Sacrament is an outward visible sign of an inward spiritual grace and reflects the promises of God. Such sacraments as Baptism and Holy Eucharist are the center of many Christian sects. Moreover, the idea has shaped the mind of the Westoth culturally and politically. Although, sacramentalism lends itself to religious ethics, secular politics has also taken up the concept and applied it to stances not endorsed by orthodox Christianity. While Holy Eucharist is a sacramental sign to devout Christians, the abortion procedure can be seen as a sacrament to pro-choice liberals that signifies reproductive choice and the historical progress of individual liberty.
Just as religious sacraments are based on the means of salvation found in death and new life, sacraments apart from religion also revolve around the meaning found in life and death. The metaphysics of sacrament is well described by philosopher Chantel Delsol, who writes in Icarus Fallen that the existence of a physical object and its ritual is a sign of something greater and serves as a reference to that greater thing. In terms of human life, not only can a person’s existence stand for the sacramental significance of life, but he can also make it stand for something more particular in which he believes. Delsol says of the man whose existence is sacramental,
“If he spends his life raising his children, that is, in teaching them a way of life, it is because he thinks that his way of life is worthy of immortality, that it deserves to be perpetuated because it brings happiness…He seeks, since his world is too narrow and too imperfect to completely realize his ideals. By pursuing his referents, he points to them.”
Although modern political philosophy denies a metaphysical foundation in social and individual order, a need for the definition of life and an explanation for its existence are still necessary for ethics. Yet in the absence of spiritual rituals, modern man remains in need of an outward sign of his invisible attributes of good. In our age, various legislation has replaced sacraments and the language of rights has replaced the language of grace. The HHS Mandate of 2010, affirming that the government has the duty to provide affordable healthcare, has replaced the affirmation that the Church has the duty to provide spiritual welfare. The outer symbol of freedom over sexual choice and assured health of the body represents personal autonomy in a world where man’s creative power has ceased to be his intellect and has instead become his will.
Not only is abortion a symbol of women’s rights and political pragmatism, but it is also ritual sacrifice in which the innocent are offered to ensure the liberty of those who give them up. In Christianity, the Eucharist is a reenactment of the death of Christ, an innocent man, for the sins of the world. Throughout history, various other cultures and religions have employed blood sacrifices and rituals that point towards man’s need for sacramental atonement. Commenting on Girard’s theory of abortion as sacrament, Bernadette Ward writes,
“…the cultural theories of René Girard suggest that it is because men don’t get pregnant that abortion already is a sacrament. The key elements of sacrificial religion, as Girard defines it, are the presence of intolerable tension that must lead to social disruption; the choice of a victim who cannot strike back to absorb the community’s violence; and the concealment of the function of the sacrifice, which employs actual violence for the purpose of stabilizing institutional violence. Abortion in America is upheld not as medical or even political policy, but as, in fact, a religious sacrifice.”
Looking to the future, it follows that if the rejection of religious sacramentalism and its implied ethics continues, secular legislation will rise to take its place and fulfill the public need for religion. It is up to the churches in America to boldly proclaim a sacramental view of life and its implications in order that they not succumb to this secular usurpation.
Comment by MarcoPolo on February 25, 2015 at 10:22 am
Certainly an interesting comparison of dogmas within a culture.
I seriously doubt that a purely secular usurpation over religion, will occur just because of our liberty to choose abortion. But there are already (too) many men who are making these freedoms inaccessible to many women whose choices remain solely theirs.
Comment by Namyriah on February 25, 2015 at 12:25 pm
Every culture on earth has its sacraments. My elderly neighbors mock Christianity, but twice weekly they reverently sort their garbage into piles and set their blue bins out by the street – the message is, “We’re good people, we recycle!” and they look askance at people who don’t recycle. The people marching with the signs that say “Stop the Keystone Pipeline” are doing their own sacramental thing. They don’t use words like “holy,” but the idea of holiness is definitely there. Ditto for the COEXIST sticker that you inevitably see on a hybrid Prius.
Comment by yolo on February 25, 2015 at 4:19 pm
The irony about the people that you just described is that, in my experience, they are the most fundamentalist. By fundamentalist, I mean that they will hold you to not recycling, not supporting their causes, etc. And they remember. Isn’t it ironic what ‘tolerance’ is on the progressive side?
Comment by yolo on February 25, 2015 at 4:22 pm
Oh, and they legitimate their fundamentalism by repeatedly saying science. In fact, they seek to legitimate it and contrast it from Christianity, even though Christianity represents 2000 years of civilization that we have come to benefit from that we have come to prospered and succeeded from.
Comment by Byrom on March 6, 2015 at 11:11 pm
By definition, the word “sacrament” has a religious connotation. For a believer in Jesus Christ, how one views a particular sacrament may depend upon the beliefs of his particular branch of Christianity. In my case, Holy Communion is a symbolic reminder for me that Christ shed His blood and His body was broken so that I can have eternal life through His death and resurrection and become a child of my Heavenly Father. That is an awesome thing to consider! To me, adult baptism is following the example of Jesus Christ when He allowed Himself to be baptized by John the Baptist.
There is no doubt that the pro-abortion/pro-choice movement has a religious component. But what is the purpose of a “sacrament” that sacrifices millions of unborn, unique human beings that are precious to God? Of what are the practitioners being reminded? What comes to my mind is the daily animal sacrifices that were performed in the Old Testament to cleans the people of their sins. It did not work then, and it will not work now. And in those early times, God clearly condemned the people who sacrificed their own children to idols. To what “gods” are today’s practitioners of abortion sacrificing their children? And, yes, that unborn child is not just a lump of tissue. It is a unique human being from the moment of conception when the egg and sperm unite.