The story of Nazi Germany is really the story of the weakness of human beings, the fallen nature, of how easily—under the exigencies of the moment—we succumb to the worst kinds of evils. I know nobody likes drawing comparisons with the Nazis, and I understand why.…[Yet, y]ou look at the events of the thirties, and you realize that, culturally, we are on a very similar trajectory.
German culture accommodated Hitler. What will we accommodate?
—Chuck Colson1—
You can access all the articles in this series of posts here.
Key point: At the very time our culture most needs the influence of the church, the church is buying into worldly ideas. Even some of the church’s leaders are taking God’s people down a wrong road. The church already is “harmless as doves,” but never has there been a more important time for the Christ’s followers, both individually and corporately, also to be “wise as serpents” (Matt. 10:16).
In this series of posts, we are considering nine reasons that, unless we repent, God will bring judgment on America and New York for New York’s new abortion law, the Reproductive Health Act, or RHA. Here are the reasons we have considered thus far.
First, Capital punishment is illegal in New York, but an innocent baby, brimming with life, can be killed legally even moments before she would emerge from the womb—or moments after.
Second, The RHA, as well as the entire abortion industry, rests on the same philosophical foundation as Planned Parenthood. That perspective is racist and even genocidal. Dr. Alveda King, niece to civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., has said,
The leading cause of death in the African-American community is not gang-violence, gun violence, heart attack, stroke, HIV, high blood pressure, diabetes. People will name all these. No, it’s abortion. And the reason we have come to that conclusion, statistically, you’ve got 60 million plus abortions legal in America since 1973. About a third of those occur in the African-American community. That means dead babies. And, with us being 13 percent or less of America’s population, that means we are having more abortions.
Third, we instinctively understand that unborn children are human beings and that they have infinite worth. Here’s evidence. Eleven unborn children are acknowledged as victims at the 9/11 memorial. They perished along with their mothers in the 9/11 terrorist attacks and in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and each is recognized with the words “and her unborn child” etched in granite beside his or her mother’s name.
Fourth, abortion advocates continue to talk about choice and reproductive rights when science has established with resounding clarity that the individual growing in the womb is indeed a human being. Kelly Boggs writes, “Science has so well established that the preborn baby in the womb is a living human being that most pro-choice activists have conceded the point.…They talk solely about ‘choice,’ not wanting to mention that the choice involves a living human being in the womb.…[Thus,] since the abortion proponents have lost the science argument, they are now advocating an existential one.”
Fifth, the RHA increases the chances of botched abortions in that it authorizes certain medical professionals who aren’t doctors to perform abortion procedures. While the killing of a baby is blatantly wrong in and of itself, we have to understand that this lowering of standards is a direct threat to the life and physical health of the mother. The emotional health and the spiritual health of women also have become casualties of the new law.
Sixth, abortion advocates used to acknowledge that abortion was undesirable, even though they still would contend it needed to be legal. Today, they celebrate a law that allows the killing of children who are healthy and about to be born, and one that at least in some cases would allow the killing of a child who had emerged from the womb “alive and kicking.”
Seventh, America in general and New York in particular was a very different place not that long ago. In 1957, the only crusade Billy Graham conducted was in New York City. The meetings “lasted 16 weeks. In the course of 110 days, there were 100 services, attended by some 2 million people, with more than 56,000 making decisions for Jesus Christ.” For additional information about this historic evangelistic effort, please see our previous post.
This is not to say that there were not evil influences in the 1950s, that everyone was a Christian, or that everyone lived as a moral person. It is to say that we have lost our way as a nation. In less than a lifetime, we have stepped into an abyss and continue to tumble downward. At this point, we can’t be far from hitting the bottom. We have kicked God out of public life, and we are reaping the consequences.
In less than a lifetime, we have stepped into an abyss and continue to tumble downward. At this point, we can’t be far from hitting the bottom. We have kicked God out of public life, and we are reaping the consequences.
People don’t even think clearly anymore. Even in the midst of the #MeToo movement that condemns sexual abuse, vice-president Mike Pence has been derided for having a personal policy that honors and respects his wife. He won’t eat alone with a woman other than his wife. What’s wrong with that? Well, some believe it to be sexist!
It Gets Worse
Why else will God judge us, unless we repent? We have just two more reasons to consider in this series, but beware! Our list is not exhaustive. Far from it! We won’t be able to do much more here than briefly mention the remaining items, but we hope to explore these issues more thoroughly in future posts.
Eighth, God will judge us because this really is about something far more sinister than anyone will discuss in public. In fact, if you dig to get the truth on this issue, you are in big trouble. Just ask David Daleiden of the Center for Medical Progress, which has exposed some of the under-the-table, covert activity of Planned Parenthood.
In part 2 we quoted Dr. Omar L. Hamada, who on January 23, 2019, a day after the RHA passed the New York legislature and was signed into law, tweeted,
I want to clear something up so that there is absolutely no doubt.
I’m a Board Certified OB/GYN who has delivered over 2,500 babies.
There’s not a single fetal or maternal condition that requires third trimester abortion. Not one. Delivery, yes. Abortion, no.
Not long afterward, a friend of mine on Facebook posted Dr. Hamada’s tweet on his feed and refuted his claim. One medical procedure, my friend said, does require abortion. That “procedure” is organ harvesting! Of course, he wasn’t really refuting Dr. Hamada, because the doctor was saying late-term abortion never is medically necessary for the sake of the mother. Yet…for the sake of maintaining a black market for babies’ body parts, well, abortion is necessary, and the later in the pregnancy, the better!
In an article titled “New York’s Gruesome, ‘To Term’ Abortion Bill Now Will Allow Actual Baby Parts Top Be Sold On Black Market,” Tony Elliott writes about New York’s Reproductive Health Act and the fact that the law will allow a woman to abort her baby through all nine months of pregnancy, even to the moment of birth. He states,
Many question why Cuomo and New York government officials would actually support such a ghoulish bill in the first place, not to mention be so gleeful at it becoming law. On the surface, it appears that Cuomo and NY government officials went to extremes in supporting women’s rights in allowing for what is essentially any woman’s right to have a “to term” abortion in that state.
In reality, however, this law has absolutely nothing to do with women’s rights, or their right to literally kill their babies, but everything to do with the black market sales of fetal and baby parts.
Now that this law has been passed, potentially some additional 300,000 babies will be added to the sales of baby parts via mostly the criminal cartels of South America, Latin America, and Mexico.
This also explains the reasoning behind the US Socialist Left’s desperate push to keep open borders. If the president is allowed to build the wall, it would almost completely stop the black market trade route of various criminal cartels traveling back and forth across the US Mexican border.
A border wall “would almost completely stop the black market trade route of various criminal cartels traveling back and forth across the US Mexican border.”
—Tony Elliott—
The market for babies’ body parts is extremely profitable. The drug industry, the “healthcare” industry, the insurance industry, and chemical companies, my Facebook friend stated, are salivating to get hold of human organ tissue. Research, no matter how unethical, no matter how many lives are sacrificed in the process, is that important to them. It’s a scenario even worse than those envisioned by Mary Shelley and Curt Siodmak. You see, here we are speaking, not of fiction, but of barbaric realities that involve conceiving, carrying, killing, and experimenting on the bodies of infants—the most vulnerable members of the human family.
There is yet a ninth reason God will judge New York and America for New York’s Reproductive Health Act. This reason has to do with the fact that Christians are being deceived and misled regarding what it means to be pro-life. Increasingly, evangelical leaders are broadening the definition of “pro-life” to include caring for the poor, helping the disadvantaged, and caring for the sick, to name just a few of many worthy endeavors in which Christians are to engage.
Here’s the rub. While charitable efforts like these are indeed worthwhile causes, evangelical leaders, including Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission Russell Moore and the Gospel Coalition’s Timothy Keller, seem to be all too content to lure evangelicals away from supporting the political party that has acted (though admittedly not always with enough force or effectiveness) to curb abortion, and toward the Democrat party, which now is effectively advocating, not just full-term abortions, but also infanticide! This is indefensible! No push to help meet the needs of those already here ever can be authentically pro-life if the same people encouraging “compassion” also are advocating infanticide!
Deriding Trump Supporters
One aspect of Moore’s efforts to accomplish this has been his harsh criticism, not only of Donald Trump, but also of Trump’s supporters. I don’t remember Moore criticizing Barak Obama anywhere near as harshly. Christians need to wake up! I’ll say it again. I would put it in neon lights if I had the technical ability to do so. No one can be pro-life in any authentic sense of the term and be pro-abortion! In fact, advocating helping the poor and assisting the needy makes a mockery of the term pro-life if one is willing to permit life to be snuffed out, for any reason or for no reason, from the start.
No one can be pro-life in any authentic sense of the term and be pro-abortion! In fact, advocating helping the poor and assisting the needy makes a mockery of the term pro-life if one is willing to permit life to be snuffed out, for any reason or for no reason, from the start.
There’s more. Dr. Russell Moore, who was a staff member for Mississippi Democrat Gene Taylor, does not appear to have abandoned his allegiance to the Democrat Party, despite various statements he’s made disagreeing with Democrats on certain policies. Video blogger A. D. Robles made the following observation regarding a statement in a speech that Russell Moore gave at the MLK 50 conference held April 3-4, 2018 in Memphis, Tennessee. You’ll first hear a clip from Moore’s speech, then Robles’s comment.
You can watch A. D.’s video in its entirety here. In it, he affirms his own decision not to vote for either Clinton or Trump; and respectfully, I disagree with him about not voting for Trump. Even so, A. D. is spot on in his assessment regarding Russell Moore and the message he is sending, not only in this speech, but broadly through his work at the ERLC as well.
What Is Justice?
There’s much more to this than I can cover here, but I do need to make the point that a major vehicle through which Moore and other like-minded evangelicals such as Timothy Keller and J. D. Greear are using to promote their left-leaning ideas is an emphasis on “social justice.” This actually is a movement. The Gospel Coalition also is involved in promoting these ideas.
Beware! The “justice” of the social justice movement stands contrary to the biblical definition of the term. Advocates of the social justice movement are issuing a call for government to jump in to eliminate “unfairness” by orchestrating “equality.” This is not the government’s role (also go here). Our Founders understood that true freedom would be a reality only under limited government. Limited government can work to protect equal opportunities for all, but only an invasive and eventually tyrannical government tries to engineer equal outcomes. For more information, please read and study this Word Foundations series.
Our founders understood that true freedom would be a reality only under limited government. Limited government can work to protect equal opportunities for all, but only an invasive and eventually tyrannical government tries to engineer equal outcomes.
A Perilous Path
Many evangelical leaders are taking evangelical Christianity down a dangerous path. I’m simply going to state it directly. If you’re a Christian, support for the Democrat party, and I would say even voting for a Democrat at this juncture, is untenable. Don’t be taken in by social justice rhetoric from Moore, Keller, Greear, and others.
If you’re a Christian, support for the Democrat party, and I would say even voting for a Democrat at this juncture, is untenable.
In response to the passage of New York’s Reproductive Health Act, Dr. Russell Moore stated, “The Empire State’s new abortion bill is alarming in every sense. This bill stripped all possible legal protections for children past 24 weeks in the womb.” He also said,
“The scene in the New York Senate chamber highlighted this horror as the abortion industry applauded lawmakers further codifying the culture of death. The applause in that chamber should remind us of the importance of the work before us as we engage our neighbors with the Gospel. The church will not be deterred from speaking up for those the world wants to silence.
My prayer is that some of those who cheer ghastly injustice as we saw this week might be awakened to the reality of life in the womb and, even more importantly, of the possibility of everlasting life in Christ. Maybe, like the Apostle Paul, some of those now cheering the destruction of the vulnerable may one day be the most powerful witnesses for the sanctity of every human life, born and unborn.
Tim Dukeman, a Master of Divinity student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, did not hesitate to call out Moore for his blatant inconsistencies in a Facebook post. He wrote,
Dear Russell Moore,
When you celebrate the death of cultural Christianity and demonize Christians who vote for the drastically lesser evil
…spare us the phony outrage when the greater evil happens. Don’t act surprised when Cultural Christianity no longer acts as a restraint, and the wicked simply lean into their satanic depravity like New York just did.
You spent the last ten years of your life demanding this. You own it.
To understand what Mr. Dukeman means when he refers to Moore’s celebration of “the death of cultural Christianity,” go here. Also go here, where you will read an open letter to Dr. Moore expressing concern, not only about Moore’s perspective on cultural Christianity, but about his response to the LGBT movement and the people involved in it.
The Church Must Be Harmless and Humble—but also Shrewd
I’ll have more to say about Dr. Russell Moore and other like-minded evangelical leaders in future posts. Please know that from my perspective, this is not personal. It’s about the ideas these leaders are promoting and the “social justice” agenda behind them.
If there is any hope for this nation as the floodgates of a rabid and radical abortion policy appear to be opening, that hope will involve a church surrendered to biblical truth and the God who is the source of truth. And it will involve a church calling on people to repent of their sins, even as we in the church have repented of our own.
May God help us to fear Him and remain faithful to Him. And may He grant us the discernment we so desperately need!
Copyright © 2019 by B. Nathaniel Sullivan. All rights reserved.
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture passages have been taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
1Charles Colson with Ann Morse, My Final Word: Holding Tight to the Issues that Matter Most, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2015), 48. Please see additional quotes relevant to this week’s post here.
top image credit: Photo by Brytny.com on Unsplash
photo credit: Andrew Cuomo
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