CHRISTIANITY TODAY/November 17, 1989
Despite the growing popularity of the rescue movement, some have serious concerns about its biblical basis.
Most of those who have of late become active in the “rescue movement” look to the Binghamton, New York-based Operation Rescue (OR) for guidance. Since the organization began in 1987, over 35,000 have been arrested and an additional 16,000 have risked arrest under the Operation Rescue banner, according to OR’s figures, for blocking the entrances to facilities that perform abortions.
The rescue movement is broader than Operation Rescue. And it is a movement that shows no signs of slacking off. In addition to coordinating rescues in and around the nation’s capital, the purpose of OR’s Washington D.C. Project, which is scheduled for November 16 through 18, is to instruct constituents on how to work politically to bring an end to legal abortion. OR leaders view political action and rescuing as complementary.
Several influential Christian leaders, including James Dobson, Jerry Falwell, Charles Colson, and D. James Kennedy, have endorsed the movement with varying degrees of enthusiasm and points of qualification.
The rescue movement is not without critics. But according to Ken Myers, editor of the publication Genesis, opponents of Operation Rescue are hesitant to express their views, partly out of concern that the mass media will exploit divisions in the prolife movement to the advantage of the movement’s opponents. “Unfortunately, the rescue movement is where the action is right now,” said Myers. “And the social dynamics of a movement are such that people feel a need to express solidarity with it, even if it’s something they don’t like.”
Nevertheless, Myers maintains, “I don’t think people have worked through the issues and asked the kinds of questions that need to be asked [about Operation Rescue].” An essay written by Myers, critical of OR, served as the centerpiece for a forum last month, sponsored by the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPC), at which the merits of the rescue movement were debated.
Civil Disobedience?
Typically, those who endorse the rescue strategy do so in the name of civil disobedience. Charles Colson told Focus on the Family’s Citizen magazine he supported Operation Rescue because “it falls within the permissible standards of civil disobedience.” And though he questioned some of the rescue movement’s tactics, theologian Harold O. J. Brown at this year’s convention of the National Association of Evangelicals said the movement is “morally justifed” as civil disobedience.
Significantly, however, the rescue movement’s main spokespersons have regularly denied that their movement constitutes civil disobedience. Rather, rescue theology holds that a law is nullified if the purpose in breaking it is to save innocent human life. Thus, protesters typically deny they have done anything illegal.
To some, the question of whether or not to label OR’s activities “civil disobedience” is immaterial, a question merely of semantics. But others regard an exploration of these theoretical distinctions as essential to understanding what they regard as the rescue movement’s dangerous potential.
Casting the movement in terms of civil disobedience, for example, implies a high, though not absolute, view of the authority of the state, as ordained by God. In contrast, those who deny that the issue is civil disobedience are in essence saying that the state may—even must—be safely disregarded at the points where its laws are unjust.
In his paper, Myers argued that if this view were widely held—and citizens routinely broke the law to protest policies they regarded as unjust—the result would be anarchy.
Dave Coffin, director of the Berea Study Center and a participant at last month’s forum, stressed that cases in which civil disobedience is scripturally justified are extremely rare. “The biblical testimony is so strong in favor of obedience [to civil authorities],” he said, “that the burden of proof is clearly on the person who would advocate violating the law.”
Operation Rescue And Violence
In addition to implying a high view of the authority of the state, civil disobedience implies nonviolence. But, said Jayne Bray, a member of OR’s leadership team, “[OR leader] Randy [Terry] himself has said that [violence] is not necessarily immoral.” Bray’s husband, Michael, recently completed a four-year jail term for his alleged role in conspiring to damage abortion-related facilities in four states.
Terry is currently serving a prison term in Atlanta for his rescue activities. Jayne Bray stressed that as of now, Operation Rescue demands a nonviolent approach from rescue participants. She said the organization has adopted this approach for tactical considerations, claiming that the group can accomplish its goals nonviolently because of its sheer number of supporters. However, OR leaders, including Bray, have implied tacit support for those who embrace the use of force to prevent abortions from taking place.
Not all advocates of OR hold this view. John Cavanaugh O’Keefe, director of publications for Human Life International and a participant at the EPC forum, offers a pacifist rationale for his participation in OR. He has written, “If prolifers engage in violence, however justifiable, then the violence will continue without end.” He calls on Christians to “absorb violence” in order to end it. Bray said, however, that no one who is a part of the Operation Rescue leadership team is a pacifist.
Heart Of The Issue
The essence of the rescue movement’s argument is that life is unjustly taken by abortion, and that Christians are obligated to preserve life. Coffin agrees with these propositions. But the issue, he said, is how to understand them in terms of the scriptural mandate to obey civil authorities, a mandate he thinks rescuers take too lightly.
Coffin maintains that the Bible “nowhere authorizes believers to become enforcers of the moral law of God.” He said that Christ enjoined believers to pay taxes “even to unjust authorities.” He added that Operation Rescue’s use of Proverbs 24 constitutes an illegitimate use of Scripture: “The Proverbs are not meant to be commands, but inductive generalizations about wisdom in this life.”
Myers expressed concern that many applaud Operation Rescue because it has brought “foot soldiers” into the movement. “To move from apathy to breaking a law overnight is not a sign of a morally healthy movement. This should be a process of long prayer and study,” he said, adding, “If [rescue] is biblically wrong, it ought not to be sanctioned for having positive effects for the [prolife] movement.”
Some advocates of Operation Rescue, however, are bothered by the movement’s critics. “It was really easy 20 years ago for white people to be very concerned that the civil rights movement was breaking the law,” said prolife activist Charles White, who runs a crisis pregnancy center in Jackson, Michigan.
“When the law is benefiting you or when you don’t care about the people who are being destroyed by the law,” White said, “it’s very easy to have great respect for the law.”
By Randy Frame.
