Mollie Hemingway, Ed.: Nick Kristof Proof Texts The Bible

Proof texting is when you cite a particular verse of the Bible without keeping in mind the context of the passage or how it relates to the entirety of Scripture. It's generally frowned upon as very poor scholarship.

Nick Kristof has one of those columns in the New York Times today where he proof texts his way to arguing that the Bible loves nothing more than gay sex and killing unborn children (or something).

He does this in the form of a quiz so Biblically illiterate that Harold Camping is shaking his head at him in embarrassment. Take the first question:

 1. The Bible's position on abortion is: 

 a. Never mentioned.

 b. To forbid it along with all forms of artificial birth control.

 c. Condemnatory, except to save the life of the mother.

The answer, according to noted theologian Nick Kristoff? A, of course. Gosh, if abortion is never mentioned, isn't it odd that so many Christians worked so hard to stop it 2,000 years ago? Continuing on until today? Why would they do it if abortion is "never mentioned"?

Now, I'm not arguing here for a particular stance on abortion, although I am pro-life. And I'm not arguing that the word "abortion" appears in Scripture. Neither does, you know, Trinity. This isn't news. But the church has opposed abortion because of the whole body of teaching in Scripture, from the first passages of Genesis explaining that man is made in God's image to the verse in Jeremiah about God forming unborn children in the womb to various Psalms about God's relationship with the unborn child. There's that bit about Jesus' cousin John recognizing Jesus when both were in utero. And there are countless other teachings about murder and respect for life and how children are a blessing and so on and so forth.

But no, if you're a New York Times columnist looking to proof text your way to support of same-sex marriage (don't tell him what Jesus said about that!) to abortion, you're probably not going to fare very well at understanding that full picture.

It's one thing to advocate these views, but to pretend you've got Scripture on your side is another thing entirely. If you're going to try to make that case, you have to work much, much, much harder than what we have in this weak column.