I believe it is imperative to begin by openly confessing I am the chief of all sinners. I submit this truism without any need for dramatics or hyperbole. It is just the plain truth. I detest sin while simultaneously being held captive to the temporal intoxication of sin. Like all serious believers, I long for relief from the final pangs of the presence of sin that the resurrection of Jesus Christ promises to all that place their trust in Him.
With that critical caveat stated, I want to dissent in the most vigorous possible manner to any allocation for the legitimacy, practice, or tolerance of the sinful practice of Abortion whatsoever. Recently, someone chose to post a narrative on my Facebook Group Page (see highlighted comments) that many people chose to have an abortion because they are poor.
This is why I am an INDEPENDENT. And abortion? Abortion is sin no matter who commits it! God’s judgement is not coming because of the actions of Black people. The behavior of people-all people-is reflective of sin in the world. The crimes of the POOR, no matter what color, are often reflective of the deprivation and discrimination that run rampant. Instead of pointing at their sin, we should look at ourselves and ask what we are doing for the poor. God destroyed Sodom for their treatment of the poor (look it up). Is it possible that we are seeing a raging plague because of our treatment of the poor? I don’t know, but when I see the idolatry of people who call themselves Christians, following a liar, cheater, child abuser, grifter, thief…I have questions. Often people have abortions often because they are poor, and they have no way of caring for their children. What are we doing for them? It is not demonic to help the poor. It is demonic to ignore their plight. It is demonic to see their need and take no action to help them and to demonize them instead of helping to meet their needs and introduce them to our Lord and Savior.
This philosophical wrangling is flawed from the very beginning and throughout. Yes, the Bible does condemn Sodom for its treatment of the poor. Ezekiel 16: 48-50 reveals
As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, your sister Sodom and her daughters never did what you and your daughters have done.49 “‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. 50 They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.
I direct the seriously minded Evangelical to the ministry gotquestions.org for the commentary they provide in response to the liberal interpretation of Ezekiel 16:
Those who attempt to explain away the biblical condemnations of homosexuality claim that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was inhospitality. The men of Sodom and Gomorrah were certainly being inhospitable. There is probably nothing more inhospitable than homosexual gang rape. But to say God completely destroyed two cities and all their inhabitants for being inhospitable clearly misses the point. While Sodom and Gomorrah were guilty of many other horrendous sins, homosexuality was the principle reason God poured fiery sulfur on the cities, completely destroying them and all of their inhabitants. To this day, the area where Sodom and Gomorrah were located remains a desolate wasteland. Sodom and Gomorrah serve as a powerful example of how God feels about sin in general, and homosexuality specifically.
Whether you claim Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed because of their treatment of the poor or for their inhospitality, you demonstrate you are not a careful exegete of the Word of God. It is clear from an overall understanding of the Word of God the principal act that God used Sodom and Gomorrah was the act of homosexuality.
Yet when you attempt to reframe the biblical narrative to establish your own agenda, then abortion becomes understandable because of humanity’s treatment of the poor per the reasoning of my Facebook adversary. This is classic bait and switch. No longer is the person having the abortion held accountable for their decision; the question of the abortion is laid at the feet of society because they failed to provide assistance. The issue is no longer the act of abortion; the narrative becomes society for their failure to help.
No one can ever rightly demand grace and mercy; grace and mercy are always voluntary. When I take an act, especially an action that causes adversity, I can never demand my fellow man come to my relief. Of course, I can hope assistance comes, but I can never demand it does so.
One of the major responsibilities of the Church is to be God’s solvent of Light and Salt upon the Earth. God commissioned the Church to be the Pillar of the Truth, calling people to repentance and surrender to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It is not within the purview of the Church to speculate why someone disobeys God’s divine edicts. Our job is first to ensure we are in proper alignment and then proclaim that truth as God’s prescription for human flourishing.
It is not the Church’s role to enter into a philosophical debate on why people sin. That ability is beyond our pay grade anyway, and in the final analysis, what difference does it make?
For instance, God commands that I love my wife as His Son loves Christ. Do I really think, better yet, do you think, as I already know, I will be to stand before God on the great judgment day and offer any justifiable reason why I fail to carry out His command?
God commands us as an absolute Sovereign, and His creation will not be able to stand before Him and be able to offer any justification for our failure to live in complete obedience to His commands. That is the major problem with most people who claim to speak for God. Their view of God is too small, while their view of man is too big.
Naively, we believe we can posit philosophical wrangling to escape God’s day of reckoning for our failure to trust and obey. Instead of simply relying on God’s revelation, we devise our method of accounting for our inability to adhere and believe that argument will win the day.
It is unfathomable anyone claiming to speak on God’s behalf would ever attempt to explain away the heinous act of abortion. Just today, two thousand eight hundred eighty lives created in the image of God will be slaughtered in the womb of their mother in America alone.
Let me ask you as you read that last paragraph to let that sink into your consciousness: Two thousand eight hundred eighty lives slaughtered in just one day, not in war or through some grievous natural disaster but in the very place God designed it to be the most personal, safe, and intimate, its mother’s womb, let that reality marinate in your mind and sear in your spirit.
America, regarded as the most advanced and liberty-minded country in the world if not, world history actually makes it legally (never morally or biblically) permissible to kill the life that we brazenly declare in our cherished Declaration of Independence is endued with inalienable rights from its creator.
Remember me, remember the person I acknowledged myself to begin this blog article. A gross and hideous sinner, and yet this reality sickens me. Now, imagine what the thrice-holy God of Heaven and Earth, who knows no sin and is utterly Holy, imagine how deep His Holy wrath burns deep. The mere fact He has held back His mighty hand of destruction is a testament to His unrelenting patience and long-suffering. Yet, He explicitly reveals His patience and long-suffering indeed has an expiration date. If God returned to Planet Earth today, He would find many professing Evangelicals, especially African American Evangelicals, actively and consciously supporting political leaders making Abortion legal in America. Editor’s note: just last week, the Biden administration took steps to make it legal for the abortion pill permissible to be mailed to anyone requesting, thus making abortion all the most easily accessible.
If God returned to Planet Earth today, He would find many professing Evangelical leaders, most significantly, African American Evangelical Pastors, being silent on the matter of Abortion. Oh! They will be the first to speak about systemic racism, police brutality, and voter suppression, but they eat from the trough of the Democratic Party, a godless entity that actively, brazenly, and gleefully advocates for a woman to possess the legal right to terminate life created in the very image of God.
If God returned to Planet Earth today, He would find many professing Evangelicals, especially African American Evangelicals, eerily silent about the ills of Abortion but foolishly aligning themselves with pagan & God-hating ideologies like Critical Race Theory or the Black Lives Matter Organization.
If God returned to Planet Earth today, He would find many professing Evangelicals who, if you were to interview their close friends, would never be able to identify a time when their professing Evangelical friend ever took a public stand and made it known where they stood not only on the matter of abortion but about marriage and gender. Editor’s note: as an experiment, just observe the posting of people who claim fidelity to Jesus Christ and note what they post about. They do not shy away from posting pictures of them attending Church or “Jesus this” or “Jesus that,” but you will note the absence of their stand about their opposition to abortion, same-sex marriage, or gender binary.
When we allow people to frame the narrative about Abortion on matters like economic, we sinfully enable them to marginalize the life that will be slaughtered just today. Please note as an African American, I am especially grieved that of those two thousand eight hundred eighty, approximately one thousand eighty-eight of those lives will be of African American descent. Now, please do not get me wrong; in the final analysis, it will never matter the ethnicity of the child, but I will forever be dismayed at the inconsistency of those who decry Black Lives Matter (and it most certainly does) yet align themselves with a political party that makes it possible to perpetuate the greatest act of genocide any ethnicity will experience in time and space.
Yet, this is what happens when we substitute the Word of God for vain philosophy. My most significant angst is when my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ naively allow the enemy to frame the conversation regarding Abortion. Given that only the Church of the Living God has the Oracles of God, the Church should be actively crafting the narrative. God expects us to be on the offensive, not the defensive.
Whether my blogs gain a hearing to many or just a few, it will allow me to go on the record and let my yays be yay, and my nays be nay. No one will ever have to wonder where I stand about Abortion, Marriage, or Gender.
Why these three? They are clearly the issues of this generation. Someone once said courage is facing the actual enemy confronting the present situation. Abortion, marriage, and gender are the bellwether issues of this present generation. Sadly, many in the Evangelical Church, especially the African American Evangelical Church, are being found Weighed and Wanting.
But what about you?
Why is it that no one knows where you stand on these salient matters?
Why are you silent about where you stand on abortion to your family, friends, and co-workers?
Why are you silent about where you stand on marriage to your family, friends, and co-workers?
Why are you silent about where you stand on gender to your family, friends, and co-workers?
Most importantly, why do you vote for candidates from the Democratic Party when that political entity actively rebels against the Word of God?