Today is the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court ruling which essentially decriminalized abortion for our entire country. Those who endorse Roe are holding celebrations, while those who condemn it are holding protest rallies. Yet, like so many other issues, there are valid warnings for people on both sides.
For the moment, however, I want to speak exclusively to those of you who consider yourselves pro-life and Christian. The rest of you may follow along as you see fit.
For starters, we live in a country that is made up largely of self-identified Christians. This means that most pro-lifers follow Christ (though not all, importantly). But it also means that most pro-choicers identify themselves as Christians as well. Though many of us would prefer to marginalize their faith by claiming that they are merely nominal Christians or some other derisive comment, we should be very careful about implying that saving faith can only reside in members of our own political persuasion.
Now, lest you worry that this will degrade into an argument for moral equivalence or even for keeping silent, I want to assure you that I agree with you that abortion is the single greatest moral evil of our day. Nothing else even comes close. Yet, precisely because of our zeal to save babies, we run the very real risk of forgetting that Christ is more important than our cause. And though correcting our pro-choice brothers and sisters is appropriate, condemning them is not.
See, just like any atrocity, a serious view of abortion’s awfulness can easily jeopardize our Christian joy and happiness. “How dare you smile in a country where over a million defenseless lives are extinguished every year!” Furthermore, we can feel extra guilt over enjoying anything frivolous while age-based genocide surrounds us. “How dare you enjoy sushi or ‘American Idol’?”
But we must strive to remember that our joy comes—or ought to come—from being loved by Christ, not from making the world a more desirable place, including the prevention of abortion. And it is vital to maintain some humility in the midst of this particular evil.
Such humility comes from remembering that God cares more about the unborn than we do … infinitely more. After all, is there any one of us who has been humiliated, flogged and crucified on a cross in order to save them?
Furthermore, God knows the awfulness of this practice far more deeply than we do. Your pain at the destruction of life is but a passing whim compared with the deep grief felt by God any time one of His children loses their lives.
And yet, God smiles. He rejoices. He dances. He sings. He is radiant in happiness over the reclamation of any one sinner, and He is overjoyed to see those so recovered live out the simple joy of deriving every ounce of their identity, satisfaction and significance from Him. God smiles.
But how could He?
How dare He?
Does He not know?
Does He not care?
Oh, yes. Far more than either you or I do.
And one of the subsequent pains He experiences at the very real evil of abortion is the compounded evil of allowing our own interest in this issue to interfere with the joy we should have in Him and in Him alone. If we are not extremely careful, we can (almost without noticing the transaction) allow our passion for this very right and noble cause to fuel a bitterness over the death of children which will poison our passion for God … a God who is capable of smiling in the midst of the very thing we both ferociously despise.
If we act as if only the ending of abortion will allow us to be joyful, we are essentially acting as though Christ is inadequate for us—telling God that He is not enough. We must have our way as well.
Thus, we must be diligent daily to not let our pro-lifeism become an idol which we worship by seeking our real delight from what it can never deliver and has never done for us. Continued... |