The way forward for the protection of human life is to significantly decrease the demand for Planned Parenthood and other abortionists. That can only happen when the church, in earnest and en masse, determines to spend the time and the money to minister to women who, for a variety of reasons, have been convinced that the destruction of their children is the best, or only, path for them. It’s a slow process. It won’t grab headlines. It takes a substantial amount of time and money. It takes organization and perseverance. It is a commitment for the long haul. 

Recent effects of despotic decisions by the Supreme Court have properly produced outrage. But outrage can subside, and it can become all too easy for us to slide back to our everyday routines. In the midst of our outrage, then, it might be worth pondering the question, “After outrage, what?” The abortion issue rightly focuses on the senseless death of the baby. If we zoom out from that focus, however, we’ll notice someone else in the picture as well. Taking a wider view of the situation can give the church an effective, gospel-driven, way to address this tragedy.

It was John Adams who said “Facts are stubborn things.” If Adams lived in today’s America, he would have to amend that statement to something like, “Facts are stubborn things, but their stubbornness pales into insignificance compared to the stubbornness of  folly.” As the recent Obergefell decision, as well as the less recent Roe vs. Wade decision, show, the intractable darkness of foolishness can suppress the stubbornness of facts in the blink of an eye. In Obergefell, foolishness suppresses the obvious facts of gender, substituting in its place a vacuous and intentionally undefined notion of “love.” In Roe vs. Wade, foolishness suppresses the obvious facts of human life, and substitutes a penumbral notion of privacy. In each case, foolishness covers facts like a slimy, diseased blanket.

Washington, now thoroughly adept at causing and celebrating the destruction of a nation, will not solve the problems of folly that it has sanctioned. Instead, it will continue to feed itself by stoking its perpetual survival with whatever fuel is in vogue on a given day. The only solution in the midst of our inevitable decline is the gospel. It is the only good news that has the power to stand against the bad news that now overflows the airwaves like a clogged sewer pipe.

By now, people who are even minimally cognizant of the daily news know that Planned Parenthood is, yet again, exposed for their bloody and torturous trade. For any Christian, outrage is the first and proper response. But, then what? What can Christians do other than be sickened and saddened by the destruction of little, defenseless children, and the sale of their body parts?

Read More