By Dave Andrusko

I grant you that basing a blog entry on a newspaper review of a book I have ordered but not yet had the chance to read could be iffy. But I believe Peter Steinfels', "A Provocative Work About the Christian Right," which appeared in the New York Times Saturday, is well worth the time and preliminary conclusions. [www.nytimes.com/2009/04/25/us/25beliefs.html?scp=1&sq=%22the%20democratic%20virtues%20of%20%22&st=cse]

Let me offer a few tentative but hopefully useful comments. Right out of the box, just to be clear, the Pro-Life Movement is no more the "Christian Right" than it is the "Christian Left." (And the author of 'The Democratic Virtues of the Christian Right," Prof. Jon Shields--who interviewed many, many pro-lifers--is not saying that we are).

Our Movement is not only transdenominational, its appeal extends to conservatives and liberals, and to people of faith as well as to people with no discernible religious grounding. That is the genius of our Movement and why it grows whether the winds of good political fortune are at our backs or blowing in our faces.

It's worth remembering that before there was anything to dub the "Christian Right," conservative Protestants had already been motivated and inspired and energized by an unequivocal opposition to abortion. Like members of other faiths (or no faith), many became single-issue pro-lifers, others saw saving the unborn as a critical component of a larger constellation of issues.

We learn from Steinfels' quotations from the book that Shields is arguing that the Christian Right brought a politically alienated consistency ("conservative evangelicals") in from out of the cold; and in the process 'inculcated" the "practice of civility and respect; the cultivation of dialogue by listening and asking questions; the rejection of appeals to theology; and the practice of careful moral reasoning.''

(Since I haven't read it, I've giving the book the benefit of the doubt, assuming the argument isn't as paternalistic as it sounds. After all, it's a bit hard to swallow that somehow people suddenly become "civil" and "respectful" and able to morally reason carefully around 1980.)

Based on the Steinfels' article, the qualities that were taught by the Christian Right and the outreach that it practiced have long been found in the educational toolboxes of single-issue pro-lifers. For example, making the case for the unborn on a multiplicity of levels, including those that have no religious overtones at all, was something pro-life friends of mine (and others throughout the United States) were making as far back as the 1970s.

Likewise, Shields writes of an exhibit that "featuring images of embryos and aborted fetuses as well as scientific information about fetal development." That, too, was standard fare as far back as the 1970s. As for not allowing yourself to be taunted into responding in kind, that goes way, way back. I can vividly remember coming under withering verbal insults in 1977 when I was a graduate student at the University of Minnesota.

The point is not who did what when first. It is rather that people challenge the culture on behalf of the unborn babies for almost as many reasons (and combinations of reasons) as there are sands on the beach. Many rivulets of opposition have come together to create an ocean of resistance to abortion. And because there are so many fresh sources, that resistance will never stagnant.

My goal is to review 'The Democratic Virtues of the Christian Right" in the June issue of National Right to Life News. If you read it before then, please drop me a line.

Please send your thoughts and comments to daveandrusko@gmial.com.

Part One