Politics

Abortion

Regarding Abortion, Should Christians Be Pro-Compassion? Answering Questions, Further Reflections

10/22/2022 Bruce Strom 1

How should we, as Christians, approach moral problems? This is similar to a related question; How should we interpret the Scriptures and Church teaching to guide us to live a godly life? St Augustine, in his seminal work, On Christian Teaching, or On Christian Doctrine, teaches us that “whoever thinks he understands the Holy Scriptures,” “but interprets them in a way that does not build up this two-fold Love of God and love of neighbor, does not truly understand the Scriptures.” […]

Abortion

Supreme Court Dobbs Case Overruling Roe v Wade: Should Christians be Pro-Compassion? Pro-Doctors?

08/24/2022 Bruce Strom 3

There are some really heart-breaking situations involving abortion. Should abortion be allowed if the mother’s and/or the baby’s life is in danger? Should abortion be allowed in case of rape or incest? Should abortion be permitted if it is likely the mother would otherwise commit suicide? Should abortion be permitted to reduce the number of deaths caused by botched abortions by coat hangers or Lysol? […]

Philosophy

Why This Old White Christian Abandoned the Republican Party

01/07/2022 Bruce Strom 0

The absolute disrespect shown to our President Barack Obama by many Republican Congressmen, Fox News, and the Tea Party movement was both deeply offensive and also reminded me of similar insults thrown about during the Jim Crow lynching years of our ugly history. It was the rise of the Tea Party movement that meant I now had an ugly choice, I could either support the party of morals, or I could support the party of compassion, but the choice was not really that ugly, because if you are not compassionate, than any morals you wear on your sleeve for show are fake morals, because compassion and morals go together. […]

Philosophy

Socrates, Aristophanes and The Clouds, Capitol Riots, Georgia, and the Big Lie

03/19/2021 Bruce Strom 3

Many millennia ago there was another injustice when a five-hundred person jury convicted Socrates to death, and in his trial Socrates felt compelled to protest to the jurors that he was not the same Socrates as the miscreant Socrates lampooned by the Athenian comedian Aristophanes in his play “The Clouds.” […]

Civil Rights

American Evangelicals, Civil Rights, and Republican Politics

02/12/2021 Bruce Strom 4

When we study the history of the Christian Church in America, we must ask ourselves, What role should the Christian Church play in our society, in our culture, in the making of the values of our nation?  What role SHOULD the church play?  What role DOES the church play?  There is always a spiritual contest between the church and our culture, this contest is summed up in the eternal question: Who is going to influence whom? Will the Church succeed in influencing our culture?  Or will our culture instead influence the Church? […]

History

Trump, QAnon and Fox News: Body and Soul Snatchers of My Christian Friends

02/12/2021 Bruce Strom 0

Whenever I talk to my white Christian friends and tell them that I am a socialist liberal Democrat; that I support the social justice Catholic position so passionately advanced by Pope Francis; that Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, AOC, George Soros, Tom Hanks, and Hilary Clinton are not QAnon bogeymen kidnapping children; that I am both pro-life and pro-choice, with reservations, and am not pro-death; that Black Lives Really Do Matter deeply; when I tell them this and more, they bulge their eyes, point their fingers, and let out a high pitch screech screaming: Snake!  False Teacher! Satan’s servant!  Liberal!  Communist! Trump hater!  Baby killer!  Murderer!  Democrat! […]

Abortion

Pope Francis Mentions Abortion in Gaudete et Exsultate, With a Prayer From Pope Benedict

09/25/2020 Bruce Strom 5

Our defense of the innocent unborn needs to be clear, firm and passionate, for at stake is the dignity of a human life, which is always sacred and demands love for each person, regardless of his or her stage of development.”

Equally sacred, however, are the lives of the poor, those already born, the destitute, the abandoned and the underprivileged, the vulnerable infirm and elderly exposed to covert euthanasia, the victims of human trafficking, new forms of slavery, and every form of rejection.  We cannot uphold an ideal of holiness that would ignore injustice in a world where some revel, spend with abandon and live only for the latest consumer goods, even as others look on from afar, living their entire lives in abject poverty. […]

Abortion

A Democrat Christian Ponders Abortion and Morality

09/01/2020 Bruce Strom 4

As you can tell from the length of this blog, abortion is truly a moral tar baby.  If you do not touch the tar baby and only glance at its outward appearances from twenty feet away, you can yell and scream and shout and maybe even shoot at those who do the evil deed, and think you are righteous and holy condemning those who you think made a sinful decision all day long on Facebook and Twitter and on the abortion picket line.

But if you dare to get one arm, then your other arm, then one leg, then your other leg into that moral tar baby called abortion, and start moving around and educating yourself and pondering and praying about all the sticky morass of moral issues, you will never get free of this moral tar baby, you will never be able to condemn any decision anybody makes about abortion, you will only be able to feel compassion towards those unfortunate few who must decide and who must live with their decision. […]