Pro-life. I guess you could say that I was born "pro-life," the son of parents who were both Conservative Baptists and Republicans.

And now, more than forty years later, it is natural for me to prioritize life. I love life and I think life is something we should want to root for in all its forms: communities, forests, endangered critters, oceans, my next door neighbor, my neighbor across the globe, the marginalized, the soldier and civilian, the poor and the rich, the forgotten and the famous, the sick and the healthy, the hungry and the fed … the list goes on and on.

Some would say that I am muddying the issue when I pull the camera back so far that "pro-life" suddenly encompasses all things and covers issues on all points of the political/theological map. Part of me wishes we could be "pro-all-life," but that might be asking too much.

Finger-point-sins and shared-sins

In our society "pro-life" refers by and large to one thing: ...