U.S. Christianity and the ‘weaponization’ of pornography and abortion

This year, Russell Moore took over as head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission — the huge Protestant denomination’s highest-profile post, particularly on matters of politics and policy. Following are excerpts from an interview:

Rev. Aziz Makadsi, right, an Iraqi pastor from Baghdad, talks with U.S. Army Christian chaplains from Fort Bragg during a pastor meeting at John F. Kennedy Memorial Chapel Jan. 27.
Rev. Aziz Makadsi, right, an Iraqi pastor from Baghdad, talks with U.S. Army Christian chaplains from Fort Bragg during a pastor meeting at John F. Kennedy Memorial Chapel Jan. 27.

I don’t think that sort of American dream plus Jesus represented biblical Christianity at all and in many ways hindered it and the advance of the Gospel, which is dependent upon . . . the freakishness of Christianity. We’re saying some things that are extraordinary — that a dead man has come back to life! That reconciliation with God is possible through forgiveness of sins. …

I’m concerned as abortion becomes more chemical [with the RU-486 abortion pill] and less clinical that the abortion debate will then change. I use the analogy of pornography. There was a lot of effort by social conservatives to keep adult bookshops out, and those were battles worth having, but now the issue isn’t whether there’s a Playboy behind the counter.

You have a ubiquity and an invisibility around pornography that has weaponized it. A similar thing I fear could happen with abortion as it becomes more of a pharmaceutical and chemical issue that enables people to put a distance between themselves and the personhood of the child involved.

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