Abortion and a Challenge to Bring Christ into the Public Sphere

Since it’s an issue that is heavy on my heart I will use abortion as a test case.  I have shown how we’ve taken the sacred out of public life as a culture, and how this is extra-biblical in practice.  Government always legislates on moral authority, otherwise it couldn’t declare murder illegal.  God judges nations and people in this life as well for their sins.  Society benefits when Christians act as Christians.  That said to the issue itself.

The 6thcommandment tells us life is important, taking of it outside of war or penalty is murder.  Moreover the Law in the OT treats it as murder and commands the death penalty for anybody who kills a child in Utero.

This issue is culturally ingrained and we are largely ignorant of the scope and horror let alone inconsistency of abortion (abortion clock).  60 million infants have been slaughtered in the name of “choice” which really amounts to self-determination to avoid responsibility.  All authority has been given to Christ, we must honor him in this issue.  For the sake of 60 million murdered infants you have to take a stand.  Even secularly, it makes little sense.  The argumentation for it is wholly weak and arbitrary.

Even secularly the issues are incredibly numerous and the reasoning disjointed at best in support of abortion.

For a Christian, we can make several points.

The 6th commandment tells us life is important, taking of it outside of war or penalty is murder.

At what point was Mary’s pregnancy an incarnation?  From the very beginning, otherwise that stage of human development would not be redeemed, and hypothetically she could have aborted the child for more reason than that God willed it to become a life.  At the moment of conception the infant is genetically distinct, taking in sustenance and growing capable of feeling pain.  If that isn’t life, then life doesn’t exist.  Designating a point as the start of life after this would become arbitrary.  

John lept forjoy in his mothers womb, Esau and Isaac fought in utero.

Abortion also elevates the woman over the life of the unborn, or the rights of the father.  I have had discussion where the person disagreeing with me asserted that the males rights end when he climaxes. Ever wonder whey men have to pay child support if it's not their body and they have no say? He is held responsible for what his body did but the woman is no longer after birth.  These distinctions seem sense but are founded on nothing but baseless assumption.
There exists the question essentially at what point does it become your body not your mothers? My answer is it is foremost a possession of God, and the moment of conception a new life begins.  You are in her body, not her body itself.  The infant is distinct from the moment of conception and both parents bare responsibility equally.  Having divided the family and sex from marriage, we've lost this cohesion and that's why men lose rights but must pay and women are in their position.

Murder of children was biblically condemned; both this and abortion were common practices in ancient Rome.  A child could be slain until the right of passage into adulthood by the parents (among other horrifying practices).  It is no surprise that in a post Christian culture these practices returned.  Children, the weak have become commodities.  They have value only if wanted, and that accessorizing of children (and the weak) is a huge part of the issue we aren't talking about.

Abortion has led to horrific practices, it’s a business and the practice is inexcusable.

Planned parenthood poured their body parts down the drain.

Bonfire suggested to dispose of aborted babies.

Aborted infants were placed in the garbage disposal and incinerator.

Planned parenthood actually kept abortion babies alive to harvest their brains.

Women getting abortions face emotional abuse beforehand

It results inphysical and mental health issues.  A miscarriage does too, so this should be no surprise since bioligically they are much the same, an abortion is more invasive and violent.

To say that abortion is fine in cases of rape and incest misses the question, the issue is the sanctity of life.  If the child is alive, it's murder regardless.  People who were conceived in rape are rare but exist and their lives aren't valued only if they were wanted.  You'd have to say their life was a liability and therefore their humanity less.  I have seen pro-abortion activists be consistent on this, and say "prove your life was worth it" to rape babies.  In fact many woman in such a situation want their babies, a thought that seems to be lost on abortion advocates.  It would actually compound the tragedy.

This can be turned right back at them, how do they know their lives were worth anything?  And by what standard?  It's utilitarianism, demeaning, degrading of human life and thoroughly disgusting.  Ultimately it makes life and the value of a human individual contingent on whether the strong want it.  It favors the strong, and I’ll say that repeatedly.

To bring up the issue of “who will take care of the child” is to make an emotional and special pleading fallacy.  This doesn't address the logic of my argument.  Further it makes the child's life and value contingent. Which consistently, does so for yours and mine.  A fetus is distinct genetically from the mother.  Further the unborn cannot be claimed to  not be alive.  Something not alive does not grow or require sustenance.  If the fetus is a distinct human being then simply put abortion is murder.  To the Christian who says they can't legislate it I must ask.  If the child was outside of the mother would you do all you can to stop the murder of that Child?

The issue of legislating morality is often claimed but government by it's nature is exercising moral authority.  You have to legislate from morality, otherwise you can't make murder illegal.  It's simple, and biblical this is why God gives the moral law in the ten commandments first.  Everything else he gives is founded on them, and he cites them frequently in the books of the law for that reason.  

Abortion is the literal killing of the future.  When we practice abortion we live an empty world behind us. If you are fine with that or feel like Christ should be left out of this you have told God where he can't go and what lives he has given are actually valuable. So if you believe it's murder, that a fetus is a human life how can you be fine with that or with living in a society where people don't try to prevent murder because they don't want to impose their religious beliefs?

Because the culture has imposed it's secular humanist religious beliefs on you.

Everytime an attempt is made on the life of children in the bible, it’s spiritual warfare.  An attempt was made on the life of Moses by Pharaoh, or Jesus by Herod shown also in Revelation as Satanic.

Voddie Baucham: A biblical view of abortion and adoption

It is an attack on God’s command to be fruitful and multiply.  Frankly, it’s legalized murder and it’s satanic as it gets.

Whatever happened to the human race episode 1

Scripture says to value life and God is King over all of creation, your culture says it’s not life and to keep it to yourself.  Which will you listen to?

Levitical laws testify to why we should care about how unbelievers live

This one will likely be very short but it’s worth noting.  There is OT precedence for God judging those outside the covenant community by the same morality in this life.

Leviticus 18

The introduction section of v 1-4 contains a command to not do as the nations surrounding Israel, sins for which they’ve been judged

Incidentally, they are sexual, and the laws which Paul cites in 1 Corinthians 5-6(1 Corinthians 5-6)  concerning the man sleeping with his mother in law.  The same moral law is assumed even demanded today for believers, but also is the standard the unbeliever is held up to.  The word is the term for sexual sins against OT law ( the judgment discussion is about church discipline not a command to not witness to or influence the world around you).

Moses concludes in 24-30 Saying God mad the land “vomit out its inhabitants” for committing these very sins.  It should be no surprise our society is collapsing today, though we’ve suffered the penalty for all our sins in the body.  Ultimately the collapse of civilizations comes when through idolatry.  God holds nations to the same moral standard, you do them no favor in refusing to influence the culture

Prophetic witness and Functionally secular humanist Christianity.

Follow me on this, I will lay out my objections and then what I think you're intending

When you say Christians can't expect the unbeliever to live a Christian life so we ought not tell them to live morally, you are saying Christ has no authority over their lives. Intended or not you are saying he has no place in the public sphere and is not their king. they are judged by the same standard as we are and can benefit from honoring God, moreover Christ is God not just in the church or over it's people but over all sphere's of life and over all people.  Essentially without meaning to you are caving to the culture's definition and narrative.  God is not in the public sphere, self-autonomy is everything and leave us to do what we want. It's the assumption of freedom of religion as simply freedom of worship,yet that's the problem. All of our lives and all of creation is to worship God in honoring him always in all things. Saying otherwise or placing a limit on how Christian's can influence society in their witness to honor God (short of engineering perfection) which transforms the culture is not honoring to God as the arbiter of all truth and the lord of all Creation.

 That surrender has led to the death of Christendom and the society's decline.  We are called to be the salt of the earth.  Don't engineer perfection, you can't.  Do what you're called, and honor God with your voice in all areas of life, saying we can't tell others to honor God is really abbhorent.  In worrying about making us look bad, you leave people in their sin and leave soceity to suffer.  In trying to be kind, you leave people without a witness and society without a restraint.  You can’t watch someone in their depravity and throw your hands up “oh well, let them go” anymore than you can see a loved one digging a knife into their wrists and leave them be because “they don’t think their life is important.

What are you reacting out against?  Is this you're objection to the turn or burn mentalityAmerican Christianity?  It need not be so.  The Prophets of the Old Testament certainly did not, and neither did Christ or the Early Church. We can't conflate poor evangelism that degrades without pointing to God's grace with what is really a Godly influence on soceity and part of  God's call on us to be the salt of the earth.  Take even Jonah in the OT for example who spoke out to a pagan empire, and the other prophets who certainly spoke concerning them.

Where we agree and where the solution is: Evangelism is to be in relationship without neglecting the Grace of God.  This does not negate the duty of Christians to influence society or mean Godly influence isn’t evangelism.

Central tenets to think on

1.      God is the source of all authority and moral law

2.      the Government has moral authority and is instituted by God

3.      Therefore Civil Authority must honor God in it's law or practice, or be judged accordingly.

4.      People saved or unsaved live under God's law and face consequences in this life and the next.

5.      You have influence you can use to the end of increasing the honoring of his authority by the government and private individuals

6.     do it.

From those of seen, and this may not fit you I’ve noticed two things.

You are confusing persons with opinions when you make it personal, this is postmodernism

Or

You are saying the culture can expect or make us act like secular humanists and can do what you are telling us not to while we can’t ask them to live according to Christian moral principles.

Christian’s aren’t somehow the bullies, moreover we are even the minority now.  Applying a double standard like those mentioned is anything but helpful. 

The culture has a consensus by which is legislates, ours is secular humanism. You are not acting as a Christian when you tell Christians to stop advocating social causes or telling nonbelievers not to sin.  You are acting as a secular humanist and absorbing the sinful character of our culture.

The Church always spoke out politically.  Everytime they said Jesus is lord not Caesar, or when they refused and discouraged worship of idols.  Rome was only concerned with politically unity, and Gods were considered local.  To refuse to worship the God’s where you were was considered treason since the God’s were so identified with the state.  Rome saw refusal to worship the God’s as “atheism”, a political charge of treason.  It was believed this failure on the part of Christians would cause the wrath of the God’s to fall on them.  So evangelizing in and of itself was politically charged.

So if you refuse to vote or speak out your Christianity to the culture, you aren’t living as a Christian.  You are living as a secular humanist.

Abraham Kuyper spoke well on the issue.  There are different spheres (in one sense) But
"There is not one square inch in the whole domain of Human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all does not cry out MINE!"

Think of it as an interlocking puzzle.  Without Christ in all as lord of all you are missing a piece and unable to see the full picture.