Fred Clark on evangelicals and the view that human life begins at conception:
In 1979, McDonald’s introduced the Happy Meal.
Sometime after that, it was decided that the Bible teaches that human life begins at conception.
Ask any American evangelical, today, what the Bible says about abortion and they will insist that this is what it says. (Many don’t actually believe this, but they know it is the only answer that won’t get them in trouble.) They’ll be a little fuzzy on where, exactly, the Bible says this, but they’ll insist that it does.
That’s new. If you had asked American evangelicals that same question the year I was born you would not have gotten the same answer.
Read Clark’s genealogy of this aspect of contemporary evangelical scriptural interpretation here.
[h/t Aaron Bady]
Tags: abortion, Evangelicalism
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AMA citation:
Boy J. Reconceiving human life. The Immanent Frame. 2012. Available at: http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2012/02/28/reconceiving-human-life/. Accessed May 21, 2012.
APA citation:
Boy, John D.. (2012). Reconceiving human life. Retrieved May 21, 2012, from The Immanent Frame Web site: http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2012/02/28/reconceiving-human-life/
Chicago citation:
Boy, John D.. 2012. Reconceiving human life. The Immanent Frame. http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2012/02/28/reconceiving-human-life/ (accessed May 21, 2012).
Harvard citation:
Boy, J 2012, Reconceiving human life, The Immanent Frame. Retrieved May 21, 2012, from <http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2012/02/28/reconceiving-human-life/>
MLA citation:
Boy, John D.. "Reconceiving human life." 28 Feb. 2012. The Immanent Frame. Accessed 21 May. 2012. <http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif/2012/02/28/reconceiving-human-life/>
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