Searching for Soul

Last week the Rev. Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite, president of the Chicago Theological Seminary, gave a speech to a prayer breakfast sponsored by the Planned Parenthood Clergy Advisory Board in which she argued that abortion restrictions are evidence that America has "lost its soul."  (HT: Mere Comments)  Rejecting the suggestion that ensoulment occurs prior to birth, her view is that "to be human is to be able to seek normative or transcendent value and purpose beyond sheer physical survival."  That seems to leave quite a few on the outside looking in, especially in light of her subsequent statement that "ensoulment is a lifelong project but individuals and nations can not only gain their souls but lose it."  I'm hoping that particular assertion was a rhetorical flourish, but as the speech goes on, one gets the sense of an ever-shrinking human community.

Rob