So the story goes a little something like this- Saul, a Roman Soldier, was on the road to Damascus when Jesus Christ appeared in front of him.
Along with miracles to establish his bona fides Jesus told Saul the Kingdom of Heaven was open to all that believed in Him through the unmerited Grace of God and faith.
Now up until then “Christianity” was a pretty fringe sect of Judism like the Hasidim, after that Saul changed his name to Paul and started to Evangelise every Roman he could get his hands on. I imagine he was just as annoying as any random Mormon or Seventh Day Adventist who has knocked on your door (I actually don’t mind, I like to taunt them) so I’m not surprised they eventually chopped his head off to shut him up.
Post Paul it was all business and band box at that.
What? You think it’s not about the Benjamins? You are not paying attention to your Prosperity Gospel. Don’t forget to Tithe now.
Jane Roe’s deathbed confession exposes the immorality of the Christian right
by Arwa Mahdawi, The Guardian
Wed 20 May 2020
What would you do for almost half a million dollars? Would you very publicly denounce your past life and pretend to be an anti-abortion, born-again, ex-gay Christian?
Thanks to her newly public deathbed confession, we now know that’s what Norma McCorvey, best known for being the plaintiff known as Jane Roe in the 1973 landmark supreme court case abortion rights case Roe v Wade, did.
In 1969, a 22-year-old McCorvey was pregnant and scared. She’d had a difficult childhood, allegedly suffering sexual abuse from a family member. She’d been married at 16 but had left her husband. She had addiction issues. She’d had two children already and placed them for adoption. She was depressed. She was desperate for a safe and legal abortion. Texas, however, wouldn’t give her one. So she challenged the state laws and her case eventually went before the US supreme court, legalizing abortion across America.
After becoming the poster girl of the pro-choice movement, McCorvey performed a very public about-face in the 1990s. She found religion, ended the romantic relationship with her girlfriend, and became a vocal anti-abortion crusader.
As it turns out, it wasn’t God himself directing this new path. It was leaders from the evangelical Christian right. McCorvey, who died in 2017, delivers this confession in a new FX documentary, AKA Jane Roe, out on Friday. According to the documentary, McCorvey received at least $456,911 in “benevolent gifts” from the anti-abortion movement in exchange for her “conversion”.
The Rev Flip Benham, one of the evangelical leaders featured in the documentary, apparently has no moral qualms about how McCorvey, who was clearly vulnerable, was used. “She chose to be used,” he says. “That’s called work. That’s what you’re paid to be doing!” Ah yes, I remember reading that in the Bible: thou shalt pay others to cravenly lie.
The Rev Rob Schenck, another of the evangelical leaders featured, is rather more thoughtful. “For Christians like me, there is no more important or authoritative voice than Jesus,” he says. “And he said, ‘What does it profit in the end if he should gain the whole world and lose his soul?’ When you do what we did to Norma, you lose your soul.”
Sadly, it seems as though many anti-abortion extremists don’t have much of a soul to lose in the first place. While the right claims to stand for morality and family values they – as AKA Jane Roe makes very clear – are more than happy to lie and cheat in order to propagate their fringe beliefs. As Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted: “It turns out a huge part of the anti-choice movement was a scam the entire time.” Most Americans have moderate views when it comes to abortion; according to a 2017 Pew study, 69% of Americans don’t think Roe v Wade should be overturned. However, a small but powerful group of extremists are doing everything they can to roll back women’s rights.
Of course, McCorvey, as she admits herself, is not exactly an innocent victim in all this. Her reversal on reproductive rights was national news in the 1990s, and dealt a blow to the pro-choice movement. But, at the end of the day, McCorvey never really set out to be a pro-choice activist. She was a desperate woman battling for the right to have control of her own body; along the way she loaned her name to a bigger fight. McCorvey taking money to lie obviously isn’t something she should be applauded for, but the real villains in this story are the hypocrites who preyed on a vulnerable woman in the name of “family values”.