Civil Rights and Abortion

This weekend marks the 38th anniversary of the land mark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe vs. Wade where abortion on demand was legalized. In an ironic twist of fate we began the week by celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday. The week began with a celebration of equal rights for minorities and ended with an observance of the stripping of rights for the unborn.

Civil rights for minorities were not won overnight. It came in stages. It started with a lot of bloodshed where freedom was won with the Civil War between the North and the South.  It ended with MLK Jr in the 60's. Sure, there will always be a disparity between white and black in America. I don't think that we will ever get rid of racism in our society. As long as sin remains in the world so will hatred.

In every generation the Church is tasked with the responsibility of preaching the gospel faithfully. We proclaim a message of reconciliation between God and man. Black and white can worship together because God, in Christ, broke down all walls of hostility.

The challenge we always face as a church is how to balance social justice with gospel proclamation. All too often the church has so over-invested itself into social causes that it failed to proclaim the gospel. When this happened the gospel that the church proclaimed became a social gospel stripped of its power. Yet, the church can never ignore the social injustices in its community. James said that true religion is to take care of widows and orphans. God cares about the downcast and those who don't have an advocate with society. The unborn child in the mother's womb is just such a person in our society without a voice. We have an obligation as a community of followers of Christ not to forget the rights of the unborn. If we don't speak up for them you can be sure that no one else will.

There are many reasons why women come to a decision to abort a baby and I don't mean to trivialize some of those reasons. Regardless, the fact remains that there is a separate human being living inside her womb.  R.C. Sproul did an excellent job discussing this issue this last week on the radio last week.

My question to the 21st Century Church is, "are we trying to stand in the gap and be there for women who struggle with this decision?" Are we sharing the gospel of life with those who are contemplating death? If we fail to bring the gospel to the problem of abortion we fail to proclaim the gospel to our generation. This is one of the biggest problems that our generation faces. We can and must speak about racism and racial reconciliation but even more so must we speak about this endemic. Racism doesn't always lead to death; abortion does. The unborn won't get a chance to hear about racial reconciliation if they aren't allowed to even live.

Let us never fail to look for ways we can bring light to our perishing world.

I welcome your comments.