mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) (09/22/84)
[Alan Driscoll] > My statement is based on the following perception: > * The Christian position on birth control, abortion, and sex > * education can be fairly characterized as ranging from strong > * opposition to silence. [and] > I listened to Charley's response, and noticed that he only said > liberal protestants have no official position. Supposedly, the whole idea behind the protestant movement was that people were individually responsible for their own consciences and could not rely on theeachings of some church body. For this reason, the non-fundamentalist protestant denominations do not make public statements about highly controversial moral and ethical questions; it is not for them to state what the average parishioner has to say on the subject. Overpopulation and hunger are not issues at all; they are simply the symptoms. I also contest the implication that being against abortion means being for hunger. And there is no particular reason to connect opposition to abortion to sex education or birth control (ignoring the RC for the moment). The major liberal denominations have in fact come out in favor of the use of birth control and improved sex education many times. They do not speak on abortion because they have no authority to; we simply cannot agree whether we oppose it or not. The liberal denominations do in fact spend tremendous sums of money on education, medical care, what have you in the third world. We really do care. It's just that when we haven't made up our minds, we can't very well go out and act as a group. Just Another Broad Churcher, Charley Wingate umcp-cs!mangoe