Easy:\u00a0 they spit on liberals as \u201clibtards\u201d. I know, because they have done it to me and I\u2019m not even a liberal.<\/p>\n
They routinely call not just ardently pro-choice, but even reluctantly pro-choice people (who would be fine with some restrictions on abortion) \u201cbabykillers\u201d. I know, because they do it to me even when I am ultra-clear that I always<\/em> oppose abortion.<\/p>\n They reject not only practicing gay unbelievers, but even gays who are struggling to obey the Church\u2019s teaching as \u201chomophiles\u201d.\u00a0 I know, because they accused me of attacking the Church, not because I am gay, but simply because I spoke well of a devout gay man I once knew.<\/p>\n They attack those who differ from them on gun violence as damn libruls and probably a babykiller, since holding a position identified as \u201cliberal\u201d in one area means you are the enemy in all areas.\u00a0 I know, because they have attacked me in those terms for differing on this utterly prudential matter.<\/p>\n Question the brutality being meted out to immigrants on the border?\u00a0 That\u2019s the way abortion-loving babykillers talk.\u00a0 I know, because I\u2019ve been accused of this.<\/p>\n Support the ministry of Pope Francis?\u00a0 You\u2019re a socialist and you probably defend gays and babykillers.\u00a0 Ask me how I know this logic is deployed.<\/p>\n Against the death penalty like that liberal fake pope?\u00a0 That\u2019s the way babykillers talk.\u00a0 You may be wondering how I know this.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t tell me I exaggerate.\u00a0 I\u2019ve gotten this treatment a million times from people who deeply believe themselves to be the Remnant of the Righteous.\u00a0 This subculture routinely calls me \u201cMarx Che\u201d.\u00a0 I got called a \u201cCommie fraud\u201d the other day because I was critical of Cardinal Burke (who has contradicted the Church<\/a> by saying Muslims worship a different God than Christians<\/a> and who is now, in addition to backing Steve Bannon\u2019s Nazi Hogwarts project<\/a>, also demanding the US institute religious bigotry in its immigration policy<\/a>, despite the Holy Father\u2019s call for generosity<\/a> to desperate refugees in the midst of the greatest immigration crisis since WWII.)\u00a0 This is the ambient noise made by conservative Catholics in the US in their war on Francis and the Magisterium and their support for a ton of right wing culture war talking points that have nothing to do with the Five Non-Negotiables and everything to do with making war on the obvious guidance of the Church.<\/p>\n Indeed, just the other day I was informed of the astonishing proposition that upholding the teaching of the Church on Catholic social doctrine was \u201cwatering down the gospel\u201d.\u00a0 \u00a0It is not the first time I have heard this.\u00a0 I have heard priests, of all people, say that focusing on the works of mercy \u201ctook away from devotion to the Eucharist\u201d\u2013as though the second commandment is the opposite of and not related to, the first.<\/p>\n Sure, I get it: the gospel is about the saving work of God incarnate, crucified and raised from the dead.\u00a0 It is not a Unitarian social program.\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 I know that.\u00a0 But here\u2019s the thing:\u00a0 neither is it a fertility cult with sacraments.\u00a0 Yet none of the people demanding we resist the Church on her so-called \u201cliberal\u201d teachings ever says, \u201cWe need to dial back on all that prolife political stuff and remember that the gospel is about the Eucharist and not prolife work.\u201d\u00a0 We don\u2019t pit the Eucharist against the unborn.\u00a0 But we constantly hear (from one subculture in the Church and one only) that we need to not get carried away with \u201call that liberal social justice stuff\u201d and \u201cfocus on the Eucharist\u201d.\u00a0No. It\u2019s not \u201cliberal\u201d. It\u2019s Catholic. It\u2019s the teaching of the Church that life is sacred from conception to natural death. It\u2019s the teaching of the Church that unjust war is another term for mass murder. It\u2019s the teaching of the Church that torture is gravely and intrinsically immoral. It\u2019s the teaching of the Church that families deserve a living wage. It\u2019s the teaching of the Church that health care is a right. It\u2019s the teaching of the Church that capital punishment should be abolished.<\/p>\n Yet by no coincidence, we also constantly hear from those at war with Francis and the Magisterium that we need to \u201cprioritize prolife issues over those other social teachings\u201d, meaning \u201cpit the unborn against those forms of human life culture war conservatives want to bomb, torture, execute, deprive of health care, drive away from the Church, deprive of their children at the border, and rob of a just wage.\u00a0 For that subculture, the goal is to create a legal regime that ends abortion.\u00a0 Until we do that, we must fight everything else the Church teaches.\u00a0 Our goal is to establish, by law, a prolife society.\u00a0 That, and that alone, is now the salvific work of the Church for American conservative Christians. And in this hour, that subculture deeply believes it is closer to achieving that goal than it has ever been.\u00a0 As Rick Wiles put it, \u201cWe are going to impose Christian values in America again, whether you like it or not<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n In short, American conservatives have adopted a neo-Pelagian soteriology.\u00a0 Soteriology is the theology of salvation.\u00a0 It answers the question, \u201cWhat must we do to be saved?\u201d<\/p>\n Pelagianism and its bastard stepson neo-Pelagianism answer that question by saying that we have to save ourselves.\u00a0 Jesus, according to this theory, came simply and solely as a role model.\u00a0 He showed us how to act and now our job is to keep the rules and save ourselves.<\/p>\n The problem is that literally 2000 years of Christian teaching says that we cannot be saved by imposing and then keeping law.\u00a0 The only way we can be saved is by the power of the Holy Spirit at work in and through us. Obedience to the law is the fruit of the Spirit, not the cause of salvation. Pelagianism and neo-Pelagianism represent a collapse of faith that God will help us.\u00a0 It teaches that we are on our own and we have to make it work all by ourselves.\u00a0 So we need to make <\/em>people live out whatever moral vision we think needs to be imposed on them via law, force, fear, and, if necessary, lies and deceit.<\/p>\n Now, law has its place. So laws limiting access to the technology of mass slaughter, whether in a clinic or at a gun shop, are reasonable. The Gun Cult lies that all law is a futile waste of time since \u201csin is in the heart\u201d is something only a gun cultist believes. The rest of us know that while sin may certainly be in Kim Jong-Un\u2019s heart, it\u2019s still a good idea to deny him access to the technology of mass slaughter and that, for the same reason, making it harder to abort children or massacre people in Vegas is smart if you are serious about saving lives.<\/p>\n However, that said, what is also smart is not cutting off abortion supply with the left hand while supporting\u2013for forty years\u2013policies that do all in our power to increase demand for abortion with the right hand. This is the essence of what American conservatism has chosen to do. In embracing the soteriology which teaches that opposition to abortion taketh away the sins of the world, it has granted itself the right to inflict a world of hurt on the poor and vulnerable and\u2013yes\u2013on pregnant women, imagining that a few laws against abortion are salvific because it imagines that \u201cowning the libs\u201d is somehow advancing the kingdom of heaven. The goal is not evangelizing the culture but defeating it with raw power. It is a project doomed to fail.<\/p>\n
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