An Initiative To Get Serious About Pro-Life

What if Christians opposed to abortion not primarily with protests but by opening our homes and lives to vulnerable mothers and children?

What if pro-life people were known not by our picket lines but by our radical, sacrificial efforts to provide homes for unwanted babies?

What if every woman who was considering an abortion could walk into a crisis pregnancy center and find that her pregnancy and delivery costs would be covered and her baby able to be adopted by a loving family? What if pro-life organizations and churches banded together to fund and streamline adoptions for families willing to radically love like this? What if there was an initiative, a program, a ministry, that could fund and coordinate these efforts by uniting donors, churches, families, and government adoption agencies? What if this is the way that Jesus is calling us to take a stand for life-- not just voting a certain way, but living and sacrificing for this cause?

Seriously: what can we do to make this happen?

For too long, abortion has been treated in the church as a political issue. It's not; it's a gospel issue. It's a discipleship issue. It's a "love as I have loved you" issue. Politics is easier than gospel-driven, lay-down-your-life discipleship. It's easier to hold a sign and shout slogans than to open your home and your heart and upend your life to heal to the hurting and rescue those being sent to slaughter. But Jesus has called us to more than slogans; he has called us to sacrifice. Only that kind gospel-driven discipleship changes hearts and changes nations. 

So here's what I'm proposing: let's take back the pro-life agenda from the pundits, politicians, and lobbyists by uniting churches and organizations around an explicitly gospel-driven mission to love vulnerable women and rescue vulnerable babies.

Here's what I see needs to happen:

1) we need individuals and families willing to be radical in their obedience to Jesus and their love for the least of these by adopting every baby who would otherwise be aborted. We also need families who will not just adopt babies, but who will "adopt," take care of, provide for, and love young women who would otherwise choose abortion.

2) We need donors and churches to sacrificially fund both these adoptions and the care for these young women. We need to cover pregnancy and delivery costs, as well as adoption costs.

3) We need to network with crisis pregnancy centers and government adoption agencies to streamline this process so that crisis pregnancy centers can smoothly and efficiently connect willing families with vulnerable women, and handle the paperwork, costs, and legal issues associated with adoption in the United States.

4) We need some sort of ministry, initiative, or program to coordinate all these moving pieces and raise funds and awareness for this vital work.

I don't know how to make this happen. I don't know who to talk to or what steps to take. Somebody who reads this: please, take this idea and run with it. Make this happen. What I do know is that it's time to stop talking the talk and time to start walking the walk, and laying down our lives for the least of these, as Jesus is calling us to:

"Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." ~John 13:34-35

"Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, 'Behold, we did not know this,' does not He who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not He who keeps watch over your soul know it?" ~Proverbs 24:11-12

"Is not this the kind of fasting that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house? Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily... If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, if you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday." ~Isaiah 58:6-10

How Christians Should Respond to the Election

So how should Christians respond to the election of Barack Obama, the most extreme pro-abortion member of the Senate (and now the President-Elect), the liberal Democrat, and the first African-American President in history?  Here are 8 responses from Scripture that should be expected of God's people:

1) Pray for our President.  Pray for our new President-Elect.  Pray for our country and its new leaders.  Pray for the cessation of injustice, the freedom of the Church, and the advance of the Gospel.  "If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land."(2 Chron. 7:14)  And do not think that, because you do not support President Obama or his policies, that you should not pray for him.  "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." (Matt. 5:44)  Pray especially that God will change his heart to save the lives of the millions of defenseless unborn who will otherwise die during his term.

2) Do not fear.  If the prospect of an Obama presidency scares you, you should take a good hard look at where you are placing your security.  We as Christians will almost certainly face more opposition in the next four years, and we will almost certainly face setbacks in the cause of justice.  But God is our security, heaven is our home, and we are not citizens of this world.  "He has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you.'  So we can confidently say, 'The Lord is my helper, I will not fear, what can man do to me?'" (Heb. 13:5-6).

3) Respect our President.  Regardless of how you voted, you are commanded by the Word of God to respect your new President.  "Let every person be subject to the governing authorities.  For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God." (Rom. 13:1)  If Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, could write these words concerning the anti-Christian pagan emperor, how much more should Republicans submit to their Democratic leader!  Do not be like so many partisans who will drag the name of Christ through the mud tomorrow morning by the vindictive bitterness of their words.  Honor Christ in how you honor the President.

4) Rejoice at the demise of racism.  The election of the first African-American President, regardless of his political views, is a thrilling moment in American history, a decisive blow in the ages-long battle against bigotry, racism, and hatred.  Christians everywhere should rejoice in this triumph of justice-- justice that for centuries was denied to people created in the image of God for His glory.  Pray that God will use Barack Obama's presidency to further heal the divides of racism that still exist in this country.

5) Defend the defenseless.  With pro-choice Democrats now in control of the White House and Congress, the people of God must speak out with one voice against the horrific evil of abortion.  Pray earnestly, desperately, and faithfully that God will deliver us from this judgment and will renew this country's love for the sanctity of life.  "Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.  If you say, 'Behold, we did not know this,' does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?  Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay each man according to his work?" (Prov. 24:11-12)

6) Trust in God's sovereignty.  We must never let election outcomes cloud our view of God's sovereignty as revealed in Scripture.  "He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings." (Daniel 2:20-21)  "All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, 'What have you done?'" (Daniel 4:34-35)  God is sovereign, and the outcome of this election was always in His hands.  If He has chosen to lose the restraints on evil and "give us over" to the fruition of abortion and homosexuality, His judgment is just.  Continue to pray for mercy for our nation and boldness for His people, but never cease to trust His unswerving allegiance to His Church and to His glory.

7) Thank God for His mercy.  Though God has "given us over" to a liberal, pro-abortion, pro-homosexuality President, in His great mercy He has not given us the leaders we deserve.  In our sin, we deserve anarchy and dictatorship and violent oppression, yet God in His goodness has seen it fit to preserve our political freedom.  This is the fruit of the Gospel; God continues to defend His church and extend incredible patience to rebels.

8) Remember our freedom.  Many Republicans will say that a liberal President means the end of liberty.  I disagree.  It may be true that Constitutional protections will be rolled back or ignored; it may be true that Big Government may take away economic and social and educational and familial choices that once were ours.  But President Obama cannot take away our freedom, for our freedom is found in Christ.  "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:31-32)Do not put too much stock in political freedom; after all, this world and everything in it is quickly passing away.  Christians in North Korea today are just as free before God as Christians in the USA.  Remember the benefits of the Gospel bought and applied to you by the Holy Spirit: you are free, forgiven, reconciled, a citizen of heaven, and no human government can take that away.

Thoughts on the Election

I have been enormously helped towards thinking biblically about today's election by John Piper's and Justin Taylor's blogs on this subject.

In his interview, Piper reminds us that we need "a healthy dose of the sovereignty of God" when thinking about the election.  He says:

"God governs this election, and He's gonna get elected the one He wants elected, and if it's the person we think will be hurtful, then we need to be hurt.  Sometimes people say, 'God's gonna judge us if do abortion or if we have gay marriage, or if we elect a pro-choice president or something.  Well, He's not going to judge us because of that; that IS the judgment!  Abortion IS the judgment.  The spread of radical gay activism IS the judgment."

What Piper is saying is Romans 1-- God's judgment against humanity is, three times from verses 24-28, that He "gave them up" to impurity, to dishonorable passions, to a debased mind.  God is sovereign over sin; the extent of evil in the world is God's judgment against that evil.  In other words, God says, "You want abortion?  Very well, reap the consequences of your slaughter.  You want gay marriage?  Very well, reap the consequences of your perversion."  Abortion is the judgment.  Gay marriage is the judgment.

So today, on this historic election, as we go to the polls to exercise our right to vote and to exercise our duty to pursue God's prescriptive will for leaders, we need a big dose of the sovereignty of God.  God is in charge of this election, and He will govern the result-- whether towards restraint of evil or judgment on evil-- to the praise of His glory.