{"id":48,"date":"2008-12-02T06:01:16","date_gmt":"2008-12-02T06:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/tonyjones\/2008\/12\/are-you-an-mie-multiissue-evan.html"},"modified":"2008-12-02T06:01:16","modified_gmt":"2008-12-02T06:01:16","slug":"are-you-an-mie-multiissue-evan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2008\/12\/are-you-an-mie-multiissue-evan.html","title":{"rendered":"Are You an MIE (Multi-Issue Evangelical)?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve never claimed to be an evangelical, which will make many evangelicals happy.  However,  others<\/a> do pin that term on me, including my friend, Keith DeRose<\/a>.  Keith is a philosopher at Yale and a Class-A blog lurker and commenter (he will also guest blog for me here on occasion).<\/p>\n

Keith recently left a comment<\/a> on Rich Mouw’s<\/a> blog which he pointed me to in the wake of my pre-election posts on Obama and abortion<\/a>.  As usual, Keith brings up a great argument, and one that many of us (evangelical or not) should consider.  Because, if we cannot answer this question, we’re just not being honest:<\/p>\n

Of course one can be “concerned about abortion-on-demand,” while seeing
\nthat as just one issue among many. But I think the most important thing
\nfor “multi-issue evangelicals” (MIEs) to explain in order to make their
\nposition intelligible is the exact nature of such concern. For here’s
\nthe problem. Many evangelicals for whom abortion is — or at least
\napproaches being — *the* all-important moral\/political issue of our day
\nthink that way because they think that abortion, from the moment of
\nconception on, is murder – the moral equivalent of killing an
\neight-year-old child, for instance. Thus, abortion in our nation (and
\nin many others) is mass murder on a huge scale. So OF COURSE this will
\nbe a dominant issue for them. <\/p>\n

They — and I, too, looking at it from the
\nother direction — then have a hard time understanding MIEs who (to give
\na caricature of the reasoning, but one designed to highlight the
\nserious problem) will tell them, say, before voting, “Yes, I’m with you
\non abortion. But that widespread mass baby murder that happens
\nthroughout our land every day is just one issue for me. I also want
\nsome nice recycling programs.” <\/p>\n

Well, one way that that’s a gross
\ncaricature is that, in giving such a speech, an MIE won’t explicitly
\nsay that they agree that abortion is mass murder on a huge scale. But
\nthey also won’t (at least typically) explicitly deny it. As is common
\nfor those trying to maintain a “big tent,” that’s left vague &
\nquite open. <\/p>\n

But there does usually seem (in, for instance, the recent
\n“Evangelical Manifesto<\/a>“) a suggestion that you mean to be standing with
\nthe strong pro-lifers on the issue of abortion, but only demur when it
\ncomes to make that a dominant concern, to the point that it crowds out
\nother issues. But *shouldn’t* it crowd out issues, if the problem
\nreally is one of mass murder on an enormous scale? At least, some
\nexplaining seems called for. <\/p>\n

Perhaps some MIEs think abortion is a very
\nbad problem, but it’s somehow not mass murder on an enormous scale, and
\nso there’s room to negotiate between that and other important concerns.
\nOr maybe there’s some epistemic component to the position: Some MIEs
\nmay think that abortion *might* be mass-baby-murder, but aren’t really
\nsure about that, and so there’s room to be swayed by other concerns. Or
\nmaybe there are some MIEs who do think, quite confidently, that
\nabortion in our land is mass-baby-murder, but think nonetheless that
\nthese other issues are so important as to compete with that problem.
\nAnd of course, different MIEs may fall into different of these
\ncategories. In that case, nobody can speak for all MIEs on this issue,
\nbut these possibilities should be explained: “Some of us think this
\nway, some that, and some this other…” But that’s what needs explaining,
\nit seems to me.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve never claimed to be an evangelical, which will make many evangelicals happy.  However,  others do pin that term on me, including my friend, Keith DeRose.  Keith is a philosopher at Yale and a Class-A blog lurker and commenter (he will also guest blog for me here on occasion). Keith recently left a comment on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"yoast_head":"\nAre You an MIE (Multi-Issue Evangelical)? - The New Christians<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2008\/12\/are-you-an-mie-multiissue-evan.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Are You an MIE (Multi-Issue Evangelical)? - The New Christians\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I’ve never claimed to be an evangelical, which will make many evangelicals happy.  However,  others do pin that term on me, including my friend, Keith DeRose.  Keith is a philosopher at Yale and a Class-A blog lurker and commenter (he will also guest blog for me here on occasion). Keith recently left a comment on…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2008\/12\/are-you-an-mie-multiissue-evan.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The New Christians\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-12-02T06:01:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tony Jones\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Are You an MIE (Multi-Issue Evangelical)? - The New Christians","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2008\/12\/are-you-an-mie-multiissue-evan.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Are You an MIE (Multi-Issue Evangelical)? - The New Christians","og_description":"I’ve never claimed to be an evangelical, which will make many evangelicals happy.  However,  others do pin that term on me, including my friend, Keith DeRose.  Keith is a philosopher at Yale and a Class-A blog lurker and commenter (he will also guest blog for me here on occasion). Keith recently left a comment on…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2008\/12\/are-you-an-mie-multiissue-evan.html","og_site_name":"The New Christians","article_published_time":"2008-12-02T06:01:16+00:00","author":"Tony Jones","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2008\/12\/are-you-an-mie-multiissue-evan.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2008\/12\/are-you-an-mie-multiissue-evan.html","name":"Are You an MIE (Multi-Issue Evangelical)? - The New Christians","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-12-02T06:01:16+00:00","dateModified":"2008-12-02T06:01:16+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#\/schema\/person\/a5d6dffe0f41c25b4bd8136be22c4074"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2008\/12\/are-you-an-mie-multiissue-evan.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2008\/12\/are-you-an-mie-multiissue-evan.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/2008\/12\/are-you-an-mie-multiissue-evan.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Are You an MIE (Multi-Issue Evangelical)?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/","name":"The New Christians","description":"Tony Jones on Christianity and the Emerging Church","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#\/schema\/person\/a5d6dffe0f41c25b4bd8136be22c4074","name":"Tony Jones","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d50\/d50708c3731048719806adf9c6f6df30x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/d50\/d50708c3731048719806adf9c6f6df30x96.jpg","caption":"Tony Jones"},"description":"Tony Jones is the author of The New Christians: Dispatches from the Emergent Frontier and several other books on Christianity and prayer.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/author\/tjones"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/tonyjones\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}