Matters of Life and Death: Ethics in a Complex World

                Last week, I watched two events closely. On Capitol Hill, legislators interrogated Planned Parenthood and considered cutting funding for one of the nation’s largest women’s health care providers. In Georgia, Kelly Gissendaner was executed – the first woman to be killed by the state of Georgia in 70 years. I weighed in on both stories in a variety of settings.

                A friend asked me to help think through an apparent contradiction that we both share: We oppose the death penalty; yet, we also believe that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare. It seems inconsistent: You’re either “pro-life” or not. Roman Catholic social teachings are exceptionally consistent on this account – opposing war, capital punishment, abortion, euthanasia, birth control, etc., with one ethic that promotes a “seamless tapestry of life.” It’s beautiful in its simplicity and breadth.

                It’s also only one way to think through these issues. Here is my attempt at another:

1.       My Lutheran tradition believes that “sin” is not so much an act as a condition. That is, individual acts are not “sinful”; rather, all actions take place in the context of the brokenness of humanity and creation itself. (We tend to have a very low anthropology.)

2.       Thus, context matters. There are often no good (ethical, moral, “sinless”) choices. Luther (and, famously, Bonhoeffer) approached ethics contextually and situationally, not universally.

3.       Women (and men) have proven an innate desire to have control over their own bodies and reproductive health. Not only is this a basic human right, it is a social good. Planned, healthy pregnancies and family life are basic building blocks of a strong society.

4.       Still, girls and women often get pregnant – sometimes by accident, sometimes by force – without wanting to. Absurdly, there is a broad spectrum of opinion among people, including (mostly male) power brokers, about what constitutes “consent” or “rape.” Until that gets settled, I don’t want legislators anywhere near my wife or my daughter’s body and reproductive health – not if they don’t trust her to decide when or how she actually wants to have sex, let alone get pregnant.

5.       A zygote, implanted in the uterine wall, is a distinct human being – genetically speaking. Quickly that distinct being begins to develop all the signs of what would – if uninterrupted – be real, viable human life – however, when that line is crossed is a matter of debate and equal access to medical technology.

6.       When an otherwise viable pregnancy is terminated, death occurs. This is not immaterial to the conversation. This reality complicates the pregnant woman’s exclusive claim to ownership over her body and reproductive health, but it does not mitigate or dismiss that claim. It means, simply, that we have two competing concerns: a woman’s ownership of her body and reproduction; and the life potential of a fetus that would, if uninterrupted, likely develop into a healthy baby.

7.       This choice is not to be taken likely; however, it is impossible to legislate how an individual woman can or should wrestle with the weight of this choice. Too many factors are involved, and any attempt to externally control the decision would violate a woman’s ownership over her own body.

8.       Every study indicates that instances of unplanned pregnancy (and, thus, termination) decrease dramatically when all children, youth, and adults (of all genders) have ready access to comprehensive sex education and a wide range of birth control options. Alas, this is not the case everywhere (really, sadly, anywhere). This is precisely why organizations like Planned Parenthood should receive more, not less, funding – because this is their primary work: to foster a culture of healthy bodies, sexuality and reproductive life.

9.       I live in a world where children are longing to be adopted – and folks of all kinds are longing to adopt – and every kind of bureaucratic obstacle stands in the way. I’m also aware that even if the red tape disappeared overnight, there are not enough homes with willing and able adoptive parents in the world to receive the babies that would be born if no one ever made the choice to terminate a pregnancy. Not even close.

10.   Even if we could assure that every zygote could have a home, history proves that abortion will still happen. It always has. For the vast majority of human history, it has happened in excruciatingly unsafe ways and places. Regulating and restricting access to abortion has never eliminated abortion; it has only made it less safe. Until every fetus results from sex (not rape) among people who are ready and prepared to have and raise a child (or other means that enable non-fertile couples to conceive), then abortion will happen. If it is not legal, it will not be safe.

11.   Thus, while we continue to work toward healthy bodies, sexuality, and reproductive life for all people everywhere – to make unplanned pregnancy rare, we have a moral obligation to provide safe and legal options for pregnancy termination. To fail to do so not only jeopardizes women’s health, but also places women under state control and violates their right to own their own bodies and lives.

12.   That does not mean that we must believe that abortion in and of itself is “good” (I don’t know anyone who believes that). It means we believe it is one hard choice among many in a world that is broken and longing for redemption. We have to do ethics in the world as it actually exists, even while we hope and trust in the coming of a world that will be better.

Now, as for the death penalty:

a.       Killing is wrong.

b.      However, there are times when it is morally legitimate (not “good,” but legitimate and, even, necessary) to take life. Bonhoeffer famously joined the plot to assassinate Hitler, not because it was the “good” thing to do, but because it was necessary. If a sociopathic bus driver is driving a bus full of children toward the edge of a cliff, one has a moral obligation to stop him – which may mean taking his life. That doesn’t make it “good,” but in context, it was legitimate and even necessary.

c.       If possible, it is in everyone’s best interest to capture a killer alive. S/he could be connected to a larger plot; motive could be discovered; bombs may be planted, etc. Not to mention, killing is wrong, and even murderers have a right to live – and maybe even change. As a Christian, I believe in the capacity of God to transform and redeem even the most corrupted life.

d.      Once a killer is in custody and incarcerated, s/he ceases to be an imminent threat. At this point, killing him/her is unnecessary. It serves no purpose other than vengeance and punishment. It becomes a pre-meditated act of murder committed by the state.

e.      Study after study have shown that capital punishment has no deterrent effect. Societies with the death penalty are more, not less, violent. (Correlation does not mean causation, but it’s worth pondering if there is a connection there.)

f.        Capital punishment is exceedingly expensive and draws out the grieving/healing process for all involved. Yet, the appeals process is absolutely necessary, because the only thing worse than the state plotting to murder a guilty killer is for the state to plot and kill someone who was actually innocent of the crime.

g.       Capital punishment is imposed by a justice system that is corrupted by racism and classism. Even if everyone on death row were guilty (and not all are), the folks who end up on death row are not representative of society as a whole or of those who commit violent crime. As such, intentional or not, the death penalty is one more tool of historic injustice.

h.      Capital punishment removes the possibility of reform and rehabilitation. Kelly Gissendaner is a perfect example: She became an agent of grace and mercy, while owning her crime and seeking forgiveness and amendment of life. Nevertheless, even hardened criminals with no remorse should not be killed by the state – it simply brings the state down to the level of the murderer. That’s not company we should seek to keep.

i.         There is no context in which it is morally right, legitimate, or necessary for the state to kill a person who is safely sequestered and posing no meaningful threat to public safety. Unlike in the case of abortion, there are no mitigating factors or contexts that introduce any moral ambiguity into the situation: This is taking life for no good reason other than vengeance. Nothing good can possibly come of it.

These are two completely different issues, calling for different moral considerations. Complicated, to be sure, but we live in the world as it is, not as we wish it were, and the world is a complicated place.

Karma Chameleon: Doing Theology with Boy George and a 6yo girl

For reasons known only to the Holy Spirit, I had the Culture Club’s Karma Chameleon running through my head the other day. Being an extrovert, I sang it out loud while I was cooking dinner for my kids. My daughter (6yo) told me to 'stop it!' (common); but instead, I pulled up the ridiculous music video from the 80s and made her and her brother watch and listen. 

(This created an amazing teachable moment about gender, trans*, and sexual diversity as well, of which I am unashamedly proud... but that’s a story for another day.)

Two days later, I was driving her to the Y for an afternoon of swimming. The song was still in my head. So I was singing it. With all her 6yo (but eerily adolescent) sass, she asked me to explain what the song was about.

Thankfully, she’s seen Tangled, so we had a place to start re: chameleons. They can change color depending on their environment.

“So what do you think it means to call a person a ‘chameleon’?”

“I guess,” she ventured, “it means they’re different people in different places. But that doesn’t make any sense.”

“Have you ever seen someone act one way one day and another way another day? They’re nice to you one day, but the next day they’re not?”

She paused, and then she told me a story. About how - in the 1st grade - she’s already run into the Mean Girls phenomenon. Two friends from last year have decided they like other girls better than her, so if those other girls are around, they don’t like to play with my kid. When they aren’t around, then her old friends are all kinds of friendly. I may have been imagining it, but I believe I heard her voice crack a bit. I was glad I was driving, so I couldn’t see her face. I think it made her feel more free to talk.

So I told her my own story. About my two best friends in third grade who decided in fourth grade that I was no longer “cool.” Unless, of course, the more cool kids weren’t around. It broke my heart. But it taught me to be kind to people who other people don’t like. And, eventually, it taught me to believe that my value does not depend on what the cool kids think about me. I know now that what really matters is how God feels about me.

And she said, “Jesus loves you, Daddy. And so do I.” 

This is the blessing we share every night before bed, while tracing the sign of the cross on each other’s foreheads. 

I returned the favor - and I believe she may have heard my voice crack a bit. I was glad I was driving, so she couldn’t see my face. I think it made me feel more free to talk.

Then she asked, “but Daddy, what’s karma?” 

Sweet. Eastern religion on the way to the Y, on the heels of a heartbreaking conversation about mean girls and boys and the endless, unconditional love of God. What more could a pastor/theology-nerd/father ask for?

“It’s an idea,” I fumbled, “that says that if you do good things, good things will happen to you. And if you do bad things, bad things will happen to you.” 

(Yes, I understand it’s more complicated than that... but, seriously, she’s six years old.)

She didn’t skip a beat. “But that’s not true. I was nice to those girls, and they were mean to me.”

She was dead right. 

“Yup. And sometimes, I do really dumb things - like lose my temper and yell at you, or forget to listen before I talk - and every night, you tell me that Jesus loves me, and so do you. And I can’t tell you how much that makes my heart happy.”

And that, my friends, is Grace. Capital “G” Grace. 

People are mean - and wonderful. Life is hard - and beautiful. Friends, enemies, frenemies, dads, daughters - they are all complicated. And logic, karma, whatever - it doesn’t always hold.

But what holds the center - and our selves together - is this: Jesus loves you (for reasons known only to Jesus), and so do I (although some days that is really, really hard).

Being a dad is at least as theologically formative as a seminary education. And probably much more expensive (which is saying something). But so, so worth it, IMHO.

Why are Christians so mean?

                I shared a story on Facebook about some Texas Republicans “declaring war” on “homofascists.” A friend commented: “Why is it always Christians spewing this toxic, hateful rhetoric?” Good question.

1.  Demographics. Hate and ignorance know no ideological bounds. Atheists, Muslims, Buddhists, Democrats – they’ve all got their meanies. However, the U.S. remains a majority Christian demographic (~70%). Statistically speaking, there is a high probability that some guy spouting nonsense self-identifies as a Christian. And while Christianity supposedly teaches love of neighbor, well, so does everyone’s mom, yet we still have bullies. I pray fewer people judge all Christians based on the bad behavior of some – but that means more Christians have to do better at not being buttheads.
   
2.  Exclusivity. Demographics aside, there is something else that makes religious/ideological people, in particular, susceptible to mean-speak. Adherence to creed or philosophy implies exclusivity. Some of us try to be gentler about it than others, but even the most “progressive” have “us” and “them.” It’s a philosophical axiom: “If a word can mean anything, it doesn’t mean anything at all.” If I identify as a “Christian” or “Democrat,” then these words must mean something, or they mean, literally, nothing. “Christian” means “x” – and, by definition, not “z.” Otherwise, why would I identify as such in the first place? Nice, self-aware folks try to approach this with humility, but put this basic principle in the hands of a maladjusted grown-up-adolescent, and you get the weird wing of the Texas Republican party.
   
3.  History. But there’s more. It’s the historical principle of the “dying fish”™. People who fish know that a fish is never more violent and unmanageable, noisy and silly-looking, than when it is flopping around in the boat, gasping for air. A particularly prudish and parochial form of Christianity held massive sway in North American culture until the late 19^th century. During the post-Enlightenment scientific era (epitomized by Charles Darwin), Christians began to fear losing their power, and a lot of them lost their minds, too. Thus, the dawn of Fundamentalism – a modern phenomenon of desperately clinging to a “truth” (called into question) and the power it once allowed some people to wield. Nearly 200 years later, North American Christian Fundamentalists are gasping for air. They are increasingly irrelevant. No one’s listening anymore – especially their grandchildren. So they flop and thrash and jump and look all kinds of silly and noisy, because they know they’ve lost. If they weren’t so mean, I’d feel sorry for them. But my sympathy would likely just enrage them even more. So I’ll just wait for their ideology to breathe its last and be relegated to the dustbin of history, where it belongs.

That’s what I think today. It’s not just Christians. We’re just (nominally) the biggest group of people; who believe that believing matters; and some of us have combined that with a neurotic obsession aggravated by the slow but certain death-knell of a world in which it feels like believing in anything at all doesn’t matter anymore.

I want to be clear: I believe in believing. Not just “Christian” believing. I long for a world infused with mystery and hope, faith and wonder, commitment and witness. I just also long for a world in which people who believe are able to do so without, as my friend said, spewing “toxic, hateful rhetoric.” I happen to believe that world is emerging, and I am committed to helping it emerge. And I might even go to the funeral when the noisy fish finally breathes its last.

Open letter to folks who've decided not to do their jobs.

Dear County Clerk, Magistrate, Registrar, Etc.,

Re: Marriage Licenses

                Your job – your only job – is to facilitate the issuance and recording of legal marital contracts according to the laws of the State in which you reside and by which you are employed.

                It is not – and never has been – your job to adjudicate or discern which couples are worthy of obtaining such documents. As long as the Law – as determined by the Powers that Be (including, of course, the Supreme Court of the U.S.A.) – determines that such couples are eligible for this legal documentation, it is your sworn duty to facilitate this legal transaction. As of last Friday, that includes many (but not all) couples who happen to have the same gender identity.

                Surely this is not the first time a couple has approached your desk who gave you pause. A man far too old to be marrying a woman (girl?) this young. An interracial or interfaith couple – and you’re a devout Catholic, observant Jew, or out-and-out racist (just to be clear: those identifications are in no sense equal). A couple that’s just barely not kissing cousins. Two people you know can’t afford to raise the baby in that teenaged girl’s belly. A man “whose Woman” has faint (or not) bruises around her eyes. A couple who – in your small town – you know the dude’s been sleeping all over and around.

                Heck – we all know that over 50% of the couples you license to wed are going to divorce. Let’s assume you’re a part of a religious community that frowns on divorce (like, for example, every religious community I know of).

                If you are suddenly objecting to doing your job when a couple asks for a marriage license – a completely and absolutely legal marriage license – simply because they happen to be of the same gender, I wonder if it’s time for you to consider another line of work.

                Because, I repeat, it is not – and never has been – your job to sanctify or bless the marriages of the couples who come to you for completely and absolutely legal paperwork testifying to their absolutely and completely legal marriage contract.

                If you have discerned that it is your vocation (calling) to decide which couples should or should not be married, you should join me in my profession. Be a priest, pastor, rabbi, imam, or other religious leader. (You can do it online, although people in my world frown on such things… mostly because we’re going to be paying off our seminary educations until we’re damn near retired.) I have, on many occasions, declined to preside at a wedding of a couple that I believed was not prepared or suited for the religious commitment entailed in a church wedding. Most of them ended up getting a marriage license anyway. Many of them are divorced now (I told you so!).

                The role of decision-maker re: God and the Church’s blessing of a couple is complicated and heavy. AND: That is a completely different job than the one you currently hold.

                Your job – your only job – is to facilitate the issuance and recording of legal marital contracts according to the laws of the State in which you reside and by which you are employed.

                If you are no longer able to do your job, then I suggest you find another line of work.

                Sincerely,

                One of the People who actually decides who should or should not have their marriage blessed by the Church…and who happens to be totally indifferent to the genders of the people involved.