Having said that, I am growing tired of anti-abortionists making abortion a political issue. I was listening to Jay Sekulow on Family Talk and I listened to him pound on the President for his pro-choice stance. I listened to him take some of the president’s words out of context and all of this was done to suit his own political agenda. I will be the first one to say that the government has no right paying for a woman to have an abortion. I don’t want my tax dollars going towards that. But if I am going to remove the government from that area, I cannot come back and ask the government to step in and tell that same woman what she can or cannot do. The government is not supposed to have a say in moral and personal issues. Should the laws that are written reflect a moral and ethical society? I think so. Should the men and women that create the laws be conscious and cognizant of their God-given authority (Romans 13) and duty to protect their citizens? I think so. However, having said that, it is also my belief that abortion is a personal choice. Most sins are personal choices. Yes it is wrong, but it is a personal, often misguided decision. I remember being a college student and I was dating a young lady. She got pregnant by someone before we met. In my arrogance and self-centeredness, I told her point-blank that we couldn’t be together because “I’m not raising another man’s baby”. Some time passed and she decided to abort the baby. I will not sit back glibly or self-righteously and act as if I didn’t play a role. I even drove her to the clinic. I didn’t understand then what I understand now. I had no real concrete ideas about life, conception or how bad abortion really is. I was a freshman in college. Do I regret the unsound, unwise counsel that I gave the young lady? Absolutely.
What we needed was some godly counsel, not demagoguery. Instead of railing against the government for protecting the personal rights of a person that can make whatever personal choice that they want, why don’t we start ministering to these mothers that choose abortion or are considering abortion? When certain drugs were made illegal, which is what the "right" wants to do with abortion, did people stop using them? No. On the contrary, drug use escalated and it also became more dangerous. Instead of criminalizing a personal choice, why don’t we start teaching abstinence AND birth control, the latter of which the right wing will not touch. They harp on and on about abstinence and yet refuse to believe that people have pre-marital sex. Most of us did not wait until we were married. I didn’t. But that was because I had no one to teach me about abstinence in a way that was biblically sound and loving, with an emphasis on loving. Why bury our collective heads in the sand as if there was something NEW under the sun? The same temptations and sinful pleasures that enticed many of us into lustful, unhealthy, sexual relationships are STILL HERE today. Let us reach out to those that are faced with these tough decisions. Teaching birth control does not promote pre-marital sex, it prevents some of the consequences of pre-marital sex. Should abstinence be taught first? Yes. I have a son and a daughter. If they chose to have pre-marital sex, which I pray that they don’t, I would want them to understand the ramifications of doing so and not using contraception or protection from disease- which is rampant. In many cases, had birth control been used or self-control been practiced (abstinence), there would be no need to have a discussion about abortion. Don’t jump off the ship because this is a preacher that is facing reality. The spirit of lust is real and someone that walks in the flesh, which we all did prior to coming to a saving knowledge of Christ [emphasis on saving knowledge and not just a superficial knowledge], does not have the ability to resist the devil- which is why sex is an issue that must be attacked from a practical and a theological stand point. I don't want to paint a picture of sex being bad either. Sex is beautiful, but it is portrayed by the world in such a salacious and unbecoming light that people walk away from the issue altogether instead of bringing the correct and biblical perspective of sex to the forefront.
Sekulow went on and on with this bombastic, religio-political rhetoric about abortion without realizing that he was not actually ministering to anyone. Except maybe those on the right that foam at the mouth over abortion like he does. Their argument is that the 52 million babies thathave been aborted “could have made society more productive.” [note: I did not hear what year he was referring to; i believe he was referring to the number of abortions since it was legalized by Roe v. Wade]. While I totally agree that that number is astronomically high, this argument against abortion is very weak. How do we know that those 52 million people would have been productive citizens? How many of them would have been on disability? How many of them would have been serial killers? How many would have figured out some way to con the government out of welfare and other resources? The answer to each and every one of those questions is a resounding, “WE DON’T KNOW!” It is bordering on deception when the heart of your argument against abortion is based on an unknown quantity. We don’t know what any of those fetuses would have done as adults. What we do know is that it was wrong to abort them and that murder is a sin. But what I have never heard an anti-abortionist say is that although murder is a sin, it is forgivable by Almighty God. Maybe I missed it in translation. Let us focus on the real issues and let us minister to the ones that need ministering to. Marching on the date of Roe versus Wade does nothing to put people back to work. The economy is still in a tail-spin and truthfully, from a totally practical standpoint, I am going to vote for someone that does not try to use incendiary tactics to rouse me but someone that is going to try to fix what is broken. These same people argue for smaller government- well guess what: The government not meddling in the personal affairs of U.S. citizens in the best example of small government that there is.
The right wing, especially the religious right, has used abortion as their number one issue to determine the electability of a president for several years. I was shocked to hear a man that I respect very much and listen to almost every day, Hank Hannegraaf (the Bible Answer Man), resort to this tactic when a caller called in with concerns about Mitt Romney's Mormonism. Hannegraaf had been working Mormonism over most of the Fall season, created an anti-Mormon flip chart and marketed it, called Romney out for his Mormonism and all of a sudden, when the caller expressed his reservations concerning Romney's mormon background, reservations that Mr. Hannegraaf shared only months ago, Hank Hannegraaf told the caller to consider "life" issues when choosing a presidential candidate to vote for. He said it was about the "sanctify of life" or something to that effect [January 17th 2012 show, topic "is it ok for a Christian to vote for a Mormon?"]
The religious right lauded George W. Bush for his stance on abortion. They never even flinched at the fact that he used cocaine and never gave a straight answer when posed with that question. They never flinched at the fact that he weaseled out of his military service (it’s funny how the “chicken hawks” on the right are always the first ones to send troops into harm’s way- that goes for you too Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld). Never mind that his foreign policy has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi women and children, children that were ALREADY BORN, I might add. What about their lives? We cannot say with certainty that they are/were enemies of the United States. They were collateral damage and yet no one from the right protests the use of “pre-emptive strikes”, as the Bush administration called it, or MOABS (Mother of All Bombs) to protect foreign oil interests. I still support our troops because they are simply following orders. I believe that the operation in Afghanistan was necessary and we have achieved the primary objective which was to take out Osama Bin Laden. This is not meant in any way to diminish the service of our men and women in uniform to this country. My wife is an Iraq war veteran and I thank all of the military for their sacrifice. This post, however, IS meant in every way to point out the hypocrisy of the religious right. If you are going to stand on the “protect life” soapbox, you’d better be ready to stand on it for ALL mankind up to and including unborn babies.
The religious right lauded George W. Bush for his stance on abortion. They never even flinched at the fact that he used cocaine and never gave a straight answer when posed with that question. They never flinched at the fact that he weaseled out of his military service (it’s funny how the “chicken hawks” on the right are always the first ones to send troops into harm’s way- that goes for you too Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld). Never mind that his foreign policy has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi women and children, children that were ALREADY BORN, I might add. What about their lives? We cannot say with certainty that they are/were enemies of the United States. They were collateral damage and yet no one from the right protests the use of “pre-emptive strikes”, as the Bush administration called it, or MOABS (Mother of All Bombs) to protect foreign oil interests. I still support our troops because they are simply following orders. I believe that the operation in Afghanistan was necessary and we have achieved the primary objective which was to take out Osama Bin Laden. This is not meant in any way to diminish the service of our men and women in uniform to this country. My wife is an Iraq war veteran and I thank all of the military for their sacrifice. This post, however, IS meant in every way to point out the hypocrisy of the religious right. If you are going to stand on the “protect life” soapbox, you’d better be ready to stand on it for ALL mankind up to and including unborn babies.
Let us not be ineffective Christians. If you are reading this and are considering abortion, while it is your right to do what you please with your body, think about the gift of life that resides within you. Think about the fearfully and wonderfully made person that is in your womb. Obviously, there are situations like rape or incest that make it difficult to come to grips with what I just said, but even then, adoption is a wonderful option as opposed to abortion. I am not trying to get in anyone’s business, but there are also other cases where abstinence or birth control would have made it impossible to be in a situation where you have to choose whether or not to keep a baby. We’re all grown here, and we all know that if you do what it takes to make a baby, a baby can be made. The economic and social factors of bringing a baby into the world are often not considered in the heat of passion/ lust but they should be. If you know someone struggling with this decision, or if you are struggling with it yourself, seek godly counsel. You can even send me an e-mail. Talk to your pastor or someone close to you that knows Jesus on a personal level. Pray and ask God to guide you through the decision and remember that He STILL loves you, even if you messed up. Be blessed.
I know you keep that woman in your prayers. I pray that she forgives herself and that the Lord heals her memories. I say that because after she made that decision, she did not marry you anyway....and I'm sure that she has thought of that many times and wonders what could have been in terms of the child.
ReplyDeleteFor my part, I'll remember her in my prayers.
Thanks for dropping in and sharing your thoughts and prayers Lynn. I will be the first to admit that it was a pretty dumb decision for us both, especially me. I will "see" you over at Hicktown real soon.
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