Jeff Koczela asked for clarification about my wild stats post, especially about a campaign of nonviolence. Here's an expansion, with a list of books at the end.
Jeff, thanks for the question. (Did I pay you yet?)
My take.
1.
The political approach is putting the tassels on
the canopy on the cart before the horse. The idea that we will change the laws
before we change society is a silly dead end fiction. For over 40 years, the
pro-life movement has been chasing one mirage after another. What a waste!
2.
It was a union of the feminist movement with the
eugenics movement that brought us modern abortion. That coalition is still
visible: ask “pro-choicers” about forced abortion in China, and you will see
the fault lines. That coalition can and will be broken apart, although not this
year. It was pro-lifers and feminists who wrote pro-life (anti-abortion) laws
150 years ago, and we will do it again.
3.
The environmentalist movement is among the most
deadly opponents of life today. The idea that “population = pollution” is
common, catchy, and murderous. But Pope Francis, following St Francis (and Pope
Benedict), has encouraged Catholics and pro-lifers to build (re-build) a new
and healthy environmental movement that recognizes that humans actually belong
on earth, are part of the global ecosystem and are not extraterrestrial invaders.
If we do as the Pope suggests, we will scrub out a bloody and deadly myth that
currently provides a rationale for coercive population control in Africa and
Latin America.
4.
I still haven’t gotten over the stupendous burst
of joy that emerged from jails in the 1980s. Tens of thousands of Catholics and
Evangelicals went to jail together for blocking access to the portals of death,
taking the place of the intended victims briefly, urging peace between
generations, daring to hope that parents could parent in peace. Tens of
thousands. What was on their minds was protecting children and women, but
something else happened as well. In the 1960s, Evangelicals “knew” that
Catholics were going to hell; Catholics, for their part, “knew” that
Evangelicals were dumb hillbillies. By 1990, both prejudices were gone. Traces
remain, but the deep and widespread biases are gone. And a part of that was an
accidental outgrowth of the coalition Catholics and Evangelicals entered into
to resist abortion. No one on earth planned to put them in jail together in
order to promote the unity of the Church. But it happened.
Today, I believe, there’s a similar miracle unfolding. It’s
not complete. In fact, it’s barely visible, just beginning. In our time, in
this generation, Christians and Muslims are coming together in ways that were
hard to imagine 50 years ago. Leaders on both sides are talking and working.
But separately, regular folk on the ground are examining each other. Right now,
it’s mostly tender shoots. But solid and unbreakable bonds are coming fast. And
I expect that global resistance to population control will cement us together.
Example? The best glimpse is Tanzania.
5.
Right now, pro-lifers are being recruited by the
millions into population control activism. Pro-lifers aren’t doing the aborting
and sterilizing; their job is to shut the escape routes, keep the victims tied
down in place. We close our borders; Planned Parenthood does the killing. The
way pro-lifers fell into this perversion just shocks me, appalls me. I don’t
quite see how to get confused about hospitality to the challenging strangers at
the border and hospitality to the challenging strangers snuggled up against the
placenta. Both have their own schedules, both make demands, both offer huge
promises for the future, both are known to be under God’s special protection
throughout all history and into eternity, both are bursting with hope and joy,
both are Christmas all year (both deposit poop inconveniently). This total perversion of the pro-life
movement will not last! It will clear up! And when it clears up, the pro-life
movement will flower, flourish, burst spring-like into unimaginable African
Latino Himalayan Pacific Australian blossoms. Not now, but soon. Watch the
Filipinos who are the modern Irish, spreading across the world to save
civilization!
6.
The eugenics movement is stronger today than
ever before. But its opponents will not stay fragmented forever!
7.
The 20th century saw the emergence of
colossally powerful new weapons of destruction. But also, that same century saw
the emergence of colossally powerful new forces of transformation – in India,
the American South, Poland and the Warsaw Pact, the Philippines, South Africa.
Right now in America, well educated people think that “nonviolent” refers to
minor drug dealers; but this shocking ignorance will not persist. True
nonviolence, explained at length in the Sermon on the Mount, will re-emerge.
The Holy Spirit is not a minor drug dealer.
For more, go get:
Emmanuel, Solidarity: God’s Act, Our Response [about
nonviolence]
The Roots of Racism and Abortion: An Exploration of Eugenics
21 Stranger Claims in the Old Testament [immigration]
The Persistent Other [immigration]
Introduction to Eugenics
Reach Left