Sunday’s murder of George Tiller, a doctor who performed abortions in Kansas, has brought condemnation from many, including some anti-abortion groups and activists. But not all the “condemnations” have been particularly convincing.
Doug Phillips of San Antonio-based Vision Forum Ministries, released a statement:
“Tiller the Killer” is dead. Who will mourn for this man? . . . It is not a tragedy that Tiller will never be a killer again. Will anyone argue that it is a tragedy that the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will never again be dishonored by this church-going Sweeney Todd of the medical profession?
Randall Terry, who founded Operation Rescue, spoke at a press conference:
The point that must be emphasized over, and over, and over again: pro-life leaders and the pro-life movement are not responsible for George Tiller’s death. George Tiller was a mass-murderer and, horrifically, he reaped what he sowed.
. . . Thank you for coming, unless there’s any other questions. And I truly am sorry that we had to meet under these circumstances. I like Guinness for those of you who want to have a beer somewhere. I prefer my chicken wings really hot and a little crispy.
An e-mail from another activist warned that as congregants at the slain doctor’s church “mop up Tiller’s blood from their foyer floor, let them not forget his blood is also on their hands” for having accepted him into their church.
Police have arrested a suspect in the murder who appears to have ties to right-wing extremism.
Yes, TFN can find a sad example of a christian extremist here or there, but this is not at all typical of the the response of the religious right. See for example, James Dobson’s (of Focus on the Family) immediate condemnation of the killing at
http://www.citizenlink.org/content/A000010135.cfm
Gage,
Please note that we said at the beginning of the post that condemnations also came from anti-abortion groups and activists. We believe that most of those statements reflect genuine horror at what has happened. But it’s pretty easy to doubt others, including the examples we noted.
Earl:
The Bible says, “Thou shalt not kill.” Whatcha gotta understand is that that applies only to innocent life. It’s open huntin’ season year round on life that ain’t innocent. The Bible says we can kill guilty life. I looked it up. We enjoy killin’ that thar guilty life. It’s sumpin’ real special to us and a real treat to do so. Liberals are guilty life. All the conservative radio talk show hosts says so. Martha!!! Come help me clean my gun. I’m a takin’ this Friday off to go huntin’. I’m a gonna do God himself a favor. Couldn’t be nothin’ wrong with that!!!
Charles:
If you read on into that Bible of yours Earl, you will discover that determining who is guilty and picking an appropriate sentence is not part of your heaven-directed individual job description. The decision to be someone’s judge, jury, and executioner is the most profound expression of original sin, as defined in the Bible in the book of Genesis. It is making yourself into God. Biblically, it is the same sin that Lucifer and his angel followers committed to get kicked out of heaven. They wanted to kick God off his throne, take over heaven, and run it the “right” way. So, what you are telling me Earl is that you want to take off from work Friday, take out that 30-06, find someone you despise, and be Satan. Is that right Earl?
Think about that Earl.
Well, maybe they are genuinely horrified. People do not always say what they think and feel, especially when they need to shield themselves from an anticipated backlash against their movement. I still say that the best diagnostic—or dipstick—on what they really think and feel is their famous, “Ah!!, Ah!! Wait a minute!!” statement that the Religious Right has touted for decades whenever the subject of capital punishment comes up:
“Thou shalt not kill. Yes, but that applies ONLY to innocent life.”
Guilty life? It’s open hunting season on guilty life, and guess who gets to decide which life is guilty? They do. I am waiting for any member of the Religious Right to show up here and tell us that they think Dr. Tiller was an example of innocent life. How about it? Was Dr. Tiller innocent life?
I rest my case and leave you with a scripture:
But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. {36} Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful (Luke 6: 35-36).
I just read Doug Phillips article (WOW- his website is amazing) and I have to say he presented all sides and really gave you the facts that the TFN will never report.
Very good article.
and he has ALWAYS been called “Tiller the Killer”, way before this tragic incident.
The bible is not a credible source for morality and should not be used as a guide to run our judicial system. You can find examples from 14th century inquisitors as well as present day theocracies in the middle east demonstrating what I am getting at. Our secular constitution was generated to avoid these problems. Laws are made by human beings, not god, and are designed with reason and rationality to keep things fair. Our laws allow abortion based the woman’s right to have a choice about their body and what happens to it. Abortion is not the best solution and measures to avoid it (birth control, contraceptives etc.) are the most ethical way to go. But a woman ultimately should have the choice because it is her body. If my 12 year old daughter got molested by an elderly male virgin who by his faith was not allowed to get married, and she became pregnant, she should have every right to abort that baby and no one should have the ability to take that right away from her. The faster religion and religious dogma fades away from us, the better off we will all be. I am excited to see that it is fading and the fundies are trying as hard as they can to stop this phenomena. Shame on those bastards who are cheering Dr. Tiller’s death. Oh, how the christians show their love to one another. Such hypocrites.
Tom, you say “WOW- his website is amazing.” Do you mean “amazing” in the way Phillips uses the tools of propaganda?
‘Cause he goes straight to the oldies but goodies:
“These individuals are hell-bent to justify America’s idolatrous practice of child sacrifice to the gods of feminist self-determination,”
” then, he would place their bodies into his Auschwitz-like crematorium; ”
“Repulsive” is the proper word, TFN. This guy sound as self-righteous as O’Reilly.
After reading Tom’s post and the article by Doug Phillips, I have three comments:
1) I neither see nor feel the love of Jesus Christ anywhere in the Doug Phillips article, which sounds more like a political manifesto than a ministerial effort.
2) I was fascinated with the other locations on the website that touted the coming 500-year anniversary of John Calvin. In my experience, the most virulent and objectionable aspects of the far extremist Religious Right have their origins rooted deeply in Calvinism and a perversion of the Presbyterian Church. Dominion Theology and Christian Reconstructionism were all born from that same hell hole. D. James Kennedy was born from that hole. Although I do not know the affiliation of the Phillips ministry, I would not be surprised to learn that its roots are in the same place.
3) Doug Phillips forgot to mourn for Dr. Tiller. It is obvious that this was intentional. Jesus says that he will leave the main flock behind to search for the lost sheep. This is a reflection of his love even for those who have gone astray. However, if the lost lamb stumbles before Jesus gets to him and in darkness falls off a cliff to it bloody death, I think Doug Phillips would have us believe that Jesus peers over the cliff at sunrise and scowls, “Oh, there he is. Well, the little rebel got what he deserved for running astray. Good riddance.” That does not sound anything like the Jesus I know. However, it sounds to perfection like the voice of the Religious Right and the Satan who leads it.
The murder of Dr George Tiller was the terrorist assassination of a courageous, caring physician, one of the few who provided rarely needed medical care for women with seriously problematic pregnancies. It a vicious attack on the right of all women to legal and appropriate medical care, as assault on the freedom of conscience and religion of all women, and an ever so clear act of intimidation against health care providers out of sync with a dangerously misguided fundamentalist patriarcalism. The propagandists who demonize freedom of choice share in the responsibility for this act of violence.
whatcha gotta understand .. is the irony of their specail brand of chrisntain hypocrasy lost on these monumental mopes
Edd makes a good point. We sometimes forget what Jesus taught us about the nature of sin. It begins in the heart. The acting out is only an expression of what was already in the heart. Based on what Jesus says, I do not believe it is too far wrong to say that everyone who wanted Dr. Tiller dead, wished that he were dead, or was glad of it afterwards actually helped to pull that trigger on Sunday. In this world, the police call that accesory to murder.
I too have been guilty of this sin. Although I am against the death penalty, part of me was pleased at the hanging of Saddam Hussein. Part of me is pleased that he is gone. However, as a Christian I am uncomfortable with that and see my own complicity in his execution and probably in the deaths of 1000s of people in Iraq. No one was happier to go to war than me back in 2002. In addition, I have to say that Kim Jong Il in North Korea really gets on my nerves. In my worst moments, I actually think about a North Korean nuclear weapon hitting Anchorage. How would I respond if I were President? The really bad part of me would lay a checkerboard grid across the entire nation of North Korea and direct the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy to begin dropping 15 megaton warheads into the center of each square until a surrender notice shows up—and tell the Chinese that they had better leave it alone unless they want their own version of Ralston Purina. I guess the point is that what the Bible refers to as the “old man” is in all of us—even in Christians. We are all extremists at some level. We are all mass murderers at heart. That is whyGod’s grace is necssary—why nothing else will do.
The thing that troubles me about the Religious Right is that it sees everyone else’s sins (sometimes rightly and sometimes wrongly), but it fails to see any of its own sins. It fails to admit any of its own sins. It fails to publicly confess its own sins before man and God. It appears to be always self-righteous and oblivious even to the possibility that it may be doing something wrong. It wants to act as the conscience for everyone else, but it has no conscience of its own. It has no ability to step out of itself and see itself as it really is. For those of you who have ever taken a psychology course, you will notice that this is pretty much the clinical definition of “psychopath.” If the Religious Right can ever be brought to the point where it can recognize that it too—even on its most righteous days—exists within the circle of sin like all the rest of us, this insanity that we see may have a chance of ending in something that looks like peace and understanding.
In light of that, I need to confess this sin—to lay out my discomfort before God.
Charles,
I agree with most of what you mentioned except when you say, ” That doesn’t sound like the Jesus I know.” How can anyone really know who Jesus was or what he truly stood for when the NT describes him as a kind person in one instance and a vengeful character not too different from the god of the OT in another. We need to stop looking to this book as a guide for our morality. The idea that a newborn baby is filthy and sick with “original sin”, and must be commanded to be clean and well only by the atoning blood of a vicious human sacrifice that they had no part in (and would have stopped it if they could), is wicked and immoral. The moral thing for anyone to have done at that time would have been to try and stop the crucifixion. But by doing the moral and right thing, they would have interfered with the whole silly prophesy. Isn’t all of this original sin, crucifixion, resurrection and the fear of hell blatant mythological nonsense? Why do people still think these ideas are true, beautiful and good? Why do they think that believing in this will make them any more of a moral person? It is primarily because people still believe in these myths that we have to deal with all of this nonsense (physician murders, anti- science/evolution, sex ed. etc.) that disrupts our free, civil society. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, we are lucky that these ideas are being challenged, criticized and exposed to the point of slow and steady eradication. The futue of our civil, free society depends on it.
Tom writes: “…and he has ALWAYS been called “Tiller the Killer”, way before this tragic incident…” He has been called that by whom? By Bill O’Reilly is the only one I know of, and he is nobody I respect anyway.
The fact that the doctor was called “Tiller the Killer” “way before this tragic incident” is damning enough. Words have power, and incendiary words are particularly dangerous. We support the right to free speech, but we also think people should exercise that right responsibly. If they don’t, they should be prepared for the criticism that follows. Free speech is a two-way street.
Well said, J.R.
Turns out that the forced birthers have now been directly connected to the murder.
Where have you been Ben? I have missed you.
Thanks, Charles. Still here, just haven’t been commenting as much because the trolls are gone. No need to refute their baseless claims and mindless ramblings.
Sounds like a good title for a song “Baseles Claims and Mindless Ramblin’s”