Jesus Christ our Hope (May/June 2006)
by
Viola Larson
The May/June 2006 issue of
Horizons is entitled ‘Health and the Hope of Healing.” This issue has an
article, ‘What Does Pro-Choice Really Mean” written by Sylvia
Thorson-Smith. In the article Thorson-Smith makes the statement, ‘As human
beings who are gifted with life, we are also gifted with the awesome
responsibility to make a variety of difficult decisions about life and
death.” In this review, I will take that statement, expand it a bit, and
look at several articles in this new issue using the statement as a guide.
It is probable that Thorson-Smith was thinking simply of matters of physical
life and death when she wrote that statement, given the subject of her
article, however, the truth is that with the gift of life that God has given
us the life and death decisions we make are ultimately about spiritual life
and death!
Whether our choices are about the giving or taking of life, decisions about
faithfulness to Jesus Christ rather than honoring false gods, or choosing to
follow faithful Christian leaders instead of following false prophets,
ultimately the choice is about spiritual death or full and everlasting life
with the Lord of life, Jesus Christ.
There are several good articles in this issue, including. ‘Faith, Justice
and Health Care,” by Mark Earnest and ‘Aids in Africa, It’s a Matter of
Faith,” by Patrick Cole. Those articles are about social problems that
Christians must be aware of, care about and work toward ending. James 1:27
says this, ‘Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of God and Father is
this; to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself
unstained by the world.” Paul reminds Titus that Jesus Christ gave himself
to redeem and ‘to purify for himself a people for his own possession,
zealous for good deeds. (Titus 2:14b)”
John writes, ‘We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us; and
we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world’s
goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how
does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with
word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. (1 John 3:16-18)” Choosing to
care, give and work for those in need is connected to the redemption bought
by Jesus Christ on the cross and it is the spiritual duty of all Christians.
Choosing to Follow Faithful Christian Leaders Instead of False Prophets:
There are also several extremely troubling articles in this issue of
Horizons. In fact, the magazine articles start with a problematic one.
‘Within My Reach” by Rachel Srubas leads the reader astray. The author
chooses to use an interpreter to help her read and understand St Benedict’s
Rule. She does this because the Rule ‘intimidated” and was ‘initially
impenetrable.” Srubas points out that she is, after all Presbyterian, and
Benedict’s Rule, ‘seemed shrouded by a medieval mystique.” Although Srubas
has now written a book on Benedict’s Rule herself, she at first chose Joan
Chittister as a guide and recommends her book The Rule of St. Benedict:
Insights for the Ages.
Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun has also written _There is a Season _and
_In Search of Belief_. In the latter book she reworks the Apostles Creed
giving a detailed account of her own religious beliefs. Like all radical
feminist Chittister denies many biblical beliefs of the Church including the
atoning work of Christ on the cross. She mangles the two natures of Jesus
Christ (fully God and fully man) writing of the Jesus of history
metamorphosing into the Christ of faith (p. 134). Chittister also destroys
the personhood of the Holy Spirit, referring to him as the ‘life force” and
an ‘electric charge animating the world at every level (162)” I would
suggest that those who are interested in reading the Rule, (It is not at all
hard) either obtain a copy or go to the Ethereal Library
http://www.ccel.org/b/benedict/rule2/rule.html#ch4, where the whole Rule can
be read on line.
C.S. Lewis who knew it was important to read old books, rather than
commentaries about old books, wrote:
None of us can fully escape this blindness [of our own time], but we
certainly increase it, and weaken our guard against it, if we read only
modern books. Where they are true they will give us truths which we know
already. Where they are false they will aggravate the error with which we
are already dangerously ill. The only palliative is to keep the clean sea
breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds, and this can be done only
by reading old books.1
Obviously, because of her choice, the clean sea breeze of the centuries is
surely not blowing through Srubas’ mind, but somewhere very near, a wolf is
snarling. 2
Choosing Faithfulness to Jesus Christ Rather than Honoring false gods:
Another troubling article is, ‘The Question of a Lifetime: What will you do
with the gift of an additional 14 years?” by T. George Harris. It is mainly
an interview with Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi. The author explains that
Schachter-Shalomi is the leader of a ‘Jewish Renewal Movement and a
Sufi-Moslem mystic who brings all faiths together in Philadelphia’s
Spiritual Eldering Institute.” A Rabbi and a Sufi-Moslem mystic, this
sounds strange but there is an explanation which Harris does not give.
Rabbi Schachter-Shalomi ‘founded a movement called B’nai Or in 1962.” The
movement was intended as a Jewish renewal movement and at first focused on
Hasidism and Kabbalism, a conservative but mystic focus in Judaism, but it
developed into a movement called, P’nai which also embraced spiritual
‘elements from Sufism, Buddhism and Native American religion.” It is now
referred to as ‘ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal.” The movement also
embraces feminism and utilizes psychology and philosophy.3 It is probably
the most syncretistic of all Jewish groups or movements.
In one of his articles, ‘Mother-God,” Schachter-Shalomi takes a feminist
viewpoint and writes, ‘In Biblical texts written during the age of the
Patriarchs, God was seen in masculine terms. Since the Bible refers to us as
“children of God” it was easy at that time to project the sense of “Father”
on the Deity. In the beginning of the Genesis story, there is the statement
that “the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.” The image it evokes is of
a mothering spirit warming, brooding and caring for the new earth-egg and
hatching life on Earth.” 4 He goes from this to speak of the Holy Spirit as
Feminine and then to mention that Mary is someone Catholics may pray to.
Next, Schachter-Shalomi focuses on the goddesses of the East including those
of Buddhism and Hinduism. He writes, ‘In the Far East, in India, the
feminine aspects of God have many names: Lakshmi, Durga and Kali. And, in
China and Japan, one looks to Kwan Yin or Kanzeon as the source of
compassion.”5
Schachter-Shalomi goes even beyond these feminist pursuits; he accepts a
form of reincarnation and believes the time will come when those who have
obtained perfection, that is perfected spiritual bodies, will be absorbed
into God. He explains this as ‘the soul” merging ‘finally in God, as a drop
in the ocean.”6 This is a description of the finality of the pantheist
ending; an ending which leaves no connection to individuality.
The choice of using an interview of Zalman Schachter-Shalomi in a Christian
woman’s magazine is at best puzzling at worst deceptive. Schachter-Shalomi,
although he uses the words and stories of Jesus Christ in the Horizons’
article, does not adhere to Jesus Christ and in fact rejects him as the
final Messiah. It is even doubtful that Schachter-Shalomi is a monotheist.
He attempts to pull all religions together through the ‘teachings” and
practices of what he calls the ‘penitents,” yet his basic view of spiritual
truth is closer to Eastern thought and kabalistic occultism; it lacks
anything that is spiritually life giving for the Christian.
Choosing to give or take life:
The third troubling article in this issue of Horizons is the one mentioned
in the beginning of this review, ‘What Does Pro-Choice Really Mean?”
Besides the fact that the article takes a one sided view of abortion, that
is, it is at times morally right to end life and it is the right of women to
have an abortion whenever their consciences so dictate, the article is also
extremely deceptive. Many points made in the article are simply untrue.
Sylvia Thorson-Smith states, ‘When Abortion was condemned in earlier
Christianity, it was understood to refer to termination well into the
process of pregnancy after ensoulmentthe point at which the breath of God
entered the fetus. (12)” Yet, in opposition to that statement is a quote by
John Chrysostom, (AD 347-407). His inveighing against going to prostitutes
includes a condemnation of abortion which covers the whole time after
conception. He writes:
Why sow where the ground makes it its care to destroy the fruit? where there
are many efforts at abortion? where there is murder before the birth? for
even the harlot thou dost not let continue a mere harlot, but makest her a
murderer also. You see how drunkenness leads to whoredom, whoredom to
adultery, adultery to murder; or rather something even worse than murder.
For I have no name to give it, since it does not take off the thing born,
but prevents its being born. Why then dost thou abuse the gift of God, and
fight with His laws, and follow after what is a curse as if a blessing, and
make the chamber of procreation a chamber for murder, and arm the woman that
was given for childbearing unto slaughter? For with a view to drawing more
money by being agreeable and an object of longing to her lovers, even this
she is not backward to do, so heaping upon thy head a great pile of fire.
For even if the daring deed be hers, yet the causing of it is thine.7
Also Tertullian, (AD 160-240), wrote many statements about the beginning of
life and the sinfulness of abortion. For instance, ‘Now we allow that life
begins with conception because we contend that the soul also begins from
conception; life taking its commencement at the same moment and place that
the soul does”8 There are many statements by early church fathers against
abortion even at the very beginning, at conception. They are, in fact, too
numerous to quote in this review.
Thorson-Smith suggests that no protestant pastor or theologian supported
early laws against abortion and that ‘Those Protestants who finally did join
the antiabortion movement were often influenced by racists and classist
arguments that America’s strength was threatened by white, middle-class
women’s lower birth rate. (12)” But the opposite is true. The abortion
movement can be traced backwards beginning with abortion, the contraceptive
movement then eugenics. This is a philosophic movement of ideas, some
biblically acceptable,( contraceptives), others abhorrent,( eugenics and
abortion).
In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth the Eugenics movement
developed and evolved. That was the movement to sterilize those people who
were considered unfit to have children. It was based on racism and classism
and many in the United States were forcibly sterilized. The Nazis were later
to pick up on this movement and use it for ultimate evil.9 This movement was
never accepted by most Catholics or by any conservative Christian of the
time. But it was in fact preached as necessary by many liberal pastors and
theologians of the time. As Christine Rosen writes:
And it was when these self-identified liberal and modernists religious men
abandoned bedrock principles to seek relevance in modern debates that they
were most likely to find themselves endorsing eugenics. Those who clung
stubbornly to tradition, to doctrine, and to biblical infallibility opposed
eugenics and became, for a time, the objects of derision for the rejection
of this most modern science.10
When the push to legalize contraceptives first began it was at first
rejected by the Eugenics movement. But with the help of Margaret Sanger and
others the Eugenics movement finally accepted the idea of planned
parenthood. They in fact published some of Margaret Sanger’s books
including, Woman and the New Race11. Margaret Sanger did not endorse
abortion, but she saw it as a necessary evil. She even stated that, ‘In
plain, everyday language, in an abortion there is always a very serious risk
to the health and often to the life of the patient.”11
Sanger truly believed that if all people accepted the use of contraceptives
the need for abortion would disappear. She did endorse eugenics writing of
the ‘feebleminded,” that, ‘Only 34,137 of these unfortunates were under
institutional care in the United States in 1916, the rest being free to
propagate their kindpiling up public burdens for future generations.”13
But, Sanger believed that the use of contraceptives was a less violent
method of preventing the unfit from having babies. And she is of course the
founder of Planned Parenthood who now promotes abortion. Sanger, the
unintentional mother of the modern pro-choice abortion movement was herself
at times racist and she was certainly unkind to those with mental illnesses
and disabilities. She in essence believed that women’s gift of helping to
provide for a better race was that they choose to refuse to produce any
children who might be defective in any way.
However, for a Christian, choices are to be made according to God’s word and
will, not from a personal moral point of view. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, while
the Nazis were destroying life all about him, wrote:
Destruction of the embryo in the mother’s womb is a violation of the right
to live which God has bestowed on upon this nascent life. To raise the
question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is
merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended
to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been
deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder. 14
Janice Catron writes in her article, ‘A Shining Light,” that ‘our own
journeys also lead somewhere that God is calling us.(40)” My prayer is that
those women in leadership in Presbyterian Women, the Editors of Horizons,
and the authors of the articles will find their journey ending at the foot
of the cross of Jesus Christ. I pray that they will go on to proclaim his
life, death and resurrection in a witness that also holds dear the lives of
those millions lost in the world of false religion. I also pray that they
will hold dear those who are unborn but loved by the Lord Jesus Christ.
———————————
C.S.Lewis, Introduction, St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation: The Treatise De
Incarnatione Verbi Dei, translated, Sister Penelope Lawson, paperback
edition, (New York: Macmillan
2 ‘There have been many complaints and murmurings over this formula, [The
Apostles Creed], and probably, sooner or later in your studies, you will
come up against men of letters and even teachers, who also do the same and
think it dreadful that this matter should be reduced to this formula. . .
This inveighing against so-called ‘orthodoxy’ is just a ‘wolf’s snarl’,
which an educated man should have nothing to do with.” Karl Barth,
Dogmatics In OutLine.
3 All of this first material on Zalman Schachter-Shalomi is found in Shirley
Lucass, ‘ALEPH: Alliance for Jewish Renewal,” New Religions: A Guide: New
Religious Movements, Sects and Alternative Spiritualities, editor,
Christopher Partridge, (New York: Oxford Press 2004), 116, 17.
4 Found at http://www.havurahshirhadash.org/rebzalmanarticle1.html, Havurah
Shir Hadash, A Jewish Renewal Community in Ashland Oregon.
5 ibid.
6 Found at http://www.havurahshirhadash.org/rebzalmanarticle14.html, Zahman
Schachter-Shalomi, ‘Life in the Hereafter: A Tour of What’s to Come.
7 John Chrysostom, Homily 24 on Romans, found at
http://www.priestsforlife.org/magisterium/earlychurchfathers/chrysostom.html
.
8 27. Tertullian, De Anima, found at
http://www.priestsforlife.org/magisterium/earlychurchfathers/tertullian.html
.
9 ‘Programs of coercive sterilization were not peculiar to Nazi Germany.
They have existed in much of the Western Word, including the United States,
which has a history of coercive and sometimes illegal sterilization applied
mostly to the underclass of our society. This procedure [a vasectomy
developed at a penal institution], together with a rising interest in
eugenics, led, by 1920, to the enactment of laws in twenty-five states
providing for compulsory sterilization of the criminally insane and other
people considered genetically inferior.” Robert Jay Lifton, The Nazi
Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide, reprint, (Basic
Books 2000) 22.
10 Christene Rosen, Preaching Eugenics: Religious Leaders and the American
Eugenics Movement, (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2004), 5, much of the
information on the eugenics movement in the United States in this review is
taken from Rosen’s book.
11 Margaret Sanger, Woman and the New Race, sixth printing, (New York:
Eugenics Publishing Co. 1923).
11 Ibid., 125. Sanger in another place suggests that abortion is safe with
the right medical care however she was writing of doctors in the first
instance.
13 Ibid., 40, 41.
14 Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics, edited by Eberhard Bethge, translated by
Neville Horton Smith, 11th printing (New York: Macmillan Publishing 1975)
175, 76.