By Rev. Paul Stallsworth

Editor’s note. Rev. Stallsworth is editor of LifeWatch, “A Quarterly Newsletter for United Methodists.” This is excerpted from a post that appeared in the most recent newsletter. He has spoken at numerous National Right to Life conventions.
Some United Methodists, according to this editor’s keenest observations (?!), do not believe that there are human actions that are always evil—or, to be more philosophical about it, are “intrinsically evil” (that is, evil by their very nature). They tend to rationalize or make excuses for actions that others would call intrinsically evil.
In “Intrinsic Evil and McCarrick,” Dan Hitchens, the deputy editor of The Catholic Herald, lists the everyday justifications some United Methodists casually repeat when commenting on actions that are wrong: “It’s not that big a deal…Just this once…I need it for my health…Everybody else does it…Why would God care about something so trivial?…My situation’s very unusual, anyway…”
Hitchens goes on: “Elizabeth Anscombe [1919-2001], British philosopher] gave a lifelong witness to the existence of intrinsic evils—as she put it, ‘the idea that any class of actions, such as murder, may be absolutely excluded.’ She contrasted this with the idea that moral laws are ‘rules of thumb which an experienced person knows when to break.’ …
“At around the same time [the 1970s], the [Christian] Church was thrown into turmoil. Among the many novelties of those years was the advance of new moral theories, which shelved the idea of intrinsic evil. These theories proposed that what really matters is whether your heart remains basically open to God; or that your conscience can decide whether a moral law applies.
“The people who came up with these theories were often well intentioned. They were trying to get away from needless inflexibility and cruel judgmentalism. But in discarding Church teaching, they also kicked away a means of support for the vulnerable. Those tempted by suicide, or sexual exploitation, [or abortion,] are not helped by being told that each decision must be discerned in conscience on its own merits. One thing that may help them is to know that a certain choice is definitely the wrong choice, and that God can give them the grace to avoid it.”