Pragmatism and compassion: a pro-life perspective

Kevin Drum over at Mother Jones has this to say about the ongoing abortion debate:

There is, of course, no logical reason why women who get abortions shouldn't be prosecuted for feticide if abortion really is murder. And they probably will be, too, if Roe v. Wade ever gets overturned, as LaBruzzo and his allies hope. After all, LaBruzzo has merely said a little more bluntly what lots of other anti-abortion have previously said more circumspectly: the only reason to exempt women from prosecution is that it would be hard to pass a bill that didn't. It's not that they don't think these women are murderers who ought to be in prison. They do. They just don't quite have the votes to make that stick yet.

I'm not sure if he's right on either point, but he could be. That's part of what makes the abortion debate weird for me. I don't think my position on the issue is especially "conservative," in the traditional sense, yet that's how the issue seems to line up in mainstream American politics. Sometimes these alignments get a little incomprehensible to me.

From my perspective, of course it makes sense not to prosecute women for having abortions, for the simple reason that both women and children are the victims. I think it was Frederica Mathewes Green who said something like, "A woman doesn't want an abortion likes she wants a car or an ice cream cone. A woman wants an abortion like an animal caught in a trap wants to gnaw off its own leg." And we can extend that metaphor fairly plausibly. If you see starving people resorting to cannibalism, do you prosecute them for it? Maybe there's actually something wrong with us, who let life go by without taking care of such desperate people.

It makes sense to me to prosecute abortionists, i.e. the doctors who perform abortions, who with full knowledge of the facts break the first rule of medicine: do no harm. They ought to endure the responsibility of providing a false solution to a hard problem. And while I am well aware that many women have abortions despite having full knowledge of the facts and despite having the means to choose otherwise, it would still make sense to determine laws based on the all too widespread disadvantages women have been given in this society.

The fundamental principle at work here is that laws are meant to protect the vulnerable. If both women and their unborn children are vulnerable members of society, then it is not inconsistent to suggest alternatives to holding women directly responsible for seeking abortions. And if this happens to be pragmatic, so much the better. My goal is to see more people live, not to achieve perfect abstract consistency in legislation.

Chinese Christianity and pragmatism

Whenever "Google Alerts" brings up results for science and religion, almost always there is an interesting blog post on the Huffington Post that catches my attention. Who knew?

This week it's an article by Jonathan D. Fitzgerald, relating his own experience with Chinese students at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, NJ. A great many of these students, he has found, with some surprise, are Christians. He asks the question,

But, how is it that these students, brilliant scientists in the making from a country that has a tumultuous history with religion, live at such relative ease with what many of us in the West might call their "two selves"?

In the course of his article he identifies three interesting features of Chinese culture that might explain this ability to easily reconcile science with faith.

One is that the traditions of Chinese culture cause Chinese people to more readily embrace many different ideas. Fitzgerald puts it this way:

ne explanation actually comes from religion itself, though not the Christian faith. Unlike Christianity or Islam, neither Taoism nor Buddhism, the traditional religions of China, preaches exclusivity. For this reason many faiths can and do grow alongside one another in China.

The second feature is related to this: pragmatism. This is elaborated by Tim Sigman, a director of a Christian ministry mentioned in the article.

"Asian culture is generally pragmatic," he says. "It is also circular in reasoning whereas we in the West think more linearly." He suggests that the Chinese students "can embrace things that may seem contrary, if they are pragmatic."

The third feature is perhaps the least surprising to me. It is that science is a tool, not a philosophy. This is explained by one of Sigman's students:

In China, he says, "Science is a tool to change one's condition, to fix a problem, or make a living." It is not held in as high esteem as religion is. As to any potential conflict between scientific theories in his field and his beliefs, he explains, "They are not on the same level of understanding about the world."

This doesn't surprise me, given my experience with Chinese mathematicians and scientists. They tend to gravitate more to the applications of science than its theoretical aspects. American students (I'm not sure about European students) tend toward the theoretical, possibly because we still have vestiges of the old Platonism embedded in Western mathematics, but more probably because American students are more likely to have been taught a sense of entitlement that frees us to study whatever we find interesting.

What makes Christian beliefs "pragmatic" to a new Chinese believer, I wonder? This is addressed in the article, as well, using the words of one "Dr. Z,"

a Christian Chinese scientist and professor who, like many of his colleagues, according to the recent book Science vs. Religion by Elaine Howard Ecklund, prefers anonymity when it comes to matters of religion and asked that I not use his real name. He explains that the age at which a person converts is very important, as the tenets of Christianity and what it teaches about the world add depth and fill in the spaces in one's prior education, explaining things that the sciences do not. In this way, the two work as partners, as opposed to antagonists, to create a cohesive worldview.

Fitzgerald ends his article with this thought:

If being more open allows for seemingly disparate ideas to co-mingle, and if understanding the value of a comprehensive worldview that comes from merging religion and science gives rest to the debate, perhaps it is time we follow our Chinese colleagues into these spaces in between our "two selves."

His implicit assumption is that religion is about satisfying very pragmatic needs. If religious beliefs fill in the gaps or create better harmony in a person's worldview, then so much the better. I used to think this kind of assumption was shallow and very misleading. It always seemed to me that the truth was more important than pragmatic concerns. Just because something "works" doesn't make it right.

But lately I've been thinking that this assumption has more merit than I initially gave it credit for. It's not that I now favor Fitzgerald's approach of trying to convince everyone to just be more open to new ideas (is this really a Chinese way of thinking, or a Western postmodern way of thinking?). What I'm really saying is that I think our epistemology should be more life-giving. Rather than being consumed with the hope of ascending to transcendent Ideas, perhaps the real point of learning is (at least in part) to better our relationship with the world around us. From what little I know of Chinese thought, perhaps this is more in line with their thought-process: wisdom is about living in harmony with our surroundings. If this is the approach taken, then religious faith must be approached in a way that may appear more "pragmatic" to the Western rationalist who believes that truth precedes harmony.

Christian thought has the potential to get the best of both worlds. On the one hand, wisdom begins with "the fear of the Lord," i.e. having a proper understanding of ourselves in relation to him within his creation. So wisdom is, in a sense, about harmony. It is not primarily about ascending to abstract truths, but about understanding our role in God's creation. On the other hand, the Christian can make a powerful critique of the world around him. Because he understands the world as fallen, he will not be content to live in harmony without appealing to a vision of the world as it should be. Thus he doesn't rid his thought of transcendent ideals entirely; but rather than attempting to transcend the created order himself, he simply calls on the transcendent to purify the created order of its evils.

In other words, Christianity is practical for those people who want not only to explain the world, but to transform it.

A kink in the first amendment

Fox News reports on the case of a student from Capistrano Valley High School (California) suing a history teacher for making such comments as these:

"[W]hen you put on your Jesus glasses, you can't see the truth."

"Conservatives don't want women to avoid pregnancies — that's interfering with God's work."

"When you pray for divine intervention, you're hoping that the spaghetti monster will help you get what you want."

The comment that finally got the judge to rule in favor of the student was referring to creationism as "religious, superstitious nonsense." The court ruled that this, at last, was favoring irreligion over religion, which by recent judicial precedent is considered a violation of the establishment clause of the 1st amendment.

According to the article, the judge tried to "balance" between the rights of the teacher and the student given to them by the 1st amendment. Which brings up an important question: what is this whole debate really about? One thing it's not about in this case or perhaps in any case is whether science and religion are compatible. This case is about power--power over intellectual discussion and over how ideas are presented.

What I'm wondering about is how the first amendment can seriously be applied one way or another in these cases. Conservatives will surely applaud the outcome of this case, but the reasoning used by the courts in these cases is fundamentally inconsistent with the conservative notion of "strict constructionist" interpretation.

That is, a literal interpretation of the first amendment by no means implies that this teacher was in the wrong. One teacher acting out of order does not establish a state religion. Only by extending the establishment clause to provide more general protection could the judge make his decision.

It just seems to me that a "government of laws and not of men" is not going to hold up in these cases, because we're dealing with complicated power struggles. We've created a system in which teachers hired by the government have power over students who may or may not agree with their philosophy. Someone's freedom is going to have to give--there's no way the teacher's right to free speech can be absolutely sacrosanct when students are placed in submission under them.

This power struggle over issues like creation vs. evolution is complicated because the dynamics are different depending on where you are in the country. Many people would like to see this struggle in purely dualistic terms--"us" and "them." In reality, the lines are squiggly, blurry, and otherwise so ill-defined so as to be useless in particular cases such as the one in Capistrano Valley.

Wisdom is what's needed in these cases. I applaud the court's decision in this case. I don't think it was a conservative decision at all. I just think it was a wise decision. (Note that the student didn't demand monetary damages, just that teachers not be allowed to make such comments in the future.) In this case the power seemed too heavy in favor of this rather insensitive teacher, and it needed to be tilted back. In a different case that might not have been true.

As a Christian I think this country needs actions on the part of individuals that promote love. In particular, I think we need court decisions that promote free discussion and remove hostility from the classroom. Frankly, a line by line reading of the constitution will not bring this about. Only wisdom that is borne out through experience with real people will work.