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Expanding the Meaning of the Term “Pro-Life”
In last week’s post, we heard Dr. Walter Strickland declare he essentially believes party platforms are worthless in helping believes decide which political candidates they will support. Dr. Strickland, by the way, is the Assistant Professor of Systematic and Contextual Theology and Associate Vice President for Diversity at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina. He made his statements in a Kingdom Diversity Podcast released on February 27, 2017. Dr. Strickland elaborated by making a case that being pro-life isn’t just about opposing abortion.
Christians have to know that there’s not any party that’s the party of Christ. And so something that I use as an illustrative point on this is the issue of being pro-life. There’s been a lot of good work by evangelicals about pro-life as it relates particularly to the abortion issue. A lot of enthusiasm there—but pro-life doesn’t just stop at stopping abortion. It extends to life after a child is living and breathing and moving. And so we have to be concerned about issues that could lead to the death[s] of certain people. For example we have concerned about race relations in America because it’s a deadly issues we’ve seen over the last 20 months, 24 months. We have to be concerned about the issue of immigration because there is a lot of situations that [involve] deportation and having children who are left here without [the protection he or she needs]. That child can end up in a situation that’s dire and deadly. We have to be cognizant of foreign policy and how we are utilizing lethal force abroad with drones and what have you, because innocent lives are at stake—folks who are not in uniform, people who are civilians. And so we have to consider being pro-life very, very broadly—very broadly. And the thing is that one political party doesn’t have concern for all those issues. So what do you do? Well, yes, you might lean toward one party or the other, but we have to have a conversation admitting that one party doesn’t have all the answers to this question. And so we have to have that humility as we enter into the discussion not just talking about pro-life but other issues as well.
Here’s the big problem with Dr. Strickland’s assessment. Believers cannot allow themselves, even tacitly, to support the killing of the youngest and most helpless members of the human family, and then assume they can affirm life in a full and biblical sense in relation to any other humanitarian issue. It just isn’t possible.
Believers cannot allow themselves, even tacitly, to support the killing of the youngest and most helpless members of the human family, and then assume they can affirm life in a full and biblical sense in relation to any other humanitarian issue. It just isn’t possible.
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Copyright © 2019 by B. Nathaniel Sullivan. All rights reserved.