One would think that after recent events in Alabama, Christian Nationalists would learn that opposing in vitro fertilization (IVF) is a losing proposition.
But one would be wrong about that. The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, has approved a resolution opposing IVF.
In light of this resolution, I would support any devout Southern Baptist who decides not to use IVF. But that’s never enough for religious extremists. They want to ban it for everyone. The SBC resolution urged its members “to advocate for the government to restrain actions inconsistent with the dignity and value of every human being, which necessarily includes frozen embryonic human beings.”
There you have Christian Nationalism in a nutshell: People are doing something we don’t like, something that we say runs afoul of our religion as we’re interpreting it right now and therefore, no one should be allowed to do that thing.
What about the idea that, under our secular Constitution, laws shouldn’t be based on how someone or some denomination interprets the Bible? The SBC long ago stopped caring about that. Support for separation of church and state is a historic Baptist principle, but the SBC has been in the hands of fundamentalists since the late 1970s and these days gives that principle mere lip service.
Consider the wording of the resolution. It’s studded with references to biblical books, including Genesis, Exodus, Judges, Romans, Samuel and Luke. Here’s one thing you won’t find: arguments based on science or medicine.
Unfortunately, this isn’t likely to be a resolution that is passed and forgotten. Despite recent declines in membership, the SBC retains considerable political clout, and some politicians are eager to curry favor with the group by writing its theological positions into law.
As the Alabama experience proved, even people in ruby-red states don’t want that, at least when it comes to reproductive freedom.
If Americans want to retain the right to make the most intimate and personal decisions about sexuality and reproduction, if they want our policies on issues like IVF to be based on sound science, not some stranger’s religion – and they do – we’re going to have to fight for it.
The first step is a national recommitment to the vital principle of separation of church and state.
