Man of Depravity - Tyler Braun's posts on Church Ministry, Worship, Seminary, and Theology.

A Moral Conundrum

2009 June 09

by Tyler

2 Sundays ago (May 31st) Dr. George Tiller was murdered while ushering in his Kansas home church (sounds like a Truman Capote book). You all have heard about it. Those of you who watch CNN religiously have heard more than enough about this.

When I first heard the news I had a split second thought of, “was it justified…the murder?” Now I totally recognize how stupid that thought is, and it is probably stupid for me to even say I had the thought…but I did. There it is, I question whether a murder was justified.

Why did I think that? Well, Dr. Tiller has been involved in killing thousands of unborn children, and while he was never convicted it has been widely speculated that he has performed many late-term abortions for women who made last minute decisions to not give birth to their child. What he did not do was ever break a law.

How can we weigh or measure this? We have the value of one life, which was used to end many others, and we have the value of thousands of lives which were never able to be lived. That is a moral conundrum.

As I’ve thought about it one thing has stayed embedded in my brain: To kill a person because he is killing others is the most illogical thing possible.

I understand the anger with abortion and the anger of killing innocent lives, but there has to be another answer.

Frank Schaeffer said:

The same hate machine I was part of is still attacking all abortionists as “murderers.” And today once again the “pro-life” leaders are busy ducking their personal responsibility for people acting on their words. The people who stir up the fringe never take responsibility. But I’d like to say on this day after a man was murdered in cold blood for preforming abortions that I — and the people I worked with in the religious right, the Republican Party, the pro-life movement and the Roman Catholic Church — all contributed to this killing by our foolish and incendiary words.

How do you answer this moral conundrum?

Filed under: the rest...

http://unforcedrthymsofgrace.blogspot.com/ becky

I don’t …am I supposed to….?? the tension will always be there and the more I recognize that perhaps the more I soften to what I don’t know…..
Brad Schlief

Tyler,
I agree, there is no justification for the murder of Dr. Tiller, but really concerns me is that since Roe v. Wade decided, there have been 49 million abortions (murders) performed in the US vs. 5 abortion doctors in the same time. But the media and blogs are filled with the tragedy of 5 abortion doctors being killed, but there is absolutely NO outrage at the 49 million innocents that have been murdered. And just to keep it short…
“Would it bother us more if they (the abortionists) used guns.” -abort73
http://www.mandoron.com MandoRon

I live in Wichita – Abortion Capital of the World, and former home of Dr. Tiller. I admit that I had the same thoughts too. And I still am. Can’t resolve it all…

I was just reading in Proverbs 6 today and Dr. Tiller crossed my mind…

16 There are six things the Lord s—
no, seven things he detests:
17 haughty eyes,
a lying tongue,
hands that kill the ,
18 a heart that plots evil,
feet that race to do wrong,
19 a false witness who pours out lies,
a person who sows discord in a family.
Truth

The answer is easy to give: Franky Schaeffer is a hypocrite to complain about anyone’s past or present’s foolish and incendiary words. The man lives for that type of rhetoric directed at anyone who disagrees with his parents, whether liberal or conservative. He has been using those types of words directed at parents for many years now long before he takes the liberal side on abortion. And he is not an honest man when it comes to accurately representing his parents either. It seems like that when he became Eastern Orthodox, he feels the need to trash his parents for raising him evangelical Protestant (to the chagrin of fellow Orthodoxs who object to him constantly dishonoring his parents in the most mean-spirited and crude manner), and he has been doing for like decades. And he falsely has accused his dad particularly of being for violence against those who differ with him. His recent remarks about conservatives in how he would advice Obama are words if his standards he used in his appearance on MSNBC are applied to him, foolish and incendiary words.

If this is the person liberals want to fall on their sword over, I predict it will utterly backfire.
Truth

Slave traders and slaveowners did not break the law either for part of our history. Does that make their actions not less moral?
http://ash-nits.blogspot.com ash

i think it is absolutely unacceptable behaviour for someone to have murdered him.

what does it mean to be PRO_LIFE? have we thought about this? in our society, people want to rant and rave about being anti-abortion and supporting life- but yet there are those Christians in America who tear people down, and destroy others by their words, and in this case, extremist actions.

I don’t agree w/ what Tiller did- or that he did that during the wk and claimed Jesus on Sundays. But that doesn’t give anyone the right to destroy his life. the Cross covers a multitude of sins. and the man that committed the crime will be judged for it, just like everyone will in the end. who made that guy God?

i do believe in life, but i also believe that people must make their own choices and they will have to live w/ the results, on this earth & eteranally – there will be people in heaven- we NEVER expected to be there. it’s not our place to decide.
http://ryanguard.net ryanguard

We can’t kill people to teach others that killing people is wrong. It just doesn’t make any sense. God is big, he’ll take care of the justice part.
AmyE

Killing Dr. Tiller will not solve the abortion problem. It will save the lives of some babies because a 3rd trimester abortionist is so rare .. however, I disagree completely with Frank Schaeffer statement:

“I — and the people I worked with in the religious right, the Republican Party, the pro-life movement and the Roman Catholic Church — all contributed to this killing by our foolish and incendiary words.”

There is nothing incendiary about acknowledging that abortion is the taking of a completely innocent life, and then dedicating your time and life to helping young women that are faced with an unplanned pregnancy make a wise choice that will bring life not just to their child but also to them. And there are thousands of people across this country who do that every day … all for the love of these young women and their babies. And to lump every person in the pro-life movement in with a person who would bring a gun to church and murder someone …. well, that’s what I call foolish and incendiary.