Euphoric two years ago, US pro-life movement is now divided and worried as election nears

This result should have come as no surprise to any believer. When Christians believe that changes on the Supreme Court, changes in the laws, or changes in the legislatures are how to stop women from getting abortions, they are putting their hope in the wrong things. Since the 1980s, Christians have poured massive amounts of time, money, and energy into the political process in the hopes of keeping the facade of cultural Christianity intact. Jesus cautions his disciples about storing up treasure on earth (Matt. 6:19).

What Christians should have been doing instead was investing massive amounts of time, money, and energy into sharing the gospel with their family, friends, neighbors, and community. Only the gospel will turn the hearts of the fathers back to their families. Only the gospel will address the rampant sexual immorality and perversion in our society that has led to abortion, gender confusion, homosexuality, etc.

Abortion has never been a political problem. Abortion is a sin problem.

Christians have been duped and deceived to pursue the wrong solution. They are treating a symptom and not the underlying illness.

Only after the facade of cultural Christianity is removed are we now realizing this.

Do you want to stop an abortion? Start sharing the gospel with every unbeliever you meet!

>>Jesus cautions his disciples about storing up treasure on earth (Matt. 6:19).<<

While I agree that abortion is a sin problem, and that the way to address that basic problem is to share the gospel, I think your post unfairly tarnishes many of the rank-and-file pro-life activists I know and have met.

The ones I know do want the laws changed of course, and put some time into political activism, but their main focus is going down to the local abortion provider, protesting legally, and counseling women who are undecided about going through with an abortion. Rather than spend their time crowing about Supreme Court decisions, they rejoice for each woman who leaves, and even more when they hear that the local non-abortion birth counseling centers have successfully worked with women to get them to keep their babies. This rejoicing goes up even more when they hear about cases (some of them willing to talk about it) who gave birth, and were thankful both for the baby and for those who talked them out of abortion.

Given the Bible’s emphasis on the sanctity of human life as made in God’s image, and the penalties for taking it unjustly, I certainly don’t think that those lives saved represent only “treasure on earth.”

Will activism be completely successful in turning either individual women or our culture against abortion? Hardly. But every life saved is a victory, and ministering to these women and babies is not a waste of precious time, even if expecting a presidential candidate to “save our nation from abortion” is.

It's worth noting that early Christians also put the kibosh on postnatal infanticide in the Roman era, as well as the gladiatorial games. Regarding the former, keep in mind that any actual surgery (like surgical abortion) was generally lethal in those days, so women who did not want to keep their babies tended to kill them after birth, generally by exposure. So early Christians would go to the garbage dumps each day where the infants were being exposed and rescue them. (since a huge portion were girls--boys were favored--this may also explain some of Paul's writings on what to do when someone has an unbelieving spouse)

In the same way, it is said that the gladiatorial games were ended by the emperor Honorius after one Telemachus went into a stadium (by some accounts Rome's Coliseum) and pleaded for the games to stop--at which point either the gladiators or the spectators killed him. The horror of whatever happened put the kibosh on spectators' enjoyment of that spectacle.

So we have a long history of combining evangelism, social action (e.g. going to clinics), and political action. It can be discouraging where we don't win every time, but when we don't win, we need to simply remember that the Church has a long history of playing the "long game" in ending societal abuses.

The [the rank-and-file pro-life activists] I know do want the laws changed of course, and put some time into political activism, but their main focus is going down to the local abortion provider, protesting legally, and counseling women who are undecided about going through with an abortion.

Do you think most Christians sitting in our churches are doing this hands-on work? My post was about Christians in general, not rank-and-file pro-life activists. Christians are more willing to give money and support political activism than they are to share the gospel with their lost neighbor. This is just a fact of modern evangelical Christianity.

This past Tuesday, I was invited to a fundraising dinner for our regional crisis pregnancy center (which our church supports and my wife and I financially support). The main speaker, an "ordained minister," spent her entire speech advocating for political activism as the solution to our society's ills. The second speaker, another local pastor, spent his time taking Scripture out of context to plead for donations to help the center save babies and assist mothers.

No mention of the need for the gospel. No plea for Christians to actually be obedient to what Scripture commands us to do: make disciples of our communities. No attempt to link the gospel with the life transformation hoped for. Saving the life of the unborn should not be our ultimate goal in the work we do as Christians.

We're storing up our treasure on earth.

It's worth noting that early Christians also put the kibosh on postnatal infanticide in the Roman era, as well as the gladiatorial games.

It's also worth noting that the church in the Roman era was mission-driven and gospel-centered until it gained political power. After the church gained political power, the church used coercion, not the gospel, to spread Christianity and "righteousness."

To be fair, it was a gradual process. At the time the gladiatorial games were stopped, circa AD391, it had been 66 years since Constantine and In Hoc Signo Vinces around 325AD.

Now exactly what to make of this, I'm not sure. We have 66 years of Christian "hegemony", and the gladiatorial games were still open. Or was Telemachus a blessed exception to a church that had too many nonbelievers and was rapidly becoming politicized? I bet a couple of guys could both get PhDs in history with opposing narratives about this sequence!

So we have a long history of combining evangelism, social action (e.g. going to clinics), and political action. It can be discouraging where we don't win every time, but when we don't win, we need to simply remember that the Church has a long history of playing the "long game" in ending societal abuses.

Very much agree with this statement. But the church and pro-life groups often get quite impatient and make faustian bargains with politicians because they get tired of playing the long-game. Check out the Op-Ed link in the article with the Operation Rescue director. Despite Trump flip-flopping on abortion, his main point is to protect Trump's reputation and enourage his followers to vote for Trump because a Harris/Walz presidency would lead to "a bloody, morally debased Communist dystopia" so he encourages a more moderate stance on abortion, like Trump has done. Unbelievable how a staunch, pro-life activist is so willing to sacrifice his beliefs and principles for what he believes is the greater good (consequentialist ethics) at this pivotal time.

The article is right that the cultural tide has turned against the pro-life movement. Progressive Pro-choicers won the branding battle, successfully pigeon-holing pro-lifers as:

• Pro-Birth, but not caring for what happens once the child is born. Fatherless babies growing up to be Fatherless Children resulting in a permanent underclass.
• Anti-Health of the woman, mainly when molar pregnancies and eptopic pregnancies occur, which can endanger the life of the mother if an abortion procedure isn't performed on the non-living baby that these pregancies have produced.
• Wanting control over woman's bodies to maintain a Patriarchal, Heteronormative, and White Supremacist society. The intersectional feminist-queer theory scholars/professors are successfully making these arguments on college/university campuses and the vast majority of 20somethings believe them.
• Anti-Science because Pro-lifers believe that not only life begins at conception, but also the personhood of the preborn baby too. Twenty years ago, I was debating my pro-choice friends over when life begins. Now, since virtually every scientist and medical doctor believes that life begins at conception, the goal posts have moved and the debate is over when personhood begins.
• Abolitionist Pro-Lifers that attack Incrementalist Pro-lifers and Whole-Life Pro-lifers as compromisers and promote prosecuting women with murder who obtain abortions.

Sadly, because many conservative politicians, media influencers, and pastors have fumbled the ball on every single one of these points in the public eye, it has given pro-choicers the necessary ammunition to frame the entire Pro-life movement in the worst way possible.

The big question is how do Christian pro-lifers flip this false narrative? I think the answer lies at a grass-roots level with pregnancy resource centers, churches, Christian non-profits who walk alongside and care for single mothers, the fatherless, the poor and foster kids, wholistically discipling them long-term.

The problem for any moral ill in society is the gospel, of course. No one is denying that. But do we get rid of all of our laws because what people really need is the gospel and they won't change without the gospel? Get people saved and then you won't have to worry about theft, murder, rape, abortion, etc.,?

We still need laws to deal with law breakers and because righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a reproach to any people.

The repeal of Roe now gives states and local authorities the ability to put in place laws that they never had the option to do before. The repeal of Roe is just the first step.

We need a both/and solution, not an either/or solution. Preach the gospel and pass laws that tend towards righteousness.

We still need laws to deal with law breakers and because righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a reproach to any people.

The repeal of Roe now gives states and local authorities the ability to put in place laws that they never had the option to do before. The repeal of Roe is just the first step.

The problem, Andy, is that most people in the US do not want laws severely restricting or abolishing abortion. We've seen this not only in blue states but also in some red states. Ohio just passed a constitutional amendment guaranteeing abortion on demand. Before Roe was overturned, Ohio had very restrictive abortion laws. Now, those laws are becoming moot as they are litigated in light of the new constitutional language.

So, when the heart of the majority of people in a democratic republic don't desire to do right, what's the solution?

The gospel.

The problem for any moral ill in society is the gospel, of course. No one is denying that. But do we get rid of all of our laws because what people really need is the gospel and they won't change without the gospel? Get people saved and then you won't have to worry about theft, murder, rape, abortion, etc.,?

We still need laws to deal with law breakers and because righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a reproach to any people.

The repeal of Roe now gives states and local authorities the ability to put in place laws that they never had the option to do before. The repeal of Roe is just the first step.

We need a both/and solution, not an either/or solution. Preach the gospel and pass laws that tend towards righteousness.

I agree with most of this in a very general way, but let me also push back on it as well. As much as I favored the repeal of Roe, the downside of letting the states decide is that it flies in the face of the 14th amendment.

States don't get to decide who is human.

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

We fought a war over the state's rights to define someone as subhuman and take away their rights. Also, section 5 of the 14th amendment says, "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."

The problem, Andy, is that most people in the US do not want laws severely restricting or abolishing abortion. We've seen this not only in blue states but also in some red states. Ohio just passed a constitutional amendment guaranteeing abortion on demand. Before Roe was overturned, Ohio had very restrictive abortion laws. Now, those laws are becoming moot as they are litigated in light of the new constitutional language.

So, when the heart of the majority of people in a democratic republic don't desire to do right, what's the solution?

The gospel.

Agree, but there's a disconnect among a large segment of Christians in America who believe the gospel of Jesus but don't believe that unborn babies fully bear the image of God. I think American Christianity has suffered from a very weak Biblical Anthropology throughout its history which is why Christians are all over the place when it comes to current social issues such as abortion, LGBTQ rights, racial discrimination, etc... After the 2nd awakening through the Southern Antebellum period, the vast majority of the Southerners believed the gospel yet falsely believed that black folks weren't fully made in the image of God (some thought blacks were subhuman, while others whole-heartedly believed whites were superior to blacks even though they claimed blacks fully bore the image of God).

When I teach about Biblical Social Justice (which I view Abortion as the most pressing social justice issue of our time) in workshop settings, at Christian high schools, to college students, and at churches in West Michigan, I teach 3 mandates for God's people...the missions mandate, the image mandate, and the love mandate. These 3 mandates work in symmetry with each other.

The Missions mandate is the center of Biblical Social Justice. Proclaiming who Jesus is and what he's done is the solution to individual sin and systemic injustices. Making Disciples is at the core of doing Biblical Social Justice.

The Image mandate (Reflecting the Triune God and His Glory as His representatives on earth),is the foundation of Biblical Social Justice. While we often speak of Imago Dei in relationship to our intrinsic value as God's image bearers, or its structural aspects such as our intellect, reason, language, and emotions, or our relationship to God and each other, imaging God also includes family, work, commerce, business, government, law & order, politics, culture-making, As the Church equips its people to make disciples, it also equip them with an exile posture, (Jer. 29:4-7, I Pet. 2-3) to pursue vocational callings (business, law, medicine, education, politics, social work, etc...) that reflects the Character of God (i.e. Justice, Mercy) and to connect with others to solve social problems as a way to seek the welfare of the city.

The Love Mandate (Love God & Neighbor) is the context for Biblical Social Justice. Biblical Social justice cannot be done without a selfless love for our neighbors, especially those we'd rather hate or who are radically different than us, which is a main point of the parable of the good Samaritan.

(in my opinion) is that the Supreme Court dropped the ball in overturning Roe v Wade. Just turning it over to the states leaves the issue in the hands of the "tyranny of the majority."

The beauty of the US constitution is the checks and balances that protects the minorities. In this case, the Supremes didn't have the guts to define an unborn child as a person with the full rights of any other citizen.

Overturning Roe v. Wade was right, but it wasn't enough