CHANGING THE CULTURE OF DEATH

"I would like to buy $3.00 worth of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to buy a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don't want enough to love a black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation. I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3.00 worth of God, please."

--Wilbur Reese

Reese's words remind us that we so much more prefer comfort and ecstasy to painful but liberating transformation. It is so tempting to settle just for "a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack." More than that sounds too overwhelming. Where is the moderation if we go for more than $3.00 worth of God? The next thing you know, we'll transcend our selfishness and do what's right. This could mean a change of heart, cultural upheaval. Very upsetting.

Upsetting, indeed, to us and those around us. But isn't that the lot of pro-lifers? Like our fellow human beings, we are afflicted by spiritual laziness and the desire for comfort, but somehow we have bought more than "a pound of the Eternal in a paper sack." Our souls may not yet be "exploding" but they are restless. Our sleep is disturbed by the cry of the innocent.

Life is different when you get more than "$3.00 worth of God." We fear that our souls might "explode" and that we might be forced to see our true selves. We tremble in anticipation of the painful transformation that comes with it, but we should gratefully accept that we have been blessed. We are free to do what's right. Given to us is a noble cause: the protection of those whom the " culture of death" seeks to sacrifice.

The task is enormous but the goal is quite clear: We are to confront, reject, and subvert the culture of death and replace it with God's culture of life. We don't know when the culture of death will end, but end it will--because God, the Giver of Life, is also the Lord of History. Hence, however weak and overwhelmed we may feel, our cause will prevail.

Yet, just because God is in charge doesn't mean that we can sit back and watch the show. So, act we must. And as we act we should keep before us Mother Teresa's admonition that however modest or small our allotted task may be, we must "do it with love." Mother Teresa did not say this because she was given to sentimentality. She said it because she recognized that love comes from a decision--not a feeling--to do God's will and do it right.

To do God's will as pro-lifers means to reject the culture of death in our personal sphere and defeat and subvert it in the public sphere. And to do God's will right means to understand what we are confronting, act with forethought, choose our battles carefully, and use our God-given talents and resources wisely. We may be fools in the eyes of the world, but woe to us if we are fools in the eyes of God. Woe to us if we bury or misuse the treasure He has given us. And woe to us if we act selfishly, if we are more concerned about "making a statement" than advancing the right-to-life cause.

A people's culture is more than the mere sum of individual actions and attitudes. Far from being a passive thing, our culture shapes us. Those who determine the predominant spirit of a culture have immense power. And the individuals under the influence of this power may not recognize who and what wields power over them. They don't necessarily understand that the culture of death poses a danger beyond the physical threat to human life: that it corrupts the soul and leads to spiritual death.

The culture of death is built on a big lie. Hence, it is bound to collapse ultimately under the weight of that massive lie. In the meantime, however, it devastates bodies and souls by the millions. So even if we personally feel safe from its grasp we must actively seek to overturn it.

Well, how do we do it? An existing culture is weakened and subverted by those who succeed in raising doubts about the fundamental assumptions of that culture and replacing them with new ones.

That has been the method of our opponents. Their primary vehicle has been the establishment of pro-abortion public policies through court decisions and legislative initiatives. Their goal is to replace the fundamental cultural assumption of the right to life with the fraudulent "right to choose." Our opponents clearly understand that "the law teaches" and does so either as law in the narrow sense or as public policy.

Pro-lifers, in turn, must subvert the death/abortion culture. This purpose is served first of all by our own public policy initiatives that recognize the humanity of unborn children. Our opponents understand the danger this poses to their position. That is why they so virulently opposed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act. That is why they are now opposing the Unborn Victims of Violence Act with such angry desperation. They know that, once people of good will see clearly that unborn children are members of the human family, the right to abortion on demand will ultimately collapse.

Also, the very process of forcing the facts to the surface and requiring lawmakers to consider them makes it evident to all who listen that the whole campaign for abortion rights has been an exercise in massive public deception. This unmasking of the habitual deception perpetrated by pro-abortionists was one reason why NRLC's effort to pass the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act has permanently changed the terms of the public debate on abortion--to our advantage.

Advancing public understanding of the humanity of the unborn child, expanding the child's legal protection, undermining anti- life cultural assumptions, and exposing the dishonesty of the pro-abortion lobby--all of these goals are furthered by the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. Those who say "this is not a pro- life bill," because it does not ban abortion, completely miss the point. I know you do get the point.

Dr. Franz is traveling. This column is in large part based on one published in NRL News on November 18, 1997.