From the beginning of the pro life movement to the present, one fatal flaw has prevented it from having access to the power of God required to abolish legalized abortion in the USA. That flaw was hypocrisy. The Christian leaders of the pro life movement, like all hypocrites, have said one thing, then done exactly the opposite.
What have they said and then belied by doing something differently?
The leaders of the pro life movement have claimed to be Christians, yet they have absolutely refused to obey the first and foremost ethical requirement the Lord Jesus Christ demands from those who claim His Name. The Lord Jesus Christ codified and summarized His Ethics this way: Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. Matthew 7:12
The leaders of the pro life movement have never been willing to treat the unborn as they would want to be treated were they in the danger faced by the unborn; nor have the pro life leaders ever been willing to tell the truth about this hypocrisy.
I can finally prove this accusation. For over thirty years conclusive evidence was not available that could be laid at the feet of the pro life leaders. But with the advent of the recent Iraq War, clear and incontrovertible evidence is now at hand that proves the leaders of the pro life movement would never allow themselves to be treated as they have been willing to allow God's unborn children to be treated over the last three decades.
What do the Christian pro life leaders want someone to do if their lives are being threatened, if they find themselves at risk of being unjustly killed?
All you have to do to see exactly how Christians would want people to treat them is look at what the Christians of this country have done in response to the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001. There has been a virtual monolithic support of the "preemptive war on terror" that was designed to make it clear to the entire world that anyone, anywhere who threatened the born people of the United States of America would be ruthlessly slaughtered, and anyone who was unfortunate enough to be within bomb blast of the suspected terrorists would be slaughtered as well. Over and over again since 9/11/2001, in hundreds of different ways, the Christian pro life leaders have proven they support the policy of ruthlessly annihilating anyone who was trying to unjustly kill them.
But have these same Christian pro life leaders been willing to grant the unborn children of God in danger of abortion that same protection?
Actually, some have. You know their names. But these people never qualified as pro life leaders because the pro life leaders castigated them, and despised them, and reviled them, and mocked them...and still do so today.
Perhaps you do not know the names of the people who actually acted toward the unborn as they would want people to act toward them if they were being led to unjust slaughter. Paul Hill, Jim Kopp, Clay Waagner, Shelly Shannon, Michael Bray, John Brockhoeft, Joshua Graff, the list goes on and on until the names of every person who has ever tried to raise his or her hand to physically stop people from killing God's child unjustly is written large.
But have the leaders of the pro life movement acknowledged the attempt to obey the Lord Jesus Christ embodied by these people? No, the leaders of the pro life movement and the myriad silent supporters who actually encourage, empower and finance the actions of the pro life leaders make those defenders of unborn children out to be disobedient to the Lord Jesus Christ even at the same time that these same leaders applaud the President of the United States of America for rising up and killing ruthlessly, even wantonly, those who would try to treat them the way the unborn are being treated.
The rank, blatant Christian pro life hypocrisy is now clear to everyone on the face of the earth. Except of course to the leaders of the pro life movement. Hypocrites do not see their hypocrisy. That is what makes them hypocrites. If they did, they would cease being hypocrites and become simple honest sinners.
There is much hope for a simple honest sinner: but for a hypocrite there is none.
The Lord Jesus Christ reserved His most horrible indictment for the hypocrite. Matthew 23:13 "But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. 14Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. 15Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves."
Like the scribes and Pharisees, the Christian pro life leaders have presumed to take the initiative in leading God's people, but also like the Pharisees, they have led God's people into hypocrisy rather than into truth.
The refusal to admit that the pro life movement has never been willing to treat the unborn babies as they would want to be treated will stop. Hypocrites will not remain long as the leaders of God's people. While thirty years with the Lord is certainly not a long time, millions of wasted lives that can be laid at the doorstep of the pro life leaders and the millions of Christians who amen them should be sufficient waste of life to grant God's people the grace to finally admit that, with the few exceptions named above, none of us have ever been willing to treat God's unborn children in danger of abortion like we would want to be treated were we in that same situation.
Neal Horsley, 2/15/04
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