Orthodox Christian Theology

The Culture of Death

 by Paul Greenberg

No nation can approve violence against the most innocent and vulnerable, and expect the effects of that approval to be limited.

By 1995, what had seemed a purely private decision in rare circumstances would become a standard method of birth control, an industry, a political litmus test, a rite of passage . . . a central tenet of a whole culture that centers not around life, its promise and responsibilities, but around self, its creation and cultivation.

Those unalienable rights to life and liberty Mr. Jefferson mentioned in the Declaration seem to have been eclipsed by a sad emphasis on the pursuit of happiness. And for all the happiness that the unbridled right to an abortion is supposed to make possible, no political question since slavery seems so heavy with guilt, and its denial. Or else there would be no reason for those who favor abortion to call it something else, “choice” being the most popular euphemism and “reproductive freedom” the most ironic.

The signs of this culture of death are now so common that they no longer stand out. In politics and economics, pop culture and art, lifestyle long ago replaced life. The general coarseness of today’s politics, today’s economics, today’s society did not spring up overnight; it is a consequence of a general disrespect for persons. When life ceases to be right and becomes a power relationship, when any victims can be dismissed as un-persons, indignation and accusation will replace reason and respect in public discourse.

- Paul Greenberg, Weekly Standard, October 9, 1995

ΩΩΩ