A guest post by my sister, Lydia Mead.
Most people I know don’t care about murdered children.
Sound harsh?
They’re well educated. They know what a human looks like from single cell to embryo to foetus. They know what abortion does. They’re mostly Christian, so they’re fairly well versed on what Jesus is like, what he did on earth, and what he wants us to do. Generally, they get that we’re to love God, and love other people – the fulfilment of the law. They usually draw the line at getting their hands dirty. I talk with them about this.
“Yeah. I know it’s a problem – but my heart’s not in it. I just can’t make myself feel concerned enough to help”. Or: ‘I know – but it’s just not my battle’. Though they usually verbally express this to me, sometimes they say everything by saying nothing at all.
The other day, sitting around a coffee table with our cappuccinos and cupcakes, I was asked what I’d been doing before our child arrived. There was a hushed silence and the conversation moved quickly on to other topics when I explained how I’d worked in a crisis pregnancy centre, receiving calls from abortion seeking women and girls. When you mention the A-word amongst your good Christian friends or church folk, you’ve overstepped: there isn’t any place for a verbal exchange on the brutal reality of abortion amongst polite, Christian people. The gut feeling you get from your church is – if you’re going to go out and do something awkward and uncomfortable, then it should be evangelism. We’ll pray for you to go and do that in India or an African country; we’ll even send you some money now and then. But abortion’s too horrible to entertain as a thought, let alone to discuss or do anything about. Not only that, but working to end abortion is going beyond what Christians need to do.
To the friend who exclaimed, in the middle of my fiery exhortation: ‘Gosh, you’re really passionate about this,” followed by: “I just can’t really feel it in my heart to do anything about it” – I’d say, you’re not alone.
I don’t want to do anything about abortion either. Abortion is something I hate thinking about. I hate the idea of thrusting the issue into the faces of decent, well-meaning folk out there. I’d honestly much rather read a novel, play the piano or go have a coffee with friends and chat about nothing. But there’s a clear reason that polite, decent Christians don’t want to think, discuss or do anything about child murder: it’s a catastrophically large issue with our entire society complicit; even our governmental institutions have upheld and entrenched this ‘right’. Which is why we all draw a blank when it comes to abortion: it’s too hard to actively fight against a society that accepts and upholds the practice.
Believe it or not, those people out there who are raising the subject in their churches and with their friends, praying outside abortion clinics, volunteering for pregnancy counselling helplines, attending marches, running pro-life groups, writing articles, working on a local and national level for legislative change – they don’t want to be doing what they’re doing. They are always struggling with themselves to keep on, because the prevailing desire – the easy option, is to do nothing. It’s always hard for them to keep fighting abortion. They’d really rather go to the pub and have a beer with the mates and forget about it all.
The soldiers who answered the call to enlist in the two world wars at the start of last century had a noble task; yet I would posit that those people who continue to fight on behalf of the unborn have a still more noble task. The brave Allied soldiers in WWI and WWII were fighting for their countries, their families and their own lives, and those that survived received accolades, memorials, respect and praise. Those fighting for the lives of children yet to be born, and in memory of those that have died, fight for no benefit for themselves or their families and their hostile society treats them with anger and scorn.
The only reward for people who’re fighting against the greatest mass-murder of all history is the knowledge that there are people whose lives have been saved, and hearts changed, through their work. One day in the not-too-distant future, we’ll be judged on how much we loved God, and how much we loved his people. Jesus reminds us (and I paraphrase): ‘When you saved the lives of the unborn and became a voice for the helpless you did it for Me’. God counts our actions towards others as though we were doing the same for him in those situations. So, yeah, it’s hard. It’s not a fun topic. It’s not much fun being out in the cold, praying about abortion. To you pre-born advocates out there – keep working and fighting, and remember that God will give you more love and courage as you persevere.
And to everyone else: don’t wait until you feel ‘called to the ministry’ of fighting for the pre-born, or to ‘feel in your heart’ that you care about abortion. That day won’t come if you’re waiting for it. Get out there and get involved – the passion will come to you on the job.
I’ve spent the last few days telling God, “You really chose the wrong person for this mission (pro-life work). I want my old life back, when I didn’t have to put myself out there, challenge my Church, challenge apathy. There are lots of people out there better equipped for this than I am – why did You give me a passion for this?”
Reading your post reminded me why I started: One day I realised that I would have to answer to God for all the little babies who died when I could have done something, anything, to save them.
Thank you.
I became pro-life in nursing school and have never changed my stance. It was only after I learned in recent years that millions of unborn children have had their lives taken that I have become a crusader against abortion. It was when I realized it is being used as a method of birth control when other methods are available and not being used that incensed me. Women are being exploited through the ignorance of men and they have been greatly harmed themselves both mentally and physically by not taking the value of life more seriously. Marriage needs to be brought back to it rightful place in the American culture and chastity before marriage needs to be reestablished as the norm to help insure that children have both a mother and a father committed to their care and upbringing.
Wow!!! Thank you for this powerful message! My heart has been broken over the fact that we void these issues of abortions in our Churches. I am praying to open up this ministry in my church and community. I plan on taking some educational training sessions at Choices Pregnancy Services this spring, to be a mouth for the un born. The Lord God showed me His heart…about babies being killed from the womb and it broke my heart.
You are so right in what you say! For too long complacency has walked hand in hand with wobbly theology and orthodox theology alike, all the way to the grave. Too many Christians cross the street to avoid the embarrassment. Too many avoid the tough stuff by saying that’s not my calling. Too many excuses. Apathy seems to be at an all time high. Essentially, it is the age old sin of unbelief: “has God said?” We want to stay within our comfort zones. Actually, they are not our comfort zones at all. To stay there is to rot. Conversion to Christ means that we live in and for the One who who says “go and lo I am with you…” With our unbelief we essentially say: no! That doesn’t sound very nice but how can it be any other. We’ve forgotten the words of “Stand up stand up for Jesus” and other sound hymns that were once part of the sung worship in churches. But sadly, too often, when they were sung there was an uneasiness about it anyway because too many of us were singing about a battle that we were not really, and I mean not really a part of. May a reformation of orthodoxy and orthopraxy begin with me and with all who love Jesus Christ!
Thank you. Seriously. I have been trying to enlist churches in a sidewalk counseling training here in the Central Coast, Calif–San Luis Obispo County, and I was just telling my cousin in Modesto how hard it is to persevere when churches drag their feet in response to this ministry. Your article encouraged and blessed me.
Greetings from Indiana. I am a former SLO and Pismo Beach resident who just happened to see your post. I also have a cousin in Modesto.
We live in a very conservative and well churched area, Warsaw/Winona Lake, but even so, abortion can be a conversation killer.
You are not alone! I was adopted and am thankful abortion was illegal the year I was born and Planned Parenthood didn’t exist. William Wilberforce didn’t quit, we can’t either!!
Well said Lydia and praise God for you!
We all share in the blood guilt of abortion and those who claim to follow Christ and keep His commandments must repent of our abortion apathy and begin loving our pre born neighbors and those stumbling to the slaughter houses to have them destroyed.
Abortion is modern day child sacrifice and those who turn a blind eye to it will not be held guiltless. Proverbs 24:10-12
Abide in Christ,
Russell Hunter
A//∀
GM, I feel the same as you, and often I must remember what Jesus said in the Garden of Gethsemane “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (NIV). It helps me a lot!! 🙂
Thank you for this. What passion and conviction, may God bless you always for the work you do for his kingdom! I really like this post, however I feel I have there is one area that I would be cautious around (note I am not saying you explicitly said anything)
I just feel like we must be careful with the ‘it doesn’t matter if you feel God isn’t calling you to this ministry stance.’ (paraphrase) Yes we should all be ready and open to listen and talk about these issues in our churches, with friends and generally in our every day lives. But some of us have very full plates in ministries God has clearly called us too.
Yes there is often overlap for instance youth or young adult groups should be talking and teaching on the subject, prayer groups should be praying about it, etc. But we are all different parts of the one body of Christ, we all are called to different areas of ministry and that is not something we should dismiss lightly.
I know that is not what any area of ministry wants to hear, we all want / need more soldiers on our front of this spiritual war (please lord send us more active believers) and I think this is possibly partly why people back away, they don’t want to let the strong passions they see in others, inside themselves, because they think they will break under the pressure of then trying to minister to the whole world in every way.
So I would suggest we have to make sure we are sharing our successes, our victory testimonies rather than necessarily the loses. People want to know what keeps you going, how it aids your depth of relationship with God, they want to join a team that’s making a difference, a team that is victorious in their short term goals.
And I would like to finish by saying on behalf of all of us in other ministries that don’t have more time to dedicate to this issue, thank you, thank you, thank you, to all of you who are take up the cross of our lord for all those who can’t speak for themselves at all.
Sincerely
Carl
Thanks for addressing this – well said! Also, thanks again for participating in “Life After Abortipn.” It is saddening to see the church’s apathy and unwillingness to address this and offer healing and support for those that have been through this. Keep on keeping on….
Hi Carl,
Thank you for your well-considered comment above.
I do understand your reservations. People like yourself working in church ministry generally do not have a great deal of time to commit to activities outside of church life, which is completely understandable. You’re hard pressed for time as it is! You are certainly correct in saying that Christians can not (and should not) commit to helping in every ministry – it is wiser to work more closely on a few issues rather than the whole spectrum. I also whole heartedly agree with you that the way we present ourselves when hoping to gain new recruits to fight abortion should be overwhelmingly positive: as you say, let people know what keeps us going, and what our successes are – people will prefer to join a group perceived to be victorious.
As you say though – while not every Christian has the time to devote themselves fully to this issue – we can all raise the subject at the church prayer meeting, pray individually, and occasionally find the time to attend the prayer group outside the local abortion mill. In fact, as a church leader or worker, it is perhaps most crucial to simply allow the issue to be addressed in your church, thereby disallowing the matter to be treated with silence.
And while pro-lifers need in general to present themselves positively, and to be working with love and joy, there is also a place to say – hey, we all get tired of this. It’s hard going, and it’s not always a constant buzz of winning victories – and then to pick ourselves up and keep going in God’s strength. That isn’t the whole truth of it of course – there are many moments of joy when we’re in the thick of some activity, and we’re suddenly struck with how incredible it is to be doing such an important job. But, it is a relief to acknowledge that it’s a hard fight, and that we need God and each other to keep going.
Thanks again for your comment!
Lydia
Lydia, I am giving you a standing ovation right now. You can’t see it…. but it’s loud, it’s electric, it’s profound, it fills a massive stadium! Thank-you for saying everything you have, for lovingly sharing your heart and soul. I applaud you. Your strength is beyond admirable, it’s heroic. Your strength, determination, grace and wisdom just inspired me. You did that. AMEN!
Oh and I would just like to add one thing “The right to life is the first among human rights. To abort a child is to kill someone who cannot defend himself”. Pope Francis
Thanks for your response, all I really feel to say was that I read it and I agree 100% and again to keep up the good work and remember that it is on behalf of more people than you will see very often. That there are many of us are standing here behind you in support that simply are playing this balancing game called life and feel called more elsewhere at this time. Take heart also because we are “surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.” Hebrews 12 1-2a
God Bless
Amen Carl! AMEN!
Following up from Lydia’s comment, here are some thoughts I shared with a friend who contacted me, – most likely convicted by his inaction, – stating that we are wrong to expect all Christians to be fully devoted to this fight:
I hear you regarding people having different callings. For sure! I agree – it is not true that EVERY Christian should be 100% into the pro-life movement and not involved in other important issues.
In saying that, when we consider which causes we should become involved with, to a large extent, we should weigh the severity of an injustice – and how widespread it is.
For instance, animal abuse & abortion are both unjust. God sees both as evil. And yet one angers Him more than the other (because humans are made in His image). And (I hope), abortion sickens us more than animal abuse.
It is impossible to rank every evil on a big list. And even if you could, it would be a bad thing if Christians only ever focused on the evil that was at the very top of that list. Because then Christians would not be involved in fighting any other evils.
But – I would hope that as a whole, the Church’s stand for justice would be proportionate to the severity of each injustice. For instance, I would hope that there were more Christians involved in fighting abortion than there were in fighting animal abuse.
But the fact is that far too few Christians are speaking up about abortion. Christians are happy to be involved in the more socially acceptable fights – such as fighting against aids, human trafficking, they’re happy to go and help out in war torn places, or places that have been devastated by natural disasters. But they are much less likely to stick their necks out on behalf of their preborn brothers and sisters. This is mainly because of the social cost associated with doing so. It is NOT culturally acceptable to speak against abortion, because it is a “right.”
And history repeats itself. Heard about the Church in Nazi Germany? They just tried to ignore the Holocaust going on around them. Sure – maybe now and then it would come up in a prayer meeting, but that was where it stopped for them. The Church today is doing the EXACT same thing in regards to the abortion holocaust which is killing at least 46,000,000 preborn children every year around the World.
So the call must go out to Christians – come out and stand with us. Stand up and be a voice for those who do not have one.
No, this absolutely not true! ** “It is NOT culturally acceptable to speak against abortion, because it is a “right.” ** I simply cannot stress this enough! There is no such thing as “right” to abortion nor is written anywhere!! IT IS A MYTH!!! ONLY A MYTH!!!! A TERRIBLE LIE, a terrible excuse we as society ALLOW ourselves abdication from taking action in speaking out for the right to life of the unborn!!
Excerpt taken from: http://civilliberty.about.com/od/abortion/f/abortion_legal.htm
“The central thrust of Roe v. Wade is this: Women have the right to make decisions about their own bodies. Fetuses, prior to viability, do not have rights. Therefore, until the fetus is old enough to have rights of its own, the woman’s decision to have an abortion takes precedence over the interests of the fetus. The specific right of a woman to make the decision to terminate her own pregnancy is generally classified as a privacy right implicit in the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments, but there are other constitutional reasons why a woman has the right to terminate her pregnancy. The Fourth Amendment, for example, specifies that citizens have “the right to be secure in their persons”; the Thirteenth specifies that “{n}either slavery nor involuntary servitude … shall exist in the United States.” Even if the privacy right cited in Roe v. Wade were dismissed, there are numerous other constitutional arguments that imply a woman’s right to make decisions about her own reproductive process.
The problem with this supposed “right” a woman is afforded with respect to making decisions about her own reproductive process, is that once copulation (involved as part of her reproductive process) bears life (now a human embryo), the woman’s so-called reproductive process ends. Reproductive process ends there, and now does not permit termination of the embryo’s life – which keeping in line with aforementioned argument, has it’s own right to life. We are now speaking for two humans.
Heather, you’ll note that I put the word “right” in quotes…
That’s true Andy, I was writing more from the perspective in addressing the myth of the term in this regard. Not actually directed against your use of the term as properly indicated in quotes. 🙂 It’s just that so many people really do believe it is an actual thing whether they understand it not to be…. I believe “right” is probable cause for the high percentage of fence sitters. 🙂
More from same atricle above. http://civilliberty.about.com/od/abortion/f/abortion_legal.htm
“If abortion were in fact homicide, then preventing homicide would constitute what the Supreme Court has historically called a “compelling state interest”–an objective so important that it overrides constitutional rights. The government may pass laws prohibiting death threats, for example, despite the First Amendment’s free speech protections. But abortion can only be homicide if a fetus is known to be a person, and fetuses are not known to be persons until the point of viability.”
So now, you see it’s about the viability of fetuses…. which are not considered human until the point of viability….. therefore the so called term “right” everyone likes to throw around so carelessly and manipulatively is actually the right for a human (mother) to inflict the most horrific form of brutality imaginable against the most vulnerable of humans (simply due to age of life) upon her very own child. If this is truly a woman’s “right”, it sickens me beyond my own life.
Abortion is the cruelest atrocity in the world today. Wake up people. Speak up for those that can’t. For those already gone before…. and for those who are facing death sentences everyday.
Oh and I would just like to add one thing “The right to life is the first among human rights. To abort a child is to kill someone who cannot defend himself”. Pope Francis
Thank you so much for this encouraging article.
Well, here is some praise for Lydia and Andrew; your lives count, may you be richly blessed.
And for other folks – when you are home-schooling, spend plenty of time on the real things, the things that matter to God, this is what counts for eternity.
Thank you! This is one of the best commentaries on the subject that I have read. I was a reluctant pro-life warrior who will be participating in her 12th 40 Days for Life campaign in 10 days. No matter how full your plate, every Christian can wear the Precious feet pin, have a pro-life bumper sticker on their car and, I would wager, find 30 minutes in their week to go to a prayer vigil with their local 40 DFL campaign. God bless you!
Great post from Lydia. I am happy to have found your blog, Andy. And will check back frequently. God bless, fellow warrior.