mrmaple's Revelife

Reasons: Part III

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 04:37:50 GMT

Finally, at the end of a long year working in the hospital as a student, I came down with my own illness: a collapsed lung that required an operation and some hospital time of my own. It was not my first surgery for the problem and I still harbor the fear that it will not be the last. Even as I sit here typing, I still feel the healing scars that the procedure left in my side.

True to form, my mother insisted that there was a Reason behind it; the timing, the method, the stresses I was going through were all too coincidental to be due to anything else. And we talked, perhaps for the first time, about what it meant to use reason and to look for Reasons. It reminded me of the Tower of Siloam:

There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." - Luke 13

Whenever I talk at length about the nature of suffering, I mention an example a mentor once used. Suffering is simply the push that tips a cup over; it has no bearing on what comes out. This is what I have come to believe about suffering, illness, death, and all Events with consequences for which we seek a Reason: they reveal what is inside me, the things deep down inside that refuse to come out otherwise. And who was I? Someone lacking faith.

The passage made me think about one of my favorite narratives in John about a man born blind (whom I was surprised to see was told to wash in the pool of Siloam):

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"

"Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life. As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world."

Having said this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man's eyes. "Go," he told him, "wash in the Pool of Siloam" (this word means Sent). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.

His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, "Isn't this the same man who used to sit and beg?" Some claimed that he was.
Others said, "No, he only looks like him."
But he himself insisted, "I am the man."

"How then were your eyes opened?" they demanded.

He replied, "The man they call Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. He told me to go to Siloam and wash. So I went and washed, and then I could see."- John 9

I keep returning to this passage in John because of the simplicity, power, and revealing nature of the healing. There was no intricate, mind-numbing litany of theological arguments or philosophical musings about the nature of suffering. There was no explanation or rationalization for the years of darkness and a lifetime in blindness. Jesus merely gave the command to heal and to be healers: the solution of Himself alone. In fact, it was the Pharisees, the educated elite of their day, who did their best to conjure an explanation and a Reason for the healing. In the end, it was not that they ever lacked a reason but that they found it insufficient and incredulous. They interrogated and hurled insults at a poor and simple man, a man whose only testimony and defense was, "One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!... Lord, I believe."

I believe that my mother and I fall on two ends of a spectrum of belief, but that true faith lies somewhere in between. In some sense, we both have outpaced our capacities for faith, wanting more Reason than we have right to demand or see fulfilled. We are both searching for a mechanism of control that often remains firmly beyond our grasp and comprehension, but that is no reason for cynicism or despair. Indeed, in the words of 19th century minister AB Simpson:

And so I thought the healing would be an it too, that the Lord would take me like the old run-down clock, wind me up, and set me going like a machine. It is not thus at all. I found it was Himself coming in instead and giving me what I needed at the moment. I wanted to have a great stock, so that I could feel rich; a great store laid up for many years, so that I would not be dependent upon Him the next day; but He never gave me such a store. I never had more holiness or healing at one time than I needed for that hour. He said: "My child, you must come to Me for the next breath because I love you so dearly I want you to come all the time. If I gave you a great supply, you would do without Me and would not come to Me so often; now you have to come to Me every second, and lie on My breast every moment."...

I had to learn to take from Him my spiritual life every second, to breathe Himself in as I breathed, and breathe myself out. So, moment by moment for the spirit, and moment by moment for the body, we must receive. You say, "Is not that a terrible bondage, to be always on the strain ?" What, on the strain with one you love, your dearest Friend ? Oh, no! It comes so naturally, so spontaneously, so like a fountain, without consciousness, without effort, for true life is always easy, and overflowing.

In every encounter with the limitations of my capabilities, with each circumstance and happenstance, there is indeed something in me that can be humbled and taught to reach for Christ. Perhaps it is a sin I need to repent of, a fault in my character that needs mending, or the beginnings of a testimony that will one day encourage a suffering brother or sister. They may not be the reasons for which I suffered, but I would be foolish to ignore the chance to redeem it for something greater. For in all things, I must have faith in the Christ who gives sight to the blind and pneuma, spirit, to the dead.

Who has given to You
That it should be paid back to him?
Who has given to You
As if You needed anything?
From You, and to You, and through You
Come all things, O Lord
And all we do is give back to You
What always has been Yours

Lord, we're breathing the breath
That You gave us to breathe
To worship You, to worship You
And we're singing these songs
With the very same breath
To worship You, to worship You
-Matt Redman, Breathing the Breath

Paradoxes

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:33:05 GMT

Since Revelife seems to thrive on claims to superior logic and thinking skills, here's a mind-twister for you: the Nelson-Grelling Paradox (paraphrased here from Wiki).

There are words that naturally describe themselves, such as "short", "unhyphenated", "English", and "pentasyllabic". We call such words "autological."

There are words that do not describe themselves, such as "long" (for not being that long), "abbreviated", "French", "misspelled", and "monosyllabic". We call such words "heterological."

By these definitions, you'd say that every word belongs to one category or the other. A word either describes itself or it doesn't; a *blank* word is either a *blank* word or it isn't.

But what about the word "heterological" itself?

1) Let's say that "heterological" describes itself. But, by definition, that would mean that "heterological" would not be able to describe itself. Therefore, the word would have to be autological and heterological at the same time. Doesn't work.
2) Let's say that "heterological" doesn't describe itself. Then it would do what it says it does... but that would make the word autological. Same problem.

Yikes.

Many commenters and posters on Revelife assume that, since part (or all) of their argument is logical, it is Necessarily and Absolutely True. These arguments are often based on axioms, or fundamental assumptions that cannot be proved. The more popular axioms here are:

God exists
God doesn't exist
The Bible is true/inerrant/infallible
Science is true/inerrant/infallible
Human life has inherent dignity and value
Human life only has the value and dignity we attribute to it
I'm smart
You're stupid

The failure in logic, argument, and civil discourse happens when we fail to recognize that the validity of logic is based entirely on its foundational axioms. We tend to assume that, simply because an argument is logical, it is true.

But what do we do when our axioms, unprovable as they may be, are at odds with each other? What happens when the mechanism of logic itself fails (as in the Nelson-Grelling Paradox)?

I propose that we simply say that logic supports an argument and that we eliminate the need to say that logic proves an argument. This is how we cope with "real life"; we assemble information, thoughts, and lines of reasoning that support or dissuade us from making certain assumptions and conclusions about life.

In this sense, the best function of a paradox is to keep us humble, keep us thinking, and keep us in constant dialogue and encouragement of one another.

Is faith sexy?

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 16:25:45 GMT

[A quick break from the 3-part series on Reasons]

Thanks to moritheil for highlighting this comic:

The rest of the comic series goes on to parody a Christian/non-Christian date, but the question it raises is interesting. Exactly how scarce are "twentysomething guys interested in faith"?

The Association of Religion Data Archives, which is related to the venerable Barna group, has an interesting survey feature that lets you compare your religious stance to others in your age/gender/belief group. Here's what I got on the basic survey:

So, only 20-30% of Protestant 18-35 year old college-degree wielding males maintain to classic Christian behaviors (e.g. weekly church attendance, regular prayer & Bible reading). Huh. I don't know if such a paucity makes faith sexy per se, but it certainly seems lamentable. I know I hear about it all the time from single Christian women.

Where do you fall? Take the ARDA survey (at the bottom of the page).

Reasons: Part II

Sat, 23 May 2009 05:17:46 GMT

Madness and chaos. That was what disease seemed to me, a medical student struggling for the first time with life and death in the hospital wards. Kind and generous patients suffered from horrific fates while the malingering and malicious fed off of the system's generosity without punishment. The hospital was a new and disorienting place in which the old rules, the old Reasons no longer seemed to apply. Who lived and who died was less a function of morality as it was of biological processes, lab tests, missing information, and elements of luck. In a world where so much was at stake, only the new reasons, the Evidence of hard data and tight correlations mattered. Even basic assumptions about standards of care were challenged and occasionally overthrown by the latest and greatest studies, and many reasonable, long-standing associations between health and disease disintegrated under closer scrutiny.

My own shift in perspective was subtle at first. I wasn't able to articulate my discomfort in the new environment until one of my friends began using "evidence based arguments" for everything. He would launch into political discussions with others and pepper them with the question, "Where's your reference? Show me the study." It was an irritating thing to do in the context of otherwise casual conversation, but the inflammatory nature came from the realization that most of what we say on a daily basis is complete bullshit and superstition. We speculate and make conclusions based on very little evidence because that is how we must deal with the complexities of daily life; we ignore and deny how uneducated and sporadic our decisions are because we would otherwise lose the confidence to act and survive from one moment to the next.

Something in me hardened. My faith in God, the Ultimate Reason, which had once been so strong, began to settle for lesser things. God may count the hairs on your head, but that number will be exactly zero once your chemotherapy is started. You can pray for a miracle, but if we don't amputate that leg tomorrow you might lose your life. Praying is good, but praying 20 hours outside in the snow is not; please restart your bipolar medications or we won't let you out of here.

And so prayer, something I once loved to do, became more an act of desperation and superstition than one of faith. To some degree it was because I didn't know what to pray for, but really it was because I was tired of being disappointed.

Curiously enough, I began knocking on wood and crossing my fingers. I started avoiding words like "quiet" and "slow". At first I thought it strange that sensations of powerlessness and futility would inspire superstition and stifle prayer, but then I realized I was tired of bullshitting and really just wanted to admit that I didn't know I didn't know I didn't know.

Reasons: Part I

Tue, 19 May 2009 04:08:37 GMT

My mom looks for Reasons the way some people look for spare change on the ground. She always has an eye out for them, an ear cocked to hear the faintest whisper of a consequence or a lesson. Most are simple illustrations of basic character: an irritating person placed in my life is meant to teach me patience; a flat tire following an unrelated, stingy financial decision is a reminder to be more generous; an unexpected piece of good news is an example of God's consistent goodness. Some links are easy to see and understand. Others are not.

I grew up listening to these narratives, and the concept of Reasons has always influenced my thinking. But as I grew older, reason began to challenge the Reasons. I began to wonder if such rationalizations were merely the innate coping mechanisms by which all people learn to make sense of an otherwise haphazard world, how we maintain hope in the face of difficult situations.

It started with the big questions. Were people really poor because they were lazy? Was HIV really God's punishment to homosexuals? Was evolution really at odds with Christianity? And of course, the biggest of them all: is there a Reason for suffering?

For nearly each of these questions, I found the answer to be, "Perhaps, but not always. Perhaps, but not necessarily." My mom and I would go through endless cycles of arguments, many of them heated and bitter. Sometimes I held on to prove a point, but sometimes I fought out of sheer stubbornness and pride. I was challenging the Reasons because I began to doubt that there were any.

Fear

Tue, 28 Apr 2009 03:19:05 GMT

"Have you been fit tested?" I was puzzled by the question, which seemed to come out of nowhere. Fit tested? I realized that the attending was talking about a respirator:

"Fit testing" refers to the training and evaluation process that prepares health professionals to wear a particle mask. The one above is affectionately known as the "duckbill" (for obvious reasons) and is a subtype of filter known as N95, meaning that it is capable of filtering almost everything.

Especially flu viruses.

I swallowed hard. "Uh, yeah... I had to do it at the beginning of the year." I fumbled around my wallet and pulled out a worn card indicating the size and type of respirator that "fit" me; it hadn't been touched for almost a year. The last time I used it was for precautionary measures for a patient with suspected TB, but even that one had been a false alarm.

The attending examined the card and gave it back. "Oh good," she said. "You might need it."

Our clinic is located in a smallish city with a significant Hispanic population that I have come to have a certain affection for. Of the many patients we see at our large hospital, they tend to be the most grateful, cooperative, and appreciative of our services. Most of them are first generation immigrants from all over Central & South America: Argentina, Peru, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Puerto Rico...

And, of course, Mexico.

In case you haven't heard yet, the latest and greatest outbreak of the feared influenza viruses is the Swine Flu that has recently struck Mexico with particular speed and ferocity. Influenza is a worrisome public health concern because of its ability to spread rapidly and with otherwise innocuous symptoms, enabling it to attain crisis levels similar to natural disaster/horror movies (think "Outbreak"). While SARS stands out the most in recent memory, the worst epidemic in modern history is the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918, during which 20-100 million people died worldwide in the span of 2 years. The other frightening thing about it was that the highest mortality rates were among young, otherwise healthy people.

Like me.

I was fascinated by infectious diseases as a child, inspired by books like "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston about disease hunters & detectives. (I suppose the contemporary analogy would be the House fetish most people seem to have today.) I loved how science, brilliant intuition, and a bit of "luck" helped people detect and conquer something invisible to the human eye. It was cool and sexy, largely because I could rest comfortably behind the book pages and a protective screen of vaccinations.

But now? Just a thin, synthetic mask stands between the uninfected and an unknown force of nature. I make things sound dramatic because that is exactly what fear plays upon: the tension of the unknown. Never mind that health professionals have been planning and stockpiling for a possible flu epidemic or that the chances of infection are currently slim. Never mind that the vast majority of people with symptoms are likely suffering from a cold. The fear is still palpably there.

So far, I've seen at least a dozen patients or parents of patients who are (literally) worried sick. The screening questions roll off my tongue now: Have you or anyone in close contact traveled to Mexico, Texas, or California in the past week? Was he or she sick? Do you have a fever, cough, cold, body aches, and/or runny nose? So far, not a single patient has made me raise an eyebrow. The initial fear I had has worn off and is rapidly being replaced by indifference and annoyance. Emboldened by my benign experiences and a growing realization of how unlikely it is for me to get Swine Flu, I am tempted to simply ignore the threat or it's impact in my community. I pass by dozens of patients in the ER who wear surgical masks "just in case" and almost laugh to myself. "They have no idea," I think. "Only a respirator, an N95 will do them any good."

And then I remember that they really don't have any idea. I remember that I'm just a medical student wandering through the halls, a prepubescent professional. I'm not a worried parent with a coughing child or a homeless man on the streets with chills and body aches or an undocumented citizen just learning to say, "Hello," "How are you," and "No, I haven't touched any pigs recently." I'm not someone who has already tested positive for TB exposure. All I am is someone with a warm bed, good food, and an orange piece of cloth.

I'm learning to wash my hands in the clinic but not in the world.
I'm learning to be fearless of others but afraid for them.
I'm learning to absorb pain but intercede for mercy and comfort.
I'm learning to be like Christ.

P.S.
Did I make you paranoid? This is what you need to know, as per the CDC.

Abba

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 04:28:07 GMT

I leaned over the crib and stared at her. She wouldn't stop crying, so I picked her up and then realized that the diaper was wet. The sun was setting, leaving the room dim and quiet, disturbed only by peripheral noises in the hospital hallway and the sound of her distress. I gingerly held her up, setting her flat on the bed, and watched her arms wave from side to side as I puzzled over how to change my first diaper.

"Hey," I whispered. "Stop crying." She didn't listen. I spent a few moments fumbling with the pacifier before cradling her in my arms and sitting down in the rocking chair, swinging back and forth easily. A plastic music box hung on the crib's stainless-steel safety bars began playing a lullaby. We swayed to the simple music in the quiet of the dusky, twilight shadows. It was as if the hospital, that crazy world of pain and light and noise, had rumbled into the distance and forgotten to pester us.

That morning during report, the residents said that the infant was recovering well from some treatable illness or other. I couldn't recall the details; all I remembered was the small fact that we were now responsible for her. We, meaning the hospital and the State, were granted temporary custody in the place of the parents, who were "currently indisposed of." I thought about the other rooms on the pediatric floor, each of which held two beds: one for the patient and one for the caretaker. Each room had its own guardian: an anxious mother or grandparent or cousin or other relative. Each room except this one.

I remembered the words of the overnight nurse who stood by the bed at rounds, updating us on the baby's condition. "She's doing well," the nurse said absently, thoroughly distracted by the baby. The team continued talking about the details of custody and social work; meanwhile, the nurse remained preoccupied. She cooed at the baby. "Hey," she said quietly, gently caressing the swaddling clothes: "It's going to be a tough world out there."

We had been caring for this patient for several days but I, being overwhelmed with concerns about my own patients, had never paid much attention to this one. However, that last comment caught me by surprise and pushed the rhythm of my thinking out of sync. One of the residents said, "If you have time, come in and hold her. It's okay."

For the rest of rounds, throughout lunch, and into the hustle and bustle of afternoon errands, my mind and feet wandered back to that room. Whenever I peeked in, I found someone at her bedside: a nurse, a social worker, another floor staff member. It seemed that word had gotten around and everyone quietly came together to do what they could. I didn't get my chance until the end of the work day, just in time to hear a few cries from the crib.

So we rocked back and forth while my mind wandered. What kind of person would she become? Did she have any sense of how alone she was in this world? Who would recognize her weakness and rise up to defend her from frailty and vulnerability? In ten, twenty, or thirty years from now, would she still let me hold her in my arms? Would it be possible for me to adopt her? And why did I hesitate at the thought? How different would things be on the day I held my own child?

Unfamiliar feelings of affection, anger, and helplessness swilled around inside of me, unfocused but centered on this loose bundle of warmed clothing and weak, spastic movements. I didn't know what to think or how to feel or how to respond. I still don't.

I couldn't wait to write this stuff down, mainly because I didn't know what to do with all these ambiguous thoughts. I held her for a few minutes and yet it's taken me two days to articulate what I've been feeling. Who will love her? Who will watch her first steps? Who will dream good dreams and sing lullabies for her? Who will give her the first cherry ice pop, a first kiss on a scraped knee? Who will keep her safe in this world of terrors?

I was walking outside my apartment tonight, thinking about these things. I stared up through the bare tree branches, past the rosy buds and into the lamplight that stood transfixed beneath a muddied sky. I asked my Abba, father, to provide one for her, and then realized that I didn't know her name.

Do we pray like we eat?

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 02:43:59 GMT

This is a doctored version of a famous manuscript:

Many people never learned how to pray, an equal number believe they don't have the time, and some define praying as something to do before heating up frozen food in a microwave oven. Much of this stems from the fact that many members of the last couple of generations - myself included - did not grow up witnessing their mothers carrying on the traditions of their grandmothers...

For all but the poorest of American Christians, there remains an embarrassment of riches when it comes to prayer. We scorn morning devotions, derive our prayers from prerecorded songs - even secular ones! - recite laundry lists, and rely heavily on formulaic requests for success. Yet although we may gain marginal amounts of time by doing these things, we lose the delights of praying earnestly, the wonders of creative expression through prayer, the pleasures of time spent in the honest pursuit of God and the nourishment of our souls and those of our family.

In case you didn't recognize the passage, it's [heavily] edited from Mark Bittman's seminal book, How to Cook Everything (the original passage can be found below and the book is one of my new favorites!) The passage struck me heavily because of its profoundly simple description of how American contemporary culture has evolved over the past several decades. Such insight into the pitfalls of convenience-driven access to food (and God) goes a long way in explaining the obesity of our bodies and the atrophy of our spirits.

We pray vague and "safe" prayers, asking for general goodness in our lives and making it easy for God (or chance) to fulfill them. We are willing to take a vague answer that assuages the doubts in our faith instead of taking the chance to ask for something we might not get or that risks challenging what we believe. We are afraid to ask for things that will demand radical change in our own lives, things that criticize our complacent tendencies towards comfort, wealth, and security. We pray before we eat or travel in the same way we knock on wood: actions that amount to little more than superstition. We confuse liturgy for superficiality and mistake sincerity for legitimacy. Our most intense periods of prayer are usually music-driven and emotionally preprogrammed: a pre-defined vocabulary of praise songs that serves good but limited purposes, often leaving us dependent on memorized lyrics and inexperienced in formulating specific, detailed, and eloquent requests for the complex issues in our own lives.

In the end, our prayers are often like our foods: intense but not intricate, addictive but intermittent, appealling but anemic, fast but not fulfilling.

-----
As far as I'm concerned, convenience is one of the two dirty words of American cooking, reflecting the part of our national character that is easily bored; the other is "gourmet." Convenience foods demonstrate our supposed disdain for the routine and the mundane: "I don't have time to cook." The gourmet phase, which peaked in the eighties, when food was seen as art, showed our ability to obsess about aspects of daily life that most other cultures take for granted. You might only cook once a week, but wow, what a meal.

Both of these tendencies are the enemies of good everyday cooking, one of the few simple, routine joys of daily life. The irony is that most "gourmet" foods and many "convenience" foods are equally difficult to prepare from scratch. Can you imagine what it takes to duplicate a Chicken McNugget with Sweet and Sour Sauce?...

Many people never learned how to cook, an equal number believe they don't have the time, and some define cooking as heating up frozen food in a microwave oven. Much of this stems from the fact that many members of the last couple of generations - myself included - did not grow up witnessing their mothers carrying on the traditions of their grandmothers...

For all but the poorest of Americans, there remains an embarrassment of riches when it comes to food. We are able to scorn leftovers, to buy almost every food preprepared - even salad! - to eat out daily, to rely heavily on frozen foods. Yet although we may gain marginal amounts of time by doing these things, we lose the delights of working in the kitchen, the wonders of creation, the pleasures of time spent in the honest pursuit of tradition and the nourishment of our bodies and those of our family. - How to Cook Everything

A brief on the controversial Mexico City Policy

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 23:38:03 GMT

Much molehill-mountaineering is in the media mix over President Obama's recent repeal of the Mexico City Policy (MCP, otherwise known as the "Global Gag Rule"). I wrote the following a few years ago when I had first heard about and investigated it:

MCP is based on the Helms Amendment, a piece of US legislation enacted in 1974 that ensures that no US money is used to fund abortions performed in other countries. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) receiving money from the United States traditionally upheld this policy by storing US funds in a separate bank account, ensuring that that money would only used for expenses unrelated to abortion. However, supporters of MCP argue that this is not a sufficient safeguard for US funds. The argument is that “a dollar saved is a dollar earned”, and so money saved from non-abortive procedures can be used for abortive ones indirectly. MCP attempted to protect against this by legislating beyond the Helms Amendment in order to establish that “no U.S. family planning assistance can be provided to foreign NGOs that use funding from any other source to: perform abortions in cases other than a threat to the life of the woman, rape, or incest; provide counseling and referral for abortion; or lobby to make abortion legal or more available in their country.” What this means for foreign NGOs is that, in order to receive any money from the United States, they must abstain from participating in all-things-abortion, which includes providing information about safe abortion providers, counseling women about abortion options, advocating for the legalization of abortion, or even speaking at public events that address abortion-related issues. NGOs are also not permitted to use funds given by other donors for any of these activities. Through MCP, they are voluntarily and effectively “gagged”. In fact, MCP enables stricter requirements than apply to domestic maternal health clinics and services.

I first heard about MCP during a college campus campaign to collect signatures for a petition to repeal the policy. A friend of mine participating in the campaign assured me that the global gag rule was not really about abortion; it was about a repressive policy that caused inequity and the attrition of maternal health care. My friend also happened to be a Christian. Perhaps a dozen or so of our mutual Christian friends signed the petition, though I wondered about how much they had thought about the policy before signing. I nearly signed it myself but wanted to investigate the issue more.

MCP deals exclusively with abortion and says nothing about contraceptives or other family planning measures. However, this is not to say that its effects are restricted to abortive procedures, advocacy, or counseling; NGOs and clinics that are willing to lose US funding over the argument that “abortion services are vital to community health” claim to have been forced to scale back spending on other family planning services or even shut down. Opponents of MCP also fear a “chilling effect”, where organizations providing pre and post-natal care are hesitant to provide post-abortive care for fear of revoking their funding, even though such care is permitted under MCP. These misunderstandings by both the health care providers and those in need of care tend to inhibit proper post-abortive care, legal or not. MCP was repealed by President Clinton but reinstated by President Bush (who added the clause allowing abortive procedures and referrals in cases when the mother’s life is endangered by the pregnancy) and has now again been repealed by President Obama. Advocates in favor of ditching MCP argue that the confusion generated by the on-again-off-again treatment of MCP enhances the chilling effect and has actually increased the rate of unsafe abortions performed in areas where MCP has been implemented.

While there is often no reliable data tracking birth/death registrations or causes of death in affected countries, MCP's "chilling effect" undeniably complicates a mother’s ability to acquire family planning and maternal healthcare services. (Note that Planned Parenthood, while being the best known and most prolific of family planning/abortion providers, is not the only one; again, this policy also affects clinics that deal with any form of maternal health or family planning.) This observation alone makes the argument to repeal MCP compelling. Shouldn’t I oppose a clumsy policy that contributes little towards the goal of eliminating abortion, in terms of either policy or practice? And if MCP could potentially contribute to worse maternal and fetal care, shouldn’t I, as someone who considers fetal life to be valuable, adopt a political stance that makes such access easier?

Even today, the political hubbub (and dubious reporting by special interest groups) surrounding the policy has muddied the issues. So, to clarify:

1) The change WILL NOT DIRECTLY FUND abortions overseas. The Hyde amendment still applies, which states that US aid money CANNOT be DIRECTLY used to fund abortions. Since MCP was an add-on that placed foreign aid under tighter restrictions than US domestic policy, its elimination simply puts things under equal treatment.

2) More tax dollars will NOT be used. MCP only forbids ways in which government money can be used. Re-enabling funding is NOT the same thing as giving out more money. Aid agencies still have to work within a budget, as do the clinics & services they fund, and there is no indication that newly eligible funds will necessarily go immediately towards funding abortions; what is more likely is that cash will go towards more common and pressing needs to sustain maternal/fetal life (though this is only my speculation).

Regardless, MCP is fundamentally an issue of ethics & politics rather than truly one of public health. It was implemented to protect fetal life in a restrictive manner; it does not in any way actually provide more services for maternal, fetal, or reproductive care. This conclusion stands in stark contrast to my friend’s earlier assertion that the issue is not one about abortion. As in the abortion debate, the assumptions one makes about the value of fetal life are fundamental to one’s approach to MCP.

If we are to assume that the mother’s life and autonomy are more valuable than that of the fetus, then MCP is truly a repressive policy that should be repealed on both an ethical and public health basis. From such a perspective, MCP does nothing but interfere with the administration of a complete set of maternal health care services. It even strikes me as somewhat hypocritical, as the United States itself has legalized abortion and does not restrict its funding to the same severity of MCP.

But if we give fetal life similar value to that of the mother, then abortion truly is legalized crime. In such a case, the argument that revoking MCP would minimize abortions (an already dubious argument) is fundamentally and unacceptably consequentialist. Consider the following analogy: a health clinic provides substantial health & family planning services to the community with the sole requirement that ethnic minorities are denied care. Would the US be justified in providing any funding to such a clinic? What if the clinic were to execute all ethnic minorities that came to the clinic for help? Would any government be justified in funding such a clinic? Though such an example seems extreme, it is directly analogous to MCP IF we are to take the view that fetal life is valuable human life.

[Disclaimer: The following arguments are less objective.]
Would you donate money to a health clinic that participates in genocide? What about one that only advocates genocide? One that treats everyone but victims of the genocide? If you wouldn’t individually support such a clinic, would you have objections to the use of tax money for such a clinic? Now that the issue involves abortion instead of genocide, would you engage in as much careful deliberation about that case? Even if you don't believe that fetal life is valuable human life (or life at all), the fact of the matter is that a significant proprortion of US citizens is still uncomfortable (if not downright upset) with the entire concept of abortion.

At this point, I find myself puzzled. Though MCP intuitively strikes me as an awkward and clumsy policy, I am hard pressed to find a reasonable argument to repeal MCP from a non-consequentialist perspective that honors fetal life. But I hope that, as Christians, we do not shy from discussion of an issue so critical to global public health policy and that we do not swallow propaganda and misinformation fed our way that distorts the reality concerning policies & their implementations.

A Translatable Gospel: Part II

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 04:28:00 GMT

In today's society, multiculturalism and moral relativism are often seen as absolute goods: perspectives that are diametrically opposed to the "culturally insensitive" principles and methods of evangelism in the early missionary movements. As a radical response to the more notorious examples of "missions" (such as the Crusades) and even traditional evangelistic methods (such as door-to-door evangelism and the good ole' revival meetings), the common sentiment seems to have become: "Everybody is entitled to their own opinion. Your religion is not superior to mine because it is a cultural by-product, bred by geographic, ethnic, and ritualistic constraints. Because cultures and their mores are different and none necessarily more "true" than the other, all have the same moral value: nothing. In fact, moral relativism is the only absolute truth." And so preaching the Gospel has become a social phenomenon on par with spitting while talking: an annoying (and disgusting!) habit to be politely tolerated, if not gently rebuked from time to time.

Modern Christians are often faced with unappealing views of evangelism and missions. On the one hand, we are afraid of committing the cardinal sin of "offending" someone else by trumpeting a sort of cultural superiority. We are afraid that we will be accused of being puppets to the manipulations of Western domination and cultural assimilation. On the other hand, we know that the Gospel is an absolute good that represents an absolute truth which stands outside of cultural perspectives and attitudes. But how do we say that without raising the skeptic's eyebrow?

The first thing to realize is that the Gospel is inherently offensive. Pure and simple. This not only means that it will be offensive to other cultures; this means that it will be offensive to our own. People who argue that Christianity condemns non-Western cultures fail to recognize that it also condemns the Western ones as well (the Bible wasn't written in Ye Olde English).

The next thing to realize is that there is a difference between what is biblical and what is cultural. While worship as a robed choir singing hymns in a white-steepled church performs a Biblical function, that is not to say it is the only way of performing that function. While "exhorting the brethren" can be done from an elevated pulpit by a minister in a three-piece suit to a somber(albeit squirming) congregation, it is not the only way of doing it. It takes wisdom to be able to separate Biblical truths from the cultural nuances and manipulations that have developed over time.

One of God's attributes is His infinitely rich creativity; an attribute that He has graciously bestowed to us. His desire is that we use that creativity in crafting worship that is both diverse and beautiful. This is why not all Christians have the same vocation; why such a thing as "spiritual gifts" exists; why the Church exists as a body instead of a homogenous blob; why the Day of Pentecost was marked with the believers speaking in different tongues, rather than the listeners being enabled to understand a common one.

Ray Aldred proposes that missions is not merely the act of one culture "enlightening" or educating another, but rather involves the process of cultures learning from one another. If one culture seeks to teach another the Gospel, then the Gospel must first be spoken in the other culture's language (rather than coercing the other culture to learn the former's language)...