Editor: I'd love to hear your comments about this essay. For what it's worth, here's my response . . .
After Googling the author and finding no connection to pro-life work of any kind, other than pro-life groups who cited his article, I wonder what grounds he has for "browbeating" (his term) anyone on this issue.
I am suspicious of anyone who thinks they know how to solve the abortion problem "overnight," or even "virtually overnight" as he amends it, particularly when they have no track-record. I might say -- "virtually solve," because the minute we think we've eradicated abortion it will only take one more abortion somewhere in all the world to undo the solution.
Thus, I think he's set up a straw man and an even flimsier solution. At the very least, it's a legalistic, simplistic one. Really, one minute per sermon per church? For how long? One Sunday would be "overnight." A month of Sundays would not fit his artificial criteria.
I admit to being impatient with artificially set time-frames for what many of us have been working at for decades. He doesn't seem to understand the problem, so how can he comprehend the solution? Abortion is a matter of the heart. The heart set on self, devoted to the works of the flesh, will kill. The only way to eliminate sin -- all sin, not just this one -- is death: dying with Christ, dying to self, living for Him. As far as I know, God has not promised universal salvation. Some people will reject Christ until they die.
But I'm not sure that's what he was talking about. I thought he was going to say we need to love people to Christ, but then he did a sharp turn and started talking about the ballot box and overturning Roe. Is that the answer? Do we pin our hopes on a law that can be overturned again, by another ballot box? Have we solved the problems of murder, rape, or fraud by enacting laws against them?
It's important to note that he has drawn a false distinction between evangelism or "ministry" and love. Giving people the Good News (and bad news) is love. Giving them things without giving them hope is not love. It is possible, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13, to give my all and not have love.
Is there really too much prayer or preaching in the world? I've got a sneaking suspicion there's not enough. There may be a lot of ineffective ministries out there, but I dare say it's not because they're giving the gospel too often.
The other night, my boss was the speaker for a small-town pregnancy care center's banquet. This center is only open a few hours a week, has no paid staff, might not fulfill most of our ideas of success. But they invited a man to give his testimony of how the center had impacted his life and that of his wife. I don't know all the story, whether there was an abortion in their past or whether they had ever faced abortion, but it was clear that they were changed people. The center director had apparently mentored him, showing him "how to be a man." I thought, this is what it's all about. This is change. What happened to him is the solution.
The writer doesn't seem to have taken PCCs into account. They are, after all, ministries that attempt to fulfill the Great Commission and what he terms as "the Greater Commission." Thus, I don't understand his impatience with ministries.
There's no neat package for this, no easy way to bottle it. Perhaps some pastors and churches could do a better job of preaching and teaching the whole counsel of God's word, which is pro-life from end to end. But it would take more than a minute a week to expound how deeply rooted in the gospel the sanctity of human life is.Later: Rolley Haggard published a follow-up article -- Louder than the Silent Scream, the deafening silence of our pulpits. And this is my response to an essay by Jonathan van Maren -- Don't discern. Join the fight for the unborn now!
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