Do We Know Jesus At All? I Fear the Answer.
The “Religious Right,” it seems, is principally concerned with two things when it comes to reforming society: abortion and “religious freedom.”
This is ironic, because, as “people of the Book,” ostensibly, Christians ought to emphasize what Scripture emphasizes, no?
Doubtless, there were forms of abortion in ancient times. The Bible, Hebrew or Christian, has absolutely nothing to say about the topic. Not one word.
This is not to say that abortion is necessarily a good thing, or that we shouldn’t have ethical conversations about it on a national level, or even in our political discussions. It is to say that the Bible is completely silent on the issue, at least directly.
Likewise, there was certainly religious totalitarianism in the ancient world, as there were also the beginnings of democracy (Athens) and republicanism (Rome). But Jesus specifically told his followers not worry about their religious freedoms (Matt 10:19, Lk. 12:11). St. Paul specifically told the first Christians not to cause trouble and to prove their piety by being kind, peaceful, hard-working citizens (1 Thess. 4:11); he told another early congregation that it would be better to allow wrongs to be done to them rather than to inflict them on someone else (1 Cor. 6:7), actually advising against suing those who would try to…
