We Need Ongoing Conversations About When Human Life And Human Personhood Begin

I had the following piece published in the Daily News-Record on, of all days, my birthday:

I remember when it was still possible to have civil debates among people of faith over the issue of abortion. Most recognized a lack of consensus in both scientific and religious communities over complex questions about the beginning of human life and human personhood. Then almost overnight, largely through efforts by some on the political right, the issue became framed in a way that brought about a sharp and unreconcilable divide. On one side were those who felt the science was still unclear and that theologians had more work to do in determining beginning of life questions. On the other side were those who insisted that any termination of any pregnancy at any stage was equal to cold blooded murder.

Once the word “murder” became associated with even the use of an IUD as a means of birth control, or the use of a morning-after pill in the case of rape or incest, for many the debate was over. Either you were for preserving life from the very moment of conception or you become an accomplice to killing babies.

Historically there have been earnest debates by theologians over how soon after conception “ensoulment” happened, with some concluding it was somewhere around day 40, and some later. For many the question was important in order to determine when and whether a prenatal human life was under the condemnation of original sin and required baptism.

Meanwhile, most Jewish and some Protestant communities saw human life, while physically beginning at conception, as not being fully ‘ensouled’ until birth. They drew on the creation account in Genesis, in which the Spirit/Wind/Breath of God hovered over the earth, impregnating it with life. Then in a special moment of human creation, God fashioned adamah (dust) into God’s own image, then breathed into it the breath of divine life, at which point the human being became a living soul, a person, and was given a name, Adam.

Based on this understanding of humanity being first beautifully formed from clay and then wonderfully endowed with the divine breath of life, many faith communities made some distinctions between the existence of a human body in the womb and the God-breathed life of a human soul, or person, while recognizing each as a priceless gift from God.

Here are some of our actual practices:
1. We typically name, dedicate, bless, and/or christen infants after a birth has taken place. A name might be chosen before birth but is not officially documented until afterwards.
2.Traditionally our life stories, biographies and memoirs begin with the date of our birth rather than the date of our conception or viability. That date of birth is linked to our identity, required for verification at medical and other appointments, celebrated annually and is memorialized on our tombstones.
3. While there is an estimated equal number of natural abortions (miscarriages) as there are induced ones, faith communities have normally published obituaries and held memorial or burial services only for stillbirths or for infants already born. We have, however, hopefully begun to do more to support those grieving all of these losses, while not normally erecting grave markers to memorialize prenatal life.
4. In terms of census taking, a woman pregnant with a baby is still counted as only one person. Only after a delivery is the resulting birth added to the census and counted as a citizen.

If we truly believed full personhood, and not just life, began at conception, we should perhaps do all of the above, but I raise these points simply to recognize some of the complexity we have long associated with the issue, and to humbly ask whether we could agree that neither science nor religion have yet come up an absolutely definitive answer as to just when a human life in formation becomes a human person. 

Meanwhile, I join with pro-life-minded women and men everywhere who honor and protect life from conception (remember the awesomeness of that first sonogram!), with abortions performed only in cases of incest, rape, or for significant medical or health reasons, and not as a primary means of birth control. But I will also join with all who offer empathy and support for those who face gut wrenching beginning-of-life as well as end-of-life decisions for which there may not always be simple or easy answers.

In addition we should also support efforts at having men take full responsibility for the pregnancies they cause, and join in doing everything we can to help relieve the suffering of innocent men, women and children everywhere (including unborn ones) who face unbelievable hardships and trauma in the face of famine, war and other forms of violence and destruction.

Let’s work together at being consistently pro-life. All of us.

Why I fully support my church's stand on abortion. 

https://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2019/02/yes-i-am-pro-life-and-oppose-abortion.html

Another perspective: https://www.phillyvoice.com/abortion-christian-beliefs-murder-roe-wade-supreme-court/?fbclid=IwAR3BiEerBld0bjaKhZLlTL1Yeb5tn4pwpe6SQ9qr1X7V4P2Ncug3MsPL4SE

John Wesley In His Own Words: When Human Life And When Spiritual Life Begin

 

John Wesley 1703-1791, in a treatise on the new birth

Before a child is born into the world he has eyes, but sees not; he has ears, but does not hear. He has a very imperfect use of any other sense. He has no knowledge of any of the things of the world, or any natural understanding. To that manner of existence which he then has, we do not even give the name of life. It is then only when a man is born, that we say he begins to live. For as soon as he is born, be begins to see the light, and the various objects with which he is encompassed. His ears are then opened, and he hears the sounds which successively strike upon them. At the same time, all the other organs of sense begin to be exercised upon their proper objects. He likewise breathes, and lives in a manner wholly different from what he did before. 

How exactly doth the parallel hold in all these instances! While a man is in a mere natural state, before he is born of God, he has, in a spiritual sense, eyes and sees not; a thick impenetrable veil lies upon them; he has ears, but hears not; he is utterly deaf to what he is most of all concerned to hear. His other spiritual senses are all locked up: He is in the same condition as if he had them not. Hence he has no knowledge of God; no intercourse with him; he is not at all acquainted with him. He has no true knowledge of the things of God, either of spiritual or eternal things; therefore, though he is a living man, he is a dead Christian. But as soon as he is born of God, there is a total change in all these particulars. The “eyes of his understanding are opened;” (such is the language of the great Apostle;) and, He who of old “commanded light to shine out of darkness shining on his heart, he sees the light of the glory of God,” his glorious love, “in the face of Jesus Christ.” His ears being opened, he is now capable of hearing the inward voice of God, saying, “Be of good cheer; thy sins are forgiven thee;” “go and sin no more.” 

This is the purport of what God speaks to his heart; although perhaps not in these very words. He is now ready to hear whatsoever “He that teacheth man knowledge” is pleased, from time to time, to reveal to him. He “feels in his heart,” to use the language of our Church, “the mighty working of the Spirit of God;” not in a gross, carnal sense as the men of the world stupidly and willfully misunderstand the expression; though they have been told again and again, we mean thereby neither more nor less than this: He feels, is inwardly sensible of, the graces which the Spirit of god works in his heart. He feels, he is conscious of, a “peace which passeth all understanding.” He many times feels such a joy in God as is “unspeakable, and full of glory.” He feels “the love of God shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost which is given unto him;” and all his spiritual senses are then exercised to discern spiritual good and evil. By the use of these, he is daily increasing in the knowledge of God, of Jesus Christ whom he hath sent and to all the things pertaining to his inward kingdom. And now he may be properly said to live: God having quickened him by his Spirit, he is alive to God through Jesus Christ. He lives a life which the world knoweth not of, a “life which is hid with Christ in God.” God is continually breathing, as it were, upon the soul; and his soul is breathing unto God. Grace is descending into his heart; and prayer and praise ascending to heaven: And by this intercourse between God and man, this fellowship with the Father and the Son, as by a kind of spiritual respiration, the life of God in the soul is sustained; and the child of God grows up, till he comes to the “full measure of the stature of Christ.”

Note: We now know that a human life prior to birth is far more aware than John Wesley could have realized https://www.parentcircle.com/what-babies-learn-in-the-womb/article. In any case, while he never addressed the issue of abortion in his sermons and writings, Wesley would have certainly supported preserving human life as precious at all stages of development. Yet it seems clear that he believed human personhood began at birth, which would be consistent with traditional Jewish teaching regarding the first human becoming a living soul when God breathed into him the breath of life. 

Here's link to my own position on abortion: 

https://harvyoder.blogspot.com/2019/02/yes-i-am-pro-life-and-oppose-abortion.html

If Jesus Were Commissioning The Twelve Today

Jesus, are you serious?

Jesus sent out the twelve with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give."  Matthew 10:5-8

Were Jesus to send his followers on a similar mission in 2022, would he give them the same assignment? 

For starters, he would have a hard time persuading many of us that we could actually accomplish any of those things. And while his miracle-based deeds addressed some truly priority needs among people in the first century, would they represent the same kind of good news to the average American today?

After some reflection, though, I wondered whether Jesus might actually mandate something like the following:

1. Heal the sick. The need for affordable healthcare is always with us. But unlike the primitive and almost non-existent medical care available then, we have access to proven medicines and treatments unheard of in Jesus's day. So his brand of free divine healing was a lifesaving godsend for the many people he healed with fatal and debilitating health conditions.

But people are still suffering from physical and emotional illnesses for which they need the kind of help caring Jesus followers can provide, employing all of the resources of healing, both natural and miraculous, we can bring to a world of hurt. So we all need to keep promoting wellness and good health for everyone, regardless of their ability to pay.

2. Raise the dead. We have no record of any of Jesus's twelve ever physically raised anyone from the dead, so Jesus may not actually have even been referring to literal resurrections. But are there not people everywhere who are "dead" in their spirits, lacking in their ability to hear and see and feel the abundant life available to them? Are there not multitudes ever needing to be raised from their death-like stupor and sleep?

3. Restore outcastes. In the first century leprosy was a label applied to a variety of disfiguring conditions believed to be contagious, resulting in people being shut off from normal social contacts with others. They were to live only with fellow lepers and were required to warn others to keep a safe distance, with cries of "Unclean" as others approached.

What groups among us are ostracized and considered untouchable today? How are we to welcome, embrace and love them in healing communities that are truly like a heaven on earth?

4. Drive out evil spirits. Millions of people remain under the oppressive influence of nationalism, mammonism, materialism, militarism and other spirits that control their minds and their behaviors in ways that are deadly and debilitating. A pandemic of misinformation, untruths and outright lies are affecting whole populations, as described in the text, "The Spirit makes it clear that as time goes on, some are going to give up on the faith and chase after demonic illusions put forth by professional liars. These liars have lied so well and for so long that they’ve lost their capacity for truth." *

So let's take a fresh look. There's a lot of urgent work to do, and you and I are to make it a part of our mission.

* the apostle Paul, I Timothy 4:1-2

Guest Post: After Promising Hard Earned Releases, Virginia State Lawmakers Renege

The following Open Forum piece was submitted the the Daily News-Record by Debra Turner, a member of the Valley Justice Coalition, and is posted here with her kind permission: 

Last week's decision is a hard blow to some 500 incarcerated men and
women and their families.

Everyone likes to save money on car insurance.  

Sounds like the opening to a commercial, but it actually describes well the philosophy behind the Earned Sentence Credits Bill passed in 2020. The insurance company offers you lower rates as long as you drive safely and obey the rules of the road. The State of Virginia lowers the sentence time of those with nonviolent offenses when they remain infraction free and improve themselves by participating in programs. Both policies help keep us safe and everyone benefits.

 In 2020 during a special session, a bipartisan group of legislators devised legislation to incentivize those with nonviolent crimes to improve themselves for an earlier release.  These individuals would eventually be released anyway so why not incentivize them to participate in programs, hold a job, and in general stay out of trouble and come home better citizens. In order to give VADOC time to update its databases and prepare, Governor Northam amended the bill so that it wouldn’t take effect until July 1, 2022.

Then came the Virginia State elections in the fall of 2021 and there was a change in the political makeup of the House of Delegates and every top political office including that of governor. Before the law could even take effect, in 2022 members of the House of Delegates entered bills to either exclude more people from the original bill or to repeal the bill entirely.  These bills passed in the House, but didn’t even make it out of the Senate committees.  In the normal legislative process this should have been the end of the story for this legislative session.

After the 2022 General Assembly adjourned, final steps were taken to bring home those who had worked for two years to improve themselves, stay out of trouble, and earn an earlier release. Those who were eligible were notified and given a release date.  Family and friends made plans to help their loved ones come home. Home plans were approved, jobs were found, applications for driver’s licenses were filled out.  Weddings were planned, reunions set up, and fathers and grandparents were in joyous anticipation of seeing children after many years or for the first time.

About 500 of those scheduled to be released have what are called mixed charges. They have completed their sentences for violent offenses that did not qualify for the ESC Bill but were also serving consecutive sentences for nonviolent offenses that did qualify. Members of the House of Delegates persuaded the governor to use a nonconventional way to block legislation it was unable to block through the normal legislative process of the 2022 General Assembly session. The Governor was persuaded to enter a budget amendment that would exclude those with these mixed charges. But Virginia doesn’t legislate through the budget. There is a legislative process followed for a reason. It’s called democracy.

Friday evening Senator Mark Obenshain rose before the Senate body to urge members to deny early release to people who had worked in good faith for two years to improve themselves, fully expecting the legislative process to honor the promises made in 2020.  As Senator Boysko pointed out, “We cannot create a system of reform if the people we govern cannot trust the laws we have set in place.” Senator Obenshain’s repeated claim that “murderers and rapists” would be given reduced sentences is completely false. They have served their full sentence for the crimes which are not eligible for the ESC Bill. But as Senator Morrissey pointed out, Obenshain’s statements are “a great soundbite and a great commercial, but it’s not what they are doing.”

The news of the cruel reality that they are not coming home this summer as promised is quickly being spread through the facilities and to loved ones. They feel anger, disbelief and betrayal by a system they trusted to honor the commitments made to them. They kept their end of the bargain. They did everything required of them so they could come home just a little earlier to their loved ones. Sadly, the Virginia Legislature has sacrificed its honor for the benefit of a political soundbite.

Churches Must Find Alternatives To Voting--Can We Second That Motion?

Not sure we should add this to our list
of sacred texts.

Most of us assume the best way for  groups to make decisions is by majority vote, congregations included. So following Roberts Rule of Order, we have motions presented and seconded, and after brief discussions, take a vote. If over half of the group (or 2/3 in some cases) vote in favor, that settles it. It's the way democracy works. 

When an issue isn't particularly divisive this can be an efficient way to come to a decision. But when faced with something about which members have deep and differing feelings, it can result in polarization and division. Complex issues are first reduced to yea or nay options, then people have to align themselves on one side or the other, with one side coming out as the winner and the other the loser. In congregations, as in other communities of people, that can result in everyone losing.  

To avoid that, my friend David Brubaker, a consultant in organizational leadership and conflict mediation,  advises leaders to "Never take a vote about which you don't already know the outcome."

What this means is that until groups have taken time to really hear everyone's concerns and to arrive at some degree of consensus, they really don't have a satisfactory solution to a problem. Of course, if it's something people don't have deep feelings or convictions about, like whether to install tile or lay carpet in the fellowship hall, or whether to have fellowship meals once a month or once a quarter, a simple vote may be fine. And with most things you can always take up the issue again at a later time and have another vote.

But there are better ways to deal with deep seated differences. 

One of the principles of mediation and conflict resolution is to start by sharing common interests, rather than with proposed solutions. In other words, around the question of whether to recruit a salaried youth and young adult pastor a group could first find agreement on such interests as a) wanting to more effectively disciple their youth and young adults, b) wanting to be good stewards of their congregational resources, b) remaining united and faithful as a congregation regardless of the outcome, c) welcoming differing points of view as potentially helpful, and d) staying together and working and praying together until they arrive at a place of at least substantial agreement.

After coming together on common interests, instead of either deciding on options A or B, yes or no, a congregation might then take time to generate options C, D, E and F, and take some straw polls as they go along to sense which options seem to be gaining the greatest support.

One good way of gauging a group's feelings on an issue may be to have members indicate a degree of agreement with options presented, as in 0% agreement, 100% agreement, or any percentage in between. This may be especially important when it come to calling someone into a major leadership position in the church, or when reaffirming a pastor's continued service. 

One example David Brubaker suggests for some issues is the Quaker "fist to five" model, a method of testing consensus that can be used to indicate the gradient of support. (Where "five" means "full support" and "fist" means "no support," but with an additional four options in between the two.) At some point, he says, "we're going to have to deal with the reality that our current decision-making methods are inherently polarizing, as they force us into false binaries."

The fact is that most congregants, on most issues, have at least some ambivalent or mixed feelings on many issues, all of which deserve consideration, whereas an up or down vote on a matter pits one group, the nays, against another group, the yeas. And in the case of congregations determining whether to offer a pastor another term of service, for example, a no-confidence vote can all too often lead to their leaving and taking their supporters with them.

Of course, one might question whether God's people were ever meant to "hire" their pastors in the first place, but that's a subject for a future conversation.

Footnote: When it comes to filling other church positions, many churches have chosen alternatives to having nominating committees come up with slate of nominees to vote on to fill various church responsibilities. At Zion Mennonite, where I served as pastor for many years, we had members respond to an annual poll in which they indicated the areas in which they were personally most interested in serving, and then also had them name others they saw as qualified for various leadership positions. A Gifts Discernment Committee chosen by the congregation then matched the needs with available people and gifts.

Having Dozed Off In A Dream World, Let's Imagine Waking Up In The Real World

Harrisonburg's Heritage Oaks Golf Course photo

Anyone looking for paradise on earth would be hard pressed to find a more perfect one than the Shenandoah Valley. In the heart of that beautiful part of Virginia, few locations on earth rival the city of Harrisonburg, aptly named the "Friendly City." Within that community, the area known as Park View is as hospitable and habitable can be found anywhere. Then within that locale, Park Village, a part of Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community, offers an unusually rare taste of paradise.

This is where Alma Jean and I are privileged to live, surrounded by wonderful neighbors, well-kept lawns and landscaping and every amenity imaginable. We are blessed beyond measure.

We also realize it's easy to become blinded beyond measure to the realities in the rest of the real world. 

So what if God were to awaken us from our deep sleep and introduce us to a new way of seeing the world as God sees it every day, the world we share with 7 billion fellow members of God's family? What if whole communities of that world were brought into our very neighborhood? 

Imagine if just south of our VMRC border, as close as EMU's athletic fields and campus complex, we saw crowded communities of Central and South American neighbors every day, far too many of whose very lives are at risk due to poverty, crime and violent drug cartels. Thousands of these see emigration as their only hope.

Imagine hearing deadly and deafening sounds of homes, apartments, businesses, schools and hospitals nearby being reduced to rubble by merciless bombings as in Ukraine, Syria and other parts of the world ravished by endless war. Imagine hearing anguished cries of the wounded and of those mourning the massacre of their loved ones and loss of their homes and possessions. 

Imagine having nearby fields and farmlands experiencing unheard of droughts that are threatening to cause starvation on an unprecedented scale, as in places like sub Sahara Africa and other parts of the world directly affected  by climate change. Imagine animals and humans alike experiencing desperate shortages of water and food sources vital to their survival. Imagine surrounding forests of trees in the valley and nearby mountains being razed, as they are in the Amazon basin and in places like Haiti, further wounding the planet and exacerbating global warming. 

Imagine millions of homeless refugees in areas nearby, many who have lived in tents and makeshift shelters for years on end with little hope for a normal life for themselves and their families. And imagine masses of desperately poor people in places like India, Eritrea, Bangladesh, Somalia and Nigeria, all within earshot and in plain sight every day. 

That's the real world. It's what God sees. It's about human beings God loves and deeply cares about. 

We should too.

Criminal Justice Resolution Proposal Passed At May 2022 Mennonite National Assembly

Summary of Statement on Justice in the U.S. Criminal Legal System

As a historic peace church, Mennonite Church USA is called to resist “injustice in all forms, and in all places.” Many aspects of the current United States’ criminal legal system cause pain and suffering for many, especially poor people and people of color.

Resolution for Further Study

We as a church body commit to confronting the injustice within the current U.S. criminal legal system. There are many ways individual congregations, conferences, institutions and agencies of the denomination can participate. We will call on them to report back to the delegate body at the next biennial convention. The following are a starting place to begin this work together:

1. Learning about the injustices of the U.S. criminal legal system through conversations, book groups, guest speakers and other means

2. Speaking with, and learning from, current and former prisoners, as well as others whom the U.S. criminal legal system has harmed

3. Utilizing curricula addressing the injustices of the U.S. criminal legal system, such as those developed by Mennonite Central Committee, MC USA, and Healing Communities USA to guide local churches through discussions about the U.S. criminal legal system and ways to help those hurt by it

4. Supporting the families of those who have been incarcerated

5. Learning about how our legal system has been shaped by racist assumptions and committing to dismantle racism

6. Divesting from all private prisons, as an organization and as individuals within the church 

7. Advocating for just treatment of people at all levels of the U.S. criminal legal system by petitioning representatives at every level of government to enact necessary reforms including ending cash bail, enacting policies mandating reductions in police violence, ending mandatory minimum sentencing and others

8. Continuing to call for a ban on the death penalty at the state and federal levels

9. Working for reform of the criminal legal system to promote accountability and rehabilitation

10. Seeking out alternatives to the current legal system through restorative justice practices, creating new systems of justice that reflect God’s love and care for our world

- May 2022