The 1976 article cited as evangelical antiabortion genesis was primarily a general cultural-engagement call

Evidence

Some antiabortion evangelicals contend that the first major statement of evangelical opposition to abortion was “The Passivity of American Christians,” written by Harold O. J. Brown and published in the January 16, 1976, issue of Christianity Today, three years after the Roe v. Wade decision. The article does indeed say that “the overwhelming testimony of Christians from the earliest days to the present has been one of opposition to abortion except in cases involving a serious threat to the life of the mother,” but this appears as one example among several in the author’s larger argument calling on evangelicals to let their voices be heard on cultural issues. — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 125

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Few evangelical voices spoke against abortion through most of the 1970s — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 122; Evangelical opposition to abortion was initially uncertain and politically constructed — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White…, 160

Related

• Few evangelical voices spoke against abortion through most of the 1970s (similarity 0.85)
• Some evangelicals sincerely oppose abortion regardless of their movement’s origins (similarity 0.85)
• Abortion was not a key evangelical voting issue before 1979. (similarity 0.84)
• The abortion myth obscures the segregationist origins of evangelical activism. (similarity 0.81)
• Confronting the abortion myth could reorient the whole evangelical agenda (similarity 0.81)
• Falwell did not preach against abortion until five years after Roe (similarity 0.81)
• Leading evangelicals initially endorsed Roe as a church-state separation victory (similarity 0.80)
• Evangelical opposition to abortion was initially uncertain and politically constructed (similarity 0.80)
• Early Moral Majority insiders confirm abortion was not its founding issue (similarity 0.80)
• Evangelicals adopted anti-abortion politics six years after Roe for political gain (similarity 0.80)
• Conservatives commandeered the once-diverse antiabortion movement (similarity 0.80)
• Operatives treated the 1978 election as a test of abortion’s mobilizing power (similarity 0.79)
• Baptist leaders initially framed Roe as a victory for church-state separation (similarity 0.79)
• The Religious Right’s founding narrative claims Roe v. Wade roused evangelicals from political passivity (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Evangelical opposition to abortion was initially uncertain and politically constructed #corroborates (0.85) — Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne, 160
• Few evangelical voices spoke against abortion through most of the 1970s #corroborates (0.80) — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith, 122