed. But there is no Damascus Road here. This is a woman who has justified and celebrated the taking of an innocent human life, an act she says she knows is murder. And yet, she is the one, for Jim Wallis, who can instruct us on how "God's Politics" views violence, indeed how to worship in its wake.

About this much the "peace and justice" evangelicals are right indeed: It is easier to respond to violence in this way when one doesn't mention Jesus.

Comments

[Ethan Cordray]

The chaos of such an outlook astounds me. The idea that abortion is just like warfare...my goodness.

Sainted souls of the unborn, pray for her, and for us.

[ron chandonia]

To me, the saddest aspect of the witness borne by the "peace and justice" Christians these days is the suspicion their testimony casts on every Christian who speaks out in favor of peace and/or justice. Those very words now suggest an agenda in which the name of Jesus cannot even be mentioned.

That is certainly the case in many peace/justice circles, and not just on the Left Coast. A woman from our Catholic parish in Atlanta learned of the (utopian, I think) movement to create a federal Department of Peace and decided to become involved with a handful of local activists. She immersed herself in the work until she realized that any time she so much as mentioned her faith, her fellow peace activists recoiled . . . as if she had committed a horrible faux pas.

[Ethan Cordray]

Ron, I've noticed that very thing in my own mind. I don't want to feel suspicious whenever I see the word "justice" mentioned by Christians. But how can I think clearly about it when the word has become such a code word for liberal decadence?

[JS Bangs]

This is sad. I could probably be called a "peace and justice" Christian, since I'm against the war and for most of what goes under the label "social justice". But this is revolting. We should always mention Jesus, who is the only way we can get peace for the born and unborn alike.

[Kamilla]

It would probably easier for the more conservative-leaning among us to be "peace and justice" Christians ourselves, or at least have less suspicion of the term, if the definitio of justice didn't keep changing.

Kamilla
Ephesians 4:14

[Steve Schaper]

She is, to my knowledge, no kin of mine. Certainly not any link this side of the Atlantic.

But just in case, I disown her. Unless she repents.

But I happily claim the poor, murdered wee one, who needs a better name than to be named after the Russian version of Bigfoot.

[Judy Warner]

Their notion of justice is "social justice" which has nothing to do with actual justice. To its proponents, both religious and secular, justice means economic equality (that is, equal results, not equal opportunity) and generally the leftist agenda of giving over to government the functions that belong to the family, church and community. I guess adding "peace" means, in this case, the peace of the grave.

[Christopher Hathaway]

Their notion of justice is "social justice" which has nothing to do with actual justice.

That is exactly right. True justice is always personal. Justice ius owed to individuals, not to society. These vile selfrighteous hypocrites bleat about "justice" for for unknown classes of people while avoiding it for the concrete persons in the womb.

They atre beneath contempt. Juustice for them is and ego booster. or something to justify their resentments against the world they don't like.

[Christopher Hathaway]

italics off

[dilys]

Even without reference to the company it keeps, my regretful wariness of the airy tag claiming "[peace and] justice" pretty much anywhere it appears, leads me to commend the weight of the equally cardinal virtue of "prudence" -- "the intellectual virtue which rightly directs particular human acts, through rectitude of the appetite, toward a good end."

"Justice" -- beautifully and classically defined as "the constant and perpetual will to render each person his due" -- does not stand alone, nor ultimately favor one group or set of characteristics in disregard of others; and "peace" needs to survive the the imposition of screening criteria in Ezekiel 13:10.

[Rob Grano]

"This (in my view) is not the time to invoke the name of Jesus so much as the name of the God beyond God."

This (in my view) is sub-Christian. Jesus IS the name of God, and there is no "God beyond God." Crappy theology will always produce crappy morality.

[Marc V]

Amen Rob.

Ms. Schaper will get a special view on justice when she appears before the Judgement seat and looks to Jesus as her counselor and advocate. Jesus will look at her and then to the Father, saying, "Sorry Dad, I don't know her."

[Ethan Cordray]

Marc V,

We should pray fervently that that does not happen.

Nothing fills me with fear more than contemplating the verse in Revelation of the martyred souls crying out from beneath the altar for the Lord to avenge their blood. And so too with Abel's blood crying out against his brother.

How shall we stand against the accusations of the innocent? Lord have mercy on us, and especially on those of us who have killed our own flesh.

[Ethan Cordray]

You are right, Rob, that that theology is sub-Christian, gnostic really. To seek comfort in mere abstraction is a foolish response to violence.

[GL]

Amen to Rob's post. Despite Karl Barth, who I believe also used the phrase "God beyond God," there is no such being. There is simply one God in three person, the second person of whom is named Jesus, who "Rev." Schaper might do well to remember, said:

For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.

[Dcn. Michael D. Harmon]

Ethan is right. While nothing in this world gives quite the glow of satisfaction as contemplating the plight of those whose views are abhorrent (and rightly so) standing before the Judgment Seat of God, I for one find it a bit less satisfying imagining myself in that position. All of us, including the best of us, will not enter Heaven without seeing the Mercy of God supplant His Justice.

[JackONeill]

Amen to wishing no lasting harm, even to dingbats. Alas, if the secularists look at someone like the Rev. Schaper, they probably wonder what's the difference between us and them.

[Neal]

What was most astounding to me about Shaper's statement was:

"I could have loved that life but chose not to."

And then her tone was virutally unempathic while she justified her failure to love with other examples of the failure to love. Reminds me of a certain couple in a certain Garden.

I cannot ally myself with a group, any group, whose logic goes like this.

[Jonathan]

It is impossible to pretend to advocate peace and societal justice in some areas of life and not in others- it's worse than the shcizophrenia of those who suppose thought should be divided up into scientific chambers on the one hand and religious/philosophic ones on the other. Rather, it simply arbitrarily demarcates otherwise continuous spheres of life and says of some that unjust violence is, by some contortion of means and ends, quite justifiable, even sacerdotal or constructive or something.

Yet this is precisely what the mainstream Left and Right does, day in and day out, in some form or another. Both have their own spheres of unjust violence that are anathema to the tenents of the Gospel- along with those unjust policies they both enjoy. That one can- rightly- argue against agressive war justified by deceit and avarice should imply that one could not conversely argue on behald of what amounts to agressive war against the unborn, again justified by the most blatant deceit and avarice. And vice versa.

As far as justice goes, it seems to me that our guiding paradigm should be the conception of justice unfolded in the Scripture, particularly in the Prophets, where justice is as much, if not more so, a positive thing, and not merely a negative- ie giving the evil-doer his "just deserts." God urges the action of justice, as for example in Isaiah: "Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow’s cause." (1:16-17) Justice is a multi-faceted thing; however, I'm pretty confident we can be sure that extinguishing the lives of unborn children so that we can have more fun having sex is not an aspect of justice.

The ultimate action of God's justice, pointed to and prefigured in the Old Testament, is the Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection of Christ, in which God defeats death, sin, and the devil, giving deliverance- justice- to mankind. He not only judges those entities (if that is the proper word) but defeats them and restores those who have been oppressed by them.

[Wayne MacKirdy]

When I returned from Viet Nam, I was accused of being a baby-killer. How ironic that my accusers now think nothing of murdering babies in the womb. I was innocent - what about my accusers?

[Wolf N. Paul]

Mr Moore, I wonder why we honor such people with the title "Rev"?

[Daniel C]

Rev. Shaper's comments bring to mind a comment I've heard from Dennis Prager, which may be a Jewish aphorism: Those who are compassionate when they should be cruel, will end up being cruel when they should be compassionate. Don't know if it fits here, but that's what came to mind.

[Tony Esolen]

I would have more sympathy with the self-styled peace-and-justice crowd if it were not now founded upon a desire to supplant the family with whatever -- and whatever, supported by a large and intrusive and secular government. Leo XIII, whom the Catholic leftists revere by bringing his name up and never reading his letters, is a good cure for this confusion. There can finally be neither peace nor justice, nor, says Leo (and maybe I have to blog about this), even civilization itself, without reference to the welfare of the family. And by that he means husband and wife, joined in indissoluble marriage, with their children, if God chooses so to bless them.

[Joe Long]

"It is impossible to pretend to advocate peace and societal justice in some areas of life and not in others-"

No, no, not at all. It is easy to advocate some policies which authentically promote peace and/or justice, and carelessly add others which we have simply rationalized - or which "feel" all peacey (PC?!) and justiceful. Inconsistency is not impossible; not even especially hard.

It is also possible, as much of the modern Left proves, to manage to miss almost ALL authentic opportunities to promote peace or justice, while shouting enthusiastically about them. To morally equate the Right and Left is itself rationalization, and invites stagnation since "all the factions are the same". They simply aren't.

[James A. Altena]

Dear Joe,

While I have some questions about Jonathan's post, I think a fair reading indicates that, in the sentence you quote, he means that it cannot be done with genuine integrity and fidelity to orthodoxy, as opposed to the meretricious instances which you cite in response. Of course, such a comprehensive approach must also include proper relative weight of importance to various issues, rather than asserting them all to be of equal importance.

[GL]

Dr. Moore,

I just received the most recent issue of Touchstone. As always, it was filled from cover to cover with excellent writing. Your article on The Brotherhood of Sons:
What Some Rude Questions About Adoption Taught Me About the Gospel of Christ was particularly meaningful. Thank you. (To the Treader site editor, this is an article definitely worthy of discussion.)

For those of you who may not subscribe to Touchstone, you don't know what you're missing. You really should subscribe.

[Russell D. Moore]

GL, I appreciate that kind word. I particularly enjoyed the Allan Carlson article in the new issue. His new book CONJUGAL AMERICA is a must read.