 |
| Photo by Adam Sammler |
Apparently, pop singer Madonna wants to have a debate with the Pope about abortion. Most disturbingly, she seems to suggest that Jesus would side with the pro-choice crowd. She proposes the following potential questions for the Pontiff: “What do you really think he thought of women? And don't you think Jesus would agree that a woman has the right to choose what to do with her body?”
Pope Francis has made his pro-life stance very clear on a number of occasions. I'm no Catholic, but I have to say I'm going to side with the Pope on this one.
So, Madonna, since you brought Jesus into this
conversation, allow me to provide you with the answers you would like to ask
about Him. Your overtly loaded questions make it abundantly clear that you are
terribly, terribly mistaken.
Jesus would tell you that unless you were raped, you made your choice already. Having sex
means risking pregnancy, and this is perhaps the greatest lesson of all in understanding that your choices always affect other people. You don't get to kill the baby (which is, yes, a human life and not a meaningless clump of tissue) as a matter of personal
convenience. God actually wrote the whole “don’t murder people” thing on a
stone tablet, once upon a time. I imagine you’ve heard that story.
A note to any men reading this: Jesus would say that you have to step up and be held
accountable, too. Sadly, society has been all-too-eager to destroy the nuclear
family and shoo men away from their responsibilities. It is reprehensibly
unjust that this hotly debated political and moral issue falls so heavily upon
women alone, when it takes two to tango. Men have much to answer for in all this, and there is no getting around that.
Back to Madonna... if a woman becomes pregnant because she was raped, Jesus would be the first on
the scene to help and to heal. And as a
part of that, He would also tell
you to forgive, just as He tells us all to forgive and to love even our enemies. If that sounds
harsh, well, so be it. But please, read your Bible. If we do not forgive, we will
not be forgiven. That only sounds harsh if you don't understand what
forgiveness is all about. Turning the other cheek isn't necessary if someone
treats you well. These lessons are specifically about how you are to respond when you
have been wronged.
It's a hard lesson, yes. The more we are wronged, the
more we must forgive. That is the way
it works in the Christian realm, and Madonna, who claims to be a Christian, should
know this. Jesus Christ stands for nothing at all if not for forgiveness. In no
way would He condone abortion as a cure for the rape victim. What he would do is be there to help her, as we all should be.
More to the point, the child is not the one who
committed the rape. Certainly, the man who commits rape is guilty of a heinous
crime and deserves - in fact, he has earned
- his punishment (for even if one is forgiven, consequences in this world will
still follow). The wages of sin... yeah, it's death. But the baby? The baby has
done no wrong to you. Why should it die for someone else's crime?
Madonna, you may be claiming the title of Christian,
but your words here reflect nothing of the character of Christ.
Ultimately, there is one lesson to learn from the life
and death of Jesus, and it can be summed up in two words:
SELF
SACRIFICE.
If your takeaway from the story of Jesus is anything
other than "life is not about me," then you have missed the point of
it altogether. Jesus could have been selfish. He had no particular need to live
the life he lived, to help people, to give of Himself so completely, and then
in the end to die a brutal death to
pay for other people's sins. The fact that He did so speaks great volumes about
His character, and how you and I who claim to be Christians must live our
lives.
An atheist may be perfectly able to support abortion while keeping a clean
conscience and remaining intellectually honest. While I would still strongly
disagree (and present some equally valid non-religious arguments against abortion), such reasoning *can*
be considered logically sound within their worldview.
Not so for
the Christian.
There is absolutely no reasonable, logically
consistent, intellectually valid, honest argument that can be made in which Jesus
Christ could be said to support abortion. If you try to make such an argument, you have to
ignore who the man was, what He taught, what He lived for, and what He died
for. You may very well and articulately state your own opinion and your own
reasoning, but I assure you, such an argument cannot be in line with the nature
and character of Jesus of Nazareth as presented in the Bible.
Madonna, if you are a Christian as you claim to be,
you are in grave error, and I pray that God reveals this to you.
Closing thoughts…
Somebody will surely object on the grounds of medically necessary abortions. I'm not going to touch those with a
ten-foot pole. Those cases are well beyond my ability to even consider. I just
thank God that I never had to face such a scenario. But to keep everything in
context, if you look up the numbers, medically necessary abortions
make up only
a small percentage of the total number of all abortions. To any families who must make a choice in such a situation: my heart goes out to you, and I pray that God will put His hand upon you for comfort, guidance, and healing.
Christians, please treat the entire subject of abortion with care. Understand that we, too, are only human. We often fail to live up to what
we preach, and in so doing, we can make matters worse. When it comes to abortion, we must remember that women who have had
abortions, doctors who perform abortions, and everyone who claims membership in
the “pro-choice” tribe are all loved by God every bit as much as anyone else.
If we treat them as worthless, lost causes, or otherwise judge them to be
unforgivable or in any way “less than”,
we tarnish the Word of God and place ourselves in imminent danger of God’s
judgment. Worse yet, we push them even further away from the message of God’s
love. This is something which we simply cannot do.
In our zeal to protect the unborn, we must never marginalize others - least of all the women who are struggling to make their way through an increasingly hostile world.
----------
If you need some Biblical references for the argument
I made above, here are a few…
You shall
not murder.
However he
did not execute their children, but did as it is written in the Law in the Book
of Moses, where the Lord commanded, saying, “The fathers shall not be put to
death for their children, nor shall the children be put to death for their
fathers; but a person shall die for his
own sin.”
I will
praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made…
Before I
formed you in the womb I knew you;
Before you
were born I sanctified you…
You have
heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell
you not to resist an evil person. But whoever
slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants
to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also.
You have
heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But
I say to you, love your enemies,
bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those
who spitefully use you and persecute you…
But if you
do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your
trespasses.
“And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?”
He went a
little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is
possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.”
For the
wages of sin is death…
For God
made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could
be made right with God through Christ.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.