Kevin’s Conversations: Choosing Life?

The recent string of states passing or writing or pushing bills that allow for abortion up to birth, and in some cases even after birth, is chilling to the bone.  Adding to that chill is the also very recent inability of the U.S. Senate to pass the Born Alive Act. 

While I believe abortion on demand at any developmental stage of life to be the wrongful taking of human life, there is absolutely no ethical reason to neglect providing medical care to an infant that survives an abortion or to perform an abortion in the third trimester as at that point the baby is viable for life outside the womb and performing an abortion is no safer for the mother than would be inducing birth.  Even more heinous is the fervent backing and cheering and celebration of political action to allow for such things. 

Whatever happened to the posture of safe, legal, and rare?

Concurrently, on the other side of the aisle, has been the vehement drive to crack down on all things immigration, even when legal. Families are split apart, children taken from their parents, adults who were brought here as little children and know no other way of life scorned, migrants who are ostensibly given a death sentence being sent back to conditions from which they escaped… are of miniscule significance compared to the stated preeminence of following and enforcing the law.  Never mind that the importance of following and enforcing law is of little interest when it comes to the allowances for abortion and other issues, but it is apparently of utmost priority when it comes to immigration.

Also, even though undocumented immigrants are mostly well meaning and commit statistically much less crime than American citizens, it is fashionable to portray them primarily as murderers, rapists, and dangerous criminals, and/or as despicable freeloaders and burdens on society. It doesn’t stop with just the undocumented immigrants who are already here, but the same must be done to those currently fleeing terrible situations and still proceeding here with hopes of finding safety and a better life, many whom yearn to apply for asylum.

Our culture is getting uglier and uglier.  Politicians and media play to their bases and rile them up to nastier language, ruder behavior, and greater extremes.  In advocacy of life, there is the proclamation to protect and respect, while conversely it is trampled upon when it doesn’t match with political aspirations.  Political expediency is the objective and compromise and moderation are dirty words.  The battles must be won and the enemy not just defeated but also demeaned.  We are to display ourselves as the great protectors of principle and morality and the opposition is to be portrayed as senseless and abhorrent, using whatever mixture of truth, contempt, and deceit necessary to do so.

I am alarmed as to how these types of attitudes and behaviors are becoming more commonplace. I am alarmed by how seemingly more and more people proclaim to be protecting and respecting life while increasingly missing the boat in manners where they could and should be doing such.  I am alarmed by how partisan politics and predetermined dispositions and dubious loyalties  are driving our words, thoughts, and actions.

 I am further alarmed to see how much of the church displays such demeanor and conduct in quite the same ways and to the same degrees as the rest of our culture.  Whether it be what church leadership teaches, promotes, or condones, or how individual Christians think, speak, and act, I think we are oftentimes doing a rather poor job of not conforming to the world and wherefore, setting ourselves apart in holiness to God.

I have said it before that I hate politics.  Pretty much the only reasons I wade into them is in concern for my fellow man, especially those who are lacking in advantage, and in concern of how we as Christians conduct ourselves and represent Christ in this realm.  I am the first to admit that I do not always see every issue properly or effectively communicate my thoughts and sometimes allow biases and assumptions to cause me to speak wrongly and to hold unrighteous attitudes.  Yet in politics, just as in all things, we need to first and foremost be led by God and trust in how He has called us to live and act and not allow our political leanings and predilections to prevail.

God is the giver of life and He has lovingly created each and every one of us in His own image and continues to love and care for us.  By God’s grace and mercy and Jesus’s sacrifice, that life is redeemed and renewed to whosoever believes, in spite of our sinful rebellion and rejection of it before our Creator and Bestower of Life.  Let us respond by seeking to value all life in a forthright and humble manner. May we be led by God in such things and not by political ambitions and partisanship.