Sunday, June 25, 2023
NY Times Op-Ed: ‘You Can’t Protect Some Life And Not Others'
New York Times Op-Ed: ‘You Can’t Protect Some Life and Not Others,’ by Tish Harrison Warren (Priest, Anglican Church; Author, Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep (2021) (Christianity Today's 2022 Book of the Year)):
With over a year to go until the presidential election, I am already dreading what this next political season will feel like — the polarity, the vitriol, the exhaustion, the online fighting, the misinformation, the possibility of another Trump nomination. I already know that I won’t feel represented by the platforms of either party. I know I’ll feel politically estranged and frustrated.
People like me, who hold to what the Roman Catholic cardinal Joseph Bernardin called a “consistent ethic of life” and what the Catholic activist Eileen Egan referred to as “the seamless garment” of life don’t have a clear political home. A “whole life” ethic entails a commitment to life “from womb to tomb,” as Bernardin said, and it also champions policies that aid those who are vulnerable or economically disadvantaged. Bernardin, who died in 1996, argued that a consistent ethic demands equal advocacy for the “right to life of the weakest among us” and “the quality of life of the powerless among us.” Because of this, it combines issues that we often pry apart in American politics.
The whole life movement, for instance, rejects the notion that a party can embrace family values while leaving asylum-seeking children on our Southern border in grave danger. Or that one can extend compassion to those children, while withholding it from the unwanted child in the womb. A whole life ethic is often antiwar, anti-abortion, anti-death penalty, anti-euthanasia and pro-gun control. It sees a thread connecting issues that the major party platforms often silo.
For example, in his encyclical “Laudato Si,” Pope Francis blamed “throwaway culture” for both environmental degradation and widespread elective abortions. These are not divergent political ideas to him; they share the same root impulse. Throwaway culture “affects the excluded just as it quickly reduces things to rubbish.” ...
[I]f those of us who hold this view actually live out a consistent ethic of human life and persistently articulate it as the rationale for our political engagement, it has the capacity to help depolarize our political system. ...
Those of us who articulate a whole life ethic make it possible for others to give voice to their own alienation and dissent from the dissatisfying nature of our present political discourse.
As the saying goes, “If nothing changes, nothing changes.” There is no reason that the current bundling of political issues must continue interminably. Those of us who feel morally alienated from both parties must speak up and offer hope for a different sort of politics in America.
Editor's Note: If you would like to receive a weekly email each Sunday with links to the faith posts on TaxProf Blog, email me here.
Other New York Times op-eds by Tish Harrison Warren:
- The Role Of Technology In Our Lives (June 4, 2023)
- Tim Keller Showed Me What A Christian Leader Should Be (June 4, 2023)
- An Apology for Saying ‘Sorry’ (May 14, 2023)
- Ted Lasso, Holy Fool (May 7, 2023)
- Praying With Our Eyes Open To See God And The Glory Of His Creation (Apr. 23, 2023)
- Did Jesus Really Rise From The Dead On Easter? (Apr. 16, 2023)
- He’s Not Jesus, But He Plays Him On TV In The Chosen (Apr. 9, 2023)
- Dogs, God, And Love (Mar. 26, 2023)
- The Real Problem With The ‘He Gets Us’ Ads (Mar. 19, 2023)
- The Wages Of Idolatry (Mar. 5, 2023)
- The Astonishing Moral Beauty Of The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth And The Black Church (Feb. 12, 2023)
- Did You Have A Hard Christmas? Jesus Did, Too. (Dec. 26, 2022)
- Advent, Poetry, And Christmas (Dec. 18, 2022)
- 303 Creative, Gay Rights, And Religious Freedom (Dec. 11, 2022)
- Shopping And Isaiah 6:5 (Dec. 4, 2022)
- Even Your Political Enemies Deserve A Slice Of Thanksgiving Pie (Nov. 24, 2022)
- Black, Christian And Transcending The Political Binary (Nov. 6, 2022)
- How To Keep The Sabbath And Fight Back Against The Inhumanity Of Modern Work (Oct. 30, 2022)
- Why Religious Freedom Matters, Even If You’re Not Religious (Oct. 16, 2022)
- Why The Christian Music Of Rich Mullins Endures, 25 Years After His Death (Oct. 9, 2022)
- The God I Know Is Not A Culture Warrior (Aug. 21, 2022)
- A Model For An Evangelical Christianity Committed To Justice (Aug. 14, 2022)
- Do Christians Have A Moral Duty To Tweet? (July 17, 2022)
- How Churches Can Do Better At Responding To Sexual Abuse (July 3, 2022)
- Dobbs, Roe and the Myth of ‘Bodily Autonomy’ (June 26, 2022)
- I Married The Wrong Person, And I’m So Glad I Did (June 26, 2022)
- Uvalde Needs Our Prayers (June 12, 2022)
- Curing The Political Polarization Destroying America With Humility And Joy (May 29, 2022)
- We’re In A Loneliness Crisis: Another Reason To Get Off Our Phones (May 22, 2022)
- How To Cultivate Joy Even When It Feels In Short Supply (May 8, 2022)
- Tim Keller: How A Cancer Diagnosis Makes Jesus’ Death And Resurrection Mean More (Apr. 17, 2022)
- Three Habits To Keep After The Pandemic Ends (Apr. 3, 2022)
- We’re All Sinners, And Accepting That Is Actually A Good Thing (Mar. 13, 2022)
- Ash Wednesday Forces Us To Confront Death, But It Also Offers Hope (Mar. 6, 2022)
- Grief And Covid Stole My Love Of Reading. Here’s How I Got It Back. (Feb. 27, 2022)
- How Faith Communities Can Respond To The Opiod Crisis (Feb. 20, 2022)
- Why Churches Should Drop Their Online Services (Feb. 6, 2022)
- 10 New Year’s Resolutions That Are Good For The Soul (Jan. 9, 2022)
- What Mary Can Teach Us About The Joy And Pain Of Life (Dec. 19, 2021)
- I’m Not Ready For Christmas (Dec. 12, 2021)
- Thanksgiving, Gratitude, And The Shocking Privilege Of Life (Nov. 26, 2021)
- What I Believe About Life After Death (Oct. 24, 2021)
- Why We Need To Start Talking About God (Aug. 29, 2021)
- Why You Should Give Your Money Away Today (Dec. 22, 2019)
- Want To Get Into The Christmas Spirit? Face The Darkness (Dec. 22, 2019)
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2023/06/you-cant-protect-some-life-and-not-others.html