I am going to highlight the moral incoherence of Christian conservatives who rail against abortion as a great evil while defending biblical atrocities. Case in point, yesterday a fellow named Steven Ullmer posted the following moral indictment of abortion, referencing “innocent blood”:
Part of my response to Mr. Ullmer included a pointed challenge to his proof-texting approach to complex bioethical issues. As a way to make the point succinctly, I invited him to explain how he justifies God’s command to butcher the “innocent blood” of Amalekite infants:
Mr. Ullmer responded by saying that none is, in fact, innocent. In other words, he appealed to a general principle: all human beings are guilty (presumably because of some imputed adamic guilt doctrine) so all can be killed.
Good luck trying to reconcile an unqualified claim that all human life is sacred and inviolable from the moment of conception on with the claim that all human life is morally corrupt and can be licitly butchered. That is an intolerable cognitive dissonance.
Finally, I am not meaning to single out Mr. Ullmer here. I think that his commentary illustrates a profound and deep cognitive dissonance with conservative Bible reading and ethics generally.
