On the third Sunday in January of each year, many evangelical churches set aside a few moments to mourn the loss of millions of unborn children and to celebrate the precious gift of life that God has given each of us.

Oftentimes, when Christians speak about political or social issues, some in our society respond by telling us we should keep our beliefs private, within the walls of the church. Many people believe that faith is private and personal and should not impinge upon decisions being made in the political arena.

But we believe that Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead, and his resurrection is a very public event. Furthermore, our declaration that Jesus Christ is King of Kings has political implications. That is why throughout history, Christians have spoken truth to power:

• The saints who went before us were courageous enough to denounce infanticide in ancient Rome and rescue discarded babies from trash heaps.
• In England, men like William Wilberforce and John Wesley, exposed the horrors of the slave trade and organized Christians into groups that would fight for the rights of people considered to be “inferior”.
• Many Christians in Germany opposed Adolph Hitler and the Nazi regime. Some of them, including the pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, paid for his outspoken opposition by being condemned to death.
• More recently, pastors like Martin Luther King, Jr. have reminded us that every human being bears the image of God regardless of their race.
• And today, you can find countless Christians working to put an end to human trafficking and sexual slavery, and to rid Africa of the deadly scourge of AIDS.

We stand in a long line of courageous men and women who were not afraid to speak out against the injustices of their day. And that is why we speak up in defense of the vulnerable lives of unborn human beings.

We believe that every human life has value. Every human being has intrinsic dignity. All human beings – from those in the womb, to those in elderly nursing environments – have worth. Every life deserves to be protected by law. We believe in human rights for all.

Since our last celebration of Sanctity of Human Life Sunday, we have seen public sentiment continue to move in a pro-life direction. A majority of Americans now consider themselves to be “pro-life.” A sizeable majority opposes abortion funding by the government. Most Americans endorse restrictions on abortion that would make this practice rare.

Even pro-choice leaders have begun speaking of abortion as a “tragic choice.” President Obama admits that there is a moral component to this question that cannot be easily dismissed.

The recognition of a moral dimension to this question is both encouraging and discouraging. It is encouraging that people are finally accepting what science and biology have been telling us: Life begins at conception! Ultrasounds have given us a glimpse into life inside the womb.

But the admission of abortion as a “tragic necessity” is also discouraging. It means that some people believe that abortion terminates a human life, and yet they still believe that there are circumstances under which this kind of killing should be sanctioned. I don’t know who scares me more – the abortion crusader who believes, against all the evidence, that the fetus is no more human than a blob of tissue, or the abortion advocate who believes fetuses may indeed be human persons and yet would still sanction an atrocious act of violence toward these helpless victims.

The question of abortion goes beyond partisan politics. One can find Republicans who promote the legal sanction of abortion, just as one can find courageous Democrats who stand against it. As Christians this morning, we call on all officials in our country to protect and serve every member of our society, including those who are the smallest and most vulnerable.

It is appropriate that Sanctity of Human Life Sunday would be celebrated the same weekend that Americans remember the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. One reason why we stand for life is because we stand for human rights and racial equality. Abortion strikes at the heart of both of these convictions.

In an interview with The New York Times last July, Supreme Court Justice – Ruth Bader Ginsberg – was asked about the federal restrictions that forbid the use of Medicaid for abortion. Listen carefully to her response:

“The ruling about that surprised me. Frankly, I had thought that at the time Roe versus Wade was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of…”

Justice Ginsberg admits that behind the Supreme Court decision in 1973 was the concern that we limit the expansion of “populations that we don’t want to have too many of.” I wonder what populations she might have been referring to. If the statistics on abortion demographics are any indication, one can hardly miss her point. Abortion has taken a terrible toll on the black community.

• 14 million black babies have been aborted since 1973. (That number is equal to one-third of the number of blacks living today.)
• Black women are almost 5 times more likely to abort than white women.
• And get this: although blacks compose only 13 percent of the population, they have 37 percent of all abortions.

The niece of Martin Luther King, Jr. – Alveda King – has said:

“Abortion and racism are evil twins, born of the same lie. Where racism now hides its face in public, abortion is accomplishing the goals of which racism only once dreamed.”

Of course, we do not oppose the slaughter of unborn children merely because it unjustly targets minorities. We believe that abortion cheapens life for all of us. Once we discriminate against human life in its earliest forms, we soon determine that other lives can be discarded and wasted.

We as Christians must work to bring comfort and care to pregnant women in need, and to the women who have regrets about their abortions. We do not believe that it can somehow be in the best interest of a woman to deliberately kill her unborn child. Difficult pregnancies provide an opportunity for us to embrace the mother and child alike. And that is what churches and pregnancy centers all across America do every day.

So we call on those in government to protect the weak and vulnerable, and to do so without discrimination. We seek to defend those who cannot defend themselves. We speak up for the unborn and the disabled. We welcome the child with Down’s Syndrome, the child with abnormalities, the child with AIDS. We financially support the family who adopts children of other nationalities and races.

You can tell how pro-life, pro-family, and pro-child our churches really are by the way we support the youngest in our congregations. Some Christians would give months of their time to campaign for a pro-life candidate, but would not give a few hours a year to sit with children in the nursery or teach a child in Sunday School. A truly pro-life, pro-child church will never have a shortage of nursery workers. The sounds of babies crying are the sounds of life, God-given life that we cannot take for granted.

A truly pro-life, pro-family church welcomes the disruption of children in the foyer, rejoices at the sight of new faces in children’s church. and smiles at the thought of families from different countries and backgrounds joining us in praise to God.

Being pro-life is not just about having bumper stickers on your car. It’s about loaning your car to a single mother.

Being pro-life is not just shedding tears at the thought of how abortion robs the world of a child. It’s about you and I treasuring the children God has given us here and now.

Let’s continue the defend those who cannot defend themselves. Let’s support the pregnancy centers who need ultrasound machines whose images usually convince a woman to save her baby.

Let’s welcome the little children, and fight for their right to life.

Why does it seem that Americans are dead-locked regarding the issue of abortion?

Of course, one could argue that there is actually no room for common ground on the abortion debate, since one side believes that the unborn is a human being with rights and the other side denies the status of the unborn as well as its rights.

But could there be a political reason why the pro-life side has such a hard time making legal progress? Anne Hendershott thinks so.

In The Politics of Abortion (Encounter, 2006), Hendershott documents much of the history of the political debate over abortion in the United States. She makes the case that the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision effectively radicalized the abortion debate by denying pro-lifers the ordinary tools of politics.

We remain deadlocked in a divisive culture war, Hendershott says. And unfortunately, the Democratic Party has abandoned its traditional position as the champion of the underdog and instead embraced the pro-abortion stance for financial gain.

Hendershott recounts a 1964 meeting with several members of the Kennedy family. The meeting took place with clergy who made the case that one could be a good Catholic and still vote for abortion rights.

But the Kennedys are not alone. Hendershott puts together a long list of prominent politicians who were at one time pro-life, but who abandoned pro-life convictions for political expediency. On the list? Bill Clinton. Al Gore. Jesse Jackson. Ted Kennedy. (I was astonished at some of the pro-life quotes from these men!)

Hendershott shows that by the 1980′s, the “pro-choice elites” had hijacked the Democratic Party. Yet even then, Governor Bill Clinton was still telling the people in Arkansas that he opposed abortion and government funding. By the 1990′s, the Democratic party’s pro-choice identity was sealed. Robert Casey, a pro-life Democrat, was not even allowed to speak at the Democratic National Convention.

Does Hendershott believe we will see a Democratic turn around on the abortion issue? Not quite. She writes:

“It is likely that the Democrats will indeed keep their commitment to the right to unlimited abortion on demand, if for no other reason than the fact that they party cannot afford to lose the money that the abortion groups raise for it.” (28)

Hendershott focuses not only on Democrats. She demonstrates how the politics of abortion are linked to the politics of race. She exposes the views of Margaret Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood) who argued for eugenics and a view of inferior races that at times comes closer to the Hindu caste system than anything American.

Hendershott also picks apart some of the faulty rhetoric (and sometimes outright lies) put forth by abortion advocates. An oft-quoted statistic is that abortion increased nationwide during President Bush’s time in office. The problem with that statistic is that it is demonstrably false.

The beginning of the book is quite depressing. To see people sacrifice the unborn on the altar of political ambition is enough to make the reader nauseous.

And yet, the second half of the book turns hopeful. Hendershott shows that a robust debate over abortion is taking place on college campuses. She also documents the many grassroots pro-life initiatives that have been changing hearts and minds. It seems that these recent developments are creating an environment in which the abortion wars may one day come to an end.

If you wonder why the abortion issue is brought up every election cycle, then you will benefit from The Politics of Abortion. Hendershott exposes the financial interests at stake.

This book also serves as a warning to those of us who might be tempted to sell out our Christian convictions for political leverage. We should always be wary of political movements that seek to co-opt religious terminology or leadership in order to establish a better case for one position, whether on the right or the left of the political spectrum.

Today, I am interviewing Scott Klusendorf, founder of Life Training Institute and author of the new book, The Case for Life. We will be talking about some recent developments in the USA that influence the abortion debate (including the murder of George Tiller, the recent polls showing pro-life gains, and President Obama’s speech at Notre Dame).

Trevin Wax: Some people who advocate abortion rights are blaming the death of Dr. Tiller on anyone who is pro-life. How should pro-life Christians respond to this development?

Scott Klusendorf: While pro-lifers should condemn the killing of Dr. Tiller, they must not shrink back from proclaiming their fundamental message—namely, that elective abortion unjustly takes the life of a defenseless human being.

Of course, our critics will say that by calling abortion killing, we are inciting violence against abortionists. This is nonsense.

As Andrew Coyne points out, suppose I’m an animal rights activist opposed to the sale of fur. If a deranged environmentalist firebombs a local clothing store, am I responsible?

Seriously, if people like Frank Schaeffer truly think that pro-life speech incites people to violence, they should step up and lead a campaign to ban all pro-life speech. Moreover, it does not follow that because a lone extremist kills an abortionist, the pro-life cause itself is unjust.

Dr. Martin Luther King, for example, used strong language to condemn the evil of racism during the 1960s. In response to his peaceful but confrontational tactics, racists unjustly blamed him for the violent unrest that sometimes followed his public demonstrations.

Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago argued that if Dr. King would stop exposing racial injustice, black people would be less likely to riot. The Mayor’s remarks were an outrage.

Are we to believe that a handful of rioters made Dr. King’s crusade for civil rights entirely unjust? In his Letter from the Birmingham Jail, King rebuts this dishonest attempt to change the subject:

“In your statement you asserted that our actions, though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence….[I]t is immoral to urge an individual to withdraw his efforts to gain…basic constitutional rights because the quest precipitates violence….Non-violent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such a creative tension that a community…is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to dramatize the issue so it can be no longer ignored.”

Finally, if it’s extreme to call elective abortion killing, then abortion-choice advocates bear partial responsibility for the stabbing of Dr. Tiller.

The fact is that pro-lifers aren’t the only ones who call abortion killing. Abortionists and their supporters have been saying so themselves for years.

For example, late-term abortionist Warren Hern, author of the book Abortion Practice, stated in a 1978 conference:

“We have reached a point in this particular technology [D&E abortion] where there is no possibility of denial of an act of destruction by the operator. It is before one’s eyes. The sensations of dismemberment flow through the forceps like an electric current.”

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, generally a supporter of abortion-rights, describes dismemberment abortion this way:

“The fetus, in many cases, dies just as a human adult or child would: it bleeds to death as it is torn from limb to limb. . . . The fetus can be alive at the beginning of the dismemberment process and can survive for a time while its limbs are being torn off. . . . Dr. [Leroy] Carhart [the abortionist who challenged Nebraska's partial-birth ban] has observed fetal heartbeat . . . with “extensive parts of the fetus removed,” . . . and testified that mere dismemberment of a limb does not always cause death because he knows of a physician who removed the arm of a fetus only to have the fetus go on to be born “as a living child with one arm.” . . . At the conclusion of a D&E abortion . . . the abortionist is left with “a tray full of pieces.”

Trevin Wax: Recent polls show that, for the first time since Roe v. Wade, a majority of Americans claim the label “pro-life.” What does this mean for the pro-life movement? How do you interpret these statistics?

Scott Klusendorf: First, the bad news: I’m skeptical that there’s been much real movement toward the pro-life view. In fact, if you look at a summary of polling data over the last 30 years, the numbers really haven’t changed that much. I think pro-lifers like to pick and choose the polls they site.

True, support for late-term abortion has dropped thanks largely to the debate over partial-birth abortion, but a majority of Americans still support first-trimester abortion.

Now for the good news: Based on my experience in the field (not on any empirical data I’ve compiled), people are more willing to give us a hearing. Fifteen years ago, crowds on college campuses were more hostile, even nasty at times, but not so much now. In fact, my recent debates with Nadine Strossen (President of the ACLU from the mid-1980s until last Fall) solicited insightful questions from those attending, but never nasty remarks.

Of course, you still get your occasional abortion crusader bent on shutting-up pro-lifers (rather than refuting their arguments), but they are fewer in number than they were during the late 80s and early 90s.

Thus, the objective for pro-life advocates is clear: We must become very skilled at making a gracious, yet persuasive, case for life in the public square. That is not all we must do, but it’s certainly essential if we are to win. That’s precisely why wrote my book The Case for Life.

Trevin Wax: President Obama recently made remarks at Notre Dame about abortion. What were your impressions of his speech?

Scott Klusendorf: Rhetorically, it was excellent. I also appreciated his observation that finding middle ground on abortion is difficult. He’s right about that.

Look, either you believe that each and every human being in virtue of his humanity has an equal right to life or you don’t. Sadly, the President does not believe that, as evidenced by his refusal to protect not only unborn humans, but those born alive as well.

However, what surprised me most was his complete refusal to present any argument whatsoever justifying his pro-abortion choice views. There’s not one mention of his preference for tax-funded abortions both here and abroad, his votes to keep partial-birth abortion legal, and his promise to sign the Freedom of Choice Act, which would undo virtually all limits on abortion. Indeed, many of his statements were question-begging regarding the status of the unborn.

Speaking of the abortion controversy, he used the nouns “we” and “our” when referencing our duty to understand our fellow humans but never once said whether “we” and “our” also included “them,” meaning the unborn. On embryonic stem-cell research, the President said that “those who speak out against research may be rooted in an admirable conviction about the sacredness of life, but so are the parents of a child with juvenile diabetes who are convinced that their son’s or daughter’s hardship can be relieved.”

Question: Would the President argue this way if the proposal on the table was killing two-year olds to relieve the suffering of five-year olds? Never in a million years. Only by assuming the embryos in question were not human could he argue this way.But that is precisely the point he refused to address in his speech.

If I were a thoughtful defender of abortion, Obama’s speech would leave me worried that my side had truly run out of arguments. And that, rather than inconsistent polling data, is what gives me the most hope for the future.

Trevin Wax: How does President Obama’s admission there are moral and ethical aspects of the abortion debate help the pro-life cause?

Scott Klusendorf: It exposes the vacuous logic in the President’s position. He says abortion is a “heart-wrenching decision” and we should seek to reduce it.

But why is it heart-wrenching? And why seek to reduce it? If elective abortion does not take the life of a defenseless human being, why worry about the number of abortions each year?

This is liberal doublespeak: You implicitly condemn abortion with your words, but make sure there’s not one shred of legal protection granted to unborn human beings.

True, the President did speak of moral aspects to the abortion debate, but he did so with a faulty appeal to moral equivalency. He said we should “honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion, and draft a sensible conscience clause, and make sure that all of our health-care policies are grounded not only in sound science, but also in clear ethics, as well as respect for the equality of women.”

Let’s be clear: For Obama, women can only achieve equality by trampling on the rights of their unborn offspring. That’s what he means by equality. But never once did he say why treating the unborn human this way is morally and legally permissible.

And if the President truly cares about “sound science,” how about starting with the undeniable scientific truth that from the earliest stages of development, the unborn are distinct, living, and whole human beings? In short, Obama is adept at saying one thing and doing another.

Trevin Wax: You’ve said before there are “fascist” themes that sometimes come out in the way liberals address abortion. Did you detect any such themes in the President’s speech?

Scott Klusendorf: Possibly. I define fascism in this case as an attempt by government to shut down legitimate debate on important public policy matters.

Consider Obama’s call for a “sensible conscience clause” policy for doctors opposed to abortion. The key word, of course, is “sensible.”

We already have policies leftover from the Bush Administration that protect doctors from performing or referring for abortion procedures. All indications are that Obama does not want to revise these policies; he want to revoke them, forcing pro-life doctors to either participate in abortion or go out of business. What else is that but an attempt to silence legitimate debate on abortion?

Trevin Wax: What do you hope to accomplish with your book The Case for Life?

Scott Klusendorf: In a sentence, I hope to give pro-life Christians the tools of thought needed to make a gracious and persuasive case for their views in the marketplace of ideas.

As I state in the introduction to the book, I do not pretend to have written an exhaustive defense of the pro-life view. That’s been done already by selected authors I cite throughout the text.

My purpose is different. This book will take those sophisticated pro-life defenses and put them in a form that hopefully equips and inspires lay Christians (with or without academic sophistication) to engage the debate with friends, coworkers, and fellow believers.

Admittedly, a book about pro-life apologetics may not appeal to some lay Christians. It seems many believers would rather focus on end times rather than these times. That’s a mistake. Humans who ignore questions about truth and human value may soon learn what it really means to be left behind.

For more information about Scott Klusendorf, check out his book, The Case for Life (reviewed here) and his website.

“Abortion is the white supremacist’s best friend.”

- Aveda King, niece of Martin Luther King Jr., speaking out regarding the Department of Homeland Security’s domestic terrorism report that inks pro-lifers and hate groups.

King also said, “To say, as the Department of Homeland Security does, that white supremacists have exercised a ‘longstanding exploitation of social issues such as abortion’ tells me that either the government, the supremacists, or both are clueless about abortion’s grave impact on the black community.”

Source: World Magazine, May 9, 2009

“Most people who say they oppose abortion do just enough to salve the conscience but not enough to stop the killing.” 

In his new book, The Case for Life: Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture (Crossway, 2009), Scott Klusendorf confesses that the above quote from Greg Cunningham haunts him. It haunts me as well. And that is why the book that Scott’s book needs to be consulted by scores of evangelicals weary of the abortion debate.

The Case for Life is unarguably one of the most important books to come out for the pro-life movement in the past several years. Scott takes the highly sophisticated arguments made against abortion-on-demand and brings them down to a level that anyone can understand.

Scott believes that the case against abortion is sound. The question for us as evangelicals is how we will make the case to our skeptical friends and neighbors. Scott writes:

“My own thesis is that a biblically informed pro-life view explains human equality, human rights, and moral obligations better than its secular rivals and that rank-and-file pro-life Christians can make an immediate impact provided they’re equipped to engage the culture with a robust but graciously communicated case for life.” (14)

Well put. And this is why the book is so valuable. Scott puts forth robust arguments against abortion, yet insists on engaging people graciously. Grace and truth come together marvelously in this pro-life apologetic.

But what is the case against abortion? How do we equip people to engage their friends and neighbors regarding this sensitive debate? Frankly, is it even possible to change minds when it comes to this issue? In answering these questions, Scott points us back to the central concern of the debate: What is the unborn?

Almost every argument for or against abortion can come down to this one question. Abortion-rights advocates assume that the unborn baby is not a human being (or a human person). Regarding the humanity of the unborn, science firmly comes down on the pro-life side.  The unborn human being is just that …a human being. The pro-life position claims that taking the life of an unborn human being is no different than taking the life of another innocent human being.

To make the case effectively, Scott recommends we “trot out the toddler.” If you replace the “unborn child” with the “toddler” and try to make the case for abortion, nearly everyone experiences some sort of repulsion. Why? They understand the toddler is a human being. Most people, once they accept the humanity of the unborn, realize that innocent life is at stake in this debate.

Simply put, the beginning of life is not an issue above Barack Obama’s paygrade. The humanity of the unborn is a scientific fact put forth by embryologists, text books and scientific studies.

The Case for Life succeeds in two areas. First, Scott solidifies the arguments for the pro-life case, which hopefully will reinvigorate the younger evangelicals who are experiencing what has been termed “fetus fatigue” when it comes to this issue. The expansiveness of Scott’s argumentation may serve to reinforce the views of those who are pro-life without quite understanding the reasons why. (Case in point: some pro-lifers make distinctions between late-term and early abortions, or abortion-on-demand and embryonic stem cell research.) Many evangelicals may be nominally pro-life without understanding how many of these life issues are connected around the central affirmation of the pro-life cause: the unborn human being is worthy of protection.

Secondly, Scott helps Christians to winsomely engage people who hold opposing views. And the way he accomplishes this task is by showing how exclusive and elitist the pro-choice argument actually is.

“Opponents of the pro-life view…assert, without justification, the belief that strong and independent humans have basic human rights while small and dependent ones do not. This view is elitist.” (66)

The pro-life camp does not need to vilify abortion-rights advocates. We must simply appeal to the inclusive and compassionate stance of the pro-life cause. We are the inclusivists wanting to welcome every member of the human family.

The Case for Life is divided into several sections. Scott begins by helping pro-life Christians clarify the debate by bringing attention back to the central question surrounding the identity of the unborn.

Next, Scott recommends that pro-life Christians establish a foundation for the debate. This section delves a little bit deeper into the question of human rights and their origin.

Then, Scott helps pro-life Christians answer objections persuasively. He lists several of the main objections and makes a winsome case for the pro-life cause. I found this section to be the most helpful part of the book.

Finally, Scott counsels pro-life pastors and churches in how they can equip their congregants to be advocates for the unborn in their respective communities.

Scott wisely includes some foundational aspects for understanding human rights. He tackles difficult subjects concerning belief in God and the teaching of the Bible with respect to abortion. He also makes a case for Christianity’s uniqueness, devoting a lengthy section to defending the historicity of the resurrection. Scott is right to see the pro-life issue as one that stems from a correct understanding of the gospel itself. Although I appreciated the contents of these chapters, I am not sure that were necessary within the framework of this brief apologetic.  

Overall, The Case for Life should be studied and applied by every pastor or layperson who desires to be profoundly pro-life. Perhaps if evangelicals read this book, the haunting quote from Greg Cunningham will no long be applicable to the people of God.

written by Trevin Wax  © 2009 Kingdom People blog

My wife and I recently rented a 2007 documentary about abortion in the United States entitled Lake of Fire. It is directed by Tony Kaye, a British filmmaker who spent 15 years putting this documentary together.

Let me say up front that everyone interested in the debate over abortion in America should rent this documentary. Let me warn you in advance that there are some gruesome images, including footage of three abortions. There is also an indecent scene featuring a pro-abortion woman’s rock band that you will want to forward past.

But here are some of my thoughts on the film:

One of the important quotes in the film is that “when it comes to abortion, everybody’s right.” Kaye shows a surprising amount of sympathy for the pro-life movement, but he also empathizes with the women who choose abortion and the people who provide abortions as well.

The first half of the film seems to lean towards the pro-life view. By the end of the film, the balance has shifted in favor of abortion choice. The people that Tony Kaye chose to interview on the pro-life side turn out to be rather radical. And they are all men. So for the most part, the fanatics he films are on the pro-life side (although he does offer some footage of fanatical pro-abortion people as well).

The second half of the film is less helpful. Kaye spends an inordinate amount of time interviewing people who think Christian conservatives are seeking to reconstruct a Christian society based upon Old Testament laws. The conspiracy theories fly left and right, and they are never contradicted by any sane evangelical Christian.

There are also some ridiculous statements accepted at face value. Take for example the statement that “The Roman Catholic Church never had a position on when a fetus becomes a person.” (Did Nancy Pelosi happen to view this documentary before her embarrassing comments about Catholic theology?) 

Or the statement of Noam Chomsky, who at one point says that “Everyone agrees infanticide is wrong.” Not true, Noam! Professor Peter Singer, one of the very people Kaye interviews for this documentary, believes that infanticide is acceptable. But we are never alerted to extremism on the left, only on the right.

But let me give Kaye some credit. He has the guts to show an abortion. The first abortion video is especially horrific. The cameras zero in on the doctor piecing back together the baby after the abortion is completed. At one point, we briefly see the doctor measuring the baby’s dismembered foot and head. (Unfortunately, the fact that Kaye chose to film the documentary in black and white mutes the horror of seeing the bloodbath taking place in the abortion clinic.)

Kaye also interviews Norma McCorvey (Jane Roe), who explains her role in the legalization of abortion. She then explains how she came to the pro-life position. She mentions a friend who worked in an abortion clinic and once opened up the freezer. “They were babies, man!” Norma cries. It is one of the most powerful scenes in the film.

The Problem with Kaye’s Documentary

Kaye spent fifteen years making this film, which means that the majority of footage he has of pro-life activists are those of the early 1990′s. He focuses exclusively upon the people protesting abortion clinics, and those who are responsible for bombing abortion clinics and murdering abortionists.

Never once does Kaye enter a crisis pregnancy center to talk to women who are helping other women through difficult circumstances. The only compassionate women in this film are those on the pro-abortion side. The only angry men in this film are on the pro-life side.

Kaye spends a great deal of time “exposing” the Right’s agenda to reconstruct a Christian society (a conspiracy theory that may be true of a tiny group of extremist Christians). But never does he point to the deception of Planned Parenthood, including the frequent cover-ups of statutory rape. Neither does he give us any history of Planned Parenthood, or the cause of eugenics promoted by founder Margaret Sanger.

The Problem with the Anti-Abortion Protesters

Then, there is the problem of the pro-lifers in Kaye’s film.  While they do not represent the majority of pro-life activists today, they exist. And they shine light on many of the problems that plague the pro-life movement.

Problem #1: They are all Law and no Gospel.

You don’t see the anti-abortion protesters ever offering grace or forgiveness or mercy. You do not see compassion. You see anger. And you see an abberant view of the Old Testament Law that needs to be corrected. Some of the protesters believe we should execute homosexuals, abortionists, blasphemers, etc. In other words, “all the sinners deserve to be executed.”

Never once do we catch a glimpse of the grace revealed in the cross of Jesus Christ, in which our Savior was executed in our place. Simply put, there is no gospel here. I wonder how many of these people have actually experienced the grace of God.

Problem #2: Conflating Too Many Issues

Kaye may not be fair in pairing up extreme right-wingers with nice-looking, moderates on the abortion side. But I can’t blame him for exposing the agenda that comes across in his conversations on the pro-life side. The protesters talk about the NRA and the need to abolish the IRS. They condemn homosexuality and say we need to go “back to the Bible.” They talk about the founding of our nation by Christians.

In other words, they conflate too many issues. Instead of focusing on the abortion issue as a matter of justice for the oppressed, they link abortion to all the other perceived societal woes of America and use abortion as a springboard to condemn all the sins in the land. I wish that Kaye had found people who could articulate the pro-life view in a winsome way and with the ability to make careful distinctions.

Conclusion

Do I recommend Lake of Fire ? Yes. It is a thoughtful documentary that shows the worst of both sides. It is less biased than one might expect. Despite the flaws in Kaye’s presentation, Lake of Fire wrestles with the issues at stake and does not shy away from the hard truths that people on both sides of this debate face.

written by Trevin Wax  © 2009 Kingdom People blog

Please read this interview with Sycloria Williams, a woman who went to the doctor for a late-term abortion and then delivered a live baby.

Williams said she stood against the wall, glancing in horror at her newborn baby. “She wasn’t moving much. Twitching, gasping for air. She wasn’t crying though, just hissing. Hissing sounds only.”

The sight of a fully formed baby was a complete surprise to Williams.

Gonzalez, the clinic’s owner, who has no health care licensing, came into the waiting room, cut the umbilical cord, and scooped Shanice’s body into a red biohazard bag, sealed it and tossed it into a trash can.

 … The police found the baby’s decomposing body in a cardboard box in a closet at the clinic.

Read the whole interview.

And then read this post from Owen Strachan:

Let me say one more thing here: there is nothing worse than abortion. There are horrible sins in this world: lying, stealing, cheating, greed, systemic and individual acts of racism, and much, much more.

But there is nothing worse than abortion. It is the pinnacle of wickedness. It is the murder of the helpless, those who cannot even lift their head or move their arms to defend themselves. It is the scourge of American society; it is by a great distance the worst institutional sin of our country; it is a reality that demands judgment.

… And shame on people like myself who know of this evil, and others (racism great and small, greed, class injustice, etc), and do nothing, or next to nothing, about it and them. It’s not that we can singlehandedly overturn massive social sins like this one; we may very well not be able to. But we should fight much, much harder than we do, pray much, much longer than we do, and weep much, much more than we do for the least of us: the defenseless unborn.

Abortion is the worst sin we know. It is our scourge. It is not an option for Christians to fight it, as if we can pick from a fast-food menu of sins to fight. The very substance and nature of our faith in Christ, the guardian of the defenseless, demands that we fight abortion, in whatever way we can. I do not believe that this is an option for us as believers; it is by its very nature a mandate, an unavoidable responsibility.

Related Posts:
Can the Pro-Life Movement Succeed?
Being Pro-Life in a Culture of Death: An Interview with Russ Moore
Why We Are Pro-Life

Today, I have the privilege of posting an interview with Dr. Russell D. Moore, Dean of the School of Theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Dr. Moore is a preaching pastor at Highview Baptist Church and the author of two books, The Kingdom of Christ: The New Evangelical Perspective and Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families & Churches. I highly recommend my readers take a look at the transcript of a sermon Dr. Moore preached in chapel in late 2008: “Joseph is a Single-Issue Evangelical“.

Trevin Wax: What kind of setbacks should pro-life citizens expect now that we have elected Barack Obama, a strong supporter of abortion on demand?

Russell Moore: Pro-life Americans can expect a radical abortion rights agenda from Barack Obama. This is not an accusation because this is precisely what President Obama promised in his campaign for the presidency.

Not only will Supreme Court Justices be strongly supportive of the legal framework behind Roe v. Wade, but President Obama and the new Congress will also support expansive funding of abortion in North America, and through foreign aid, abroad. By year’s end, we should see abortions taking place regularly on American military bases all around the world.

Trevin Wax: Statistics show that younger generations tend to be more pro-life than their parents. You have stated that this commitment to pro-life principles is more theoretical than realistic because abortion rights is now deeply embedded in our cultural ethos. Are you saying that younger generations are less committed to the pro-life cause than they think?

Russell Moore: I do not take great comfort in opinion polls stating that younger generations are more pro-life than their parents. I believe that this is largely because the abortion issue is off the table in many ways politically.

Few people realistically expect that abortion will be made illegal. So pronouncing one to be pro-life these days is more akin to a person speculating what side of the Spanish Civil War he would take rather than a person articulating a deeply-held view on a matter of current import.

Trevin Wax: Should evangelicals appeal to Scripture in their arguments against abortion when they debate in the public sphere? Or should they argue from moral and logical positions instead (e.g. Francis Beckwith)?

Russell Moore: Yes, I believe evangelicals should appeal to Scripture in their arguments against abortion. This does not mean that such arguments should be limited to biblical appeals. After all, the pro-life position on abortion rights is demonstrable from human biology, yes.

Nonetheless, there are biblical reasons why evangelicals and Roman Catholics hold to the personhood of vulnerable unborn babies. We should not be hesitant to say why we believe such things, even as we join with others of good will in articulating our opposition to the killing of the unborn.

We should gladly join hands with atheist pro-lifers such as the Village Voice journalist Nat Hentoff or with Mormon or Hindu pro-life citizens. We also should articulate that we believe this is so important precisely because we serve a King who has told us that we will be judged on the basis on how we treat the most vulnerable among us.

Trevin Wax: Should evangelicals should join hands with pro-choice politicians committed to reducing the number of abortions? In other words, is there room for us to work toward reduction of abortions instead of just working toward elimination of abortion?

Russell Moore: I do not believe at all that pro-life Christians should join hands with pro-abortion politicians speaking of “reducing the number of abortions.” This is akin to civil rights activists joining hands with pro-lynching vigilantes in the early twentieth-century America to “reduce the number of lynchings” through better funding of segregated African-American school systems.

The issue at hand is not simply the number of abortions, although that number is atrocious. The key issue is that the personhood of the unborn is denied. That cannot be ameliorated simply by more federal spending and certainly will not be reduced by “comprehensive sex education” as many of the pro-abortion activists are advocating.

Trevin Wax: Do you believe that in the next ten years evangelical commitment to the pro-life cause will increase or decrease?

Russell Moore: I believe that evangelical commitment to the pro-life cause will neither increase nor decrease because all orthodox Christians believe in the personhood of all human beings, born or unborn. This was a distinctive of the church from its earliest beginnings in the Roman Empire, attested to by extra-biblical, non-Christian sources as well as by the Scriptures themselves.

Trevin Wax: How can the typical evangelical church be committed in practical ways to the pro-life movement?

Russell Moore: Evangelical churches can be committed to the pro-life cause in the following ways:

First, we must teach our people that the Romans 13 responsibility given to the state weighs upon every citizen in a democratic republic. Those who vote for candidates who tell them up front that they are committed to denying the protection of the unborn will be held accountable at the Judgment Seat of Christ. This means that abortion, for Christians, is not a political issue or even a “moral issue.” It is a theological and spiritual issue.

This articulation though is not enough. Christian churches must, as our Lord’s brother James commanded us, care for the widows and orphans in their distress. This means that God calls Christian families to adopt unwanted children. It means also that Christian families and churches are to shelter unwed mothers and pregnant women who find themselves in a time of crisis.

There are various ways that a church may follow this calling but it is not optional for any church to obediently respond to Jesus in these ways.

Every January, Southern Baptists mark the sad anniversary of Roe vs. Wade by celebrating the sanctity, or sacredness or human life. Instead of mourning the American “culture of death,” we look hopefully to the future and celebrate the God who cherishes his creation.

Scripture often refers to God as the God of the fatherless and the widow. “God executes justice for the fatherless and the widow” (Deut. 10:18). “Father of the fatherless and protector of widows is God in his holy habitation” (Ps. 68:5).

In Bible times, as in many places in our world even today, widows and orphans were the most vulnerable people in society. They were people without a voice. To be orphaned was to be abandoned. To be a widow with no immediate family members was to be impoverished.

But God declares that He is the Father of the fatherless and the protector of widows. He is the God of the oppressed. He is the one who hears the cries of those who have no voice. And that is why we, as Christians, are pro-life. We are pro-life, because our God is pro-life.

We believe human beings have a right to live – because of who they are – as image bearers of God – not because of what they do – as productive members of society. We do not judge the worth of a person by their usefulness to society. But sadly, our culture is beginning to do just that.

Human embryos are disposable – maybe useful for future medical research. And thus an embryo’s value is found it what it can be used for, not in what it is.

The unborn have no voice. They cannot yet think or reason, so their rights depend on the circumstances of the mother. They have value only if they are “wanted,” and they can be terminated if they are “unwanted.”

The senior citizen battling dementia – what useful purpose does she serve for society? Why not allow her to die? After all, euthanasia provides “death with dignity.” Society thinks the elderly have no value in who they are, as fellow human beings who bear the image of God, but in what they can do to serve society.

We must fight against our society’s mindset with the most powerful weapon in the Christian arsenal – compassion. We must make it clear that the reason we prize human life is because God prizes human life – at all stages.
The human life of an embryo in a science lab
The human life of an unborn baby in development
The human life of an expectant mother faced with a crisis
The human life of a mentally handicapped child
The human life of a man in a vegetative state
The human life of an elderly woman in a nursing home

Our approach to abortion is the compassionate one. We stand up for those who have no choice, those who have no voice. Through the work of pregnancy support centers, we walk alongside hurting mothers, helping them through pregnancy after they decide to preserve their baby’s life. We are there to counsel the other women who feel the enormous burden of guilt after having taken their child’s life.

Our approach to the elderly is the same. We do not agree with the term “death with dignity,” because no death is ever dignified. Death is a mar on God’s good creation. It is our greatest enemy.

But our Savior – the one who raised the widow’s son, congratulated the poor, raised up the oppressed and gave voice to the voiceless – He himself defeated death on Easter morning, unleashing God’s new creation into our world.

And that is why we are pro-life. In God’s eyes, every human life is precious. Every human being bears his fingerprints. Every person – from the embryo to the elderly – deserves life.

May God give us the courage to show the love of the Father to the fatherless.

written by Trevin Wax. © 2007 Kingdom People Blog