At this time, I am sitting in the convention hall of the Kentucky Baptist Convention where the messengers just voted on a resolution that supports the incremental approach to the abolition of abortion. While I love the Kentucky Baptist Convention and the Southern Baptist Convention, this is an egregious error.
What was the resolution?
The resolution that passed was in support of Kentucky House Bill 91. The bill adds a section to the Kentucky State Constitution that reads as follows: “To protect human life, nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to secure or protect a right to abortion or require the funding of abortion.”
The problem with this is that it does very little to end abortion. The legally ambiguous language employed within this bill does not outright condemn abortion for what it is, murder. Rather than saying, “Abortion is murder,” it says, “This isn’t a guaranteed right within our state.” Imagine if we had this morally ambiguous language for rape, murder, or felonious assault. The fact that we would even consider an incremental approach is absurd. It is easy for us to take such a cavalier approach to the ending of abortion for several reasons:
- It does not affect us
When we think about this issue, it is for many a distant political issue that we are removed from. We have capitulated this fight and given it to others. We applaud those who stand outside of abortion mills, but we would never do so ourselves. We vote for politicians who will speak against the evils of abortion from their campaign platform, but we will never write our congressmen. We will make posts on social media, but we will never volunteer at the Crisis Pregnancy Center. If we have a weak approach to ending abortion in our personal lives, then it will inevitably lead to us affirming a weak approach to those whom we expect to do our fighting for us.
It’s human nature. If we think that we are doing enough, then when someone does slightly more than us, we assume they are the real champions. That is why we consistently vote for a political party that has done absolutely nothing to overturn Roe v. Wade. We are simply fooling ourselves if we think that the Republican party cares about the unborn. This can be seen by looking at the last 50 years. We can look back and see that, historically, when Republicans have controlled the Supreme Court, little has been done.
The Republican Party does not decide morality. The Bible does. We have been fooled into thinking that a political party is an end-all-be-all of morality.
2. We tolerate sin
We shouldn’t have to say this. We should not tolerate sin. The unfortunate reality is that we do, and we see this all the time. We are quick to condemn porn, but we are slow to condemn Game of Thrones. (Oh yes, I went there.) We view one as an abhorrent evil that is sinful but view the other as entertainment. This is the mentality that we see when we deal with abortion. Just because one sin is socially acceptable and considered to be legal does not mean that it is a morally acceptable act.
Let’s not forget that Chattel Slave Trade was legal.
We should never use the approval of the government as a metric for morality. No other entity in the history of human civilization has proven itself to be more susceptible to the influence of evil than the institution of government.
Think of this issue like this: If a pastor were to counsel a person struggling with addiction to give up heroin but allowed them to continue drinking because “it is safer,” the pastor would be guilty of sin. Likewise, if we are to consider abortion as murder, and encourage the ongoing slaughter of those in the womb “before 6 weeks”, how can we say that we oppose this evil?
We can’t. We can say that we oppose this evil after a certain point, but unless we are calling for the total and complete abolition of abortion, we are complicit in sin and the blood is on our hands.
“But, this approach saves x number of babies.”
It does. It would be dishonest to say that it doesn’t. It also leaves x number of children open to the possibility of murder though. There shouldn’t be a moral dilemma here.
We are letting our approach be influenced by the world. When in reality we should be letting our approach influence the world. Imagine if the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest protestant denomination, came out and said “Enough is enough. Abortion is murder. We will not stand for it.” Imagine the impact the collective voice of 46,000 churches of over 14 million members could have if we took a stand for the ending of abortion.
We have let the world influence us for too long. Our silence has allowed the murder of 46 million children. We can blame this on Roe V. Wade all we want, but until we begin to take the Gospel seriously, we will continue to see millions more die.
3. Our apathy shows our lack of conviction
If we believed the Bible when it says that the Lord knew us from the foundations of the world and that the Lord formed us in the womb, this wouldn’t be an issue. We must ask ourselves: Do we trust the Lord and His Word, or do we trust the institutions of man? Will we stand for the biblical truth as it relates to the issue of abortion, or will we continue to embrace our sinful logic to earn political favor?
If abortion is murder, call it murder. The truth will always be at odds with a world that has embraced a lie. It is never our job to embrace it with them.