Posted on 08/15/2013 7:10:04 AM PDT by Morgana
Lately Ive been noticing a new pro-life trend. Quite active on Facebook are groups and individuals who condemn any attempt to convert an abortion advocate without taking a religious approach.
What I can glean of their message from social media and blog posts is that unless you lead with Jesus, you are denying His power to change that persons mind. In other words, taking any approach other than heres what the Bible has to say about abortion is irreligious folly.
I have several issues with this, but lets start with my own personal experience.
Ive shared my conversion story with Live Action readers and in The American Feminist, the magazine of Feminists for Life of America, so I wont rehash it again. But allow me to reiterate that had my lovely friend, with whom I chose to debate abortion one fateful night, used religion as a basis for her argument, I not only would not have been convinced, I would have dismissed her entire thesis outright and probably ended the conversation.
Would I have been, frankly, an idiot for doing so? That is debatable. (By which I mean: yeah, kind of.) But I would also not have become, that very night, a pro-life advocate.
I was converted on the basis of human rights, science, and reason. Was God behind it? In my opinion, yes, He was. He is always behind Truth. I believe God created human rights, science, and reason. So using these to argue is not terribly different from mentioning Him by name.
Because my friend was, to get Biblical, wise as serpents, I became pro-life that night. A year later, I was no longer an agnostic but a Catholic. Coincidence? I guess. If you believe in that sort of thing.
I spent the first few months of my uncomfortable pro-lifeness (after initially trying desperately to become pro-choice again, and failing) splashing around in the shallow but welcoming online pool of the non-religious pro-life. There were pro-life pagans, agnostics, atheists, humanists, homosexuals, and so on. They, like I, had found the argument for the sanctity of unborn human life compelling enough without believing in a Christian God.
For me, this new belief in the unborn led me directly eventually to that same Christian God. I doubt I am the only one for whom this has been the case. It has given me an even deeper love for the fetal among us: they saved my soul.
So not only does a Bible-first approach to explaining the evil of abortion not work on everyone, it outright excludes a small but important faction of the pro-life community, whom I believe we should welcome.
Craig Gross, pastor of XXXchurch, devotes his ministry to helping porn stars leave the sex industry. In explaining his controversial personal friendship with porno legend Ron Jeremy, he explained to Nightline: To me, the message of Jesus unites and doesnt divide. You know what were all against, but you never know what were all for. Like, to me, Im for Ron.
There might be a very profound message in that simple statement.
If I care deeply about the soul of a pro-life pagan and I do! is it for me to tell her she has no place in our movement? Will that endear her to my religion? Will it go any way at all towards bringing her to understand the love of Christ?
No, of course not.
My goal as a Christian should be to bring Christ to everyone I meet. How best should I do that? By yelling Bible verses through a megaphone? By handing out pamphlets? By excluding them from the Godly work of protecting Life?
I recall encountering, for the first time, the priest who would become my first pastor. I attended a tragic funeral for a young man at his parish. It was the second time in my life I had been in a Catholic church, and this happened one month after I became pro-life. (Again, coincidence.) Normally quite hostile to Christianity, I felt peace and indeed holiness in the sanctuary. I also felt what I would later come to know as the Holy Spirit emanating from Monsignor Donald Fischer. I would feel it every time I was in his presence. I would feel it in that same sanctuary when he confirmed me a Catholic, one year later.
All this all this Godliness because my friend didnt mention God.
God has His ways. I believe they have been called mysterious. Perhaps we should be humble enough to accept they dont always involve us being loudly right at everyones face. Are you right to say God is the number one reason to oppose abortion? In my opinion, yes. But being right is not always how you win an advocate for Life or a soul for Jesus.
It is a difficult thing to humbly submit to the will of God when nothing makes sense. Maybe pro-life paganism or agnosticism or atheism or homosexuality dont make sense to you. Maybe they are an affront to you. But just like Craig Gross and his friend Ron Jeremy are both for Ron, arent we all working towards the same goal? Dont we all want to protect life in the womb? Does God frown on you when you embrace a pro-life atheist or does He say, in the immortal words of Dire Straits, Thats the way you do it?
Im thinking its (something like) the latter, and I personally welcome and rejoice in all the pro-lifers. We may disagree about graphic signs, the death penalty, politics, and more, but any friend of the unborn deserves a seat at our table.
If you haven't read it, I strongly recommend:
this book.
Feser writes like the love child of Thomas Aquinas and Ann Coulter.
I salute your valor. :)
But suicide is generally considered an aberration among people in almost any society (with a few exceptions) and it certainly is not found in non-humans.
“How many tribes practiced torture or cannibalism?” Yea I could quote Rush Limbaugh and say “look what the tribes did to each other”
The tribes by themselves however were a whole different story. They suffered just what the white man suffered in Europe. This idea of prenatal care is a new thing and has changed how many babies make it and from birth to five years of age.
I have a feeling people like the Cherokees don’t feel the need to explain themselves when it comes to many things. I got that with the Cherokee man I once knew. One almost had to just figure it out on your own unlike in Christianity where you are told why in the Bible. I believe some religions of the world are just like the Cherokees and if they say it’s wrong then you accept it don’t do it and move on. Don’t ask why maybe you are better off. Ask any woman who has had an abortion she might agree.
Yes, that's true. However, in the context of the article, in persuading non-religious people of the right to life, there generally has to be more reasoning offered than, "It's just wrong."
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