Why Roe vs Wade Overturning Made Me Sad
Why Roe vs Wade Overturning Made Me Sad
By Jennifer Moodie
So Roe v Wade was overturned this week. Before we go any further I want to say that I am pro-life (and not just pro/birth…). But that isn’t what this post is about.
My social media timeline has been….a mess. Some people are angry; Some are hurting; Some are spewing things they don’t actually have the facts to back but it supports their narrative; Some are calling for Christians to step up; some are genuinely rejoicing; and some are gloating like a Jr. Higher who just won a sports game against their arch nemesis team. It has been heavy and emotionally draining.
I am not here to speak on politics. I don’t know enough to make an informed statement so I will refrain from being a fool. I am also not here to condemn anyone. There has been more than enough of that already.
What I am here to say is that I have been embarrassed over the last few days by the words and actions of people who claim to be my brothers and sisters in Christ. I am often embarrassed by certain sections of social media who claim the title of Christian while absolutely NOT displaying the fruit of the spirit. Certain subjects just seem to bring out the worst in some people and this subject is no different.
I have been unfollowing people and unliking pages and muting groups for the past few days because I cannot handle the way people are talking about Image Bearers. We become so consumed with saving the unborn (a worthy and right cause!) that we forget that women/mothers who have abortions are also image bearers. We cannot be concerned for one and not the other. We just can’t. Again, I do not wish to go into politics, but using memes to mock, calling names, and even calling for the death of those who have had/would seek to have an abortion is far from Christlike. Should we call sinners to repentance? Absolutely. And then we share the gospel and we seek to be known by our love. Jesus didn’t say that we would be known as Christians by our political policies or party, but by our love.
June has already been a really rough month emotionally watching how the LGBTQ+ community is discussed, loathed, and feared. We had already started out the month with belittling those who are made in the image of God, and it just seemed to get worse after the SC decision.
Calling women “hoes” and making memes mocking them, then telling anyone who gently calls you out to “deal with it” is not being meek or gentle. Gleefully gloating that you enjoy watching “hoes” wail and scream because of this is not being loving. Making political statements about Trump makes it seem as if government is our savior. If we are called the body of Christ who is to be known for our love and characterized by the fruit of the spirit, then this attitude is not just unbecoming, but sinful.
How are we supposed to expect women to come to religious organizations or churches for help after this if we are mocking them? How will they believe there is grace and forgiveness when we call them murderers in a hateful and degrading manner without also sharing the hope of the gospel? How are we simultaneously able to share the gospel with those who are hurting while we are gloating? Who would want to listen to and come to be a part of a Body that belittles, mocks, and generally seems to hate those to whom Christ called us to preach the gospel? If our chief end is to glorify God, how does this response do that? How can we sing songs of praise to God on Sunday like “In Christ Alone” and “Amazing Grace” and hear the gospel (if you do…if you don’t you need a new church!), and yet with that same mouth curse women, women made in the image of God?
James 3:8-10
But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way.
We have seemed to come to a place of believing that it is us vs them. I have seen this attitude from Christians over presidential campaigns, Pride Month, and other issues and am seeing it again now.
I have been reading Michael Horton’s book, Recovering Our Sanity, and found so much of it to be extremely relevant to the attitude the last few days.
“We need not “redeem” the culture or the environment in order to love and serve our neighbor and be good stewards. Christ has already taken care of the salvation of the creation. Even before the cross and resurrection, “the earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof.””
“However, deliberate and elaborate lies on both the left and the right have become so routine that there is almost nothing sinister that one side will not believe about the other side. Everyone is trigger-happy. Even masks have become weapons. We do not think there is even one thing the Others say which might be true or even worth listening to.”
“It is marvelous for God to be on our side in mercy, but it is dangerously foolhardy to imagine that he is on our side because we are better than others. That is a key theme of the parables of the Pharisee and the tax collector (Luke 18: 10–13) and of the elder brother and his sibling who squandered his inheritance on debauchery (Luke 15: 11–32). One major way of avoiding the seriousness of God’s character and judgment is to futilely imagine that any of us can appear before him in our own righteousness. More than anything else, that religious supposition keeps people from realizing that They and We are in the same boat. Instead of repenting and fleeing to Christ from the coming wrath, we are angry that God has not yet judged Them. That is the most obnoxious stench of worldliness, ungodliness, and sin in God’s nostrils.”
“But the truths themselves, not their effects, must be our only armor when God’s most intelligent enemy takes note of us. We have an enemy, to be sure, but he is not our neighbor.”
“The world—that is, the system of this passing age—has always opposed Christ and his church. If the world hates us because we are racist, homophobic, and self-righteous, then it is merely one part of the world hating another part of the world. That is not the church of Christ, but just another district of Babylon fighting to defend its shrinking territory.”
“Instead of pointing the world to the redeeming God of history, our public pronouncements often give the impression that we are fearful, resentful, and anxious. They are pure evil.”
“Caesar has profited by playing to fears of religious persecution. To the extent that evangelicals were willing to be exploited as a political base for short-term privileges, they have lost their cultural moral authority in the long term. But Christ is not ineffective and his gospel is not weak. Jesus came not to Make Israel Great Again, much less to be a mascot for either a Rainbow America or a Christian America. He came to bring forgiveness of sins and everlasting life, to die and rise again so that through faith in him we too can share in his new creation. This is the message that generations of past evangelicals were eager to share with the whole world. The gospel, after all, is for the whole world, Jew and Gentile, slave and free, male and female, black, brown, and white, and even Democrat and Republican.”
“As a minister today, my greatest fear is not of Them but of Us. I am afraid that tomorrow’s most vocal acolytes of Them may well be people who once belonged to Us—that instead of communities of faith, our churches were incubators of resentment where young people only experienced a superficially Christian subculture. I pray that our churches are the place where you can count on the gospel being proclaimed every Sunday, forming embassies of grace and creating a fellowship of forgiven and repentant sinners that welcome Them as Us. This is not a subculture that swings from shunning to sentimental “affirmation,” but a gospel-driven communion of real repentance and real forgiveness.”
We should take care to proclaim the gospel to a lost, hurt, and confused world rather than proclaiming, like Jonah, that we hate them and would rather see them destroyed.
Horton again says: “People on the left think it is credulous to believe in a God who would not bring immediate judgment to those who abuse our planet, embrace capitalism, and perpetuate racism, homophobia, and so forth. They are the Righteous. God, if he exists, is unrighteous for not exercising his judgment right now on Them, so We will just have to take matters into our own hands. We find exactly the same self-righteousness in people on the right. Like the sons of thunder, we would feel much better about ourselves if God would just zap Them here and now. And then there would only be decent folks like Us.… It’s certainly self-righteous… And it is ungenerous, as if we are saying that since we’re already in the ark, the flood may as well start rising. So what if Jesus returned before his kindness would have led you to repentance?”
Now, as every time, is the time to proclaim the gospel, the good news! The gospel is the only thing this world needs as it is the only thing that truly has the power to change sinful, wicked people and the world.
As I state often on my blog, we should always take care to remember that we too needed the mercy, grace, and love of The Father who sent His Holy Spirit to open our eyes, gave us repentance and faith, and brought us from death to life. I truly believe that too often we forget that- he brought us from DEATH to LIFE! We were dead… we were dead in our sins. Slaves to them. The gospel is the only thing that changed that. We are now no longer slaves to sin. And yet we seem to forget that- or maybe we didn’t completely understand that because the gospel isn’t being correctly preached.
What is the gospel?
“At its briefest, the Gospel is a discourse (story) about Christ, that he is the Son of God and became man for us, that he died and was raised, that he has been established as Lord over all things…This is the Gospel in a nutshell.” (Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, 35:117-124)
From Paramount Church’s website (because I just love this explanation):
“The good news of the Gospel is that God promises and proclaims, out of His sheer free grace and mercy on account of and for the sake of Christ alone to:
• Forgive the believer’s sin and reckon him as righteous in God’s sight (Matt. 26:28; Luke 24:47; Acts 5:31; 10:43; Rom. 4:4-8; 5:17; 2 Cor. 5:19-21; Eph. 1:7)
• Deliver the believer from death (John 5:24; 8:51-52; 1 Cor. 15:54-55; Heb. 2:15; Rev. 20:6, 14), the devil (Eph. 2:2; Col. 2:15), condemnation (Rom. 8:1), and the wrath of God (Rom. 5:9; Eph. 2:3-5; 1 Thess. 1:10; 5:9)
• Raise up the believer from death, reuniting his body and soul to a blessedness in which to praise and enjoy God forever (1 Cor. 15:20, 42-46, 54; Phil. 3:21; 1 John 3:2; John 17:3; 1 Cor. 2:9).
God promises to give these benefits to all that repent and believe (Mark 1:15; John 3:16, 36; 5:24; 6:40, 47; 17:2-3; Acts 10:43; 16:31). Through the preaching of the gospel the Holy Spirit works effectually in the hearts of sinners and produces in them, faith, repentance, and the beginning of eternal life (John 3:5; Acts 11:18; 16:14; Rom. 1:5, 16-17; 10:17; 16:26; 1 Cor. 2:10-14; 2 Cor. 3:8; Eph. 2:8; Phil. 1:29; 2 Tim. 2:25). Thus, in the Gospel God gives to us what He demands from us.
God first revealed this good news in the garden of Eden immediately after the fall of man into sin (Gen. 3:15). Afterward, though less clearly and to fewer persons, God revealed this good news:
• by the Patriarchs (Gen. 12:3 [John 8:56]; Gen. 22:18; 49:10; Deut. 10:15; Num. 21:9; 24:17; 1 Cor. 10:1; Heb. 11:13)
• by the Prophets (Isa. 53; Jer. 23:5-6; Mic. 7:18-20; John 5:46; Acts 10:43; Romans 1:2; 10:4; 1 Peter 1:10; Heb. 1:1-2)
• by the shadows of sacrifices and the other ceremonies of the law (Lev. 1-7; John 5:46; Heb. 10:1-10)
And in these last days (Heb. 1:2), God has more clearly and broadly revealed this good news by his only begotten Son who entered the world and became a man (Mark 16:15; Luke 2:10-11; 24:47; John 1:18, 29; 6:41; 14:6; 15:5; Acts 1:8; Rom. 10:4; 1 Cor. 15:3-8; Gal. 4:4-5; Eph. 2:15–19; Phil. 2:6-11; Col. 2:17; 1 Tim. 2:5; Heb. 1:1-2).
Read the full page here.
Romans 1:16-17
For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “ BUT THE RIGHTEOUS man SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.”
Only the gospel will help women to choose life, not political policies or the government. While those things may be good, they aren’t the ultimate goal.
I am thankful to personally know so many who do so much to help both the mothers who would seek an abortion, the mothers who have had an abortion, and to help the children who were given the privilege to live through adoption and fostering.
If you have had an abortion, there is grace and forgiveness in Christ. And a dear friend who works with this organization has highly recommended Deeper Still. No one is beyond the love of God.
A verse that I have always loved is the story of the woman, described as a sinner, who washed Jesus’s feet with expensive ointment and her hair.
Luke 7:47
“For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.”
Those who recognize that we have been forgiven for our many sins- forgiven of sins that are no better than anyone else; forgiven when as Romans 5:8 says “ we were still sinners”; forgiven of our unbelief and idolatry; forgiven of our hatred of God and given a love for Him- we love much because we know that we have been forgiven much.
And sometimes I think we all need reminding of what we have been forgiven.
May we have love, grace, and compassion for others as Christ has had for us.
In other words- let’s stop calling women “hoes” and murderers and give them the gospel. Share the law, absolutely- the law of God- and then give them the good news. Let us not stop with the law, but with the gospel.
Grace and Peace.
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