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

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.

The Gospel for Abortion Providers

We heard about King David at church this weekend. No matter how many times I hear it I’m still shocked that we look up to this guy (or that we even name kids - like my coming son - David). He commits adultery, tries to cover it up, and then murders - in the best mobster fashion - the husband of the woman he impregnated. I mean, this guys is a terrible guy by today’s standards. Our jails are full of folks like him. 

But the reason we look up to this guy and name our kids David is not because he was great guy, but because his God was a great God. David writes, “Do not forsake me from you presence…” (Ps 51:11) and God does not forsake him. But David killed a man! He committed adultery! He lied! Three of the big ten commandments David doesn’t just break a little, he shatters them and keeps on running. 

And then two faces swam into my mind. Those of Dr. Deborah Nucatola and Mary Gatter. The two women in the Center for Medical Progress’ videos exposing some very dirty secrets of Planned Parenthood (and from what we're hearing there are only more videos to come).

Dr. Nucatola talked about having just done a, “17-weeker,” early in the day of her recorded lunch meeting. Mary Gatter talked about doing things, “less crunchy.” To interpret this means that Dr. Nucatola just finished killing a 17-week-old baby, and now sits sipping her wine and enjoying her salad, and Mary Gatter is discussing how to crush a baby in order to preserve its organs. 

These women are murderers of children. Justice demands a response. Whether it is the law of the land's justice or not doesn’t matter, eternal justice must be served.

Which brings me back to David. 

He was not forsaken because another was forsaken in his place. “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” (Matt 27:46)

An abortion provider is not beyond the reach of this grace.

Never will there come a time when one is too bad to be redeemed and welcomed as a child of God. Never will an abortion provider hear, “Your sin is too great to be forgiven,” from God’s almighty lips. Never will any employee of Planned Parenthood be out of reach of the arms of mercy.

This means that if an abortion provider comes to Christ, Christ died for their sins and they will worship God as part of the Church for all eternity. What then of justice?

Take the thirst you have for justice and look at Jesus’ blood and pus soaked cross. If a murderer of infants can find redemption in the arms of Jesus then imagine how horrific the cross must have been, and then realize that your thirst for justice is infinitely dwarfed by God’s demand for justice. If one who crushes children to preserve organs can be made new by the sacrificed Lamb, imagine what kind of unparalleled crushing Christ bore. 

Now if those last few paragraphs made you uncomfortable as a Christian, your god is too small and looks strangely like you. 

There is a love stronger than death. There is a great I AM who sits enthroned. And there is a great Redeemer welcoming home murderous rebels every day. 

Christian, remember your redemption: you were saved from your sins by the same grace that can save an abortion provider. Abortion provider, see the hope that is in Christ Jesus to be finally forgiven and finally accepted by the mercy of a good God.

How do we respond to the Planned Parenthood videos?

The rumble of thunder was rolling as I read these words this morning: “For 30 months, as part of their ‘Human Capital’ investigation, they followed the trail that led to aborted babies whose parts are earmarked for sale, even while their little hearts are still beating.” This Center for Medical Progress, this David Daleiden, of whom I know so little.

For 30 months, 2 and a half years of Planned Parenthood infiltration has the fruit of 12 disheartening, sickening, and invigorating videos.

They are disheartening because the unborn children are considered more profitable dead than alive. No matter what progress these unborn dead could have possibly offered in the field of medicine, medicine has slaughtered them to have progress now rather than wait for these young ones to make grand discoveries.

Photo is a screenshot from the second CMP video.

They are sickening because terms like “less crunchy" are used to describe methods of child murder, or “I’ll crush above and I’ll crush below….” These are people! Crushed, crunched, as if they were leaves under your feet! Imagine that every-time you step on a leaf this fall: children are crushed in order to obtain their organs.

These videos are invigorating because we have been offered something, multiple somethings, “They have parted the veil of antiseptic tidiness…." For 10 more weeks we will be subjected to the gore of these casual conversations over wine and salad discussing what to do with the proceeds these dead people will provide for their murderers. And we can choose to ignore this gore, or look it full in the face and demand that this holocaust of prodigious numbers come to a swift and final end. “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak,” Bonhoeffer said. 

Shall we then not be like those poor German people who went on about their days while the fires of Auschwitz burned the suffocated corpses of the Jewish people? Shall we then not be like those in the parable who walk on the other side of the road when those in need have fallen directly in our path? 

Shall we then serve those women who find themselves in dark places forced to choose between murder and being themselves abandoned? Shall we then seek to adopt those little ones who are unwanted rather than see them “crushed?” Shall we?

Oh, Christian stand up and speak. Stand up and serve. Stand up and save those little ones who will be murdered in a fashion more gruesome than I want to, but must indeed imagine.