Dems still losing among religious voters
Tuesday August 29, 2006
Amy Sullivan, a leading light of the smart religious left, on the Democratic Party's continuing travails in reaching out to voters of faith.
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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Question for mylon619.
I hope you are still reading this entry. I was wondering what scripture talks about life beginning at conception. I am just curious because I dont know much about the Bible. Anyway, thanks.>
Steve,
I'm not mylon, but as a prolife, conservative Christian allow me to respond. To the best of my knowledge, the Bible doesn't explicitly state that life begins at conception. Psalm 139:13-18 does talk about God being active in the formation of a child within the mother's womb. And in Luke 1 (especially v. 44) Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth, who is 6 months pregnant with John the Baptist. Elizabeth's baby "leaped in my womb for joy (NASB)." There are a few other references to children within the womb.
My understanding is that Jewish theology considers life to begin at first breath, based upon Genesis 2:7 (God breathed into Adam the breath of life, and he became a living being).
In short, it is difficult to find a prooftext and say a certain verse explicitly states life begins at conception. However, it is also difficult to find a verse which defines life as beginning at another point in time as well. Conceptually, the union of sperm and egg into a fertilized zygote with unique DNA is one starting point to define the beginning of life. In my opinion, it is at least as ethically and scientifically valid as other possible starting points (viability? Nuerological ability? etc.)>
I appreciate the response. I was raised Christian like most people in America, but like most I don t really know that much about scripture and what not. Obviously contemporary Christian thought, for the most part, considers human life to begin at conception, but I wasn't sure if there was a classical basis for this reasoning. I guess it makes sense that there are several implicit references due to the fact that this is more of a modern discussion, at least on abortion. Anyway I will try to remember that so I don t have to ask again. Thanks.>
As a sidenote, the Didache, the first written catechism circa 100 AD, has abortion outlawed for Christians.>
Cs, you did a lovely job of explaining that life begins at conception. Psalm 139 was in my own devotional reading this past week and it's been the text I've used to support the argument for life on many occasions. I've also had people ask me, and these are people who obviously didn't think their question through, "So why do religious conservatives support the death penalty, but not abortion?" Actually the Bible endorses the death penalty for the greater good of society. It is not murder, but like in war, it's considered self-defense. In the Bible, people were put to death by the law for committing things other than murder as well. See Chapters 17 through 21 of Leviticus. However, a murderer is a menace to society and needs to be dealt with; a baby is innocent and hasn't done anything deserving of death.>
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