"If you think of it like a person, you're going to make yourself depressed..."

>>I have needed to hear them.

So have I, dear brother.

Love,

William,

I'm curious. Could you point me to examples of others employing "different strategies for eradicating abortion." I'd like to know what things are being done, and by whom.

Dear William,

I rejoice over any action--any at all. Writing, praying, lobbying, picketing, getting busted, offering money and love, preaching, writing legislation, rallying, voting...

But after decades in the work of the ministry, what I know is that most of us who claim to be against abortion don't lift a finger to stop the wholesale slaughter. All our opposition is pro forma and costs us nothing. Go and be well.

If Reformed men argue against preaching against abortion and never write on the subject and our prayers during family worship and long prayers during Lord's Day corporate worship lack any pleading to God in behalf of these orphans, claiming to be "pro-life" is meaningless.

So please, never have I put forward any particular method of opposing abortion as the only proof-positive of compassion. I've said every church should make certain their local baby slaughterhouse has Reformed Christians there to witness against the bloodshed and offer help to the mothers there to murder their child, but this work can be done by anyone in the church. It doesn't have to be the pastor or officers.

What I am certain of is that every baby slaughterhouse should have Reformed believers present when the doors are open for murder and orphans are dying. Do you disagree with this?

Similarly, pastors should preach against the slaughter of the orphans and our prayers should remember these orphans before our Heavenly Father.

I can't imagine you disagree with this, either.

So by all means, each man should do that which is right in his own eyes as long as our churches have the basics covered.

Love,

>>you criticize (the R2K men) for not facing some form of persecution by opposing abortion.

Here's what I wrote, actually:

* * *

When I see R2K men demonstrating concern for the unborn billion who have been slaughtered, and taking action to oppose those secular governments that have betrayed the rule of law by neglecting to protect those billion babies, I may then begin to consider that R2K men have not simply come up with their novel position out of a desire to hide out with Lot in Sodom.

Calvin, like the Apostle Paul, had wound marks from the civil magistrate that proved he was not an appeaser. Edwards had wound marks. Doug Wilson has wound marks. John Piper has wound marks. Whitefield had wound marks. Knox had wound marks.

Where are the wound marks of our R2K men? And if they have none, as I've perceived, why would I even consider their novel proposal?

What we need today are prophets and reformers; not appeasers who try to read their appeasement principles back into church history.

* * *

It's my consistent theme concerning the R2K-novelty that it's most important feature is allowing the men who hold to it to escape any persecution and suffering in the public square. Even any notoriety.

So if a man is attacked for standing publicly against sending our mothers and daughters and wives into combat to defend us, that's good. And there are many such places men of God can take their hits, today, in being salt and light. John the Baptist did it by opposing the President's immorality. Jesus did it by opposing the public hypocrisy of the religious/political leaders, and particularly their mercilessness in opposing healing on the Sabbath. The Apostle Paul did it by opposing the public idolatry on every street corner of Athens. Amos did it by opposing the Ammonites ripping open the bellies of pregnant women in order to expand their borders. Jonah did it by opposing, publicly, the public evils of Nineveh. Everywhere men of God have lived, there's been notoriety and hatred and persecution and martyrdom attached to true Christian faith.

Thus when I see a new interpretation of Christians being salt and light by not being salt and light, and doing evangelism by not calling for repentance among their neighbors, I'm suspicious that the goal isn't to honor God more with a better interpretation of Scripture, but to honor God less by twisting Scripture in such a way as to make a principle out of what our sinful hearts always, always want, which is to avoid taking up our crosses and following Jesus.

And the R2K-novelty is a wonderful way to escape notoriety and hatred and persecution and martyrdom.

C. S. Lewis said it would be the intolerant secularists holding the reins of political power who would tell us we could have our religion in private while making certain we were never alone. What didn't occur to me was that there would be those within the Church who would build on the secularists' intolerance and gagging of the Church by teaching believers it is our duty to keep our religion private. Amazing.

And yes, I know this is not what some among the R2K-novelty group would want their movement to be described as, but it's the fruit we should examine. And that's why I harp on this theme of asking men holding to the novelty to show us their wounds. And not simply wounds connected with abortion, but any wounds.

The Apostle Paul had his and wasn't bashful about showing them to prove his faith. Where are the wounds of the R2K-novelty men?

Your comments concerning sidewalk counseling and picketing demonstrate, I believe, a lack of knowledge concerning the effectiveness of this method of Christian witness. But I'll leave it at that. Other work calls. I'd simply say that the very fact that there's opposition to a form of Christian witness should be one key indicator to believers of what works. Something about reconnaissance by artillery or Johnson's quip that he never considers he's hit his mark unless there's a rebound.

Concerning what John the Baptist and our Lord and the Apostles and the Early Church did to oppose the evils of their day, I've demonstrated over and over again that they weren't gagged the way the R2K-novelty purveyors are. And that's why they were martyred while it's humorous or sad even to think about such a thing happening to the R2K-novelty men. Who would bother to kill them, and why? Who outside the church even knows they exist, let alone what they believe? All that's known is that they consider themselves quite sophisticated and have great taste and want to be called intellectuals or scholars.

We know about the prophets and John the Baptist and Jesus and the Apostle Paul. Concerning the Early Church, they didn't have to stand outside the slaughterhouses. The Romans were more merciful--way more merciful--and allowed believers to go out to the riversides and hillsides and pick up the babies and take them home to raise them as their own. And that is what Christians were known for in the Roman Empire.

Followers of Christ loved those babies by taking them home and adopting them as Covenant children. Followers of Christ also opposed the wickedness as commanded by God:

* * *

Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “You shall also say to the sons of Israel: ‘Any man from the sons of Israel or from the aliens sojourning in Israel who gives any of his offspring to Molech, shall surely be put to death; the people of the land shall stone him with stones. I will also set My face against that man and will cut him off from among his people, because he has given some of his offspring to Molech, so as to defile My sanctuary and to profane My holy name. If the people of the land, however, should ever disregard that man when he gives any of his offspring to Molech, so as not to put him to death, then I Myself will set My face against that man and against his family, and I will cut off from among their people both him and all those who play the harlot after him, by playing the harlot after Molech.'" (Leviticus 20:1-5).

* * *

Thus, for instance, the Christian Minucius Felix wrote to Emperor Claudius: "And I see that you at one time expose your begotten children to wild beasts and to the birds; at another that you crush when strangled with a miserable kind of death. . . . And these things assuredly come down from your gods. For Saturn did not expose his children but devoured them." This was the sort of thing Augustine wrote all throughout his "City of God."

Augustine the man of God. Augustine the scholar. Augustine the writer. Augustine the historian. Augustine the intellectual.

But no. Augustine the bishop. Augustine the preacher. Augustine the pastor. Augustine the witness. Augustine the persecuted.

Love,

Dear William,

Practically every week that I went to the abortuary last year, women changed their minds because of the faithful work of the (Roman Catholic) sidewalk counselors. And it isn't cliche, nor has it run its course in raising public awareness. About half of the people who pulled in had no idea what we were doing standing there. And about half of the people who drive by crane their necks to see what in the world we are doing. The other half are split between anger at us and thankfulness to us.

That's just the *start* of disproving the utilitarian side of your argument.

It accomplishes so much more than you can imagine. Speaking only for myself, it is one of the most effective ways for me to fight against impurity to go and pray for the men, women and children going in and out. There is no separating our own sexual sin from the sexual sin of the culture that we live in. And since there is no separating abortion from sexual sin, there is no separating ourselves from it. We are guilty of it.

In Christ,
-Joseph

Dear William,

If you were in my church, the way I'd lead you in this, pastorally, would be to ask you to meet me in front of the slaughterhouse this coming Thursday when Planned Parenthood has a few dozen babies lined up to murder. And if you agreed to come, we'd continue our conversation there and then. And were you there and we were able to talk as you watched, I have almost no doubt you'd change your mind about picketing. It's so blindingly obvious that it's effective; and so intensely sanctifying to be salt and light for Jesus there.

I'll leave the rest of your questions alone for now, except to clarify that I've never said to pray and give money is "enough." What is ever "enough" to end the slaughter of a billion babies, and counting?

With love,

Dear Peter,

If I lived far from an abortuary, I'd likely focus on other things, while continuing to witness against abortion in print, conversations, preaching, and teaching. Also, I'd remember to pray for mothers, fathers, and their unborn in the pastoral prayer.

When I lived in Wisconsin and there was no abortuary nearby, I worked with Presbyterians Pro-Life to get my denomination to reverse its policy approving of abortion (the PCUSA--in 1992, we moved into the PCA). Then when I was called to Bloomington and there was an abortuary nearby where babies were murdered, I began to go there to witness against it.

Supporting AUL, a crisis pregnancy center, voting against our public servants who live off the blood, studying the issue and teaching and preaching on it, working on community sex education decisions and practice, adopting a child and creating a pro-woman, pro-marriage, pro-family, pro-child environment, bringing the slaughtered babies into conversations where their absence is telling; these are just a few ideas. Maybe readers will have more.

Love,