A roundup of important news and commentary from around the interwebs.
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Progressive scholar Kristin Kobes du Mez, author of the 2020 bestseller Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (which I reviewed here), recently stated that evangelicals should start revisiting the question of “ensoulment”—that is, when a human being receives a soul. Du Mez has been abandoning a number of key biblical positions since the publican of Jesus and John Wayne; she has come out as “affirmative” on the LGBT agenda, and throughout the book she treated the pro-life movement only with contempt and the assumption of hypocrisy.
Thus, it is worth asking why she wants to revisit this subject right now, when the abortion wars are raging across America with particular fierceness. Based on her trajectory, I suspect we may soon see du Mez come out with claims that the Bible actually supports abortion in some circumstances. Some progressive “Christians” justify abortion based on the argument that a human being at the earliest stages does not have a soul, and it is highly unlikely that du Mez does not know this. I hope I’m wrong. Scripture, as well as the Reformed tradition, are eminently clear on this subject. This article is a helpful primer: “The incarnation demands a pro-life position.”
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The ongoing global collapse of the birthrate continues, with mainstream media coverage on the social and political effects of this alarming trend being published alongside articles in the Los Angeles Times with headlines like this one: “It’s almost shameful to want to have children.” Meanwhile, Fortunereports that the sale of dog strollers has outstripped the sale of baby strollers in South Korea, and Newsweeknotes that North Korea is resorting to dire threats to boost the birthrate in the Hermit Kingdom. Countries around the world are desperate for babies, while the progressive ruling class insists that babies are a threat to our very future.
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Patrick Miller has a fascinating thought experiment on what would happen if 9/11 happened in 2024 instead of 2001. I was in the same grade as Miller on 9/11—Grade 8—and many of my memories were similar. But I think he’s right—institutional trust is so broken, and both Right and Left are now in thrall to conspiratorial internet grifters like Candace Owens, that unity would be virtually impossible: “If the Twin Towers Fell After Twitter.”
For those of you who saw the weird interview between amateur historian Darryl Cooper and Tucker Carlson on World War II, in which Cooper claimed that Winston Churchill is a “psychopath” and the “great villain” of the war, several conservative historians have written comprehensive correctives:
One thought on “Winston Churchill, collapsing birthrates, and pro-choice evangelicals (& other stories)”
Navi says:
Ryan T. Anderson’s piece is pretty good. But his suggestion that pro-life advocates ought to avoid banning abortion until (at some unspecified time in the future) pro-life policies become too popular to repeal seems unsound. Pro-abortion referendums have passed, and pro-life ones have failed, in states with all types of abortion policies – 100% pro-life (Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky), mostly pro-abortion (Kansas, Montana), 99-100% pro-abortion (California, Vermont, Colorado). Arizona is set to vote for a pro-abortion amendment by a landslide, even though only mild limits on abortion are currently in effect (Arizona’s previous pro-life law was repealed by the state legislature this summer). There is some room for prudence. Banning abortion without a rape exception in a state pro-life Republicans win only once every twenty years or so is obviously poor strategy. However, ceding first-trimester babies (over 90% of abortions) to abortion advocates only moves the Overton window in the wrong direction. Rather than fighting to end abortion, pro-life people are negotiating over the terms. Blue states, purple states, and states with pro-abortion constitutions or high courts are areas where pro-life people should focus on limiting legal abortion through regulations to whatever extent possible (essentially the Casey-era playbook). But in a red state, a heartbeat bill with a rape exception should be the bare minimum for a state to be considered pro-life. Even that’s pretty limited because so many babies are aborted through the abortion pill now, which can be done before the heartbeat is detectable. Some states will unfortunately pass pro-abortion referendums if abortion advocates move quickly enough (they know they need to strike while the iron is hot, as public opinion will gradually shift back towards 50-50 after the outrage over Dobbs cools down). But as Anderson points out, pro-life governors and legislatures had a great year in 2022. Additionally, there is an upper bound on how many states can legalize abortion through referendum. So while some pro-life laws are in jeopardy, a lot of them are pretty secure so long as Democrats do not win the presidency and enough senate seats to nuke the filibuster and codify Roe (or pack the Supreme Court with woke justices that have no idea what a woman is).
His argument on chastity is also bizarre. Abstinence education and chastity rings were a huge part of American culture in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. Abortion was still only a 50-50 issue at that time. And while Christian women having abortions because their church won’t speak on pro-life issues or (worse yet) demeans women that have babies out of wedlock so they feel pressure to abort, he doesn’t give pro-life people enough credit. Guttmacher data from 2014 finds that Evangelical Protestants (the most pro-life demographic) have the lowest abortion rate while non-religious women (the most pro-choice demographic) have the highest abortion rate. This suggests that, by and large, people do practise what they preach.
Ryan T. Anderson’s piece is pretty good. But his suggestion that pro-life advocates ought to avoid banning abortion until (at some unspecified time in the future) pro-life policies become too popular to repeal seems unsound. Pro-abortion referendums have passed, and pro-life ones have failed, in states with all types of abortion policies – 100% pro-life (Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky), mostly pro-abortion (Kansas, Montana), 99-100% pro-abortion (California, Vermont, Colorado). Arizona is set to vote for a pro-abortion amendment by a landslide, even though only mild limits on abortion are currently in effect (Arizona’s previous pro-life law was repealed by the state legislature this summer). There is some room for prudence. Banning abortion without a rape exception in a state pro-life Republicans win only once every twenty years or so is obviously poor strategy. However, ceding first-trimester babies (over 90% of abortions) to abortion advocates only moves the Overton window in the wrong direction. Rather than fighting to end abortion, pro-life people are negotiating over the terms. Blue states, purple states, and states with pro-abortion constitutions or high courts are areas where pro-life people should focus on limiting legal abortion through regulations to whatever extent possible (essentially the Casey-era playbook). But in a red state, a heartbeat bill with a rape exception should be the bare minimum for a state to be considered pro-life. Even that’s pretty limited because so many babies are aborted through the abortion pill now, which can be done before the heartbeat is detectable. Some states will unfortunately pass pro-abortion referendums if abortion advocates move quickly enough (they know they need to strike while the iron is hot, as public opinion will gradually shift back towards 50-50 after the outrage over Dobbs cools down). But as Anderson points out, pro-life governors and legislatures had a great year in 2022. Additionally, there is an upper bound on how many states can legalize abortion through referendum. So while some pro-life laws are in jeopardy, a lot of them are pretty secure so long as Democrats do not win the presidency and enough senate seats to nuke the filibuster and codify Roe (or pack the Supreme Court with woke justices that have no idea what a woman is).
His argument on chastity is also bizarre. Abstinence education and chastity rings were a huge part of American culture in the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. Abortion was still only a 50-50 issue at that time. And while Christian women having abortions because their church won’t speak on pro-life issues or (worse yet) demeans women that have babies out of wedlock so they feel pressure to abort, he doesn’t give pro-life people enough credit. Guttmacher data from 2014 finds that Evangelical Protestants (the most pro-life demographic) have the lowest abortion rate while non-religious women (the most pro-choice demographic) have the highest abortion rate. This suggests that, by and large, people do practise what they preach.
https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/report_pdf/characteristics-us-abortion-patients-2014.pdf
https://news.gallup.com/poll/642548/church-attendance-declined-religious-groups.aspx