“FAITH ABORTED BY CHURCH”  -or-  “HOW WONDERFUL it is that GOD IS PRESENT IN THE CHOICE in order to be CHOSEN and not in Order to Judge”

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“The choice itself is crucial for the content of the personality: through the choice the personality submerges itself in that which is being chosen, and when it does not choose, it withers away in atrophy.”    

-Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or (Part II)

Dear Reader,

This post is an interlude in the discussion I started last time.  Yet, the point is germane.  My next post will take up again the relation between Bob’s Stomach and faith in Christ Jesus.  

I am a firm supporter of doctrine.  People look at me like an alien when they find this to be true.  People say, “How could you be so rigid and boring?”  But the incredulousness stems from a misunderstanding.  The confusion is rooted in the equivocation of law and doctrine.  

A law is always negative.  The Law always rewards the negative--only attends to you when you break the law.  The punishment is immediate, that is, directly connected to the action.  Furthermore, the law offers no choice, but must be followed.

Doctrine, on the other hand, is always positive.  Doctrine, unless it is a law in doctrine’s clothing, always--always--creates the occasion for the individual to choose.  What a rare and invaluable gift!  Doctrine offers the gift of free choice...the gift of true freedom.  Doctrine offers a statement, the form of which gives the opportunity for people to say “Yes” or “No.”  

Allow me to give a concrete example.  A heated debate rages in the Rockford Register Star, and across the nation.  The U.S. government has passed a new law concerning abortion and contraception.  

Governments are set up to provide law and not doctrine.  Every government is in the business of law...our government was set up to avoid doctrine.  The United States of America were established to protect the free choice of the individual when it comes to doctrine.  There are other nations in which doctrine is also the work of the government, but this only makes doctrine into law.  Governments have a Midas touch by which all is turned into law.  King and Congress only concern themselves with gold and law.  

So, the government has passed a new law requiring every employer and insurance company to provide medical coverage for abortions and contraception.  U.S. Christians, particularly Catholics, have responded loudly.  These Christians claim that the government is encroaching on the freedom of religious belief, a freedom that is protected under the law of this nation.  Nothing could be farther from the truth.

These Christians are looking at things upside-down.  This law is giving people more freedom, and not less.  In fact, this very law concerning abortion is protecting the doctrine of the Catholic church--by keeping it a doctrine...by preventing the church from making it a law to be followed.  This new law is creating room for faith.  Of a sudden, it is the government forcing the issue to be a matter of choice, a matter of doctrine, a matter of belief.  

If abortion is a matter of law within the church, then faith is annulled.  The church rips from the individual the opportunity to agree with church doctrine...because there is no longer a choice, but only law and constraint.  But faith always frees, and one always lays hold of faith freely, for there is no other way.  God does not want it otherwise, because God wants, above all, to be chosen (just has God has chosen us freely).

Were it not so sad and pitiable, it would be rather comic that the Catholic Church does not trust its own people to choose doctrine.  

Let us examine what the law is asking of the church.  The church is required to pay for abortion and contraception if its employees, individually, decide to abort or to contracept.  The church has an out, because they no longer have a choice under the law.  But the choice is placed in precisely the spot, the only spot, where faith exists: in the individual believer.  Catholics (and others) claim that the biblical witness speaks against these actions, and yet they do not have faith in the effectiveness of that witness.  They do not have faith that the biblical witness has the power to (in)form believers.  Or, more precisely, the church has no faith that it is doing a good enough job teaching, loving and informing people to make decisions on their own from the standpoint of faith.  But this is the church’s only role in the world.  If the church does not empower people to decide things in faith, then it is useless.  Making doctrine into law is a move of desperation, and it reveals the church’s inability to fulfill its task.

The big argument is that the law destroys the church’s integrity.  Church doctrine says one thing and the church is forced to do quite another.  I will not comment on the church’s integrity in other matters, I leave that up to you, dear reader, in the confines of your own minds and hearts.  But I will speak generally.  

A recent opinion column in the Rkfd Register Star claimed that the government was giving the Catholic Church (this denomination was named specifically) a choice: either the loss of integrity or death.  Disintegration or death.  

A rather melodramatic statement, but let us suppose it is true.  

The opinion column could have just as easily put it this way, for this is the positive statement of that apocalyptic response: the church is being given the opportunity to die for what it believes in.  

Has not the church, throughout history, asked--even required--individuals to die for the sake of integrity--to die for belief, doctrine and faith?  The Catholic Church in America is in a bit of a pickle.  Either way, the integrity of the institution is forfeit.  Unless, of course, the institution chooses disintegration (death).  And to that I say, “Church: welcome to the crisis of faith, welcome to the experience that every individual faces in this life.”  

Existence is not for the weak of stomach.  Humans are faced with hard choices.  And when we make a choice, we live either with the guilt or with the consequences...or both (often both).  Jesus Christ appears at this point.  Jesus frees us from guilt, or frees us to face consequences, secure in the promise that we are justified and loved and supported.  

In my estimation, faith is something beyond integrity.  That is, integrity is a perfection that I, myself, cannot attain in every situation.  I thank God that faith is something different, that faith is more, is deeper.  I thank God that faith is wrestling with possibilities, with the choice.

Thus, this new law concerning abortion and contraception protects the faith, paradoxically enough.  This law forces the crisis of faith upon believers.  Either the individual will throw her- or himself upon Jesus, our Rock, and be empowered to refuse abortion and contraception.  Or the individual will--whether in good conscience or bold confidence--choose abortion/contraception and throw her- or himself upon Jesus Christ to receive grace and justification.  All roads still lead to Jesus Christ.    

“...what is important in choosing is not so much to choose the right thing as the energy, the earnestness, and the pathos with which one chooses.  In the choosing the personality declares itself in its inner infinity and in turn the personality is thereby consolidated.  Therefore, even though a person chose the wrong thing, he nevertheless, by virtue of the energy with which he chose, will discover that he chose the wrong thing.  In other words, since the choice has been made with all the inwardness of his personality, his inner being is purified and he himself is brought into an immediate relationship with the eternal power that omnipresently pervades all existence.”

-Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or (Part II)

If the church is more concerned about faith, instead of integrity, then it will follow the law of government, and rejoice that it can focus on equipping disciples in the art of choosing.  

I thank God that I live in a nation, and am a member of a church, that protects my ability to choose faith freely.  God never forsakes me amidst the consequences--never forsakes you, either.  Thanks be to God!  

I pray that your church is one that gives you the freedom to choose...gives you the opportunity for faith.  

-Ryan Howard   

P.S.--Beloved Reader, 

Interested in the Lutheran perspective(s) on contraception and abortion?  Post a comment and I will put it in my blog queue.

Beloved of God, 

Are you wrestling with the matter of abortion/contraception in your own life?  I invite you to contact me, and we can talk together about Christ’s presence in the midst of hard decisions, in the midst of your life.  My email contact: ryan@oslcrockford.com  

At least I implore you to speak with some you trust--someone who will focus on Christ's presence above all else.

rha