Abortion is nothing new. The ancient Romans did it. The men wanted "enjoyment" but no baby afterward. Duh. They understood where babies come from. In the Bible we have at least one example of a dude using birth control. God smote him (Genesis 38). Birth control is nothing new either.
When I was pregnant with my fifth baby, I was receiving lots of let's fight abortion e-mails and someone please help these poor babies e-mails. Let's raise a lot of money and show women how awful they are to kill their babies. Let's volunteer our time and get ultrasound equipment for these women so they can see that they are about to kill their baby.
Peculiar that they don't have much to say about how cruel the father is, only the mother. Where is the guy anyway? As far as I understand it, no woman impregnates herself. Well, one of the ladies who had just sent me some of these pleading, urgent e-mails blasting women who want abortions said the following to me when I saw her one day: "You're having another baby? Gracious. Was that on purpose?"
Now somebody help me out here. Am I understanding the anti abortion people also to be anti pregnancy? If you're past two or three babies apparently. So we are supposed to not kill babies but also not give birth to them?
Another contradiction for you is a magazine that I get from a Christian family advocacy organization. I'm fond of these people and I like what they are doing. But they are very vocal about being anti abortion. It's one of their main platforms. And ... everyone who works there has two children. Let's do the math. Somebody's been using some birth control. That's fine if they want to do that, but I can't get pumped about abortion with these people.
Again, the anti abortion people are now providing content for pastors who have barely any children to use as sermons on "Sanctity of Life" Sundays. I've heard passionate sermons blasting women who get abortions almost in a mean spirited way -- the fathers are off the hook for some reason -- and the pastors preaching these sermons have one or two children. Just kind of yawning on the couch over here. Not impressed. Not feeling it. Kind of thinking about my grocery list while you were talking just then actually.
Here's what the whole thing boils down to. I can't get fired up with you on abortion as long as you consider it a humanitarian issue. If we are sinning against poor innocent babies, I can't get passionate about that (though it of course is very tragic.) The reason I can't go activist with you is because you could very easily turn that view into a different humanitarian issue which sounds like this: Denying abortion is sinning against poor innocent women.
Where are the men? Where is God? It's just a different side of the same coin. The discussions about abortion based on these two views sound like this to me, "Wah-blah baby blah!" and then "Blee, bleh woman gah!" They are all just saying a bunch of nothing at each other, around and around. I would rather bust out with the following view. Here it is, its own special bullet point of honor:
That's a different statement than the others. And it suggests that women did not magically become pregnant by themselves. Abortion is preventing the Creator from creating life and so is birth control. Abortion is just a really horrifying way to do it. No one wants to talk about that because they don't want to be a hypocrite and have to give up using birth control, which is to say, end up with unwanted babies. The fun part about being a submissive wife is, I can say it because even though I hold this belief dear, the belief I hold higher is that I am not the decision maker in my family and I need to do what my husband says. And that's also out of highest respect to and fear of my Creator God. So I can have this nutty conviction I am sharing with you, I can even write about it, and be at peace with myself if my husband decides we are not necessarily consistently living it out.
A wife can be married to a husband who doesn't want children at all and she is perfectly right with the Lord in respecting her husband's leadership on that. But that couple doesn't need to be sending me brochures against abortion. See? Christians haven't ever addressed the issue of why certain people are being shamed into having unwanted babies (abortion) but others don't have to (birth control).
I love that the church and Christians are at least standing up for something. We just need to use our noggin a little better. Of course there needs to be an outcry among believers about abortion. But when we speak out against it, we are not being effective because we are simply focusing on the consequence of man's actions. The end part. Christians are focusing not on the cause of the problem, just the tragic result. I didn't make that up, it's right here in James: “Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” James 1:15.
If someone wants to wake me up and make me think listening to them is more interesting than clipping my fingernails, they could preach or write about what the men in our nation should be doing to prevent abortions from ever becoming a desperate option. Do men ever teach younger men about the lust spoken of in that passage in James? Where is the girl's daddy? Why are her brothers not defending her honor the way Dinah's did? (Genesis 34.) Perhaps the men could hold each other accountable for living out in their own lives what the Bible says about defying God's plans for creating life. They could search the scriptures on that and articulate if and why God has different standards for married men than unmarried men when it comes to making babies. They could explain to all of us whether the Bible contains insight into what the difference is between abortion and birth control as they pertain to man honoring God. We could have "stop defying God" Sunday. Or "man up and defend the honor of the females in your family" Sunday.
I'll get you started. King David's great sin was impregnating Bathsheba and then sorta kinda taking responsibility for it. David actually said, "I have sinned against the Lord." 2 Samuel 12:13. And let's consider what God decided would happen to the baby. Discuss amongst yourselves in men's Bible study.
It is good that someone out there is compassionate toward the mothers and the babies. Both are victims. But we need Christian leadership guys to demonstrate whether one has more than the other to do with man honoring or disgracing the sanctity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
When I was pregnant with my fifth baby, I was receiving lots of let's fight abortion e-mails and someone please help these poor babies e-mails. Let's raise a lot of money and show women how awful they are to kill their babies. Let's volunteer our time and get ultrasound equipment for these women so they can see that they are about to kill their baby.
Peculiar that they don't have much to say about how cruel the father is, only the mother. Where is the guy anyway? As far as I understand it, no woman impregnates herself. Well, one of the ladies who had just sent me some of these pleading, urgent e-mails blasting women who want abortions said the following to me when I saw her one day: "You're having another baby? Gracious. Was that on purpose?"
Now somebody help me out here. Am I understanding the anti abortion people also to be anti pregnancy? If you're past two or three babies apparently. So we are supposed to not kill babies but also not give birth to them?
Another contradiction for you is a magazine that I get from a Christian family advocacy organization. I'm fond of these people and I like what they are doing. But they are very vocal about being anti abortion. It's one of their main platforms. And ... everyone who works there has two children. Let's do the math. Somebody's been using some birth control. That's fine if they want to do that, but I can't get pumped about abortion with these people.
Again, the anti abortion people are now providing content for pastors who have barely any children to use as sermons on "Sanctity of Life" Sundays. I've heard passionate sermons blasting women who get abortions almost in a mean spirited way -- the fathers are off the hook for some reason -- and the pastors preaching these sermons have one or two children. Just kind of yawning on the couch over here. Not impressed. Not feeling it. Kind of thinking about my grocery list while you were talking just then actually.
Here's what the whole thing boils down to. I can't get fired up with you on abortion as long as you consider it a humanitarian issue. If we are sinning against poor innocent babies, I can't get passionate about that (though it of course is very tragic.) The reason I can't go activist with you is because you could very easily turn that view into a different humanitarian issue which sounds like this: Denying abortion is sinning against poor innocent women.
- The anti abortion people feel sorry for the babies (with an undertone of resentment toward the mothers).
- The abortion rights people feel sorry for the mothers (with an undertone of resentment toward the babies).
Where are the men? Where is God? It's just a different side of the same coin. The discussions about abortion based on these two views sound like this to me, "Wah-blah baby blah!" and then "Blee, bleh woman gah!" They are all just saying a bunch of nothing at each other, around and around. I would rather bust out with the following view. Here it is, its own special bullet point of honor:
- When man resists God's plan for creating life, he is striving against God.
That's a different statement than the others. And it suggests that women did not magically become pregnant by themselves. Abortion is preventing the Creator from creating life and so is birth control. Abortion is just a really horrifying way to do it. No one wants to talk about that because they don't want to be a hypocrite and have to give up using birth control, which is to say, end up with unwanted babies. The fun part about being a submissive wife is, I can say it because even though I hold this belief dear, the belief I hold higher is that I am not the decision maker in my family and I need to do what my husband says. And that's also out of highest respect to and fear of my Creator God. So I can have this nutty conviction I am sharing with you, I can even write about it, and be at peace with myself if my husband decides we are not necessarily consistently living it out.
A wife can be married to a husband who doesn't want children at all and she is perfectly right with the Lord in respecting her husband's leadership on that. But that couple doesn't need to be sending me brochures against abortion. See? Christians haven't ever addressed the issue of why certain people are being shamed into having unwanted babies (abortion) but others don't have to (birth control).
I love that the church and Christians are at least standing up for something. We just need to use our noggin a little better. Of course there needs to be an outcry among believers about abortion. But when we speak out against it, we are not being effective because we are simply focusing on the consequence of man's actions. The end part. Christians are focusing not on the cause of the problem, just the tragic result. I didn't make that up, it's right here in James: “Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” James 1:15.
If someone wants to wake me up and make me think listening to them is more interesting than clipping my fingernails, they could preach or write about what the men in our nation should be doing to prevent abortions from ever becoming a desperate option. Do men ever teach younger men about the lust spoken of in that passage in James? Where is the girl's daddy? Why are her brothers not defending her honor the way Dinah's did? (Genesis 34.) Perhaps the men could hold each other accountable for living out in their own lives what the Bible says about defying God's plans for creating life. They could search the scriptures on that and articulate if and why God has different standards for married men than unmarried men when it comes to making babies. They could explain to all of us whether the Bible contains insight into what the difference is between abortion and birth control as they pertain to man honoring God. We could have "stop defying God" Sunday. Or "man up and defend the honor of the females in your family" Sunday.
I'll get you started. King David's great sin was impregnating Bathsheba and then sorta kinda taking responsibility for it. David actually said, "I have sinned against the Lord." 2 Samuel 12:13. And let's consider what God decided would happen to the baby. Discuss amongst yourselves in men's Bible study.
It is good that someone out there is compassionate toward the mothers and the babies. Both are victims. But we need Christian leadership guys to demonstrate whether one has more than the other to do with man honoring or disgracing the sanctity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
RSS Feed