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THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT, THEN, WOULD DO WELL TO LEARN HOW TO USE RHETORIC IN A WAY THAT IS CHRISTIAN AND APPEALS TO A PUBLIC THAT DOESN'T BELIEVE IN CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY?

When Christ said, Go to the world and preach the gospel—especially given his own performance—he put a very high cost not on sacrificing principle, but on tuning your instrument in such a way as to arrest attention and persuade. If, at the end of a broadcast by Pat Robertson, fewer people are disposed to Christianity than were before he came on (I'm not saying that is the case), then that would be awful if that were so.

CONCERNING THE ABORTION DEBATE, HOW DO YOU REPLY TO LIBERTARIANS WHO VIEW THE WOMAN'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE ABORTION AS A FORM OF BIRTH CONTROL A MATTER OF PERSONAL LIBERTY?

If there is another party involved, then the woman's right is limited. Otherwise, why not practice infanticide? At some point, the Fifth and the Fourteenth Amendments protect, and the question is at what point do they protect.

Whatever you want to say about the anti-abortionists, you have got to at least say this: Theirs is the most disinterested act of humanitarian concern since the Emancipation Proclamation. They are not talking about protecting their own child, they are talking about protecting children.

THE SHOOTINGS AT ABORTION CLINICS HAVE CREATED MUCH CONCERN BOTH WITHIN AND WITHOUT THE PRO-LIFE MOVEMENT. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THESE CONTROVERSIAL OCCURRENCES?

It's wrong, of course, because Christian doctrine simply does not permit us, except in self-defense, to kill anybody unless you are a conscript in an authentically organized army. That would seem to me all the point you need to make.

The notion that by killing an abortionist you are sparing a child is empirically wrong, because a person can always go to another abortionist. If you say that maybe we can scare off enough abortionists so that fewer people will do it-well, in the first place you can't answer the moral objection. And in the second place, it's going to be impossible to judge that question empirically, because we are never going to end up killing enough abortionists to make it that hazardous an occupation.

YOU BELIEVE THAT THERE IS A PLACE FOR RELIGIOUS CONVICTION TO INFORM POLICIES. WHAT PRINCIPLES SHOULD GUIDE CHRISTIAN ACTIVISTS AS THEY TRY TO INFLUENCE LEGISLATION?

Thomas Aquinas once was asked, "If the public view was that a famine was imminent, would you be justified in charging injurious prices for your grain, knowing that a relief wagon of grain was coming?" Thomas said yes, you would, but it would be wrong. A Christian would not do that.

Certain things which the market authorizes simply in terms of law are unchristian and ought not to be done. The big issue today has to do with the fidelity of marriages. The tendency now to leave your wife because you have an infatuation with a younger woman of tenderer flesh is an enormous temptation. It's carnal, and it's also easy to justify with all the solipsistic reasoning that we hear today. That is about the gravest offense that a human being can commit, to throw away a wife.

AND YOU WOULD WANT THE STATE TO TRY TO MAKE DIVORCES OF CONVENIENCE MORE DIFFICULT?

Well, I don't believe in a theocratic state. But as was said in The Federalist Papers, unless we create a virtuous society, it's not a society that's going to endure. So the right things should be encouraged and the wrong things discouraged. Today, roughly speaking, there is zero taboo against fornication. Without saying that you want to brand people with a scarlet letter, something in between those two extremes would appear to be appropriate.

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October 2 1995, Vol. 39, No. 11