TIME AFTER TIME

Charles Dickens began :”A Tale of Two Cities” with the following quote:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way. —in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

A Tale of Two Cities” was written in 1859 about London and Paris before and during the French Revolution. That sentence could have been written today. I can think of no better way to describe what is going on here and now, in this country.

It is important to acknowledge that the real problem here is far more than a political debate, although that is very real. The more fundamental problem is that for many people, they have moved from viewing abortion as something horrible, but sometimes necessary, to saying that abortion is in and of itself is somehow good.

Perhaps they have convinced themselves that a fetus is not really a human being. It does not have a soul. They must convince themselves of that or they could never take abortion as just a simple problem solver. But this is obviously untrue. Thanks to advances in medicine, it is increasingly obvious that fetal development is astonishing, even during the first few weeks of pregnancy. We could not see this before, but thanks to inventions like ultrasound, this is now abundantly clear. That is one reason pro-life clinics often offer free ultrasounds. Once a woman sees the living creature inside her womb, she is far less willing to just kill it and discard it.

Most people value life. Almost everyone values their own life. The exceptions exist, but they are rare and sad. A famous philosopher once had a student ask him: “do I exist?” The answer was: “who asked?” That may be the whole point. Most of us recognize that we are more than just a body, a mind, a collection of skin and bones. We exist. We matter. We are alive. We are mortal. We have a soul.

A large part of the problem is that many supposed smart people have convinced themselves that there is no God. But to do that intellectually, one must ignore that which is obvious and embrace that which is absurd. For example, what if you do not believe you were created by God? That you were created in his image? That you were put here for a purpose? If there is no God, then you are here as the result of a lucky (or unlucky) accident, and when your life is over, you are gone forever. Incredibly these intellectual giants have convinced themselves that all of this magnificent world we see, of humanity itself, is the result of a series of mathematically impossible coincidences that kept happening over and over again during millions of years with miraculous results. Ironically, those who refuse to believe in God are those who, in my opinion, have lost the ability to see things as they really are. The Bible describes this well in Romans 1:22-32:

 Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:

Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things.”

This is not, as some would believe, justification for Christians to be in judgment of others who are different. The most important principle of Christianity is that none of us are worthy of judging others. It is always so easy to see the sin in others, while ignoring it in ourselves.

I once had a gay man, who was dying of aids, ask me: “does God hate me so much because I am a homosexual that He has to kill me?” I was stunned by the question. But I pray I gave him the right answer: “I said that it was not my duty to judge him. But one thing I did know for sure is that even if homosexuality is a sin, the least of my sins is no more acceptable to God than the worse of yours.”

We are witnessing, before our own eyes, the absolute perversion of truth. It gives honor to those who choose to destroy life and condemns those who want to preserve it. The incredible conclusion that the life of the fetus (baby) is far less important than right of a woman to make the choice without any consideration to the significant of ending a life. Sometimes Christians make the mistake of failing to recognize that sometimes abortion is the lesser of two evils. We live in an imperfect world and sometimes people are confronted for decisions with horrific consequences either way we decide. Any honorable President who has had to order men into combat understands this all too well. Failing to recognize this gives those who embrace evil the illusion of a moral argument. That a woman’s right to choose is more morally important than the lethal results of that decision. The acknowledgement of exceptions only adds strength to the moral argument.

Democrats used to understand this, which is why they always said: “abortion should be legal, safe and rare.” But today it is anything but rare, especially for single minority mothers. If the goal of planned parenthood were not to drastically reduce the number of minorities, they considered to be inferior, it has certainly achieved exactly that. To argue that free and easy abortions are helpful to the Black community is perhaps the most racist position in the history of this country.

The pro-choice movement is trying to win the argument by throwing a temper tantrum and in some cases, committing acts of violence. That is a strategy that is doomed to failure. That was how the French revolution was conducted, with horrific results. That is what Charles Dickens recognized over 150 years ago. It was true then; it is true now.

TDM