TWO INTERPRETATIONS
OF OPERATION RESCUE
By Stephen Palmquist (stevepq@hkbu.edu.hk)
At several
points in this book (especially in Chapter Seven) I have alluded to those
Christians who feel called to protest actively against various social and/or
political injustices. Since I focused on the abortion issue in the third section
of Chapter Seven, it may be helpful for me to respond in more detail to "Operation
Rescue" (OR), an outspoken wing of the pro-life movement that actively
encourages Christians to protest at abortion clinics. For the purposes of
this Appendix, I will not attempt to provide a history of OR, nor to present
an exhaustive account of what its participants say, do, and believe; instead,
I will limit my attention to an assessment of two books, each written from
jail [see T1:11 and F2:viii] in defense of OR, each by a co-founder
of the organization.
Randall Terry
In Operation
Rescue [T1] Randall Terry describes the nature and original
vision of OR, from its first conception in 1984 to the waging of an all-out
"war against child killing" in 1988 [3; see also 179-190]. He describes
the rationale for Christians to participate in such a movement, and issues
a call for "a national uprising against abortion" [22], so that
those who care about America can save the country while there is still a chance.
In the course of his discussion, Terry refers to a number of activities the
value of which I have no intention whatsoever of calling into question: setting
up a Crisis Pregnancy Center and setting up "a home for unwed mothers"
[17] are two good examples. Unfortunately, his whole book emphasizes
values and methods that belong to the realm of worldly politics, and tends
to confuse these (and patriotism in general) with the Christian, theocratic
gospel. Thus he explains his own involvement "in extensive pro-life work"
[17-18] in terms of "speaking to concerned groups, showing films, preaching,
appearing on television, talking on radio shows, being interviewed by the
newspaper, educating people on abortion, instructing people how to lobby -doing
all the things that an active, involved pro-life ministry should do."
He reveals the thoroughly political nature of his goal by explaining
that "to win" will require "a constitutional amendment to outlaw
child killing in this country". How this would help the basic problem, the problem of unwanted children,
is not a question he addresses.
Terry does
provide some scriptural backing for a disapproval of evil in social and political
realms [T1:45-59]; and much of what he says on this subject is undoubtedly
correct. As we have seen, we are called to love any neighbor in need
[48], to confront evil wherever we find it [52], and to rejoice in the suffering
that inevitably follows [54-55]. Unfortunately, he not only focuses too much
on the issue of rights, but also twists the meaning of some passages to give them the appearance
of condoning political protests. For instance, he reads Matthew 5:10
as a blessing on "those who have been persecuted for standing up for
what is right" [54, emphasis added].
After reviewing
the tradition of Christian activism, Terry proceeds to give scriptural evidence
for his earlier claim [T1:19] that "when man's laws and God's
law conflict, the believer has a responsibility and an obligation to obey
God rather than man." He uses the Old Testament stories of Moses' parents
[Ex. 1:15-2:10], Rahab [Jos. 2:1-6,15], and Daniel [Dan. 3:13-18; 6:5,10-13,22]
to demonstrate that God is sometimes "pleased with ... disobedience to
the king's command" [81]. He draws further support from the New Testament
stories of Jesus' parents [Mat. 2:7-8,12], Peter and John [Ac. 4:18-20; 5:19-29],
and Jesus himself [Mk. 2:23-24; Lk. 6:7-11; Jn. 9:13-14,16]. Most of the points
Terry raises in discussing these passages are entirely valid. For example,
he regards these passages as pointing to "two basic reasons to defy
civil authority": (1) "Saving someone's life"; or (2) "Remaining
faithful to God" [T1:91-92]. However, on the assumption that Romans
13 and 1 Peter 2 apply only to good governments [93; but cf. pp.78-80
above], he concludes with a principle that is far too broad, "that God
expects His people to disobey the ungodly laws of men" [93].
In one short
section amounting to less than a page, Terry considers the view I believe
is most clearly supported by the biblical texts: that God calls us to disobey
not any law that we feel is unjust, but only "when we are
commanded to participate in evil" [T1:94-95]. His rebuttal consists
in merely pointing out, quite rightly, that sins of "omission" are
just as bad as sins of "commission". But this is beside the point.
The laws broken by participants in OR (e.g., trespassing) simply cannot be
compared to laws against preaching the gospel or distributing Bibles, as
Terry does in T1:115-131; for they are not laws that require
any such denial of the faith. Terry would no doubt reply that, although such
laws are just, they do require us to omit our duty to save an unborn
child from being aborted [125]. What Terry and others who use such arguments
[cf. F2:53n] fail to take into account is that there are also parents
involved-people to whom God has granted the responsibility of caring for a
human life. And since when is it a Christian's duty to usurp God's wisdom
by forcefully depriving others of the opportunity to sin?
The tendency to
focus almost entirely on the oppressed foetus gives rise to a
"difficulty" for participants in OR-namely, "that the intended
victim is captive inside the
mother" [T1:125, emphasis
added]. Such an attitude, against which I argued in Chapter Seven, ignores the
other, less obvious but equally potent ways in which others involved are giving
and receiving oppression. Moreover, the whole notion that the mother is holding
the foetus "captive" fosters the dangerous conviction that someone
other than the persons to whom God has given
the gift of this new life (i.e., someone other than the parents) is responsible for its well-being. This conviction is, in
fact, a key point in Terry's defense of OR. He refers to the Mosaic Law to
argue that guilt for the shedding of innocent blood rests not only upon the
person who commits a murder, but also upon anyone else who is-to quote the
phrase used as the title of a subsequent book by Terry-an "accessory to
murder" through failing to intervene [142-144]. "Not only those who
participate in child killing are guilty, but
those who know about it and do not stop it.... We know who is killing the
babies, therefore, we share in the guilt."
Such reasoning,
however, is faulty in the extreme. For if we truly follow the letter of the
Mosaic Law as Terry interprets it (i.e., as condemning "those who did
not bring justice by stoning [a child murderer] to death" [T1:143]),
then anyone who wishes to escape guilt should go out and shoot any
doctor who does abortions! (That this is not merely a hypothetical misreading
of Terry's meaning is evidenced by the fact that a pro-life activist actually
did shoot and kill a doctor at an abortion clinic in Florida, just
a few weeks before this book went to press.) Whether or not the Old Testament
supports such an attitude of "guilt by failing to punish a sinner",
the New Testament certainly does not [see e.g., Mat. 18:21-22]. Moreover,
it does not even support the notion that a person who submits to a bad law
(e.g., by allowing people to perform legal abortions) thereby shares in the
guilt of those who use their freedom as an excuse to do evil. Otherwise, we
would have to infer that, by willingly paying unjust taxes, Jesus himself
was guilty of supporting all the atrocities committed by the Roman government.
On the contrary, as Eller astutely points out: "There is not one word
in Romans 13, or anywhere else in the New Testament, implying that to 'not
resist one who is evil' (Mat. 5:39) is tantamount to legitimizing him"
[E1:204].
One of the
problems with Terry's approach lies in his use of language. Far from encouraging
reconciliation, he fosters an "us against them" attitude, not recognizing
the hidden propaganda implicit in his call to teach pregnant mothers "the
facts" [T1:17] before they are "deceived" by "the
abortion propagandists ... with their lies and half-truths." While some
of these facts certainly do need to be brought to light [see 20,126,136-137,
185,255-63], they are typically accompanied by emotive references to the opposition
that belie an intention to influence attitudes on the subconscious level to
which all good propaganda speaks: calling a clinic an "abortion mill"
[16,23,245], a "death camp" [198-199], an "abortuary"
[25,124,145, 242], or even "the doorstep of hell" [24]; calling
the doctors "abortionists" [145-146] or even "killers"
[21]; and calling abortion "child killing" [3,20,144] or even "child
sacrifice" [141,212]-such rhetoric can only hinder the progress of a
truly Christian ministry of reconciliation.
Terry uses
his caustic language to point out how far the United States is from being
a "Christian" nation, calling it instead "the moral cesspool
of the world" [T1:146]. Although his criticisms of the selfish
love of comfort and fear of the cross are insightful [see 151-173], he tends
to locate the fundamental guilt in the wrong place: it is not the people's
failure to protest against bad laws (or to shoot bad doctors) that has caused
the decay, but rather, their failure to abide by the Law of love in their
hearts. Moreover, instead of interpreting the abortion issue in terms of its
implications for the coming of God's kingdom, he consistently interprets
it in terms of its implications for "[t]he fate of America" [182]
and its culture [161]: "Everything we hold sacred ["is at
stake"]: our freedoms, our rights, our values, our Bibles, our families,
and the very future we hope to deliver to our children." And so his hope
is that "a remnant" will come forward to join him in OR, not so
much to hasten the Day of the Lord, but to "have a part in changing America's
destiny"!
Terry's call
for the church to go out and fearlessly attack the evil in its society
[T1:171-178] certainly has a good deal of truth in it. Unfortunately,
he sees the confrontation with evil not as a way of transforming the
world, but as aiming to push evil "back into the closet-and hopefully
back to hell where it came from" [178]. As is characteristic of most
attempts to see evil in such a black-and-white way, he fails to recognize
that evil does not go away when it is hidden. Instead, he sees the current
situation as a clash between ideologies: the "good" one being
"the Judeo-Christian ethic", which serves as "the foundation
of our politics, our judicial system, and our public morality", and the
"bad" one being "the uncertain sea of humanism" [178].
By contrast, biblical theocracy shows us a picture of a God who battles for
victory over all ideologies through his all-encompassing Word. Sadly,
Terry reveals his lack of faith in any theocratic solution to the problem
of abortion when he warns that "there is no chance of victory"
without a sustained application of worldly methods [187-188]: unlike Gideon's
army, "there must be a massive" number of Christians devoted to
OR, who should all "select pro-life doctors, patronize pro-life hospitals,
picket at local abortion clinics, write our legislators, and [finally something
theocratic!] get involved with crisis pregnancy centers." Rather than
burning hearts with the fire of God's nonresistant Word, Terry lays stress
on the importance of the "picketers and rescuers", who are responsible
for "keeping abortion a 'hot issue'" [187]. What he forgets is that
Jesus refused to identify with the Zealots, precisely because their
prime concern was likewise to stir up trouble in God's name, so that the hottest
issue for the fate of Israel-namely, the Roman occupation-would stay alive.
One of my main
concerns over Terry's whole approach is his apparent failure to speak and act
with the attitude of "brokenness and humility" that he himself
recommends [T1:215]. The whole
premise upon which OR is based, that we are capable
of "saving babies from death and mothers from exploitation" [21] by taking the law into our own hands
[19,21] and/or by making abortion illegal [215] belies a prideful
self-estimation ("I'm not exploiting
women!" [cf. 24]) which cannot be upheld by a theocrat. Terry warns
against the danger of arrogance [94]. Yet somehow,
he seems to know that "from
God's perspective ... there is no difference between born and pre-born
children" [137-138], that "to Him abortion is no different from
sacrificing a child on an altar" [123], that "Satan [not God!]
receives the blood of these little ones" who are killed innocently [142],
that "[w]hat we do ... will
determine what God does" [190], and that "[a]ny 'revival' in a given
church or community that does not result in God's people repenting for allowing
abortion to continue is false." On the surface, at least, these do not appear to be the words of
someone who shares "the broken heart of God" [148]; for rather than
"a broken and contrite heart" [Ps. 51:17] pleading for mercy [51:1]
and salvation "from bloodguilt" [51:14], they seem to express the
proud wisdom of a human heart groping
for a political response to a tragedy that God alone can heal.
Joseph Foreman
The foregoing
criticisms have been directed exclusively against the non-theocratic tendencies
in Randall Terry's specific way of defending OR, as expressed in T1.
In light of the position I defended in Chapter Seven [see especially, pp.138-139n],
it should be clear enough that they must not be taken as an absolute
judgment, such that all who protest at abortion clinics are necessarily sinning.
For any such judgment would be a denial of the theocratic spirit. Instead,
my dissatisfaction with Terry's approach can be expressed precisely in these
terms: precious little of the theocratic spirit comes out in his call to join
the anti-abortion crusade in God's name. In stark contrast, however, Joseph
Foreman's book, Shattering the Darkness [F2], defends OR while
being thoroughly permeated with a deep understanding of biblical theocracy.
Although his argument is still problematic in certain respects, examining
it will give us a far better sense of how a theocrat might with integrity
join those who block the doors of abortion clinics.
The superiority
of F2 over T1 can be expressed in a single statement: whereas
Terry treats the OR line on the abortion issue as the litmus test of
true faith, Foreman fully recognizes that OR is only one of many possible
areas into which Christians might be called to carry their own cross [F2:
xxii,33,41]. The main thrust of Foreman's critique of American Christianity
and culture is therefore the unwillingness to take seriously the message of
the cross. The abortion issue and OR as one viable response to it are highlighted
as "only one small part of American culture" [xix], in which this
deeper problem can be seen. Accordingly, Foreman is willing not only to criticize
a crossless approach to OR just as much as (if not more than) any other untheocratic
element in western society, but also to call for reconciliation between
Christians who are called to block the doors of abortion clinics and those
who are not.
In order to
accomplish this important perspectival shift in interpreting OR, Foreman begins
by explaining that "the heart of authentic Christianity is Rescue" [F2:xvii; see also 40]. The narrow sense
of "rescue", as applying to abortion clinic blockades, loses its true
meaning unless it is understood as part of the far broader task of loving one's
neighbor [xvi] by imitating the "pattern of the Cross" [xix; see also
9,19,58,66,122] established by "Christ whose name-Yeshua-means 'Savior',
'Rescuer'" [8; see also 20]. Thus he admits that participants in OR tend
to be not all that different from their fellow Americans [xviii]: "we do
not want to put ourselves in a position where, for God's victory we must die to
our own agendas." This explicitly theocratic insight is followed by a
humble confession [xix] that "we wanted political coercion to suffice
where our willingness to take up our cross would cost too much." A
complete reversal of priorities is therefore needed [xxi-xxii]: "The power
to serve is the power to rule. When we learn to serve, then our whole society,
not only just its abortion laws, will lie open to be transformed by the Gospel."
This is biblical theocracy at its best.
Foreman's basic
argument is encapsulated in F2:9: "Because we recognize the validity
of Rescue itself in the grand sense, we can recognize all these [i.e., OR's]
activities as being Rescues in a derivative sense." Throughout his book,
he frequently refers to three principles that define the "Law of Love"
[22] operating in Jesus' "grand" Rescue on the cross, and thereby
apply also to any "derivative" rescue in which we take part: (1)
Christ's atonement "is an act of physical intervention"; (2) in submission he "was harmless toward His enemies and took
destruction to Himself"; and (3) in his incarnation Christ "identified
with us" [20-21; see also 15,31-32]. Foreman uses these principles to
justify the basic tactics of OR: rescuing babies by physically blocking the
doors to abortion clinics, by "go[ing] limp instead of assisting in the
murder by walking away" [21], and by "taking on punishment and judgment
to ourselves" [22]. Thus, the fact that an abortion clinic rescue tends
to look very similar to secular-style "protests" is potentially
misleading and "only incidental" [29-30]. "Rescue is not civil
disobedience; it is godly obedience."
Foreman's
statement of the OR case is thoughtful and in many ways persuasive. His overall
vision I believe is unassailably biblical, and so also utterly theocratic.
Yet when it comes to his specific defense of OR tactics, his argument contains
several flaws that render it, to my mind, inconclusive at best. The basic
problem is that his analogy between the "physical intervention"
of the cross and that of an OR blockade is misplaced. For on the cross, Jesus
did not position himself "between killer and victim", as Foreman
assumes [F2:41]; rather, he positioned himself between God and
the sin-filled human race. Jesus' atoning work was an intervention on behalf
of sinners, to the extent that he explicitly denies its relevance for
the "righteous" [see Mat. 9:13]. In the tragedy of abortion, the
mother surely corresponds most closely to the "sinner", since
the foetus has not yet had the opportunity to do anything. Just as
the divine Rescuer came to save sinners from the condemning grip of the "righteous"
Pharisees (who themselves defined sinfulness), so also abortion rescuers
should focus their attention on saving the mother from the condemning
grip of anyone in her society who righteously oppresses her with their self-defined
norms. This may be her doctors or the pro-choice advocates, but it could just
as well be the man who impregnated her or the pro-life advocates themselves.
Foreman assumes
that OR's physical intervention is done "in a way which does not hurt
anyone" [F2:15]. He seems at times oblivious to the fact that
his call "to keep our eyes ... on God and on the children" [29]
does leave others hurting as a result-not only the mother, but at times
the doctors, the pro-choice activists, and their innocent neighbors as well.
A full-fledged ministry of reconciliation, by contrast, must take fully into
account all of these potentially hurtful and oppressive relationships.
To be sure, we must be willing "to listen with God to that silent scream"
of each tragic victim of abortion [F2:27]. But let us also not use
this as an excuse to turn a deaf ear to the audible screams of those
living all around us, whom we can actually see.
This and
other inconsistencies in Foreman's otherwise powerful argument prevent me from wholeheartedly endorsing OR as a legitimate application
of theocratic politics. Nevertheless, I do not see how any theocrat who reads
F2 could possibly presume to deny that, for Joseph Foreman,
blocking the doors of abortion clinics can serve as a theocratic vocation.
Furthermore, his recommendation that those who believe they too are called
to sacrifice their lives in this way ought to become full time "missionaries
to the preborn" [F2:89] seems far more likely to promote authentic
theocracy than the relative safety of a weekend commitment. We are all imperfect,
so none of our attempts to understand and live up to the principles
of biblical theocracy is going to be perfect. The important point is not to
decide whether participating in an OR blockade is or is not consistent with
these principles-and it is certainly not to condemn those whose conviction
differs from our own. It is rather to live the theocratic vision in such a
way that our actions communicate the principles of biblical theocracy even
louder than our words. And Foreman is doing this in a way that puts most of
us to shame: not only is he willing to suffer unjustly for the sins of others,
but he interprets his suffering with an attitude of truly theocratic humility;
for he denies any ultimate importance to the tangible results, if any,
that arise out of his own efforts, recognizing that what looks like a tragic loss from the point
of view of his human strategy may well be a gain in the eyes of Almighty
God.
