c. 2003 Religion News Service

(David P. Gushee is the Graves Professor of Moral Philosophy at Union University in Jackson, Tenn.)

(UNDATED) Hearing the news of the execution of Paul Hill in Florida this week brought back memories from a time when it looked like our nation was about to descend into a bloody civil war over abortion.

Hill, a former minister expelled or excommunicated from two small Presbyterian denominations, was but one of many deeply devout Christians who believed their faith required violent attacks against abortion clinics and those who work there.

Hill acted on that belief, killing an abortion doctor and his bodyguard outside a Pensacola abortion clinic in July 1994. This week he went to his death awaiting a warm heavenly embrace for his deeds.

In 1994, leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention ethics agency asked me to draft a statement on why the killing of abortion doctors is wrong. The document that resulted was an attempt to grapple seriously with the arguments of abortion-clinic vigilantes before they gained a foothold in our own denomination or anywhere else.

In reading the literature of pro-violence groups I found it was impossible to dismiss them as psychopaths. Instead, they offered arguments grounded in historic Christian thought that had to be addressed on their merits.

People like Paul Hill believe that above all abortion is murder. This claim may sound far-fetched to modern ears now accustomed to abortion on demand, but it has been the historic position of much of the Christian church since its earliest days. With rare exceptions, abortion is the killing of an developing human being still in the womb. Whether we use the term “murder” to describe this act or another term, the essential moral stance remains the same.

The next step of the argument is to claim that the obligation of Christians is to act to prevent murder from occurring if we can. This position is grounded in the fundamental biblical norms of love and justice. The obligation to love our neighbor means we are required to prevent their harm. The command to work for justice means that we must stand up for the defenseless.

Oftentimes the pro-violence advocates add an argument from historic just war theory, which has always granted the right to defend the innocent from attack, with force if necessary. They claim that unborn children on their way to being aborted are analogous to a nation that is on its way to being attacked. To kill an abortion doctor, in this line of thinking, is to protect innocent human life from attack. Hill said on his gurney this week, “If you believe abortion is a lethal force, you should oppose the force and do what you have to do to stop it.”

Events that occurred in the Nazi era are almost invariably cited by pro-violence groups. The Nazis slaughtered millions of innocent people, all under the cover of legality. We now honor resistance fighters and rescuers who did what they could to resist the Nazis and save lives, including assassinations. By analogy, concerned Christians should now be resistance fighters and rescuers, saving lives “by any means necessary.”

It was this line of reasoning that took Paul Hill to his apparently cheerful death this week. Can it be rebutted without abandoning opposition to abortion?

My argument in 1994 was that while it is right to oppose abortion, such opposition must be offered nonviolently within the political process rather than through the resort to force. This is so not simply because of the biblical mandates to make peace, pursue reconciliation and obey the laws of the land, but also because the resort to force by private citizens as a “solution” to political differences threatens the very survival of a peaceful, ordered, democratic society.

I also drew a distinction between a society in which the government mandates and carries out murder (Nazi Germany) and one in which it (wrongly) permits citizens to make such choices for themselves. In the latter case, our Christian task is to offer compassionate help to those facing crisis pregnancies, win the national moral argument against abortion and pursue a political strategy to roll back access to abortion.

The Nazi/Holocaust analogy is always a dangerous one because it can lead zealots to pursue radical strategies and overlook the more constructive options already available.

After the document was released, I received a chilling phone call from a member of one of these anti-abortion violence groups. The caller essentially told me that I had harmed the pro-life cause. I thought to myself: If they will kill abortion doctors for their cause, will they kill vocal Christian opponents of their view as well?

That is the danger of the zealot’s path. When we abandon moral restraints in pursuit of our holy cause, all things are permissible _ as we saw quite vividly on Sept. 11, 2001.

DEA END GUSHEE