Saturday, January 22, 2011

The unnerving thing about 'Sanctity of Life Sunday'

On the one hand, I am very appreciative about pastors (and the congregations that support them) who preach on the topic of abortion and the necessary loyal opposition to that abhorrent but legalized practice in this country.

But...we are nearing 60 millions lives taken since the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973. Preaching and listening to God's Word is great. But somewhere between zero and 60 million - well, shouldn't we be motivated to do something other than preach, listen and vote?

I suspect there are some churches that take some degree of pride in preaching on the modern culture of death that is the bane of our existence. It proves somehow that we are a people who care about the evil around us.

Forgive us Lord, for that pride. And may many more of us rise up and DO something.

Vote pro-life? Yes, of course, yes. But let us also fund the pro-life efforts as if a million-plus children were dying every year. Let's go and stand outside of those clinics and pray. Let's support our crisis pregnancy centers with our efforts.

Let's ACT like there is a vicious, decades long murderous atrocity going on in our community and that God is expecting us to be salt...light...the priesthood of believers.

I read a piece by the late Carl Henry years ago talking about the scariest word in the New Testament. It was 'paradidomai." You see it three times, Henry said, in the first chapter of Romans. It is rendered: "I give you up."

Henry wondered in his article whether or not God hadn't already done that with America in light of our abortive practices (among other things). Scary thought. But scary enough to move us to action?

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