Consistent Life News
Issue #6
Summer 2006
Online Edition

Print Edition
(PDF format)

Randall Balmer
Endorses Mission Statement

Consistent Life is pleased to announce that Randall Balmer has endorsed its Mission Statement. Dr. Balmer is Ann Whitney Olin Professor of American Religion at Barnard College, Columbia University.

Dr. Balmer has published widely both in academic and scholarly journals, and in the popular press. He is Editor-at-Large for Christianity Today. He has written or co-written ten published books, including recent works The Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism and Religion in Twentieth Century America.

Dr. Balmer has also written three scripts for documentaries shown on PBS. He was nominated for an Emmy for his work on Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America.

In his article “Jesus Is Not a Republican” in the June 23, 2006 issue of The Chronicle Review, Dr. Balmer argued that evangelicals should expand their concern for human life:

Evangelicals opposed to abortion would be well advised to follow some Catholic teaching a bit further on this issue. As early as 1984, Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, the late archbishop of Chicago, talked about opposition to abortion as part of a ‘seamless garment’ that included other ‘life issues’: care for the poor and feeding the hungry, advocacy for human rights, and unequivocal opposition to capital punishment. Surely the adoption of what Bernardin called a ‘consistent ethic of life’ carries with it greater moral authority than opposition to abortion alone.