Morality, Religion & Philosophy: February 2004 Archives

Today's entry in My Utmost for His Highest is really excellent. I bought copies of the little devotional book for all my friends this Christmas, and I started going through it again myself on January 1st. If you're looking for a handy way inject a little more of God's Word into your daily life, I highly recommend it. Of course, nothing is a substitute for reading the Bible itself.

The book is also online, but it's better for me to hold an actual book in my hands than to sit in front of the computer screen for yet another few minutes. Nevertheless, quite a valuable resource, and here's the entry for today.

The Impoverished Ministry of Jesus

Where then do You get that living water?
—John 4:11

"The well is deep"—and even a great deal deeper than the Samaritan woman knew! ( John 4:11 ). Think of the depths of human nature and human life; think of the depth of the "wells" in you. Have you been limiting, or impoverishing, the ministry of Jesus to the point that He is unable to work in your life? Suppose that you have a deep "well" of hurt and trouble inside your heart, and Jesus comes and says to you, "Let not your heart be troubled . . ." ( John 14:1 ). Would your response be to shrug your shoulders and say, "But, Lord, the well is too deep, and even You can’t draw up quietness and comfort out of it." Actually, that is correct. Jesus doesn’t bring anything up from the wells of human nature—He brings them down from above. We limit the Holy One of Israel by remembering only what we have allowed Him to do for us in the past, and also by saying, "Of course, I cannot expect God to do this particular thing." The thing that approaches the very limits of His power is the very thing we as disciples of Jesus ought to believe He will do. We impoverish and weaken His ministry in us the moment we forget He is almighty. The impoverishment is in us, not in Him. We will come to Jesus for Him to be our comforter or our sympathizer, but we refrain from approaching Him as our Almighty God.

The reason some of us are such poor examples of Christianity is that we have failed to recognize that Christ is almighty. We have Christian attributes and experiences, but there is no abandonment or surrender to Jesus Christ. When we get into difficult circumstances, we impoverish His ministry by saying, "Of course, He can’t do anything about this." We struggle to reach the bottom of our own well, trying to get water for ourselves. Beware of sitting back, and saying, "It can’t be done." You will know it can be done if you will look to Jesus. The well of your incompleteness runs deep, but make the effort to look away from yourself and to look toward Him.

Representative Corrine Brown made some incredibly racist remarks yesterday, and her apology today shows that her understanding of racial and ethnic issues is only skin deep.

U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown (search) apologized Thursday for remarks she made a day earlier when she said Hispanics and whites "all look alike to me."

Brown made the statement during a Wednesday briefing on Haiti with Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega (search), a Mexican-American, and the Florida congressional delegation. During the meeting, attended by about 30 people, Brown sat across the table from Noriega and launched an attack on President Bush's policy on Haiti (search).

Rather than really apologize, she uses the word "apology" but then tries to justify her earlier epithets.

"The State Department delegation that came to meet with us did not include any females or people of color. Given the racial makeup of the people of Haiti, who are 95 percent of African descent, I felt the delegation and the delegation's position were callous and out of touch with the needs (cultural and otherwise) of the Haitian people," she wrote.

So... black Americans will be more "in touch" with the needs of Haitians than white Americans simply because of their skin color? That's totally absurd. It's as if the US didn't want to deal with the UN because Kofi Annan is black. Ludicrous.

It's sad to see that racism is alive and well in America.

In response to my assertion that it would have been more just if God had allowed Jesus to live and humanity to perish, Donald Sensing writes:

I don't agree with this at all because it uses a fallen, sin-ridden concept of "just" and justice. God is just, no doubt, but on his terms, not our own. God's justice is gracious rather than judicial because God's justice redeems and saves rather than condemns. In God's justice we do not get what we deserve, which is sort of the whole point of the Jesus story.

I think this is just quibbling over semantics; I think Rev. Sensing and I agree foundationally, but he's not using words the same way I am.

A distinction is generally made between God's justice and his mercy; God is always just, but apparently only sometimes merciful. For instance, all humanity has the opportunity to go to Heaven, but when someone continually rejects that opportunity God eventually abandons him to his fate. See also numerous examples in the Old Testament in which God executed rather swift judgement without any opportunity for repentance. There's a lot of context necessary to understand Romans 9, but consider verse 15:

Romans 9:15

For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."

To say that "God's justice is gracious" because "it saves rather than condemns" isn't really accurate. We aren't redeemed because of God's justice, we're redeemed because of his love and mercy. Justice would give us what we deserve -- death -- but because of love and mercy we are given life. Jesus' death was the supreme display of God's mercy, and his sacrifice allowed us to escape God's justice.

Rather than review The Passion of the Christ (which I haven't seen yet), I'll perform a meta-review and critique A. O. Scott's take on thase film from the NYT. Most of the reviews I've read seem to be written from a similar set of notes, and Mr. (Ms.?) Scott's review appears quite representative. Few writers have condemned the movie for anti-semitism, but for the most part they still don't really get it. Mr. Scott does seem to get it -- but he doesn't realize that he gets it.

Mr. Gibson has departed radically from the tone and spirit of earlier American movies about Jesus, which have tended to be palatable (if often extremely long) Sunday school homilies designed to soothe the audience rather than to terrify or inflame it.

Although I'm not able to read Mel Gibson's mind, I imagine Mr. Scott is right on the money. Our civilization has spent a lot of effort over the past two millenia morphing Jesus into a soothing, effeminate goody-goody, but the reality of his life and message is much more visceral.

By rubbing our faces in the grisly reality of Jesus' death and fixing our eyes on every welt and gash on his body, this film means to make literal an event that the Gospels often treat with circumspection and that tends to be thought about somewhat abstractly. Look, the movie seems to insist, when we say he died for our sins, this is what we mean.

I think this is exactly the point. Jesus' death wasn't an abstract philisophical theory, but a brutal reality, and the pivotal moment in human history.

Many reviewers, including Mr. Scott, don't understand the theology behind Jesus' crucifixion.

A viewer, particularly one who accepts the theological import of the story, is thus caught in a sadomasochistic paradox, as are the disciples for whom Jesus, in a flashback that occurs toward the end, promises to lay down his life. The ordinary human response is to wish for the carnage to stop, an impulse that seems lacking in the dissolute Roman soldiers and the self-righteous Pharisees. (More about them shortly.) But without their fathomless cruelty, the story would not reach its necessary end. To halt the execution would thwart divine providence and refuse the gift of redemption.

I can't speculate on what would have happened had someone halted Jesus' execution, but deicide is surely the most contemptable of acts. It would have been far more just and right if Jesus' life had been spared and if all of humanity were forced to stand, unredeemed, before God's perfect judgement.

Mr. Scott goes on to make a false analogy.

And Mr. Gibson, either guilelessly or ingeniously, has exploited the popular appetite for terror and gore for what he and his allies see as a higher end. The means, however, are no different from those used by virtuosos of shock cinema like Quentin Tarantino and Gaspar Noé, who subjected Ms. Bellucci to such grievous indignity in "Irréversible." Mr. Gibson is temperamentally a more stolid, less formally adventurous filmmaker, but he is no less a connoisseur of violence, and it will be amusing to see some of the same scolds who condemned Mr. Tarantino's "Kill Bill: Vol. 1" sing the praises of "The Passion of the Christ."

Perhaps the underlying motivation behind the violence in question should count for something when assessing its value? Is all nudity pornographic? The means may be similar, but the ends are wholly different, and generally that matters.

This next sentence blows me away.

The only psychological complexity in this tableau of goodness and villainy belongs to Pontius Pilate and his wife, Claudia, played by two very capable actors, Hristo Naumov Shopov and Claudia Gerini, who I hope will become more familiar to American audiences.

There's not enough psychological complexity in the story of God's death at the hands of his creation?

And finally:

What makes the movie so grim and ugly is Mr. Gibson's inability to think beyond the conventional logic of movie narrative. In most movies — certainly in most movies directed by or starring Mr. Gibson — violence against the innocent demands righteous vengeance in the third act, an expectation that Mr. Gibson in this case whips up and leaves unsatisfied.

On its own, apart from whatever beliefs a viewer might bring to it, "The Passion of the Christ" never provides a clear sense of what all of this bloodshed was for, an inconclusiveness that is Mr. Gibson's most serious artistic failure. The Gospels, at least in some interpretations, suggest that the story ends in forgiveness. But such an ending seems beyond Mr. Gibson's imaginative capacities.

The whole point of Jesus' death is that it bought us forgiveness. It's God screaming: Look how much I love you! Look how much you're worth to me! There's no more painfully beautiful expression of love.

John 15:13
Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

Romans 5:8
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Megan extols the truth about marriage.

Marriage should not end in divorce, only in death.

Once I say those vows I will consider my word given and a covenant made. It's not something I can get out of. My husband and I will have to deal with the consequences of our promise for the rest of our lives and it won't be something we can go back on. Honestly, I don't want to marry someone because I'm in love with him. Sure, I want to be in love with the person I marry, but more than that I hope that I will desire to commit the rest of my life to him as a supporter and partner as we seek to love God and love others. A man that doesn't inspire that sort of commitment from me, doesn't deserve it. And, I guess this might sound arrogant, but isn't that the way it should be for everybody?

The only detail I can take issue with is her assertion that marriage is "for eternity". That's not true; the standard vow is "till death do us part", and there's still a heck of a lot of eternity left after we die. I don't think we have the power to make committments to each other beyond the point of death. No matter what you believe, you will probably grant that a lot must change when you cross that threshold.

Update:
If you're interested, I've written a lot more about marriage. Here's a post that describes my view of marriage, and here's another in which I dismantle the view that marriages should last only "as long as we both shall love".

Not just whales, but endangered birds and so forth. Why bother?

Now look, I'm not in favor of wanton destruction, but I think every decision we humans make about how we manage our planet should revolve around what's best for us. If it's best for us to protect some certain type of endangered animal, I want to know why.

Pure aesthetics? That's fine, I can understand that, but I don't think it's a valid use of public funds. If you think gnatcatchers are pretty birds and don't want them to die, go buy up the land they live on and leave it in its natural state. Form a group, collect money, and save the animals yourself. (Whales may be a bit harder, but I'm sure something could be worked out. They're easy to tag and track, so they could be bought.)

In comment on my earlier post, John Callender comments and quotes Henry Beston who writes:

We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.

But again I say, who cares? From a purely irreligious point of view, it's absurd and counterproductive to care about animals that are being weeded out of the biosphere for being uncompetitive. As a Christian, the passage is factually wrong because God explicitly placed mankind above the rest of his creation and charged us to bring it under our dominion.

Giving nature inherent value apart from its utility to mankind is ridiculous and irrational. As I wrote, it's perfectly valid to want to save something because you find it aesthetically pleasing, but it's really monstrous to use governmental force to protect animals at the expense of other humans.

In my opinion, the real motivation behind most environmentalism isn't a love of nature, but a hatred of humanity. Mr. Beston's reference to "mysticism" reveals the essence of environmentalism: it's a religion -- a religion devoted to elimination of civilization as we know it. We must use this planet and its resources wisely, but we're fools if we allow the insidious cult of environmentalism a voice in the debate.

Update:
John Weidner has more on environmentalism. HT: Bill Hobbs.

The real philisophical battle of the age isn't between science and religion, and Edward Feser has an excellent article on TCS that clearly (if not concisely) describes the true nature of the conflict.

The hoary "science vs. religion" conflict is, then, a myth. What exists in reality is a dispute between rival metaphysical systems: the theism, dualism, and Platonism of traditional Western philosophy and the modern naturalism or materialism that is less a result of modern science than an ideologically secularist interpretation of it. But for contemporary intellectuals there is, we might say, public relations value in maintaining the fiction that there is a war between science per se and religion, and that religion is losing: it is easier thereby to insinuate that in the real battle -- the philosophical one -- the "naturalists" rather than their opponents ought to be given the benefit of the doubt. There is, again, no rational justification for such an attitude; but there is a motive, which the philosopher Thomas Nagel has given voice to in a moment of frankness rare among the members of his profession. In his book The Last Word, he acknowledges that it is a "fear of religion" among contemporary intellectuals that keeps them from facing up to the deep problems facing naturalistic attempts to account for the nature of the human mind and human knowledge:

"I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that. My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about human life, including everything about the human mind."

I've written similar things before, but not with so much eloquence and detail.

This moral challenge is, I suggest, the aspect of the Judeo-Christian tradition that is hated by the modern intellectual, and that the challenge follows from the unique metaphysical vision of the West is the reason for his hostility toward the latter. Disputes over Darwinism are tangential, and even a creationist who was sufficiently "pro-choice" would, I daresay, be welcomed as part of the great multicultural smorgasbord. The real target is the idea of a metaphysically implacable natural order to which one must submit, with all that that implies about human nature and moral law. Its rejection is the deep source of the perversity that so dominates modern intellectual life.

So strong is the modern intellectual's hatred for the traditional morality of the West and the metaphysics that justifies it that he goes as far as to treat the Leftism that is defined by opposition to them as a dogma, an unchallengeable posit that must be propagated, and its opponents crushed, at all costs and in the face of all evidence against it. He treats it, that is to say, in exactly the way he accuses the Christian fundamentalist of treating his own religion.

I could just quote it all... go read the whole thing.

Many people like to jump on Christians and condemn them for being "judgemental" by throwing out "Do not judge, or you too will be judged." However, brief look at the context of that verse will yield a more thorough interpretation.

Matthew 7:1-5

"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

The admonition here is not that we should never judge between good and evil, but rather that we should approach judgement cautiously and humbly, aware that we will be held to the same standard we apply to others.

Further, there are three aspects of justice. The first, reserved to God, is the right to set the rules and lay down the definitions of right and wrong. When man usurps God's authority to make the rules (or expands on the rules God has made) he engages in what is often called legalism -- a practice Jesus soundly denounced.

Luke 11:46

Jesus replied, "And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them."

Once the laws have been established, each individual action must be held up to the light and examined to determine whether it is good or evil; this is the second aspect of judgement, and God entrusts it to us, imperfect though we are.

Romans 12:9

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.

This discernment requires wisdom, as it's easy to mistake our own predilictions for God's perfect standards. Nevertheless, it makes no sense to command us to "hate evil" and "cling to good" if we're not able to classify the concrete experiences of our lives into these abstract categories.

Our responsibility to judge is restricted to the application of God's laws. If we see someone murder, we are right to condemn him for breaking God's law. If, however, we don't like blue hats and decide to condemn blue-hat-wearers, we become a law unto ourselves and put ourselves in God's place.

The third part of justice is perhaps the most complicated: the execution of punishment. God delegates earthly punishment to governments -- who are required to act justly -- and reserves the determination of eternal punishment for himself.

The South Dakota House has passed a law intended to challenge the interpretation of the Constitution created by Roe v. Wade, declaring that life begins at conception.

Following an emotional debate, the South Dakota House has passed a bill saying that life begins at conception -- something that would outlaw abortions in the state.

Tuesday's vote in favor of House Bill 1191 wasn't even close. It passed 54-14. ...

"This is new and unique legislation that has never been considered by the Supreme Court," Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, said in a press release.

"While we cannot predict the future, we do know that this legislation establishes significant facts that the courts will not be able to ignore," he added. ...

The bill now goes to the South Dakota Senate, where support is said to be strong.

Should South Dakota's pro-life governor sign the bill, the new law would directly confront Roe v. Wade, the Thomas More Law Center noted.

How dramatic! I love it. The first response will likely be a challenge in a federal district court, whereupon the judge will immediately rule the law unconstitutional. It'll get appealed, and who knows what will happen then.

The state may have done better to wait until after the presidential election, considering that if President Bush wins again he'll likely have the opportunity to appoint one or more new Supreme Court Justices. Still, this may work its way through the system so slowly that there will be plenty of time. Such a pending case will certainly make the nomination process even more heated.

For a compelling argument in favor of the idea that life begins at conception, see "Life: Defining the Beginning by the End".

Donald Sensing gets to the core issue dividing self-proclaimed Christians today, and it isn't what some think. I'd go further than Rev. Sensing, and I'll explain why further down.

The second link above is to an article by a Rev. N. Graham Standish who says that Christianity is partitioned between those who emphasize the Great Commandment, and those who emphasize the Great Commission. The Great Commandment is:

Matthew 22:35-40

One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:

"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

Jesus delivered the Great Commission immediately before ascending into Heaven after his resurrection:

Matthew 28:18-20

Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Rev. Sensing disagrees with Rev. Standish and says that the biggest divide between "Christians" is between those who worship the person of Jesus Christ himself, and those who worship the ethics and teachings of Jesus. As he points out, it's easy to have Christian ethics without Christ; most of Jesus' teachings were not revolutionary, and have been present in Judaism for centuries.

Perhaps my extension to Rev. Sensing's position is already clear from my use of punctuation: those who attempt to follow the teachings of Christ without following Christ himself are simply not Christians. I make no claim to be wise enough to distintinguish between such people, but I think God gives us each enough discernment to evaluate our own lives.

It's easy to make idols without even realizing it. Even othewise good things can lead us to idolatry when they take the place of God in our hearts and minds. Family, friends, work, recreation, church... all these things are good, in their place, but when any of them usurps God's central role in our life it must be cast down again.

The things Jesus taught are important, but we must recognize and resist the temptation to elevate the creation above their creator. God doesn't call us to a set of rules, a set of facts, or a morality system. God calls us into a personal relationship with himself. The rest of that stuff is easier to focus on, because it's hard to see God, but it's all peripheral.

As for the Great Commission and the Great Commandment, there's really no conflict. We are to love our neighbors, but that love should spur us towards more evangelism, not less. Our love for our fellow man should encourage us to spread the truth of the gospel of Christ!

There are those who would equate love with "tolerance" for other systems of belief, but there is a vast difference between tolerance and acceptance. God loves us all, exactly the way we are. We don't have to change one single bit to get God's love. He won't love us any more if we change, and he won't love us any less if we don't. But he loves us so much that he doesn't want us to stay the way we are. He wants to make us holy, godly, and Christlike, and that's the purpose of the Great Commission.

Christians are God's tools in the world. The Great Commandment is our motivation, and the Great Commission is our duty. If we do not serve God we do not love him, or our neighbors. If we do not love God and men, any service we perform is hollow and worthless.

(HT: Bill Hobbs, although I would've seen it myself shortly!)

We live in a culture that allows women to kill their own children on a whim and then balks at the execution of a brutal ax-murderer. I'm constantly amazed by humanity's ability to pervert truth and justice.

Genesis 6:5

The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.

Romans 1

21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. ...

28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

Sometimes the state of the world is really depressing. We worship liberty, but only want to use it each for our own selfish ends. We exalt justice, but would we even recognize it if we saw it? If God delivered justice, who would be left standing? Not me. Not you.

Our every desire is turned inward to ourselves. Even the good we do from time to time is for our own benefit, our own satisfaction, and based our own morality. We feed the poor to soothe our souls and lift up the weak long enough to put them on television to provide ourselves the illusion of doing something.

Our whole economy is based on greed, and our prosperity is a testament to our avarice. The efficiency of the system proves the depth of our selfishness. The checks and balances of our government pit one evil against another.

The worst of it is that this is the best we can do. There's no utopia lurking around the philisophical corner, waiting to be discovered. There's no world without war, without sickness, without death. This is it. We put up a neon sign and slap on a fresh coat of paint every few years, but there's still the same rotten wood underneath.

We laugh at those who yell on the street corners, "Repent! The end is near!", but isn't it? Nearer now than yesterday. And now nearer still. How much longer will God extend his mercy? The very earth cries out for justice; how much longer will he withold it?

Even so Lord God, come quickly.

(I've updated this twice since I first posted it. I apologize, but I want to interleave my points together rather than just leave them in the comments.)

Dale Franks comments on the abortion discussion Xrlq and I have been having, and adds that from his persective the Bible doesn't treat abortion like murder. He quotes the only real mention of human-induced miscarriage in the Bible:

Exodus 21:22-25

22. If men contend with each other, and a pregnant woman [interfering] is hurt so that she has a miscarriage, yet no further damage follows, [the one who hurt her] shall surely be punished with a fine [paid] to the woman's husband, as much as the judges determine.

23. But if any damage follows, then you shall give life for life,

24. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,

25. Burn for burn, wound for wound, and lash for lash.

It's clear from the context that causing the death of an unborn child wasn't punished the same way that causing the death of the woman was, but it's also clear that the miscarriage in this example is accidental. The interpretation of the Amplified Bible (the version quoted above, selected by Mr. Franks) also indicates that the woman was interfering with the fight; the phrasing in other translations I looked at doesn't give me that impression, so I'm not sure how accurate/important it is. Whether the woman was supposed to be interfering or not, this example is pretty far afield from the circumstances of abortion, in which a mother purposefully kills her own child.

Why is the punishment different for killing the baby versus killing the mother? Mr. Franks says that this proves that abortion isn't murder, but there are several other possiblities.

1. Perhaps the fighters were assumed to be ignorant of the pregnancy.
2. Perhaps the woman was assumed to bear some responsibility for risking her baby by interfering in the fight.
3. Perhaps the distinction was made for the same reasons Moses allowed divorce. Jesus made it clear later that God doesn't like divorce, but that Moses permitted it because the people's hearts were hard.
4. The Old Testament also treats the deaths of slaves more lightly than the deaths of free men. A few verses above the passage under discussion:

12 "Anyone who strikes a man and kills him shall surely be put to death." ...

20 "If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, 21 but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property."

Yet it wouldn't make sense to argue based on these laws that God values the lives of slaves less than the lives of free men.

Is the child referred to here a real human being? The literal phrase translated here "has a miscarriage" is yaled yatsa' -- "so that her fruit depart [from her]". The definitions for yaled make it clear that the "fruit" is a child, and the word is elsewhere used to refer equivalently to children outside the womb.

I see Mr. Franks' point, but I don't think this excerpt from Exodus sheds a lot of light on the issue of abortion. After all, the second law in the section instructs that anyone who strikes his father or mother should be put to death. Old Testament laws are valuable for discerning the mind of God on various issues -- so I'm not entirely discounting this passage -- but most of the implementation details of these laws were specific to the Hebrew nation at the time and don't necessarily carry over to modern times (such as laws regarding holy days and sacrifices, &c.).

Here's an exhaustive argument for the Biblical acceptability of abortion, by Brian Elroy McKinley. Although it's not at all convincing to me (obviously), it's still an interesting read and goes over a lot of applicable Biblical passages. The gist of Mr. McElroy's position is that the many instances in the Bible where unborn children are specifically dealt with by God are mere special cases that don't reveal any broader principles of how God works with humanity. He gives no particular justification for this view, and it's unconvincing because every interaction between God and man recorded in the Bible is a special case of some sort. Using Mr. McKinley's logic we couldn't make any generalizations from the Bible at all, and it would be almost entirely useless.

There are a many passages similar to this one that Mr. McKinley refers to:

Psalm 139:13-16

13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

Mr. McKinley admits that, "... this passage does make the point that God was involved in the creation of this particular human being...", but apparently believes that David, when writing this worship song for all of Israel, was intending to make a point about his own special relationship with God. It seems pretty obvious to me that God extends the same special loving care towards every person he creates (even those who later reject him).

He also argues that abortion is justified because Job and Solomon wrote (in fits of emotion) that it would have been better not to have been born.

Job 3:2-4, 11-19

He said: "Cursed be the day of my birth, and cursed be the night when I was conceived. Let that day be turned to darkness. Let it be lost even to God on high, and let it be shrouded in darkness.

"Why didn't I die at birth as I came from the womb? Why did my mother let me live? Why did she nurse me at her breasts? For if I had died at birth, I would be at peace now, asleep and at rest. I would rest with the world's kings and prime ministers, famous for their great construction projects. I would rest with wealthy princes whose palaces were filled with gold and silver. Why was I not buried like a stillborn child, like a baby who never lives to see the light? For in death the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. Even prisoners are at ease in death, with no guards to curse them. Rich and poor are there alike, and the slave is free from his master.

Mr. McKinley also quotes from portions of Ecclesiastes where Solomon decries the vanity of life. These passages, however, are clearly not intended as instructions or examples of Godly living. There are many instances in the Bible where people say or do things that are not intended to serve as examples, but are instead simply accounts of what happened -- in this case, emotional trauma (such as Job, after the death of his children) and despair (such as Solomon, who was very far from God near the end of his life and was finally realizing the futility of depending on earthly pleasures for real happiness).

As far as I'm aware, the Bible doesn't make a linguistic distinction between born and unborn children. Consider the word usage in this passage from Genesis:

Genesis 25:21-23

21 Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife, because she was barren. The LORD answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant. 22 The babies jostled each other within her, and she said, "Why is this happening to me?" So she went to inquire of the LORD .
23 The LORD said to her,

"Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples from within you will be separated;
one people will be stronger than the other,
and the older will serve the younger."

The unborn children, Jacob and Esau, are portrayed here engaging in acts of spiritual and historical significance, even if only symbolically. According to Strong's Condordance, the Hebrew word translated "babies" is ben, and you can see from the definitions given that it's always used to refer to human beings, and generally to those who have already been born.

There's a lot more that can be written on this topic, but I think it's generally pretty clear that the Bible does not condone abortion, and that the principles consistently revealed in the Bible do, in fact, condemn abortion. No linguistic distinction is made between children ex utero and children in utero. (Although I'm not an expert on Hebrew and I'd welcome further information on the matter.)

The developmental process of a child in the womb wasn't even vaguely comprehended until a couple of decades ago, and we're still learning a lot. As we learn more, the wonder of God's creation becomes evident, as does the humanity of the unborn.

Update 4:
As Allen Glosson points out in the comments, the NASB translation of Exodus 21:22 says:

If men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet there is no injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman's husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges decide.

The Hebrew phrasing doesn't necessarily make it clear that the prematurely born baby in this scenario even dies. AG further links to an article which dissects the frequent misuse of the Exodus passage by pro-abortionists.

Xrlq writes, with regard to my views on abortion, that:

I'm beginning to think that some people feel so strongly about certain issues that they really shouldn't opine on them at all, at least not in public.

He says my rhetoric "turns everyone into a baby-murderer", but my reply is simple: nothing I do makes anyone into a baby murderer. When a woman kills her baby because it's more convenient than dealing with the consequences of her actions, she makes herself a baby murderer. (It just so happens that most of the direct blame falls on people who are women, by virtue of biology; I know many men also share responsibility for the state of our society as a whole.)

Xrlq advocates "fair" discussion, without resorting to emotional rhetoric or subjective labeling, and that's an ideal I aspire to myself. I'm generally polite and intellectually honest, and Xrlq attributes my approach to the abortion debate to excessive emotional involvement. However, the truth is that my style of argument regarding abortion is carefully calculated -- not to maximize objectivity or honesty, as is normally the case, but to win.

It's fine and good to win a debate fairly without resorting to emotional rhetoric, but sometimes the issue is so important that it's better to win at any cost than to worry about intellectual niceties. Such is the case with abortion. I'm all for detached, objective discussion in most cases, but one-third of my generation has been murdered by their parents. I'm more concerned with stopping the butchery than with dispassioned objectivity, and I purposefully use emotional terminology to tailor my message in the manner I believe will be most effective in convincing my readers.

Xrlq is concerned with the integrity of the process, whereas I'm more worried about the actual results. Ideally, I'd like to win the debate in the manner Xrlq advocates, but it's more important to me to win than to play fair.

When we meet new people, one of the first questions we ask is "What do you do?". I don't know if it's universal, or particular to America, but we have a tendency to define ourselves by our occupation.

God isn't concerned with the same things we are. About John the Baptist Jesus said:

Matthew 11:11
I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.

John's ministry lasted for perhaps six months, and here Jesus says that he was greater than any of the prophets, judges, and heroes who had come before him. Why? Because John accomplished more? No. Because John became the man God wanted him to be.

God doesn't care about what you do nearly so much as he cares about who you are. In most cases, there are a myriad number of jobs you could hold that would all be pleasing to God (I don't believe God "calls" us to occupations). There are a great number of people you could build successful marriages with. There are innumerable places you could eat lunch, all of which would be equally pleasing to God. That's not to say any decision is correct, but there generally isn't only one right choice.

What matters more is who you are. God doesn't need any of us to do his work -- he can do anything he wants, all by himself -- but he chooses to use us. Not because he needs the work to get done, but because in the process of working for him we become more like Christ.

Consider also the account of Jesus' visit to the house of Mary and Martha.

Luke 10:38-42

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"

"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

There is a great deal of work to do, but only one thing is needed: to sit and listen at the feet of Jesus.

Don't spend time trying to determine what God wants you to do. Focus all your energy on becoming the person God wants you to be: a person who looks amazingly like Christ. As God builds the character of Christ in us, we will naturally and necessarily do what Christ would do in our place. We will do the work of God as we attain the mind of Christ. Attempting to serve God otherwise, in our own power and by our own will, is futile.

Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

In relation to a past post about the virtues of apathy (sorta), Dawn comments that:

After all, all human emotion serves as a tell-tale for a need unmet. If indeed no "bad" emotion exists and god created us equipt with all these emotions then maybe we are better to take heed to our feelings. Is it possible that all emotions serve to guide us?

I've written before about how emotions (particularly love) are deceptive, but I think Dawn's perspective is very common.

For example, yesterday my pastor taught about determining how God wants to use you, a question that transcends mere goals (career or educational, for instance) and deals with who God wants you to be, which is far more important than what he wants you to do (more on this later). I was discussing the message with a girl after church and asking her what she thought God wanted to use her for, and the conversation went something like this:

Me: How do you think God wants to use you?
Her: Well, I like meeting people and talking with people.
Me: So maybe he wants you to teach or something?
Her: No.
Me: Maybe evangelizing.
Her: Mostly I just like meeting boys.
Me: I'm not exactly sure how that accomplishes God's purposes.
Her: Well that's what I like to do.
Me: I don't think that's God, I think that's hormones.
Her: Yeah.

You might read that and laugh, but is it really much different from how we all make decisions much of the time? I want to, therefore I will. If you don't believe in free will, then this is the inescapable doom of humanity. However, God calls us to something better.

Emotions are base and raw, and if we examine our feelings with detachment we can get a good sense of the state of our being. Emotions are useful for telling us where we are right now. The risk comes when we start using our emotions to guide us in our decision-making. As I'm sure you all know, our emotions are fickle and can change in the blink of an eye. The consequences of the decisions we make are not generally so easily reversed.

Our emotions are unpredictable. It's hard to know what we'll want for dinner next week, and yet we expect relationships built on nothing but emotion to endure for a lifetime. That's foolish, and anyone who believes such nonsense is purposefully trying to deceive himself -- likely because he doesn't know of anything else to build a relationship on.

Our emotions lie to us, too. We suppress feelings and then release them on people under wholly unrelated circumstances. Bad traffic can cause you to lash out at someone for no substantial reason when you reach your destination. A good meal can engender feelings of happiness and contentment that can lead you to forgive the worst offense -- something you may have fought over otherwise. In either situation our actions make complete sense to us at the time, even if we have some insight into the underlying emotional mechanisms. The most striking example is that, several years after their defining incident, people crippled in accidents are nearly as happy as people who win the lottery (and both are just about as happy as control groups).

It's fair to claim that we are so intimately tied to our emotions that it's impossible to be completely objective. It isn't easy to act rationally, and it isn't easy to make wise choices based on the way things are rather than the way we want things to be. We must be constantly vigilant against our own deceptive hearts.