Saturday, August 01, 2015

Non-resistance In Light Of The Selling Of Human Beings Piecemeal

I write a fair bit about the genteel genocide that happens on a vast scale in America in the sterile offices of abortionists. I don't apologize for that. Just the opposite, the national horror and staining of our character that is abortion demands the church speak out. If I posted something about abortion every day of the year I would still count myself timid in the struggle for basic human dignity for the least of us.

This past week has introduced an entirely new level of gruesome brutality as undercover videos show representatives of the falsely named organization "Planned Parenthood" bartering for the left over pieces of human infants. While "comedians" cried crocodile tears over the death of a single lion, the media did their level best to ignore the whole topic but thanks to social media and a few outspoken voices, this topic will not go away. What makes these videos so chilling is not the brutal act of abortion. Everyone knows (but few will say) what happens when a woman enters an abortuary pregnant with a human child and leaves no longer pregnant. We hide the brutal carving, crushing and vacuuming of over a million children each year behind clever euphemisms and concepts like "choice" and "women's reproductive rights". It is murder for hire hiding in plain sight, little different from rail cars filled with Jews going away and never coming back. The Germans knew something was going on but no one talked about it. Likewise we avoid talking openly about abortion and certainly refuse to look at the results. No, what really makes the videos grotesque is how casual the representatives of history's greatest mass murderer are about the entire thing.

Casual brutality is far worse than other kinds of brutality. The brutality that is often on display in our popular culture and evening news is bad enough but when brutality is hidden behind shrugged shoulders and polite conversation there is something far more disquieting about it. We sort of get it when people who are unhinged are savage but when savagery happens in lovely offices with not so much as a moment of regret by people purporting to be "medical professionals", it is so much worse. When you compound this brutality with the half a billion the tax payers provide to these butchers and the reality that one political party, to quote George Will's brilliant column, has as a sacred cow the unlimited, anytime, anywhere, any age support for abortion...
The nonnegotiable tenet in today’s Democratic Party catechism is not opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline or support for a $15 minimum wage. These are evanescent fevers. As the decades roll by, the single unshakable commitment is opposition to any restriction on the right to inflict violence on pre-born babies. So today there is a limitless right to kill, and distribute fragments of, babies that intrauterine medicine can increasingly treat as patients.
...you are left with no choice but to act. But how in keeping with Biblical non-resistance?

What then ought a non-resistant Christian do in light of abortion, especially with the new revelations of Planned Parenthood harvesting the "non-crushed" parts of tiny human being for sale?

I have some serious moral qualms about the way the videos were gathered. Being false even in the defense of the helpless is something that bothers me. I also have absolutely zero faith that electing a sufficient number of Republicans would do anything to stop abortion. My understanding of the Biblical mandate to Christians is, in the King James vernacular, that we "resist not evil" (Matthew 5:39) and "overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:21). So what then? Shall we sit on the sidelines and think positive thoughts?

Of course not. Being non-resistant never has been intended to be inactive, just that we seek the way of the cross in fighting injustice rather than employing the coercive and violent methods of the world. We can and we must be outspoken, prophetic voices calling those who commit abortion and those who seek abortion out to repent. Even as grievous a sin as abortion is, it is not beyond the reach of the blood of Jesus. Even those who profit handsomely from infanticide and are enemies of God and a type of anti-Christ in doing so demand not our hatred but our love and our prayer. We also must continue to emasculate the false dilemma posed to pro-lifers that we only care about a child until they are born. The evidence that the opposite is true is overwhelming but we must continue to do more to show the love of Christ to women and men alike who have chosen life instead of death for their child. That means education and that might mean material support, both of which are provided in vast measure by the many crisis pregnancy centers operating around the country. For those who have had an abortion and now repent must be treated as brothers and sisters. None of us has a clean slate before we were born-again. Of course we must pray, often and fervently, for God to stop this barbarism because only God can change a human heart.

It often seems bleak and even hopeless but little by little I believe that the people of this country will roll back the legal abomination created out of thin air by the Supreme Court. We are limited in the tools God has given but those tools possess unlimited power if we only have the courage and humility to use them.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I totally agree, this national abomination of incomprehensible evil must stop now.
The church must speak out. Thanks for writing an excellent post (yet again) on this ignored issue.
Todd