abortion

Warning

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Warning: The following paragraphs address an emotional issue—abortion. They also contain a link to a video of actress Martha Plimpton bragging about her multiple abortions. Finally, my paragraphs share some of my thoughts, some experiences germane to this issue, and a short confession. If you are willing, I invite you to continue. What is at stake is important; no, it is more than that.

I was driving home today to prepare my military gear. I am one of thousands of soldiers being called upon to support our nation amidst Irma’s lashing the land. But that is not what this is about. I had my radio on in my truck. Dennis Prager played an audio of actress Martha Plimpton who recently spoke to a gathering in Seattle, Washington. Her topic: the beauty of her abortions. Plural. Prager played forty seconds of Plimpton recalling her “best abortion” that was performed in Washington. The crowd reacted—with applause.
I’ve attached the link for you here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URiXH_iMLqo

First, I became viscerally angry. I felt my chest tighten. I felt my pulse quicken. I discovered I was squeezing my steering wheel. For a moment, I only pictured this woman’s face in my mind, and I despised her. I wish I could say I am more sanctified than that, but I’m not. I was angry.

Second, I turned off the radio. I pulled off the road. I had to. My stomach was hurting. Why? I felt I might vomit.

The feeling that came to my stomach was the one I felt when I took fellow soldiers through Nazi concentration camps in Germany. I’m thinking of one time in Dachau. Some of my fellow soldiers and I took a few days and I led them on a tour of Dachau. We walked under the iron gates, stood in front of trenches that Jews were forced to dig; we stood in silence before the ovens where men, women, and children were incinerated; we walked into concrete rooms where Zyklon B poison was used to gas millions. We stood under the smokestacks where charred human remains billowed out like snow. We saw rooms stacked with Jewish hair, teeth, and shoes—all torn from them, since they were “undesirables.”

Back to Plimpton. As I heard her speak, and I heard the crowd cheer, that old feeling returned—that sickness that rises in the stomach when we see evil, whether in a concentration camp, or when mothers are lauded for murdering their boys and girls in the womb. One word only I could think of: barbarism.

Third, I thought of my wife. Several years back, she was unable to carry two of our children to term. We lost both of them. I won’t give you all the details, because this is not about us, but about something that affects civilization–if we call it that anymore. At any rate, after several weeks of pregnancy, we had been to the doctor, and we had those proud moments when we bring ultrasound pictures back and display them on our refrigerator. But those children were not to be born. I suffered in a way that defies language. But it was nothing to compare with what I saw my wife suffer and endure. She still grows silent around the time their birthdays would have been.

How do these three things relate? How do they cohere? I pulled off the road because my stomach hurt. It hurt in a way that was visceral. Today brought up some of the greatest pains I have ever known: the horrors of witnessing the remains evil men unleashed upon other men, women, and children in the 1930s and 1940s in Europe—because of a secular worldview; and the horrors of seeing my family’s children die in their mother’s womb, and our praying for God to save them, to deliver them to us healthy; and an American actress boast of multiple abortions to an audience who applauded.

What did I do? I pulled over. I tried to pray. But I wept. I lamented our barbarism. I saw the irony of how we deploy soldiers to save our fellow men from hurricanes, but we murder our sons and daughters in the womb. Barbarism. And I wept and prayed some more.

I wanted to write of literary things, or of history, or of theological interests again. But today I could not. Some things are too important; silence is not my choice.

Which Mind are You?

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thWith the subtlety of a boot to the face, Donald Trump has become the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party. Mr. Trump may be president of what has become of these United States. The current president promised up front to fundamentally transform the nation. Honest people concede he has succeeded in unparalleled fashion. What might we learn about how we got here and where we may go? What does the current state of affairs reveal about your mind/worldview?

The 2015 watershed Supreme Court Obergefell v. Hodges 5-4 decision overturned the institution of marriage, insofar as man’s law is concerned. Men can now marry men; women can marry women. As astute thinkers predicted, polygamy and polyamory are now on the horizon. Moreover, there is a push to legalize men marrying boys. To not allow that, in the secular/leftist worldview, is discrimination. Any sexual inclination should be allowed and sanctioned by the law; that is where the Left wants to take the nation.

We have abortion on demand. As of this week, the U.S. is now at 60,000,000 abortions since Roe v. Wade in 1973. I have taught school either fulltime or part-time for the past 15 years; when I worked for government schools, I was required to teach about the Holocaust in WWII. That, of course, is wise. To not teach history accurately is shameful. I was required to teach students about how certain worldviews led up to and enabled the slaughter of Jews by a Leftist regime. But why do we shudder at 6,000,000 slaughtered Jews but not weep over 60,000,000 aborted children in America? Where’s the logical consistency?

Remember last year? The 2015 ESPY Award, given by ABC/ESPN, was to Caitlyn (formerly named Bruce) Jenner for “individual achievement.” And if you enter a Target today, you can claim you “identify” as something other than your born gender. To paint that picture, I, a married man with two children, could claim I “identify” as a woman, and enter the women’s restroom. Are you awake yet? Folks, this is madness.

The 2nd Amendment (the Constitutional right of citizens to keep and bear arms) is up for grabs, too. According to some current sociology studies, many college students are in favor of relinquishing the First Amendment. Why? Because what matters now is one’s feelings, not truth. State-run education has been supplanted by statist indoctrination. “Safe spaces,” multiculturalism, and relativism are in; liberty of thought, logical thinking, and wisdom of the ages are out.

For at least this theological and political conservative, I am an orphan. As I survey the political melee over recent history, one word captures how I feel: weary. Is this what it has come to in America’s public forum? I have taken leave of television. My family and I will occasionally watch a film or attend a concert for entertainment, but television is the real opiate of the people. What might we learn about how we got here and where we may go? In short, we need to learn the lesson we so often forget—that the day we choose to be gods rather than listen and obey God, we die. Judgment falls. We are banished from the first Garden. Yet God did what we couldn’t. He performed what he demanded—perfect obedience:

“For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” (Rom 8:3-8 ESV)

The key here, as always, is to read carefully. Are we living according to the flesh or the Spirit? That’s the issue that must be settled. That will reveal our worldview. “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” (Rom 8:7-8 ESV) Those words are so clear I don’t know how people can misread them. Those who are regenerated by the Holy Spirit submit to God’s law; those who remain unregenerate do not, because they cannot.

Never confuse categories; America is not the church. Therefore, do not expect America or her pagan culture to be the church. But how much greater, therefore, is the seriousness of the hour for the church to be biblical, clear, and bold? When we witness a culture given over to such levels of crassness, one that shakes its fist at the heavens, it does not bode well. The church has largely failed to teach and live out the doctrines we believe. We’re salt that has largely lost its savor. Let the church return to her first love and refocus on the lampstand (Rev 2:4-5).