If I saw a man beating his child, I would, I hope, do something about it. If I saw a woman killing her child, I would do something about it. It's the right thing to do. Children should be protected...at all costs.
Now I'm at a dilemma. I believe that children should be defended, yet I have stood on the sidelines and left the unborn defenseless. Despite the fact that I do believe abortion is wrong...that it is the murder of a child, I have said nothing. Why? Why did I stay silent on this topic?
I stayed silent for two reasons. First, I believe that we have something more important to do. I believe that anything taking away from the Gospel is a distraction. In fact, I think some distractions in our church today are for the sole purpose of allowing people NOT to spread the Gospel!
I've also stayed silent because I don't believe the church should be involved in politics. I know that this goes against what many believers think. Still, I believe that politics is not something that we should be interwoven with and unfortunately, abortion has been a political issue for decades. It has nothing to do with the separation of church and state, although I also agree with that. Rather, it is because there is too much power in politics...too much at stake that is of this world, not the one we belong to. While I don't advocate that you withhold your vote, I do think that it should be completely removed from church life.
Yet here I am, suddenly realizing that I'm between a rock and a hard place. I'm sick about the thought of abortion. I don't want it to continue. By the same token, my coworkers and neighbors need to know about Christ...not that abortion is wrong. One of those conversations brings eternal life...the other brings morality.
So where do I go from here? I don't know, which is why I propose this issue. I can tell you that I won't be discussing this at our next fellowship dinner when Alicia and I have the sailors over to our house. My mission is to grow those men in faith, not a social-justice issue. I do not want to be a stumbling block to someone's spiritual growth.
I feel a little ill about my continued silence, yet I'm concerned about being involved in a political issue. So what do I do?
8 comments:
Dan,
Thanks for putting to words what I've found to be my own conundrum. Perhaps spending time petitioning against abortion might be a distraction when we ought to be spreading the gospel - but if the topic arises, one's opinion is worth a discussion....keeping in mind that the Spirit of Love should be the core of all our motives, actions, discussions, intentions.
Renee
Very well said...and I completely understand your "dilemma" per se! I feel the same way....totally against abortion....but don't want to get involved in a political issue. And more importantly....when I share the gospel with others....sometimes that issue may make tensions with who you are sharing! Hopefully the people that love God and believe in Him and come to Him through your sharing of the gospel, will realize how wrong abortion is!
but in china, abortion is legal
it's becoz the high population there
I want to thank all of you for your comments. We just started moderation and I didn't realize I had comments waiting on me! So I apologize for the delay.
I don't completely understand your thought on the subject Luc, so if you have a chance to happen back by, please explain a little more. I know more than anything that I cannot affect the political climate in China. I can't even affect the climate in America! But even in China, life is precious, and the only way to preserve life is to change people, and changed people come by the Gospel. Just my opinion.
"My mission is to grow those men in faith, not a social-justice issue. I do not want to be a stumbling block to someone's spiritual growth."
I understand the dilemma; it's kind of like, "when do I take a stand?"
I think you hit the nail on the head though; our mission is to grow folks in the faith, not social justice issues. Amen!
Aaron,
Thank you, brother, for your comments! I feel like growing people in faith will equal a desire not to abort children, etc, but I'm not sure if that will work in a society like ours. In my heart though, I know it has to work. It's the only way it ever works, to my knowledge. People have to turn to Christ, right?
Dan
The gospel changes hearts and lives, changed hearts and lives change families, changed families change neighborhoods, changed neighborhoods change cities, counties, states and countries. Changed countries change the world. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.
Romans 1:16 (NKJV)
I couldn't disagree with you more on this brother! Abortion is NOT a political issue, it is clearly a moral one. The fact that the government has become involved is merely a byproduct. So that is a moot point. However, I need to remind you that this government was founded on Judeo-Christian morals, and beliefs. The idea of freedom of religion had nothing to do with with keeping religious morals out of the politics. Neither did the separation of church and state have anything to do with limiting religious morality from our laws, but rather to insure that the government couldn't dictate individual choice of religion. And that a religious power could not abscond with our government as the Catholic church did during the dark ages and into the 1700's. The secular-progressives have pushed these principles / laws of separation and freedom "from" religion to their "reductio ad absurdum" or absurd end. It is foolish and ridiculous that my pastor is not able to preach or teach a message of depravity or moral destitution or political stewardship and be unable use our president or other political personification of the conditions as examples. Now you are implying that they cannot preach on the value of unborn life because it is a political issue. That is not what it was intended for by our founding fathers! They were men who wanted to give people to freedom to speak their mind, worship their God (or god) without fear of persecution. The situation we have now is just the opposite. A pastor talks about the wrong thing, and the church risks losing it's not-for-profit status and probably charges being drawn for hate speak.
As Christian's we are called to ACT. Not only in spreading the gospel directly, but to be activists for moral rightness. We are to set examples of moral courage and steadfastness. We are supposed to SHOW the lost that we are different, that our faith is practical, useful, relevant to the times we live in. I contend that the kind of faith you speak of in your post is useless and lazy. It is one that does not speak to the moral and social issues. These issues should not be ignored, but rather used as a mode to impact the lives of those who need the gospel. Use these lesser issues as inroads to the THE ISSUE of salvation.
So where do you go from here? Evaluate your positions on separation in relation to the whole constitution and its amendments. You tell me how you are going to reckon political neutrality and spiritual fire. What your recipe makes is a government run by a-moralistic humanists devoid of conscience and absolutes. What you are looking for is a useless Church that has no impact on life in our nation. So carry this philosophy to its reductio ad absurdum and tell me what you get. What this starts to sound like is exactly what our current leaders are trying to lead us into... Socialism. Which by the way WILL lead to an attempt to completely expunge religion, particularly Christianity from society altogether. It has happened before and it will happen again.
We cannot gospel up the slums, and individual lost souls and then tell them to avoid social and political activism. I contend that a believer must act on the convictions given to us by the Holy Spirit. Those convictions MUST overlap into politics.
What you do now is realize that the way your neighbors will even care that you are a believer is if you have the courage to take a stand on issues that we as believers have a responsibility to fight for. Abortion is probably one of the chief issues we should take offense and action against.
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