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Is the slippery slope really a fallacy?
A story from Canada today that, by its very nature, maximizes heat. I will try to keep my own emotions about this story in check. Sitting at the intersection of gay rights, abortion rights, surrogacy rights, and ultimately the violence upon which all government force is founded, I bring you: Couple sues surrogate who refused to abort their baby over a minor birth defect
https://nypost.com/2026/07/14/world-news/couple-sues-surrogate-who-refused-to-abort-their-baby-over-a-minor-birth-defect/
Long story short, the baby had a minor heart defect
(the article doesn't specify what)and a cleft palate, and the adoptive men wish their now two year old child had been murdered and are suing the birth mother for failing to do so (there are also claims that she failed to keep them informed in a timely manner about these issues). Last I'll say of my own emotions on this is that this strikes me as outright demonic behavior and if I say anything more about my feelings I'm going to drift into fedposting so I'll stop here.The main point I can take away from this is that all of the Christian right that warned about various slippery slopes have been validated over, and over, and over again. The slippery slope is technically a fallacy, yes. But Christians repeatedly pointed out "There is no limiting principle here, and the arguments you nake to support degenerate behavior X are just as applicable to degenerate behaviors Y and Z and there is nothing except public sentiment (and not even that if a judge somewhere says otherwise) preventing the awful things we're talking about from becoming reality."
For those who lived through the culture wars over abortion, gay rights, and similar issues, have your feelings on the matter changed in anyway whatsoever over the last decade or two, and in which direction? And why, if you're able to articulate. For me at least, to quote the meme an old friend shared in our edgy groupchat the other day, "Upon further consideration I have decided to become more extreme in my religious beliefs".
This is me. In college I was an edgy libertarian who thought the Wicca creed of "though it harm none, do as you will" was the height of wisdom. As I've matured, it has become clear that certain ways of being are simply better. And then I came (returned, really) to Christ which has increasingly made me a radical in the eyes of the secular world.
Just last night, in fact, I was approached by my senior pastor about taking a teaching role at my church, with the idea that I would eventually take his job. So I've got a lot of thinking to do about many of these issues, and how to address them in a compassionate but biblical way from the pulpit. My pastor says he was advised, for instance, to never teach the book of Romans, because when you teach Romans 1 (which condemns homosexuality among other things) you will lose half your congregation. He teaches it anyway :) This may not be that relevant to you all or to the discussion but I just wanted to share.
My feeling is anyone who would split with a church over a plain reading of the Bible isn’t really Christian enough to be worth catering to. In short, they place their own opinions above all else and would likely leave over some other issue anyway. So I’d say ignore them and teach what the bible says, and the traditions as they existed. If it makes people uncomfortable good, they needed to hear it.
What does it mean to "not be Christian enough"? This sounds more like a political division than the faith that all are saved if they follow Jesus Christ.
Well, what does 'follow Jesus Christ' mean, then? Ignore everything he said but think fondly of the nicer parts?
Well, that's the whole question, isn't it?
Matthew probably captures the historical Jesus's message best. Follow the Law more righteously than the scribes and Pharisees, in preparation for the imminent kingdom. The trouble is that he was talking almost exclusively to other Jews, and never makes it clear what he expects from Gentiles.
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