Dear Pastor,
I have thought much about our conversation
today over coffee and in many ways it has troubled me and yet I count that a
good thing. As Proverbs 27:17 says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens
another.”
Perhaps I did a poor job of communicating
what needed to be said in response to many of your observations. I say that it
was a good thing to be troubled because it has forced me to examine our
conversation and focus my thoughts, feelings and convictions and to count on
the Holy Spirit’s help to do just that. I find it necessary and very helpful at
times like these to get my thoughts down on paper in some organized fashion.
That is the arena in which I find I am more effective in expressing my heart.
I have decided to use this letter as a
means to share my heart with you. I will try to be forthright in my approach
but I trust you will not take my comments in any way as a personal attack or
criticism. If they can be used by the Holy Spirit to help you see into my heart,
then I know whatever the outcome, in the end it will be good for the kingdom of
God.
If I heard you correctly, Pastor, you were
saying that you respected the fact that I felt very strongly about MY issue but
you believed it was important to subordinate MY issue and concern to the
purpose of the group prayer session, which was all about building relationships
and providing opportunity for the Holy Spirit to reveal His will for this city
and this province. You also said that we
all bring our agendas and the concerns that keep us busy…yours was your
pastorate, mine was the abortion issue.
You suggested that my primary reason for
joining with the prayer group should not be to advance my agenda and MY issue.
It should not be to integrate MY issue into the group but to build trust and
confidence and to deepen ties with other group members. In this way, you said,
MY issue would eventually garner attention and support.
You also said that Jesus never addressed
the political issues of His day and your suggestion was that we should follow
His example. You said that He never spoke out about the Roman oppression and
cruelty or the twisted politics of the Jews.
Is this a fair summary of what you were
saying? I’m sure it’s not everything you said but I hope I’ve encapsulated it
to some fair extent. If so, then I’d like to share with you how I see those
things. I’d like to propose a little scenario that I hope will help you to
appreciate further my reasons for coming into the setting of the prayer group.
Suppose I had rushed into the prayer
meeting and announced that a young boy was being assaulted in the
neighbourhood…that it looked like they were going to kill him and that there
were too many attackers for me to repulse. Would you say to me, “Whoa, Eric,
take it easy. This kind of thing is happening around us all the time. I know
it’s an issue with you but we’ve all got issues and concerns. Come on in, sit
down and get to know everyone first. Focus on developing a relationship and
build up some trust and confidence and that way your issue will get addressed
in the right way and at the right time.”
I doubt it very much. I venture to say that
everyone would transform immediately into emergency mode and want to fly out of
that building looking to save that child. Imagine the outrage, anger and horror
that would accompany such news.
But you might protest and say that it’s not
the same thing at all, that the two situations are completely different. And I
say, In what way? Children, on average three every day, are being assaulted and
killed violently in our very city and the attackers are not being held to
account or being challenged at all. The blood of these children cries out from
the ground to God yet God’s people are immobilized by apathy and skepticism.
How can that be? What direct action is being undertaken by God’s people? What
is the evidence of even any significant protest? Would you suggest that Christians are not
bound to do anything because abortion is legal? In Germany during Hitler’s
reign, euthanasia and genocide were also legal. Was it right for Christians to
be silent and to do nothing? Today we consider such silence a disgrace and
blight upon the name of Christ. Those of the time who behaved like true
Christians suffered the loss of their freedom and sometimes their lives as well
rather than accept such grave injustice. God help us to be courageous and to be
willing to suffer a similar fate for the unborn.
An interesting story is told in Exodus 1
when the king of Egypt, disturbed by the population explosion of the Hebrews,
decreed that the boy babies be killed. But in verse 17 we see that “the
midwives feared God and did not do as the King of Egypt had commanded them, but
let the boys live.” Reading further into
the story one can see the great blessings that God poured out upon these
courageous midwives because of their actions. The point is that in the face of
an unjust law, contrary to God, which demanded the death of little children,
they were ready to resist that law and give up their lives if necessary in
defense of those children because they feared God more than the law of the
land. Would that we Christians of today would be more afraid of God than the
laws of our land and put our very lives on the line for God’s little ones who
call out to us for help. Yet it is our own inaction which leads to the deaths
of these unborn.
Until pastors are transformed by outrage
and horror over the day to day holocaust of abortion, and I pray continually
that the Holy Spirit will do exactly that, I don’t believe anything will
change. I personally pray that every day
God will renew my outrage over abortion…the killing in the womb of the most
innocent human beings. I pray that every day God will launch me afresh into
emergency mode so that I might accomplish significant change in other people’s
attitudes and behaviour…change that will result in some little lives being
saved. I pray to God that abortion will never degenerate in my heart to just another “issue” of our day,
another issue which I can take or leave depending on whether it happens to
appeal to me or not. I ask God to never let me forget that abortion is a
holocaust of the gravest nature and an emergency of the first magnitude.
Moreover, I feel quite certain, Pastor, that
if it were your unborn grandchild that had an appointment with the
abortionist’s knife tomorrow morning, the “issue” of abortion would be
transformed into an extreme state of emergency for you. You would not have time
or mind for a relaxed conversation over coffee about the “issue” of abortion.
This is not meant to be a disparaging remark but only to place things in proper
perspective as I see and feel them. I have had fathers call me in distress and
torment after just discovering that their girlfriend/wife had an appointment to
abort their child and could do absolutely nothing to stop it.
As to Jesus’ approach to questions of
politics, I’d like to point out that just because the atrocity of abortion has
political overtones and ramifications, this does not mean that it cannot be
addressed by simple and practical solutions. It’s true that there are powerful
lobby groups on both sides but it doesn’t mean that it is primarily a political
issue. As we said in our conversation, it is first and foremost a spiritual
issue.
And the entire tragedy can be reduced to a
much more practical everyday level, one which Jesus addressed very specifically
and with great force. Jesus was able to get to the heart of our sinful
behaviour and He was able to see our practical failures. He used His parables
to strike home. The parable of the Good Samaritan was one such parable.
Here were two individuals who were
entrusted with spiritual responsibilities. They were religious leaders but they
were too spiritual minded and aloof to see the urgent need of a neighbour who
had been assaulted and left for dead. They might have said also that the issue
of thievery, violence and roadside bandits is out of control. They might have
lamented that no political solutions had been advanced and that too many people
were getting hurt and losing all their possessions. Perhaps they too thought
that such things were happening because the people were not focused on
spiritual solutions. And so they walked away from this man. It took an outcast,
a Samaritan, to see it for the simple situation it was…a neighbour in urgent
need of rescuing.
Let’s try to see abortion for the simple
situation it is…rescuing unborn children from violent assault and murder. What
are we willing to do to rescue them?
Pastor, I do not advocate a great political
battle on Parliament Hill but rather a quiet revolution through our democratic
process by outraged and compassionate Christians. This is what I endeavour to
cultivate in my contacts with church leaders and in my efforts to bring a
presentation to the various congregations.
I do enjoy the prayer and sharing time and
as I said today, I appreciate greatly the opportunity to be part of it; particularly
since I do believe in some way known to God I have been called to be a shepherd
to the unborn children of our day. I consider myself privileged in other ways
to be part of the group because I have been greatly blessed and touched at
times by the presence of God during our gatherings. I also believe that at the
same time important spiritual relationships are being forged with others
present. I do not consider it primarily a duty to attend these meetings. It is
a pleasure to which I regularly look forward.
I thank you in advance for taking the time
to hear my heart on this subject and please be assured that I value your
continued friendship.
Your friend,
In Christ, and for Life.
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