I learn a great deal by merely observing you, and letting you talk as long as you please, and taking note of what you do not say.
—T. S. Elliot—
Key points: In a partisan vote on February 25, 2019, Senate Democrats killed a bill that would have ensured that babies who survived abortions would not be denied life-sustaining care. No one can claim with any credibility that the bill has anything to do with the mother’s body or health care, or even, at this point, abortion. It has to do with saving the lives of innocent babies who are breathing outside the womb. The issue should be non-partisan, but the vote was not. Therefore, it is abundantly appropriate for Christian leaders to say the Democrats, in defeating this bill, are standing in support of infanticide. Failure to do this is tantamount to covering for the Democrats on this issue. Why is J. D. Greear, President of the Southern Baptist Convention, unwilling to admit publicly the Democrats are responsible for the defeat of this bill?
This article is one of several Word Foundations articles highlighting elements in the social justice movement. To access additional articles on social justice, go here.
On June 12, 2018, J. D. Greear, pastor of the multi-campus Summit Church in greater Durham, North Carolina, was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention. In an interview held a short time later on NPR’s Morning Edition, Greear stated that the Convention ought to “decouple the identity of the church from particular political platforms over which there can be disagreement.” He did not, however, elaborate on any particulars he may have had in mind.
Even so, the main message was abundantly clear. The title of an article quoting Greear (cited above) decodes the “hidden” message: “Greear Calls for SBC to ‘Decouple’ From the Republican Party.”
This really was no surprise. Months earlier, in a blogpost explaining why he was allowing his name to be placed in nomination for SBC presidency, Greear wrote,
The basis of our unity in the SBC is the gospel. As a Convention, we should be neither defined nor characterized by a certain church style, method of ministry, political affiliation, or cultural and racial distinctive. We are a gospel people; the gospel is, as Paul said, “of first importance” (1 Corinthians 15:3). We must avoid the temptation to let smaller doctrinal issues or any personal preferences replace the centrality of the gospel as our unifying standard.
Of course, the gospel is the unifying standard for the SBC and is of supreme importance. The kingdom of God is not an earthly kingdom. Salvation comes from Christ, who is neither a Republican nor a Democrat.
That said, I am compelled to add this caveat: It is because the gospel and its biblical framework are of utmost importance that, in the culture in which we live, the goal of complete political neutrality for churches and Christians very likely is unrealistic and unattainable. That is not to say the church ought to feel free to promote a political party outright. It is to say that the two major parties have become so starkly different, and one of them so blatantly immoral, that it has become clear to a great many Bible-believing churches and Christians that only one of the two parties (as imperfect as it is) is potentially worthy of Christian support. For believers, it really isn’t about political parties at all, but about policy!
Nevertheless, before the 2016 presidential election, Greear
laid out paths for how Christians could vote for either party or not at all in 2016. (Who did he vote for? The pastor joked during the election “I have publicly called for both of them to step down. That is about all I will tell you, OK? I’m wondering if we can just go with nobody in November. Stay single for the next four years. You know, find ourselves.”)
Greear Is Not Alone
The 45-year-old Greear is one of a number of prominent young evangelicals in and outside of the SBC who are wary of what they perceive as partisan politics in evangelical churches. At least, that’s the way they often express their concerns. Last week I touched on this issue in relation to Russell Moore, president of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. Matt Chandler, pastor of the multi-campus Village Church in the Dallas area, is another such leader. Mark Dever, pastor of the Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, DC, is yet another. Timothy Keller, an older church leader, has influenced these and other evangelical pastors and leaders strongly.1 In this sample chapter of Greear’s book Gospel: Recovering the Power that Made Christianity Revolutionary, you can read endorsements from all these men and more. Note that Tim Keller has written the Foreword, and in the Acknowledgements Greear is lavish in his praise for Keller. There’s certainly nothing wrong with having close friendships in the ministry, nor is there anything wrong, by itself, with being complimentary of a fellow pastor’s newly published book. I’m sure that in the book, Greear says many fine things. My point here is that these specific leaders’ perspectives align closely—on a great many matters.
The Quest to Remain Politically Neutral
While I have seen some things on the Reformation Charlotte website that concern me, especially in relation to the tone and the way various points are framed in some of the articles, I found this piece very informative and insightful. It warns about Pastor Mark Dever’s desire and efforts to lead a church that is not known for opposing either of the two major political parties. The writer cites an interview in which Dever essentially makes the case for accepting an individual’s rationale for supporting a liberal candidate who will work, through government policy and programs, to address the needs of society’s downtrodden, over a pro-life conservative—even though the liberal candidate supports abortion. In other words, “Mark Dever wants us to believe that it’s morally acceptable to exchange human life for government policies that support minority welfare programs.” The problem is compounded in that Dever not only downplays the importance of abortion as an issue for voters to consider, he also
refuses to acknowledge that every single issue the Democrat party officially stands for is contrary to biblical moral principles. It’s not just abortion, it’s the expansion of sexually deviant behaviors, theft, the restrictions on religion—especially biblical Christianity—restrictions on free speech, just to name a few. He expects us to accept that just because many of the Republican elected officials have been unsuccessful at eliminating abortion, that we should just brush all the other issues aside as well—all in the name of racial unity, of course—and allow this greater evil among the ranks.
Neutrality: A Myth, Pure and Simple
Given Greear’s expressed desires for the SBC with regard to politics, and given Mark Dever’s stated belief that churches ought to work hard to avoid being viewed as supportive of one major political party over the other, it would appear that J. D. Greear is bending over backwards (and nearly contorting) to maintain this same posture with regard to himself, his church, and the Southern Baptist Convention. This past week, Greear issued two tweets that provide almost irrefutable evidence of this.
Let’s first establish some background. After Senator Ben Sasse’s Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act failed to pass in the US Senate by unanimous consent, it was sent to the Senate floor for a vote on cloture on Monday, February 25. This legislation, if passed, would require that life-sustaining medical care be given to babies who survived abortions.
A vote on cloture is a vote to end debate and to move ahead with a vote on the bill in question. In the US Senate, cloture takes effect only if the motion to invoke it receives sixty or more votes. In this case the bill to invoke cloture failed 53-44. All the Republicans who were present voted for it, and three Democrats joined them. The forty-four votes against cloture came from Democrats, and two Independents who caucus with the Democrats.
We now have a situation where one political party has maneuvered to thwart a bill that would make infanticide—the murder of infants—illegal. The Democrats now stand, clearly and unmistakably, on the side of legalized murder! Numerous public figures willingly shared the facts.
Lila Rose of Live Action issued several tweets in response. In one, she put the spotlight on the reality that every single Democrat running for president in 2020 voted against life-protecting measures for abortion survivors. In another, she named names. In yet another, she wrote of the “[u]nspeakable cruelty” of the “44 Democrats…[who] voted ‘NO’ to medical care for babies born alive after failed abortion.” Then she added, “We will never forget.”
The Democrats now stand, clearly and unmistakably, on the side of legalized murder!
In a tweet of his own, Christian speaker, author, and radio talk show host Dr. Michael Brown echoed Rose’s condemnation of the 6 Democrat presidential candidates and their support for infanticide. On the day of the vote, Dr. Brown responded to the Democrats’ callous attitude toward innocent life with appropriate righteous anger, tweeting, “Today, 44 Democrats voted AGAINST protecting the lives of newborn babies who survive abortion. This is beyond sick. It is satanic.”
Today, 44 Democrats voted AGAINST protecting the lives of newborn babies who survive abortion. This is beyond sick. It is satanic.
—Dr. Michael Brown on February 25, 2019—
Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon, professor of Theology at Houston Baptist University, posted this on his Facebook page:
Senate Democrats blocked the Born Alive bill today for one reason: They know that logically there isn’t a dime’s worth of moral difference between killing a baby born outside the womb and killing a viable baby in the womb who would survive if doctors induced labor or did a C-section. One is public infanticide, the other private infanticide. (Robert Gagnon)
Three days later, after the mainstream media had totally ignored the defeat of the Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act at the hands of Democrats in the Senate, Dr. Gagnon took to Facebook and provided a link to an article about the media’s cover-up. He wrote, “MSM cover-up of goose-step Democratic support for infanticide. Exactly what we have come to expect from a propaganda arm of the Baby-Killer Party.”
Dr. Bill Lyle, a licensed OB/GYN from whom we heard a few weeks ago, slammed the Democrats for blocking Senator Sasse’s bill.
These and others are right to call out the Democrats for their despicable assault on innocent human life. Not to do so actually leaves the impression that neither party is culpable—and that simply isn’t true. Thus, an attempt to be neutral is effectively to lend one’s support to the Democrat party.
Why Is J. D. Greear Unable to Criticize Those Who Bear Greatest Responsibility?
How did J. D. Greear respond to the Senate vote on February 25? With at least two tweets, both of which I’ve reproduced on this page. On the day of the vote, Greear released this statement on Twitter: “This is not a Democrat or Republican issue. It’s about whether to keep babies born alive, alive.”
Then, then next day, the SBC president tweeted, “Support of life should never fall along party lines. All Christians should agree: We stand for life from the womb to the tomb.”
Of course, in one sense, this isn’t a political issue. Greear is correct in saying that “All Christians should agree” and support efforts to preserve life “from the womb to the tomb.”
This is only part of what needs to be said, however. It is misleading at best and an outright lie a worst to dodge one of the most essential aspects of the battle in which we are engaged. The fact that the Democrats were responsible for the failure of Senator Sasse’s bill, and the fact Greear had failed completely to mention it, did not go unnoticed among those who saw his tweets. The following items represent some of the pushback.
- “What is gained from the Christian worldview in refusing to identify the Democratic Party for what it plainly stands for? Unlimited abortion rights, now, infanticide, every form of homosexuality, the profaning of marriage, and the goodness of transgenderism. Is this not truth?”
- “Since virtually every Democrat supports this, I don’t think we can pretend that a Christian can in good conscience support the Democratic Party anymore. This isn’t a debatable issue that they can hedge on at this point—the Democratic Party supports explicit infanticide.”
- “You need to go back and look at the vote breakdown.”
- “Exactly. It is clearly a democratic issue.”
- “As much as you might like this to not be political, it’s political.”
- “No self professing Christian should even consider voting for a democrat again. Just say it.”
- “Amen and amen” [a response to the previous comment, “Just say it”].
- “It shouldn’t fall along party lines, but it does, and Democrats are the ones with the blood of tens of millions of slaughtered children on their hands. Quit pretending that it’s not a partisan issue. It shouldn’t be, perhaps, but the reality is that it is.”
In a video podcast released on Friday, March 1, video blogger Jon Harris highlights Greear’s omission as well as the pushback the SBC president received. With passion, Harris asks why evangelicals can’t seem to identify those who are promoting infanticide. Here is a 3.5 minute audio clip from the podcast.2
Of course, a few responders were supportive of Greear, but a great many of them called him out for not being fully honest about the Democrats. I believe they were right to do so. Significantly, one online publication, the Capstone Report, carried an article titled “Greear Born Alive Act tweet shows he cannot lead the Southern Baptist Convention.” The writer of the article says this:
The president of the Southern Baptist Convention can’t identify who is at fault for the Senate vote.…
Should we pretend Democrats aren’t at fault, when they demonstrably are? And why? To make Democratic-leaning church members feel comfortable?
But What About Neutrality?
We should state clearly here that it isn’t partisan or a violation of “the separation of church and state” to simply state the facts as they have occurred. Of course, if a pastor or some other Christian leader is courageous enough to call out the Democrats on this issue by simply describing the vote breakdown, the individual runs the risk of being accused of being political, of supporting one party over another. In other words, neutrality is jettisoned. Yet consider this: Not to describe the vote breakdown amounts to ignoring the elephant in the living room! It amounts to conspicuously shielding the Democrats from criticism—and that isn’t neutral either! In fact, it rises to a level of partisanship that is every bit as great as the level Pastor Mark Dever (and others) say they want to avoid.
Evangelist Dutch Sheets expressed it well when he tweeted,
“For Christian leaders to speak out against today’s sick, pro-infanticide Senate Democrats (& state govts) is not succumbing to a political spirit. To the contrary, being silent is bowing to the political spirit. And for the church to remain silent in our day…is unconscionable.
But Greear isn’t remaining silent! someone may object. He is speaking out! While Greear is expressing opposition to infanticide in general, he isn’t telling the whole truth about who is responsible. Therefore, he is being silent—about an aspect of the story that everyone needs to know and has a right to know.
I have nothing personally against J. D. Greear. Yet, as a Southern Baptist, a concerned American, and a Christian, I am compelled to challenge him on this. If the Southern Baptist Convention has a prophetic voice willing to condemn the contemptible practice of infanticide and call out the individuals and groups responsible for it, that voice apparently doesn’t belong to J. D. Greear!
Mark it down! No political party or candidate that supports infanticide (or in my view, abortion, for that matter) is deserving of any Christian’s support or vote—no matter how much “good” might be perceived, advocated, or even accomplished in other areas of public policy. Human life is an issue of utmost importance! (Also go here.)
Now, to be clear, refusing to support the Democrats because the party opposes biblical principles does not necessarily mean one has to support the Republicans. Yet it ought to mean—indeed, it must mean—refusing to vote for Democrats.
It is abundantly clear that the Democrats harbor a disdain for “unwanted and inconvenient” innocent human life—even when it is wrapped in a perfectly healthy and whole infant girl or boy.
Expose the Fruitless Deeds of Darkness
In Ephesians 5:8-16, the apostle Paul wrote,
8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) 10 and find out what pleases the Lord. 11 Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. 12 It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. 13 But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. 14 This is why it is said:
“Wake up, sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”
15 Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.
How might following these biblical commands shape the reputation of a church or of a Christian who is seeking to win the lost—including those who have a very different perspective on abortion and life in the womb than they do?
If we will obey the Lord sincerely, quite probably some won’t fully understand. Some will think we’re supporting a political party in a partisan way. We must be crystal clear and say what we mean; we aren’t being partisan. Some still won’t get it, but others will. And the truth is that our following biblical convictions on this issue will attract certain other people to our message.
With the lives of so many children at stake, why aren’t pastors who claim to believe and uphold the Bible willing to take the risk? Please don’t tell me the reason is evangelism, that we must avoid offending people lest we drive them away from Christ. Are we really so ashamed of the Sixth Commandment — “You shall not murder” — and its connection to the Christian faith that we will avoid upholding it when lives are at stake? I agree that we ought not to speak with the primary motive of offending people. Yet we have to see that when we fail to defend the most innocent and vulnerable members of the human family among us, our failure to speak and act is offensive to God!
Further, we need to see that when pastors who stand up for the lives of babies in the womb are accused of being partisan, their accusers need do nothing more than look in the mirror to find people who are being partisan and overtly political. Allegiance to our Lord and His teachings is the motivating factor for those who defend innocent human life. Regardless of the risks, our primary responsibility is to obey Him.
When we do, our obedience to Christ will echo the gospel message we are conveying with our words—and God will use both of these in powerful and effective ways.
Copyright © 2019 by. B. Nathaniel Sullivan. All rights reserved.
Note:
1Here are links to informative articles about Matt Chandler, Mark Dever, and Timothy Keller.
2For the record, I did not rely on Jon Harris’s podcast in writing this article. He and I reached the same conclusions independently. Where there is overlap, it’s because we’re reporting on the same event.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture passages come from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
top image: from You Tube—Senator Ben Sasse speaking in favor of his “Born Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act
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