"...there is nothing worse than abortion. There are horrible sins in this world: lying, stealing, cheating, greed, systemic and individual acts of racism, and much, much more. But there is nothing worse than abortion. It is the pinnacle of wickedness. It is the murder of the helpless, those who cannot even lift their head or move their arms to defend themselves. It is the scourge of American society; it is by a great distance the worst institutional sin of our country; it is a reality that demands judgment. When one thinks about America and its cozy relationship with abortion, one realizes that we are not better than Sodom or Gomorrah. We might be worse. We think that we are advanced and civil and great and just and we are, societally speaking, murderous and wicked.If Israel was judged with just harshness for her sins, how much more do we deserve judgment?
And shame on people like myself who know of this evil, and others (racism great and small, greed, class injustice, etc), and do nothing, or next to nothing, about it and them. It’s not that we can singlehandedly overturn massive social sins like this one; we may very well not be able to. But we should fight much, much harder than we do, pray much, much longer than we do, and weep much, much more than we do for the least of us: the defenseless unborn.
Abortion is the worst sin we know. It is our scourge. It is not an option for Christians to fight it, as if we can pick from a fast-food menu of sins to fight. The very substance and nature of our faith in Christ, the guardian of the defenseless, demands that we fight abortion, in whatever way we can. I do not believe that this is an option for us as believers; it is by its very nature a mandate, an unavoidable responsibility."
Friday, February 06, 2009
There Is Nothing Worse Than Abortion
Owen Strachan passionately writes:
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9 comments:
Hey Z,
While I agree abortion is wicked and must be fought diligently, do you think this battle can really be won apart from the spread of the gospel? Abortion isn't even an issue on the conscience of Japan (or China, or Russia etc.) Politicians don't even discuss it. It is not even on the map.
Through the gospel things can change - and people's "scientific"- materialistic worldviews can change. It seems to me that this issue is only on people's minds to the extent that the gospel of God penetrates into a culture. Sadly, even Muslim countries do better than "Christian" America does. Where there is a lack of God there is a lack of sanctity for ANY human life. We are simply over-evolved ants and amoebas.
Curious as to your thoughts, or anyone else's.
I don't think it's either/or. I think you are certainly correct in that human life will ever be full cherish unless we view it as created in the image of God, but at the same time governments job is to retrain evil and a Christian's job is to show a better way through words and example.
I think it clears the issue up quite a bit if you use a different issue. Do we want people fighting against domestic abuse by trying to instigate laws, or should we just hope that people become Christians and then maybe that will take care of it (which we know is not that case all the time sadly).
Seems as though it has to be both/and in my view.
z
Mark and Maki,
To some extent (without having read much on the subject), I might agree that Muslim countries seem to be doing better than America on the issue of abortion. Concretely though, I am curious-- what does "doing better" on this issue mean? Does it mean lowering the number of abortions, no matter what measures are taken to do so?
I know that many Muslim countries oppress and brutalize women in the guise of "protecting" their modesty and "protecting" them from men's sexual lust. However, prostitution is also apparently big in some of these countries, so while it may seem, on the surface, that such countries care more about sexual purity and modesty than America does, they go to dehumanizing lengths to carry out their "concern", and there is also much hypocrisy. (Not to say that there isn't much hypocrisy in supposedly "Christian" America.) I wondering if the case isn't similar with abortion in Muslim countries. Thoughts or info?
I *am* wondering, that is
G.K. Chesterton paints a different picture on the sanctity of life:
"Not only is suicide a sin, it is the sin. It is the ultimate and absolute evil, the refusal to take an interest in existence; the refusal to take the oath of loyalty to life. The man who kills a man, kills a man. The man who kills himself, kills all men; as far as he is concerned he wipes out the world. His act is worse (symbolically considered) than any rape or dynamite outrage. For it destroys all buildings; it insults all women. The thief is satisfied with diamonds; but the suicide is not: that is his crime." - Orthodoxy
Hey Z,
You are right, it is a both/and issue. I am glad you are pursuing the fight against this by every possible means. Let me know how I can be more involved. BTW, we are praying about adoption as well.
Christopher,
Yeah, I am not sure either. I just know that from the stats that I saw, that abortion is outlawed in almost every Muslim state.
Ray-thejake,
Chesterton may have been making his argument without considering abortion. At the time that he wrote Orthodoxy, legal abortion was quite likely unthinkable to him, in terms of being a future possibility.
I misspelled my own first name! Perhaps I should get some sleep...
Christopher, it would occur to me that to Chesterton abortion would be a type of murder - certainly an unconscionable and horrendous murder. But that is a moot point. Chesterton argues that suicide is the murder of the whole world - the destruction of all of God's creation, man and beast, nature and construction.
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