It is an all too common idea amongst most evangelicals in our day that the Christian faith is only about “soul-winning” for heaven one day. This is a pervasive notion that has resulted in culture being viewed as a tertiary matter, or even from a position of apathy by the very same people that have been charged with bringing the culture of the Kingdom into every area of the world. Indifference to cultural decay has reached a point where now even the moral relativism championed by secularists is being aped by those in our congregations. We are hearing that, as sons and daughters of the New Creation, we should not be looking to impose our values on society. But is this not explicitly what our Master has commissioned us to do?
Matthew 28:18–20
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
After these words were spoken, Our Lord ascended and took his seat at the right hand of the Majesty on High, signaling his victory and the commencement of his reign over all things in heaven, and on earth. Our marching orders are that we are to teach the nations to obey Him and His Word. To be clear this does not happen by coercion, but only through the Spirit-enabled reception of the Gospel message in the hearts of its receivers. Which, by necessity means that we must preach it, which necessarily carries within our proclamation the call for sinners to turn in repentance and obey the word of the King. Our message may not be political, but it has implications for the moral, legal, and political realm.
Given the retreat of Christians from culture and the public square, the absence of Biblical witness is felt most strongly in the failure to stand against the slaughter of unborn innocents in our land. In the arenas where our explanation of life and the universe has stumbled is precisely where another narrative has stepped in to fill the void. The prevailing view of history claims that once upon a time there was a giant explosion and everything spontaneously came from nothing. But if everything came from nothing, then it only follows that anything can become anything else. Here we behold the framework for the radical redefinition of marriage, gender, and life by the elevation of man’s absolute freedom of will. In the case of abortion, life is said not to begin at conception, but at some other arbitrary point in time whether it is at the first heartbeat, measurable brain activity, or even exit from the birth canal. This redefinition is based on nothing more than sheer will and determination.
With one voice our society has revealed its paramount moral value in the absolute freedom of choice. When the abortion-minded are confronted about their love of death the defense offered by them and others on their behalf is that “it’s her choice,” as if a person’s freedom of choice is beyond the moral directive of God’s authoritative Word. But this is the prevalent idol in our day. It is submission to the god of will rather than the will of God. It is the deeply entrenched belief that whatever I choose is my business and above the measuring rod of a transcendent standard. The right to choose has become a god. The pro-choice position is inherently religious regardless of the professed worldviews (or lack thereof) of its proponents. Only this religious position is one in which man, not God decides who lives and who dies, exercising what he believes is his own sovereign hand of predestination. But death is the outworking of this philosophy, not life.
The love of death running rampant in society today in the form of legalized abortion owes its vigor to this idol of choice. The unbridled desire to redefine reality may be able to take what it wants at will, but one thing it will not do is exercise obedience to any overarching, transcendent authority. So where the efforts of society and government ought to be aimed at the protection of unborn lives, they have been perversely redirected towards insulating the masses from any obligation to God. We are told that people must be free to direct the course of their own lives without the interference of God’s Word. They are then able to choose from a host of options, none of which are right or wrong because all possess an inherent quality of righteousness as long as they flow from an unassailable freedom of choice. The liberty to destroy a child is seen and presented as just another morally indifferent option in the worship of self.
Those serious about putting to death the resurrected Molech worship in our culture must acknowledge the reality of this divinization of the will. Prolific serial abortionist Dr. Willie Parker articulates this new theology of abortion:
“…if you set aside the idea that God is like Siri, telling you to go left or to go right, then the whole business is sacred. All of it. A pregnancy that intimates a baby is not more sacred than an abortion. You don’t become sacred, like Mary, just because you conceived. And the termination of a pregnancy is not the resolution of an error. It is merely one of the reproductive outcomes. So is miscarriage. So, now, is surrogacy and in vitro fertilization-all, these are on a continuum and they all hold moral weight. The God part is in your agency. The trust-the divine trust-is that you have an opportunity to participate in the population of the planet. And you have an opportunity to not participate…The part of you that’s like God is the part that makes a choice. That says I choose to. Or, I choose not to. That’s what’s sacred.”
Our course of action in confronting this repackaged autonomy of the serpent is to bring the Word of God to bear on the hearts and minds of those who believe their “choice” is beyond the authority of God’s revelation. In short, we must not be afraid to put our theology all over their biology. For this is precisely where it belongs. Their choice is not morally neutral. They assume the role of God in taking life and seek to usurp Christ’s rightful place on the throne of their hearts as they cling to their idol, who is merely the reflection they see in the mirror. They believe that they can be gods, creatively constructing reality for themselves as an ultimate expression of their will. However, the task of man and woman in Eden was to receptively reconstruct God’s Word, thinking God’s thoughts after Him. We are to live by revelation, not by what the abortion-minded today appeal to autonomous self-direction. They are the sons and daughters of Babylon, seeking to “make a name for themselves” by establishing their own authority and self-deification. Refusing to fill the earth and multiply, they construct a false outward unity with others who practice abortion because of the inward alienation from God that they feel due to their sin. Total control and government is their savior, exemplified in the demand of the sovereign state to protect their sacred right. So, in fighting state-sponsored abortion, Christians must realize that if child sacrifice is to be defeated, the false god of choice must be confronted. Believers must call apostate hearts to the true unity of the Triune God where true peace can be found. As ambassadors for our King, we are commissioned to deliver this message of reconciliation, pleading with the abortion-minded to be reconciled to God.
“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.”
2 Corinthians 5:10