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Pro-Life Training Program Series

SIX FORCES RESTRAIN ANTI-LIFERS

By Janet Baker

Brian Clowes states that there are six forces that, up until recently, have been successful at stopping the advance of the anti-life movement.  These are religion, morality, law, hard work, fear of want, and world-encompassing historical events.

I will describe them as he does in his Pro-Life Training Program book (available from Human Life International).  I should note first, however, that a key flaw in our understanding of our roles as members of the Church Militant can actually be found in the first sentence of this article.  The phrase in question is “stopping the advance of the anti-life movement.”  Does that not imply a defensive stance?  

Now juxtapose that with what Our Lord says of the Church in Matthew 16:18, “and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”  Does that not imply that it’s the Church Militant that is supposed to lay siege to hell and its anti-life forces?  We are supposed to be on the offensive, not defensive.  And of course, “The best defense is a good offense.”

Clowes goes on to describe these six forces.  I’ll reiterate these descriptions with some commentary.  The first main comment is that these forces are by no means completely discrete from one another (such is obvious with just a look at the first three).

Clowes begins his treatment of religion by stating that until 1930, all Protestant denominations rightly condemned contraception, abortion, and all the other sins against life.  He proposes that the first crack occurred at the Anglicans’ Lambeth Conference of 1930, when the Anglican bishops allowed usage of contraceptives in very limited circumstances.  

After that, the other mainline Protestant denominations followed suit, leaving the Roman Catholic Church (with some smaller Protestant denominations) to stand for the truth.

While I don’t argue against the significance of the Lambeth Conference, I suspect the problems started earlier, and within the Roman Catholic Church.  I won’t have time or space to delve into all my reasonings, but it has much to do with American Catholics’ desire to fit into the mainstream of American life (up until then, Roman Catholics were relegated to minority status).  

I recommend reading The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America by David Carlin.  Carlin touches upon many spiritual and sociological factors that have eviscerated the Roman Catholic Church, thus robbing our nation of a powerful voice of God.  

Our desire to “fit in” has caused us to be timid about proclaiming the fullness of our Catholic faith.  We are less enthused about seeking to bring others to Catholicism (gotta be ecumenical, you know!) and influencing our culture to adhere to Catholic values.  If we haven’t learned by now, we either influence the world at large, or it will corrode us.

The second force that Clowes cites is morality.  Of course, that cannot be considered apart from the first force – religion.  He states that until recently, society operated under a fixed moral code that did condemn the sexual sins that are now widely accepted.  He says that this moral code has given way to situational ethics, also known as moral relativism.

Carlin’s book postulates another cause of the moral decay, which does not contradict Clowes’ theory at all.  Carlin calls his theory the “least common denominator” syndrome.  That is, different Christian denominations agreed to specific moral codes.  Well, then there had to be some accommodation to the Jewish culture, then to non-Judeo/Christian religions, and so on, right on down to professed atheists.

Thus, the “least common denominator” became more and more reduced, and more and more aberrant behaviors were accepted as “moral.”  

Of course, with the Catholic’s ill-begotten desire to fit in, there were at best muted protests during the mid-twentieth century.  Now the immorality has become so stark that some are starting to wake up.

Will it be enough?  While I’d like to start an examination of law here (as it does relate so closely to religion and morality), I do believe that it will exceed space constraints, so we’ll delve into that next time.