Tag Archives: pro-life

40 Years of Murder

40 years ago, the Roe v. Wade decision wasn’t even the biggest news story of the day

There have been several good articles today to mark the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s ruling that States did not have the authority to criminalize abortion. Here are a few of the best:

  • How Abortion Became an Evangelical Issue — Al Mohler’s article from today’s Washington Post explains how evangelicals gradually became co-belligerents with Catholics in opposing abortion. Any of my fellow Southern Baptists who are not familiar with our denomination’s history on this issue (hint: the SBC wasn’t always so pro-life) should read this.
  • We Know They Are Killing Children—All of Us Know — John Piper: “For forty years this has meant that any perceived stress is a legal ground for eliminating the child. We have killed fifty million babies. And what increases our guilt as a nation is that we know what we are doing. Here’s the evidence that we know we are killing children.”
  • 5 Things You Didn’t Know About “Jane Roe” — The history of Norma McCorvey (the “Roe” of Roe v. Wade), including her conversion to Christianity and the pro-life conviction that came with it.

Abortion is a topic I’ve addressed several times on this blog. Here are some posts from the archives which may be of interest to you:

In that last post, you’ll also find some facts which conservatives today may find uncomfortable. For instance, did you know that two years prior to Roe v. Wade, the Southern Baptists passed a resolution seeking Federal legislation that would make abortion legal? Or that perhaps the most progressive legislation legalizing abortion prior to Roe v. Wade was signed into law by California Governor Ronald Reagan?

The good news is that both Reagan and the SBC, like “Jane Roe” herself, eventually became staunch defenders of life, which holds promise that the battle is worth fighting. Today’s abortionist may well be tomorrow’s abolitionist.

State of the Blog

As I mentioned recently, I’ve been doing an overhaul of my blog. There are still improvements to be made, I’m sure, but at least I’ve gone through and repaired or updated several links that weren’t working in the sidebar and in some of my more popular articles over the past few years.

Speaking of popular articles, I came across some stats that WordPress keeps (but which I’ve never actually looked at before). There’s some interesting stuff there! For instance, in the past 90 days, I’ve had visitors to the blog from 105 different countries, but not a single viewer from the world’s most populous country (I suppose the Chinese can’t find the page on Google).

I’ve also seen a dramatic surge in website traffic recently. Granted, I’m still a small fish in a big blogosphere sea, but almost a quarter of my total page views (since I began this blog in 2008) have come in the last four months. Each of those months has been the busiest month ever, which is a trend I hope to continue in June! It’s for that reason I’ve been working on refining some of the spit & polish stuff around here.

Okay, I realize no one else cares about this stuff, so I’ll close this post with something which may interest you. Here are the top 10 most visited posts in this blog’s history, along with the reasons I think they were so popular. See what you’ve missed!

  1. Book Review: The Hunger Games Trilogy — Book reviews already account for the bulk of my page views (they are one of the main reasons I started the blog in the first place), but this one more than doubled the next highest book review! Partially this was because this has been a “hot” series lately, but also this post was shared and re-posted by a lot of people. (By the way: I always appreciate others posting links to my blog! If you see something you like, pass it on!)
  2. Answering Criticisms of My Review of the Hunger Games — That’s right. Suzanne Collins’ books accounted for both of the top spots! My third post about The Hunger Games just missed out on the top 10.
  3. Sample Lesson Plan: Doxology — This is a lesson plan I wrote for the “Systematic Hymnology” curriculum I’ve been developing for use in our church’s children’s choirs. I’ve refined my methods quite a bit since this early post, and these lesson plan posts are quite popular! Many others are posted on the Worship Ministry Blog. In fact, six of the hymnology posts on the other blog have hit totals that dwarf anything I’ve posted here on Honey & Locusts (including the HG review). I’ve stopped posting them, but haven’t stopped writing them. Someday (hopefully soon) I anticipate launching a new blog dedicated solely to hymnology. It’s probably my favorite topic to write on! Stay tuned for that…
  4. Book Review: Radical — David Platt’s a popular guy, so when I had the opportunity to review his first book before it was published, it caught the attention of lots of people! For whatever reason, my review of his second book generated very little traffic on the blog, but has been voted the “Most Helpful” review (out of more than 200!) for the book on Amazon. Go figure.
  5. Was Jesus a Liberal Democrat? — Ah, the power of a catchy/controversial title! This post refers to a segment on The Colbert Report over the use of the term “X-Mas”, which led me to write this post about the co-opting and mischaracterizing of Jesus for political reasons by those on both sides of the aisle. And, for the record, the answer is “no”.
  6. Joel Osteen, Rob Bell, and the Theologica Crucis — The hits on this one are probably misleading, as I suspect most people stumbled on it through Google searches of two of the most famous “pastors” in America, and probably didn’t actually read the whole article. Still, I thought it was a good one, in which I wrote about how the teachings of both men are different takes on the same heresy, which Martin Luther called the “theology of glory”.
  7. Does the Bible Obligate Christians to Support Israel? — This one is sort of cheating, as the bulk of this post is simply material written by others. But, as it’s a question on the minds of many, I’m happy to continue to direct readers to those who write better than I do.
  8. Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice — I’ve written several times about abortion, but this one (in which I take a close look at the terms “pro-life” and “pro-choice”) has gotten the most interest… for now, at least. At the rate this recent post has been picking up views, I expect it will eventually become my most “popular” abortion post.
  9. God Is In the Details — This one was all Facebook traffic. When our family was involved in a wreck that totaled our car on the Interstate, Laurie and I posted this to update friends and family. Plus, it was a pretty cool story!
  10. To Thee All the Follies of Sin I Resign — This was a post I wrote the week our former pastor, Jimmy Arms, resigned from Stevens Street. I got a lot of traffic when I first posted it, as many SSBC members were interested. Since then, it has consistently picked up views as the result of search engine requests for “Stevens Street Baptist Church”, “pastor search”, and “Jimmy Arms”. I suppose many of those are people who were researching Bro. Jimmy as a guest speaker, or checking out our church before submitting a resume. It was good to go back and read this one last night as well, just after our church officially called our new pastor!

My thanks, as always, to those of you who visit the blog regularly. I haven’t made any effort to “monetize” the blog, and don’t really pay that much attention to the statistics most of the time. I don’t do this for money or fame, but I do appreciate the interaction with readers. I hope to continue to provide content that will keep you coming back!

What the Pro-Choice Movement Has Right

 

In the debate over abortion, my position is clear (see this and this). However, the pro-choice perspective is not entirely without validity. Today I want to look at what I see as the best and most damning objection to the pro-life cause, because if we want to be taken seriously on the abortion issue, we need to have an answer.

The objection is this: While pro-lifers often accuse pro-choicers of caring about a child only after it is born, we are often accused of caring about it only until it is born. Sadly, I think this is an accusation that sticks.

Why are those who are the most politically zealous about ending abortion not equally zealous about caring and providing for those in our society who have the greatest need? For in most cases, abortion is the alternative sought by the most materially, socially, and/or spiritually needy among us.

While it is true that our nation’s welfare system is imperfect, and there are those who take advantage of it, we must acknowledge that there are also a great many people living in poverty through no fault of their own (to say nothing of those in other countries). Many of these people have no access to quality health care, good schools, or well-paying jobs, and have little to no chance of seeing their circumstances change without intervention.

Advocates of an unborn child’s “right to life” lose credibility when we fail to act on behalf of the poor — particularly if we object to abortion on Biblical grounds (do we realize how often the Bible speaks of our obligation to care for the poor?). The problem is that even most Christians view abortion more as a political issue than a spiritual issue, despite what we might say. Ironically, it is the political opponents of the anti-abortion cause that champion the cause of the poor.

The uncomfortable truth for Christians is that no political party aligns with the picture of how Scripture shows us to live coram Deo. Abortion and social justice are NOT primarily political concerns; both are Gospel concerns. If liberal Christians want to see mercy and justice for all people, then they need to deal with sin honestly and consistently. This means seeing abortion for what it is — murder (perpetuated most often upon the poor and afflicted that they wish to love) — and doing something about it.

Conversely, if conservative Christians want to see abortion come to an end in our country and around the world, then we need to come to grips with the Gospel’s implications in how we care for the poor and needy in our communities. After all, if abortion in America ended today, there would be over a million babies born this year into homes where they would be unwanted, or into situations in which even their most basic needs would not be met. Once they have been rescued from death, are we ready to rescue them in life? Are we prepared to adopt these children into our homes? Are we willing to come alongside young, single mothers (who themselves are often as fatherless as their children), encouraging them in the Lord and showing them the Father’s love?

During the first few centuries after Christ, Christians became known for their peculiar love and care for the poor, the outcast, and the unwanted. It was not uncommon for unwanted babies to be left outside to die, or thrown into the sea. Christians worked tirelessly to rescue these infants, adopting them into their homes or setting up orphanages to care for them. The 4th century pagan Roman emperor Flavian Julius, frustrated over the social conditions in the Roman Empire (which was soon to collapse), complained that the hated Christians were putting the Empire to shame:

“They care not only for their poor but for ours as well, while those who belong to us look in vain for the help that we should render them.”

It should come as no surprise that the Gospel spread like wildfire as Christians were vigilant in carrying out its social implications. Do we think it would be any different today?

Over the past year, this is an area in which I have personally been very convicted. Laurie and I have begun the process of being able to adopt someday, but I still have a long way to go in changing the way I think about social justice and the poor. There are some deeply-rooted preconceived notions which often prevent me from loving others as I should. Thankfully God is slowly breaking down these barriers and opening my eyes to the great need that surrounds me. The effects of sin are everywhere, and I am realizing that my role in combating sin is much larger than I’d ever thought.

Here are three books that have shaped my thinking in this area:

Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice

So often the debate surrounding abortion is framed in the terms of “pro-choice” and “pro-life”. The implication behind these terms is often that their opposites are “anti-choice” and “anti-life”. Is this the case?

I, for one, am absolutely pro-life in every possible sense of the word. I believe that life begins at conception, and that all human life is inherently valuable because all humans are made in the image of God.

Does this make me anti-choice? Not at all. In fact, my belief in the Creator God of the Christian Bible gives me more reason to affirm and endorse the presence of human will, and of Man’s ability to make choices, than those who usually bear the label “pro-choice”. I believe that as image bearers of God, human beings have been endowed with a rational mind and the capacity to use it (something that distinguishes us from other forms of life). Furthermore, this same God has revealed His will to us in the Scriptures, providing an objective standard of right & wrong, and showing us what type of choices we are to make. He has even gone so far as to come in the form of the Holy Spirit to cause His people to make right choices, because we are incapable of making them on our own.

In that sense, I am very much “pro-choice”… but I believe that the choice to terminate a pre-born human life is a morally wrong choice. It’s not a matter of preference. It’s not “wrong for me”, or wrong for some, but absolutely, objectively WRONG for everyone.

Ironically, many who affirm a woman’s legal “right” to have an abortion also believe in some form of naturalistic evolution as the origin of human life, because both beliefs are produced by the same philosophical worldview. The understanding of life as the result of mindless, purposeless forces takes away our ability to choose, or at least to make meaningful choices. If the beginning of “life” is a subjective concept and life has no ultimate purpose, why should I care about an unborn child that might disrupt, discomfort, or inconvenience my own life?

As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15, a worldview that disregards deep and eternal realities produces an attitude of “let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die”. Do whatever makes you feel good today, because soon you’ll be worm food. This kind of thinking leaves a person with no real ability or reason to choose (after all, we were created by random chance, right?); a shallow, relativistic outlook that makes every “choice” always and only about “me”. Decisions don’t matter, because once you’re dead you’re dead. The world will go on without you, mindless and purposeless as before.

So you tell me: Who’s REALLY anti-choice?

And what about the flip-side? Are those who are pro-abortion “anti-life”? Most would say no. One would assume they at least value their own lives. Many also appear to value the lives of friends and family members. Some go so far as to attribute worth to total strangers; even animal and plant life!

How then can they so de-value life that they can so easily terminate the most defenseless lives of all?

The answer is often to change the definition of “life”. They will call a pre-born child nearly anything but “alive”. It’s not a person yet; it’s “just” a fetus… nothing but a clump of cells. Yet this is a very slippery slope.

Once we open the door to subjectively determining when life begins, who is to say when that point is reached? Is there a magical moment when a clump of cells moves a few inches down the birth canal and becomes a life? That’s what the law says currently, but many secular ethicists (the most intellectually honest among them) have already begun to move this point later. In his book Practical Ethics, Peter Singer writes:

“The fact that a being is a human being, in the sense of a member of the species Homo sapiens, is not relevant to the wrongness of killing it; it is, rather, characteristics like rationality, autonomy,and self-consciousness that make a difference. Infants lack these characteristics. Killing them, therefore, cannot be equated with killing normal human beings, or any other self-conscious beings.”

Are abortion advocates ready to say that killing babies (as in, eating, breathing, out-of-the-womb tiny people) is okay? They should, because this is the logical extension of their reasoning. Eventually, one could reasonably conclude that one has the right to arbitrarily decide who qualifies as a “person” and is therefore worthy of life, based on any number of subjective qualifications. Indeed, this is the rationale Adolf Hitler (a faithful Darwinist) used to justify the mass genocide of those he deemed non-persons.

I would therefore label as “anti-life” everyone who considers abortion a “right”, because to hold that position requires them to either consider “life” an undefinable term, or to affirm the practice of murder on the grounds of a set of any subjective criteria. There are no other options.

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live. ~ Deuteronomy 30:19

Edit: Please read this follow-up post.

Where to Read the News?

As you have probably seen from some of my blogs and many of the articles I post… I tend to read a lot of news articles from a lot of sources. It’s getting harder and harder, unfortunately, to find balanced, unbiased reporting, so I feel that the best strategy is to wade through everything that’s out there and trust the discernment that comes through the Holy Spirit and a grounding in a Biblically-based worldview.

Sadly, as I told the men in my small group this week, I’ve had to nearly cut myself off from one of the sources I used to read a lot, Fox News. This isn’t because they present a biased version of the news — who doesn’t? — but because it’s been getting more and more difficult to navigate their website without being forced to see photos of scantily-clad women and all the “love” advice from their “sexperts”. It disgusts me to be forced to see that stuff when I really just want to read about what’s going on in the world — and, yes, I do realize that the sexualization of our culture IS what’s going on in the world, but still…

Of course, this shouldn’t be surprising, when Fox News (as with all the Fox Networks) is owned by sleaze-ball media mogul Rupert Murdoch, whose holdings also include the Sky Network (and it’s ever-expanding list of pornographic websites and cable TV stations), MySpace, and Zondervan Publishing. Surprising or not, though, it is very disappointing. I know that a lot of my Christian brothers are struggling with issues of sexual purity, and many of these brethren also choose to get most of their news from Fox. How many men continue to struggle with unclean thoughts and temptations, while unconsciously allowing immoral images to continue to have a foothold in their life through unexpected sources such as a “conservative” news outlet?

All this is a very roundabout way to get at my real point: Despite my decision to cut back on my Fox-reading, there are a few blogs that I still read. Thankfully, the “Fox Forum” section of their website has thus far remained free from the influence of advertisements and photos linking to some of Murdoch’s less palatable web ventures, and is accessible without navigating through the main website. It also contains thoughts and perspectives from all over the political spectrum, which I appreciate. It is to one of these blogs that I’d like to direct your attention today.

Kirsten Powers is a blogger who I like to read, even though I frequently disagree with her. She is a former junior member of the Bill Clinton administration, a self-described feminist, a pro-choice advocate, and a former blogger for the Huffington Post. She currently serves as a columnist for the New York Post, and as a political analyst for Fox News as a Democratic strategist. Though her views differ from mine on nearly every issue, I find her to be generally fair and open-minded in her writing. This morning I was very pleasantly surprised to read her blog, in which she defends Pro-Life organizations like the Cookeville Pregnancy Center. Definitely worth reading!

KIRSTEN POWERS: Women Are Not Delicate Little Flowers Despite What NARAL And Planned Parenthood Think

This is exactly the kind of dialogue we need to have in this country! Well-reasoned people of opposing viewpoints who are willing to challenge their own pre-conceived notions to see if they match up with reality.

So what are some of your favorite places to get news? I’m always looking for new sources. My favorite blog? Around the World with AiG’s Ken Ham