Beth Rath

With fifty years of the Roe v. Wade decision teaching Americans that abortion is not only morally permissible but also a fundamental human right, present attempts to enact laws that restrict or prohibit abortion at the state and federal levels are likely to be futile. In this paper, I argue that the pro-life movement today may need to pivot away from focusing on legislation in the short term in order to address the deeper problems that mark the current American moral ethos. To this end, I first consider this ethos in light of the decline of a so-called “Christendom culture.” In the next section, I point to the loss of political friendship as one aspect of the post-Christendom age. After sketching Aristotle’s account of political friendship, I point to some deficiencies that are obstacles to political friendship today. Finally, I offer some modest suggestions for a pro-life strategy in the present “Apostolic Missionary Age,” drawing lessons from G. K. Chesterton’s distributism and Pope St. John Paul II’s Veritatis splendor.

According to accounts of the Passion, Christ cries out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The cry, I argue, manifests that Christ lacks a belief that God is with him. Given the standard view of faith—belief that p is required for faith that p—it would follow that Christ lost his faith that God is with him just before he died. In this paper, I challenge the standard view by looking at the cognitive requirement of faith. Although faith that p requires some positive cognitive orientation toward p, that orientation need not be belief. I show that reliance is an alternative stance that fulfills the cognitive requirement of faith. Reliance aims at providing sensible guidance for action that is in accord with one’s values/ends. Thinking of the cognitive component of Christ’s faith in terms of reliance makes sense of the doubt manifested in his cry.