I was disappointed to read the NY Times piece on Justice Stevens today. What jumped out at me is that this man who is at the height of our legal system mustered up a shallow answer that I would expect from your average loony tune on the street about abortion:
“I think the less judges have to decide the better, and I frankly look at who should decide this,” he told me. “Obviously, I think basically the woman is the person most affected by it and has tremendously important interests; better to have her decide these questions with her own counselors and guidance than to have judges and legislators deciding something like this.
How about if we also let people decide whether or not theft or killing an adult are legal? Why have judges or legislators decide those questions? After all, theft is a value judgment, which stems from the religious injunction to ‘not steal.’ Seriously, his thinking in that quote is so juvenile and pathetic, that it makes me wonder at the general intelligence of many in power. Scalia’s well thought out positions and passionate defense of them make Stevens look plebeian.
It is true that the less the judges have to decide, the better. He is wrong on two points. One is that God has already decided. Two is that the baby is the one most affected by the abortion decision, not the mother.
You are right that he is juvenile and pathetic in this thinking, but he is probably very intelligent. The problem is that his great intelligence is not submitted to God’s authority and wisdom.
We have the same problem in the Church. This is why we have embraced homosexuality and abortion as a nation. We do not need to disapprove of sin so much as we need to be horrified by it. Sin in not repulsive to us because we have tolerated it for so long.
You would be shocked if you saw polls of how many born again Christians probably share Sevens’ viewpoint.
Pastors, by the way, in general are already starting to back down on homosexuality over the pulpit. D. James Kennedy is dead. Jerry Falwell is dead. Bill Bright, who called for one million Americans to fast for 40 days for this country, is dead.
Without revival, we are less than one generation away from the American Church becoming an American Sodom.
Yes, I agree that we are not horrified by sin. I find myself that my senses are dulled from too much media exposure – movies, etc. When you get away from it then it becomes shocking again.
I think that we are in a new dark age, not technologically, or with nations collapsing, but in terms of total societal breakdown. Christians aren’t going to win cultural battles in America for another few generations. But be encouraged, great things are happening elsewhere in the world and I think they can happen yet again here.