Tag Archives: abortion

If you want to do something about abortion…

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Abortion laws won’t stem the tide of abortions in this country. Rulings by federal judges won’t change the situation. It’s time that Christians woke up to that fact.

Writers like James Davison Hunter (To Change The World) and Gabe Lyons (The Next Christians) have tried to help us see the truth. Lyons has an excellent study of how the homosexual community has successfully promoted their agenda in this country… and it wasn’t through politics (at least not primarily). Now they’re able to make gains through politics, because of the decades of work in the arts, in education and in other fields.

But what about the average Christian who feels passionate about doing something about abortion? Here are a few ideas:

  • Talk to young people. Better yet, listen to young people. Let them see you as a person they can trust.
  • Make yourself available to young people. Let them know that they can call on you at any time. To talk. To get a ride home from an uncomfortable situation. To have a place to stay should they need one.
  • Identify yourself as an agent of God’s grace. I don’t know if that expresses the thought well, but what I mean is that they need to know that God will forgive any sin that they commit… and you will too. Young people need to know that nothing they share with you will make you withdraw in disgust or make you reject them in anger.
  • Encourage your church to step up as family to pregnant young women. Should one of your church members become pregnant, the church should surround them with an atmosphere of love and forgiveness (unless, of course, they are unrepentant). They need to know that the church will do everything it can to help them bring this child into the world in a good way. That means help with doctor visits, rides to and from work (or school), babysitting, diapers, the whole works. Everything that a loving physical family would do. And, ideally, the church would be able to extend this love even to non-Christians.
  • Consider the children. Adopt a child. Work at a children’s home. Raise money for children’s homes. Let the world know that there are positive alternatives to abortion.

I could go on, but you probably have better ideas than I do how this could play out. Some are probably thinking, “Yes, that’s fine for my community, but what about the nation as a whole?” The nation as a whole will be changed as individual communities are changed. We have to begin with our sphere of influence, and most of us don’t have influence at a national level.

This is much harder and personally involving than the political approach. It’s much easier to forward e-mails, attend rallies and vote for candidates based on a single issue. But you’ll have much more impact for good working with individuals right where you live.

 Photo by Kenn W. Kiser

It’s time to stop wasting energy on politics

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The last few weeks, I’ve been talking about Christians speaking to politics from outside the system. The idea is that we need to approach social issues in a holistic fashion, speaking to broad issues rather than political talking points.

There’s much more. A while back, I did a series of posts on James Davison Hunter’s excellent book To Change The World. If you missed it, you can start with this post and read as much as you’d like in the series. Hunter points out that one failing of the modern church is how we’ve come to see the political system as the only vehicle by which we can change society. The reality of the situation is, that system is ill suited to bring about the kind of change we’d like to see.

Take the issue of abortion, for example. For many Christians, this topic is all about getting the courts and legislatures of this country to declare abortion illegal. That will stop the killing of babies, many assume. Funny thing is, the facts say that this just isn’t true.

Do you know what areas of the world have the highest abortion rates? Africa and Latin America, where abortion is illegal in many areas. Do you know what nation has the fewest abortions per pregnancy? The Netherlands, where abortion is legal and easily available. [It’s admittedly hard to cite studies on this, because most are published by groups on one side or the other of the abortion debate. Can I cite the World Health Organization? Here’s a link: Facts on induced abortion worldwide]

Am I supporting the legalization of abortion? By no means. I’m saying that the church has been distracted from the real battleground, which isn’t the electoral college nor the Supreme Court. If we really want to do something about abortion, we’ll stop wasting time, money and effort on politics and spend it dealing with the problem itself.

Why don’t we? Because it’s much cleaner and simpler to put all of our moral eggs into the political basket. We get to feel self-righteous and superior to others, even when some of those people are spending their time ministering to pregnant women while we’re off at political fundraisers.

There’s a raging debate about the statement: “You can’t legislate morality.” I’d say that it’s obvious that you can; look at the Islamic states around the world. But I’d fix the statement by saying: “Legislating morality is ineffective in changing behavior.”

I’ve got some ideas on dealing with abortion, which I’ll share tomorrow. I’d like to hear yours, as well as your thoughts as to political efforts to curb abortion.

photo by Xenia Antunes — By coincidence, two days in a row for this lady from Brazil

Sinners are people too

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She made a mistake. A big one. It was over a quarter of a century ago, but it haunts her daily.

She got pregnant. And, despite being totally against it in principle, she had an abortion.

Now it’s 2012, and she’s reaching out by phone, calling a Christian non-profit, desperately seeking some words of comfort and hope. Her family doesn’t know. Her minister doesn’t know. The one other person who knows doesn’t seem to share her pain and remorse, though he was just as responsible in the situation as she was.

She talks to me, a stranger. She won’t even tell me her first name. She cries most of the time. She speaks of her fear of one day facing her unborn child. She speaks of her fear of being found out by family and friends. Most of all she speaks of her fear that God will never forgive her.

What she hears around her offers her no comfort. Christians saying that everyone involved with abortion is headed straight for the lake of fire. Family members saying that baby killers deserve any and all punishment that God gives them. Church leaders taking a strong stand against abortion, unwittingly heaping increasing loads of guilt on this woman’s shoulders.

I don’t know that I was able to help. She said that I was the first that had given her any hope, and I pray that I was able to do just that. Wish I’d remembered 1 John 3:20, the verse that says that when our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our heart. I did tell her that God is bigger than any sin that we might commit, that his grace can cover even our worst misdeeds. And we prayed together.

It’s a reminder to me, a call to gentler speech. This is a reminder to you, about the same. It’s easy to grab the rocks and throw them against the sinners: the abortionists, the drug dealers, the adulterers, the homosexuals. It’s also wrong.

I need these words engraved on my heart: “Whichever one of you has committed no sin may throw the first stone.”

We need to know how to take a hard stand against sin without trampling sinners in the process.

photo by Xenia Antunes