Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Open By the Permission of the Church?

“We’ll stand before God one day and be held accountable for allowing abortion to continue,” a small group member said to me.

He’s right we will be.

Yesterday another video was released. This one was of a lunch with Cate Dyer, CEO of StemExpress an organization which recently filed a restraining order against the Center for Medical Progress to keep any videos of its employees from coming to light. That restraining order was lifted last week and this week we see not just an employee, but the CEO.

In this latest video we hear of the researchers who, upon receiving the aborted children’s parts, are horrified and the table jokes about making sure the severed head of a baby has its eyes closed (minute 7 of the embed video), before shipping it.

“Every abortion clinic should have a sign in front of it saying, ‘Open by the permission of the church.’” Francis Schaeffer said.*

That's a spine chilling statment. And we must ask ourselves, is it true? Are we, the church, allowing this holocaust to continue? If we are, then the current American Church has little difference than that of the German Christians of 1930's Germany who, as Barth said, existed in the abysmal gap that was between, "The inherent godlessness of National Socialism (Nazi)," and Christianity.

I pray that when we stand before God at the final judgement of all things many of us will be innocent of the blood of the innocent because we stood up for the murdered masses.

Roughly 58 million abortions have been carried out since Roe V. Wade, nearly the population of Italy.


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* This quote has been attributed to Schaeffer on various places on the internet, I am researching this to make sure it was indeed Schaeffer that said it, and if so in this form. 

UPDATE: As I have been looking through Schaeffer's works I have not yet found this quote, however he does say, "That even the church is being used by the proponents of infanticide is particularly alarming. Those who have propagated these ideas or simply not bothered to think them through have had ample warning in history - if they would care to look. Doctors and nurses should be aware of how fallible these decisions are and how disastrous have been simplistic pop-science theories about human worth in the past. Lawyers should be frightened to let down the bars on the killing of any human being, when the decisions is made on the arbitrary basis of the equality of life. And finally, these theologians have obviously forgotten God's view of the work of every human being as made in the image of God. If these same theologians no longer believe in such a God, they should not use the church as a platform form which to propagate their discriminatory ideas." p. 327, Volume 5 The Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer: A Christian Worldview

Monday, August 24, 2015

The Crushing Vengeance of God

“Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.'” Romans 12:19

“We forget that man stands alone before an ultimate authority and that anyone who lays violent hands on man here is infringing eternal law and taking upon himself superhuman authority which will eventually crush him.” (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)

History is not on the side of Planned Parenthood, just as history was not on the side of the Third Reich, and the Gulag, and the Armenian genocide. Tyrants will fall. History has proven this. Justice will prevail. 

It is not our place to bomb abortion clinics, to burn them, or, as happened in my hometown of Wichita, KS., murder abortion providers in their churches

Vengeance is God’s.

Bonhoeffer speaks truth when he says the, “Superhuman authority… will eventually crush him.” Under the weight of convincing a population they have the right to choose who can live and who can die, Planned Parenthood will fall under the crushing weight of true justice. 

By no means is this a post to persuade anyone from speaking out against Planned Parenthood. Rather this is a post to both have pity and speak warning while speaking out.

Vengeance is God’s and either real people fall under his eternal just wrath, or real people receive God’s forgiving mercy in Jesus. 

Yes, fight for the abolishment of abortion with all your being. But do not wish God’s vengeance on those murdering and then selling a baby and his/her parts. Never wish damnation on anyone.

Language that speaks of Planned Parenthood workers being below human is precisely the same logic being used to determine what lives matter and what lives don’t. People are people and are made in the image of God whether they’re in the womb or work at Planned Parenthood. 

Our goal is to abolish abortion Christianly.   

The goal to see the institution abolished, and the people within the institution redeemed.

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Unjust Law & the Christian's Responsibility

"We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." (Elie Wiesel) 
“The Law is organized justice.” (Frederic Bastiat)

When something is lawful or legal we tend to think it is right and when something us unlawful or illegal we tend to think it is wrong. We tend to think thus because, as quoted above, we assume the law is organized justice.

For example: The right to property is your lawful right. If one was to steal your property from you then the full weight of the law would be on your side to prosecute the thief.

It’s by this system that all our current laws and country are predicated. Because the law is to seek justice we therefore have a law system that, we assume, upholds justice.

But does the law really uphold justice?

What about when the law is wrong?

If justice is the aim of law and justice is not served by the law, what should we as morally responsible people do with the law?

“We the citizens have the right and responsibility to examine, debate, and protest the decisions made by its President, its legislators, and the SCOTUS nominated by the President and approved by the Senate. Given such a polity, for Christians simply to be quiet or acquiesce is to disrespect the governing authorities.” (Bruce Ashford) 

So if we are to be biblical people, if we are to act like Christians, in this moment we are to speak, because Romans 13:1-7 tells us to respect our governing authorities. And disrespect is to be quiet.

But speaking against wrongful law is not easy.

My mother-in-law was telling me she is looked at as a, “two-headed monster,” when she says she is pro-life. But despite the looks, she continues to have conversations about why abortion is unjust.

It is our responsibility as Christians to respect the government. We have a real opportunity now to continue to speak up and out against the unjust law that allows abortion. So be heard. Continue to fight the modern holocaust of abortion with everyday conversations.