Christopher Pearson, Abortion, and the ethical killing of abortionists in a holy crusade

(Above: Christopher Pearson, militant Christian with loins girded for battle. And a picture of a very tasty Glock. We love our gun porn).

Well it seems Christopher Pearson's militant Christian warriors have struck again, fighting their epic battle against abortion in that inimitable way that only Americans understand.

With a gun, inside a church.

Pearson, if you recall, on Saturday had a little melt down about abortion being the one of the great pitched battle grounds for Christians,  and why Christianity referred to itself as the church militant on earth, and also why, this side of the apocalypse, Christianity will be engaged in constant combat. (here).

This kind of ersatz, proto military terminology features prominently in Pearson's regular calls to arms to the faithful flock. Crusaders in a modern crusade.

Well while some talk tough, some act tough.

Prominent late-term US abortion provider George Tiller has been shot dead in a church where he was serving as an usher, his lawyer says. The gunman fled but a city official says a suspect is in custody.

The Wichita, Kansas, city official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak publicly about the case. The official did not provide additional details.

Long a focus of US anti-abortion groups, including a summer-long protest in 1991, Tiller was shot on Sunday during morning services at Reformation Lutheran Church while his wife was in the choir, his lawyer Dan Monnat said. Police said the gunman had fled in a car registered in Merriam, a Kansas City suburb nearly 320 km away. (the rest of the story here).

Now I'm sure Pearson would tut tut and talk about the rule of law, and how he didn't mean that, it was all just rhetoric and metaphor, but really if you're engaged in a crusade, or wanting to take down a Hitler, isn't anything permissible for a righteous, thinking Christian?

I can’t help but to follow the logic. “Doctor” Tiller is committing late-term abortions, which by any sane person’s calculation is infanticide. This is murder. Through perversion of the law, this is permitted, despite it flying the face of the history of civilization. This has been tolerated for two decades, and nothing has happened to stop the killing. He would have continued to commit this crime.

I can’t escape the conclusion that killing Tiller was the right thing to do. I am uncomfortable with this conclusion because it’s dangerous. But nevertheless, it was the ethical thing to do. Tiller would have continued to take numerous lives. Nothing was going to stop him. So someone did stop him. And now fewer lives will be taken.

We celebrate the breaking the laws every time the media canonizes Rosa Parks. She broke the law. There is no question of that. The question is whether it was the ethical thing to do (it was.) We celebrate the Nazi resistance, we celebrate the Tiananmen Square uprising. I’m sure those were all illegal actions, yet were unquestionably the moral things to do. So how would killing a killer, when all options are exhausted, not also be the right thing to do?

You have to wonder if the reason why we have a legal system is in order to steal the oxygen from moral vigilantism. You have to wonder if the legal system breaks down whether vigilantism, when all other options fail, becomes a moral imperative. (you can catch the rest of this thread's debate at Red State, here).

Yep, that's right a woman wanting to take a different seat in a bus, against the law, is no different to popping off an abortionist in his church. So how about taking out Hitler? Sure thing, not a problem:

How about the famed Operation Valkryie, where German officers attempted the assassination of Adolf Hitler. These illegal acts are celebrated to this day as a minor bright spot for Germans during those dark days. They are celebrated as the few who stood up while the German people abided genocide.

So I guess any time you're feeling like an ethical Christian concerned about the way the world is heading, pull out a pistol and pop off someone you don't like doing something you don't like. If it's within the law, like abortion, never no mind. And if it's outside the law, even better. The rule of law is just pious leftie talk, and thou shalt not kill rendered void if you happen across a bus seat swapper or a killer.

Pearson of course can feel smugly comfortable in his war of words against abortion, because in an Australia disarmed by the Howard government, the only people with easy access to firearms are criminals, who really don't give a toss about theological principles. 

But in America, talk of pitched battles and militant Christianity can get a mite confused and confusing where there's enough weaponry out in the world to arm every American with decent kill power.

But don't expect Pearson to tone down his rhetoric. He seems to fancy himself as being at the head of a crusade of the faithful ridding the world of sinners. Perhaps even one of the horsemen of the apocalypse.

If only atheists could muster up the same hysterical notion that killing people is good for them, a way of drumming some decent theological principles into them before despatching them to hell ...