The red envelope thingy.

It’s not gonna influence the president so much as alienate him.

I’ve been discussing this Red Envelope Project with a few people. The idea is that, in honor of the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, pro-lifers should mail empty red envelopes to President Obama, with something written on the outside of the envelope saying that the empty envelope represents an empty womb, or aborted child, or something like that. The preferred message is this:

This envelope represents one child who died in abortion. It is empty because that life was unable to offer anything to the world. Life begins at conception.

More than a million have already arrived at the White House. [Update: Two million.]

The message on the envelope forgets, of course, that Jesus redeems everything, including abortion. That life is not unable to offer anything to the world. It will be restored to that child in the Resurrection, and that child will live forever, influencing heaven in an infinite number of positive ways. And in the here and now, that abortion will certainly influence the mother; the trauma of it will either drive her toward Jesus or into denial and bitterness—again, not because abortion is at all a good thing, but because Jesus redeems everything. But most people can’t see beyond the here and now, including pro-lifers.

Anyway, the hope of the campaign is that Obama will notice a truckload of red envelopes, smack himself on the forehead and say, “I had no idea there were so many pro-life Americans!” and quickly reverse his pro-choice opinion, policies, and programs.

The reality, as I keep pointing out to folks, is the following:

• People forget that this envelopes basically say, “I am opposed to your point of view.” Friendly or not, this is opposition mail. How likely do you think you’d be influenced by an anonymous letter from someone saying, “You’re wrong; change your mind,” no matter how it’s worded? It stands no chance of changing your mind. It stands every chance of alienating you. Same with the president.
• If you were the president—being pro-life—and you received a million pink envelopes from women in favor of abortion rights, would you switch your policies? No? Why’s that? Because you believe abortion is morally wrong. Well, Obama believes that forcing women to not have abortions is morally wrong. So what are the chances he’s going to change his mind? …About the same as you changing yours.
• The president isn’t going to see most of this mail. Any president gets a ton of mail, and can’t possibly read it all, and has staff to do it for him. Obama has stated that, in order to stay in touch with reality, he does read some of it each day, but only ten representative letters or so. So likely his staff will show him one of these red envelopes, tell him he’s received ten thousand like it, and that’ll be all the impact the red envelopes will ever have.
• Are any of these envelopes coming from folks who voted for him? Likely very few. How much political clout are you gonna have with Obama if you (a) voted for his opponents? (b) did everything you could to make sure he wasn’t elected? (c) have no interest in working for him even if he does wind up taking your side on any given issue? (d) will probably continue to denounce him regardless?
• Chances are pretty good that a few of these envelopes will be written by folks who forget to stay on-topic, and a few of them won’t just say, “This envelope represents an empty womb,” but something along the lines of, “You baby-killer, it’s because of people like you…” and then get personal, and nasty, and conservative-elitist, and even wind up on the Secret Service’s watch list. Of course, those envelopes won’t make any sort of impact on the president, except a negative one; and that’s if his staff even lets him see one.
• This’ll get dismissed as a political stunt.

That last point has a few people confused. They’re so wrapped up in this being a moral issue that they forget there’s more than one worldview in play—that other worldviews, including other Christian worldviews, have different moral positions—and that these worldviews are using politics to fight it out, and that makes it political.

My worldview is, if you haven’t figured it out by now, complex. I consider myself to be pro-life; I believe abortion is the wrong choice. But I disagree with other pro-lifers on where life begins. (They say conception; I say, biologically, it’s later, and that theologically, it’s probably before conception.) I also disagree with other pro-lifers on how abortion should be discouraged. They say pass a law against it, and I say create support systems that make no one need to have one. More pregnancy resource centers. More adoption. More outreach. More love. More like Jesus, in my worldview. Theirs is a little more “Do it my way or you’re going to hell,” like the Pharisees.

With typical Pharisee blindness. One of the organizers of the red envelopes, Christ Otto, says it’s not a political stunt; it’s just trying to change the heart of the president. But you see, it is a political stunt, because it’s trying to change the heart of the president. If he were an ordinary citizen, they wouldn’t care so much about his heart; but because he’s the First Citizen, who alone sets the policy of a fair amount of the federal government, he’s a pretty influential guy to change.

And because he’s a politician, he’s gonna recognize this as the political stunt it is—and resist it.

The only person who can actually change hearts is the Holy Spirit. In the case of pagans, He tends to change it without our permission—’cause really, we wouldn’t turn to Jesus otherwise—but in the case of Christians, He prefers to change it with our cooperation. This is a harder job, but a more permanent job, which is why He does it that way. In the case of Barack Obama, (who is a Christian, despite not passing certain conservatives’ creeds) the Holy Spirit is going to have to move him into certain positions, and He’s going to do that in the same way He does it to us—personally, and with the support of the Christian community that we’re connected with.

And if you haven’t noticed, Obama has been forced to disconnect himself from his previous Christian community, which leaves him only the Christians in his family and the Christians on his staff. So our first priority as Christians is to pray that they point him to Jesus as best they can; and that he find a church. And once that support system is in place, it’ll facilitate greater Christian growth… and maybe facilitate him moving further in a pro-life direction.

Maybe. But maybe Jesus has greater priorities.

(I know; pro-lifers don’t believe Jesus has any greater priorities. That’s because many of them have made an idol of their movement, and forget the Son glorifies the Father, not the unborn. But that’s another rant.)