Together for Abortion

My wife and I were in Louisville, KY this past Thursday and Friday for the Together for Adoption (T4A) Pastor's Conference. Three weeks prior to that, I was in Atlanta, GA for the Together for Adoption National Conference. As the name suggests, both conferences were all about adoption–physical adoption and spiritual adoption–and since both types of adoption are so inextricably linked to abortion, it's a context I hope to keep Abort73 visible in.

But during the week prior to the T4A conference in Atlanta, as I prepared for the breakout session I was to teach at both events, a very different kind of gathering was underway in Charlotte, NC.  And that got me thinking. If Together for Adoption is what we call a gathering of people who celebrate and promote adoption, then what do we call a gathering of people who celebrate and promote abortion? Officially, it's called the Democratic National Convention; Together for Abortion may have been a more fitting moniker. I've already commented on the DNC platform in part, but two things from last week bring me back to it.

First, a story from the Washington Post reports that the Obama campaign is spending more than ten times as much on abortion-related ads as the Romney campaign. So far, the spending discrepancy stands at $10,000,000 to $953,000. That's a bit ironic in light of the all-too-frequent criticism that it is those opposed to abortion who make abortion more of a political priority than it should be. Second, John MacArthur preached a sermon about abortion on September 16 that was posted to the Grace to You website last week. It's called Abortion and the Campaign for Immorality, and it does a remarkable job unpacking the significance of the DNC's renewed love affair with abortion. Here are some excerpts from the sermon:

I’m not one to talk about politics as such, but I was essentially amazed that one of the historic parties here in the United States adopted the sins of Romans 1 as their platform. This is a new day in our country. Parties which used to differ on economics now differ dramatically on issues that invade the realm of God’s law and morality...

They are also haters of God, haters of God--leaving God out, advocating abortion, advocating homosexuality, advocating free sexual conduct and government-provided condoms so that everybody can do what they want. That is literally creating a platform out of what God hates…

And by the way, I didn’t like it any better when they put God back in (to their platform) because that’s blasphemy. To connect God with that agenda is a horror, it’s a horror. It’s taking His name in vain. In fact, I don’t think God should be in either agenda…

(When you go to the polls) you’re not voting for a pastor, you’re not voting for a spiritual leader, you’re voting for someone who has some sense of morality. Since the Bible says that the role of government is to punish evil doers and protect the good, you better have somebody in power who understands what is good and what is evil. And if you think homosexuality, abortion, sexual freedom, hating God are not evil, then you better go back and check your Bible again…

If we have any sense of justice, if we have any sense of righteousness, if we want to make a little bit of a voice heard about what is right and about the role of government being to punish evil doers and protect the people who do right, then we better step up. I’m not sure what God has in the future, but I do know we can take His side and give Him honor...

To me it is ironic that those who pride themselves on defending the rights of the weak, murder them in the womb when they are the most weak. What kind of hypocrisy is that? Self-congratulating pseudo-humanitarians advocate a deadly force of violence unleashed against infants that makes the Nazi Holocaust look mild by comparison...

It’s amazing in a so-called Judeo-Christian environment, which has been the kind of worldview that America has been born in, that we have reached the point that we have, where one of the two political parties in this country includes slaughtering innocent infants in the womb as a part of its platform which it advocates.

John MacArthur is both loved and hated around the world, but nobody would accuse him of being an activist pastor, which is why his remarks on abortion and the DNC are so significant. If you call yourself a Christian, if you believe in the authority of the Bible, feel the weight of what he says. His sermon continues:

Satan particularly goes after babies. He did in Moses’ day; he did in Jesus’ day. He wanted to kill all the young children in Egypt because of the fear that a deliverer would come. He wanted to kill all of the two-year-old and under babies in and around Jerusalem for fear that the King was coming--Satan is a murderer. All of this is reflective of satanic hatred of the purposes of God and the life that God creates. Any religion, I don’t care what it is, that has as its objective and goal the killing of anybody is out of hell. That’s satanic...

The pagan cultures accepted [abortion]; the Jews rejected it. And interestingly enough, the Jews rejected it for two reasons. They rejected it because every life was created by God, and therefore to take a life was to strike a blow against God. And therefore to violate the first commandment: “To love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength”; you don’t violate God. The second reason they were against abortion was because of the second law: “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and they understood that when life begins, that then becomes your neighbor. And no one is more a neighbor than an infant in a mother’s womb. If that’s not that mother’s neighbor, then there is no such thing as a neighbor.

God doesn’t even want you to mock the poor. God doesn’t even want you to be indifferent toward the weak and the helpless. Well, [unborn children] are the weakest and the most helpless. And Jesus Himself said, “Permit the little ones to come to Me and forbid them not for theirs is the kingdom of God.” And He gathered them into His arms, it says, and He blessed them...

I don’t think that anything shows more clearly the moral collapse of a society than the mass murder of little ones in the wombs of mothers. It’s so horrific; it’s hard to even comprehend. A nation of murderers, and the ground cries out to God.

Twenty years ago, in a two-part series titled, The Biblical View on Abortion, John MacArthur calls abortion, "the ultimate apostasy–the last, official stand of the defiant apostate against God." It is a "violent, anti-God act" that says, "God, you will not determine who lives or dies, I will." MacArthur further calls abortion "the ultimate evidence of the wretchedness of our culture… the ultimate proof of how deep our atheism runs." Hearing all that, of course there are ramifications for the ballot box this November. But that barely scratches the surface. The vileness of abortion shouldn't just influence how we vote. It should influence how we live.