Opinion: Grace and the ability to change on climate and abortion

Climate science can fill our heads, but it can’t change our hearts. Only grace can do that. People of faith are therefore essential if we are to rise to the protection of our common home.

But the climate conversation seems to be dominated by big-government secularists and faithless scientists. Many people of faith have felt excluded from the conversation. Sometimes they’ve been caricatured as deniers of the science, small-minded folk with a tenuous grip on an ancient faith that can’t withstand scientific rigor.

In humility, it was people of faith who advanced the modern scientific method. They believed with the Apostle Paul that what may be known about God is clear from the creation itself. Their quest was to discover the order in the creation, glimpsing therein the order and beauty of the Holy One.

Sometimes we get locked in, though, not wanting truth to shine through. This happens in secular communities as well as sacred communities as can be seen by comparing abortion and climate change.

On abortion, there was a time when those who wanted to justify the act would shrink in science denial saying, “It’s just a mass of tissue.” It was never true, and ultrasound now shows how absurd it was ever to say so. Our society persists, though, in science denial on abortion. One child gets taken to an abortion clinic for dismemberment; another gets saved at the neonatal unit. Both are children. Both are human beings. There is no scientific difference between them.

On climate change, there was a time that we could say, “The models are all over the place; it’s just not clear.” That’s no longer true. Yes, every model can and should be challenged. Science, after all, is the unending search for better understanding. But the models show clear risk to our common home.

In both cases there’s a load of guilt for the destruction. In both cases the destruction is veiled.

If we could see the unborn, we’d protect them -- like Max, a beautiful 14 month-old, full of life and a smile for fellow passengers all around. The flight attendant announced that Max had been deputized as his assistant. Max was to keep watch over the mid-section of the cabin. A passenger to my right tried to coax Max to crawl to him. Others played peek-a-boo between the seats. All were thoroughly entertained by little Max. If anything had arisen to harm Max, everyone who saw those eyes and that smile would have jumped up to protect him. But 3,000 Maxes or Maxines (minus some gestational days) die in abortion clinics in America every day.

If we could see the destruction of climate change, we’d similarly move to protect. We’d suffer the embarrassment of saying, “Now we know. We were wrong before.” We’d give up the tribal caricatures of the tree huggers vs. the pillagers. We’d realize that we’re all in this together, and we’d move to do something about it.

A change of heart like that requires a belief in the availability and the sufficiency of grace. When we trust and act on grace, we set free the most transformative power on Earth—love.

Two years ago in Charleston, SC the members of Mother Emanuel AME Church set that force free. They welcomed a stranger to their Bible study. He was white; they were black. He shot and killed nine of them. At his arraignment the families of the slain acted in wrenching obedience to the command to “forgive as you have been forgiven.” Following the law of love, they experienced the agonizing cost of the grace upon which they were calling. They asked for nothing. They gave forgiveness. They got changed hearts. And South Carolina took a step forward. Not everywhere, of course. For every blind beggar healed, there's always a Barabbas who just can't accept the transformative power of grace, choosing instead the futility of the sword. Thankfully, in South Carolina the blind beggars outnumbered the Barabbases. There were no riots. No looting. Just solemn funerals for our friends and some steps away from the brutality of our past.

We changed. Or more accurately, we were changed. Surely we can change on climate. Modeling that, who knows, maybe we’ll get our countrymen to change on abortion.

Bob Inglis of Travelers Rest represented Greenville-Spartanburg in the U.S. Congress from 1993-1999 and 2005-2011. He now directs republicEn.org, a community committed to free enterprise action on climate change.