Monday Morning Music Ministry

9-16-24

Daylight Savings Time is about to end, and I never have been able to figure out whether to be grateful or regretful – you know, “gaining” or losing an hour of sleep. Just go to sleep, like my mother used to say. It’s like the “glass half-empty vs half-full” discussions. Just drink it, or re-fill it, and be quiet. Well, there are many things I don’t understand.

I do know that Autumn, that imminent change of season, traditionally has been regarded in poetry and art as the gloomiest of the four seasons. It seems odd, but among the testimonies of not regarding cold, dead Winter as gloomy (a host of happy outdoor activities and holidays have already sprung to your mind) is the long narrative poem by John Greenleaf Whittier, Snowbound. A 19th-century family is stuck in the house after a tremendous blizzard, and possible feelings of dread or fear are replaced by bonding, reminiscences, humor. Outside, all is frozen and every living thing looks dead, but warmth and life glow in the family circle. Winter = not so bad.

Autumn is the only season, at least in the English language, that has more than one name. Among its traditional names was Harvest – before urban living made that concept somewhat abstract. Then there is the familiar Fall whose origin philologists have not been able to trace, but there is the obvious association with “fallen leaves.”

As I say, and despite the warm associations we might have with colorful leaves and familiar smells in the air, in literature and art Fall is often the basis of melancholia. Some psychologists say that Fall outpaces Winter as the season of peoples’ dark depression. Perhaps, after sunny and bright summertime, the palpable signs of death surround us. Dying and falling leaves. Bare trees. Wilted flower-beds. Field animals looking for shelter. Earlier dusk and darkness descends. Colder air drives us indoors.

The adagio from Antonio Vivaldi’s “Autumn” in his iconic concerti grossi The Four Seasons is beautiful – but covers us in a sad, melancholy cloak.

If we might feel overshadowed by vague signs of dying and death, however, don’t blame it all on nature. In a larger sense, humankind – the post-Christian West especially – is at a point where we choose Death at almost every opportunity. In many way we live in a Culture of Death.

Yes, there have always been wars and rumors of wars… but today they are deadlier than ever, a fact that encourages rather than deters the war parties running governments. A Culture of Death.

We have developed new scientific means to extend life and confront diseases… but today, Science also aggressively pursues ways to end lives. A vast majority of birth “defects” are “terminated” – that is to say, babies are killed. A majority of unwed mothers arrange for their babies to be killed – something that politicians call “health care.” A Culture of Death.

The various surgical and “psychological” imperatives toward lower birth rates, “transgender” advocacy, homosexual relationships, genital mutilation – even denying parental notifications and obligating taxpayers to support – resist procreation and the furtherance of life. A Culture of Death.

The most obvious contemporary versions of human sacrifice and infanticide – the American spin on practices we condemn in ancient societies and pagan tribes – are “mercy killings” and, of course, abortion. Now I myself once was quite inured to the concept and practice; I viewed abortion as a calendar-skewed version of birth control. I now feel like I have blood on my hands. So you can jump on my “conversion,” but don’t jump ugly; many of us have seen the light. Along my personal Road to Damascus, I scored one of the rare interviews with the lady who was “Roe” of Roe vs Wade… and who became bitterly regretful about her role. Beyond that, I cannot understand those who endlessly bemoan the accounts Jews deemed “inconvenient” by Nazis, yet are quite comfortable with 63.5-million “inconvenient” babies killed since Roe. A Culture of Death.

And people feel depressed by Signs of Death that accompany the return of Autumn? What an insult, if I may say, to Mother Nature and (properly) Father God. Maybe that “glass half-empty or half-full” metaphor has resonance after all. Maybe Harvest-Autumn-Fall is entirely different than many people are wont to perceive.

Rejoice! Leaves die, but before they happily flutter among us, they clothe themselves with brilliant reds and yellows and orange colors that painters can hardly capture. The aromas of Autumn are unique, almost romantic. (I hope your neighborhoods still allow the burning of raked leaves.) Yes… harvests! Vegetables and fruits that were nurtured through the Summer can now be enjoyed – different colors and flavors associated only with Fall. Crisp air? Invigorating; time to huddle and cuddle; and to experience a new aspect of nature… not a dying one.

And if trees go bare, and crops are harvested, and things superficially look bleak… we cannot forget that many things go dormant, but do not die. Seeds will sprout, even through cracks in cement. Flowers will bloom in deserts and other unexpected places. Woodland animals are born, blink, and open their eyes.

Landscapes are resplendent with color. “Dead” wildflowers and Indian corn grace our homes. Seashells and periwinkles, so unique and colorful, are, after all, virtual external skeletons and husks of dead life; but beautiful. The sun, they tell us, is dying… but it gives life and warmth. My go-to source of wise comments (after the Bible), many of you know, is Theodore Roosevelt. On these subjects he once wrote, “Both life and death are part of the Great Adventure,” and it surely is so.

Finally let us remember, always remember, the One who tasted death… yet overcame it. Jesus died, so that our souls escape eternity in hell where there is no life. We, like our Savior, can overcome sin, death, and the grave, and know eternal life.

A Culture of Life!
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Click: I’ll Have A New Life

6-27-22

Certain events in my life have caused me to dread headlines – not every day; and for years as a newspaperman it was my business to write headlines – but we all have been conditioned to expect surprises. Weather, wars, assassinations, disasters. I was just beginning a new job in San Diego, living amidst boxes in my new home, when the TV showed the breaking news of what we now call 9-11.

That I knew that Manhattan neighborhood well, and had been to the top of the Towers, added but little to the shock. Even today, almost every time I turn on the TV news in the morning, I wonder whether a similar headline will confront me.

In a similar way, and not only as a student of history, there are events that I would happily anticipate as headlines – hopes and dreams that might be fulfilled some day. Usually these thoughts are futile. But sometimes they happen: dreams do come true.

I was astonished, for instance, that “the Wall fell,” and Communist governments not only collapsed across Europe – one after the other, like dominoes – but that hardly a drop of blood was shed! Oh, maybe someone hurt themselves as the Berlin Wall was razed; and excepting the Romanian thug Nicolae Ceauşescu and his immediate family there were no fatalities, either by regimes’ defenses or by freedom fighters. (Strangely, in college I briefly had dated the daughter of the government minister who fleetingly tried to assume power in the dictator’s wake.)

My point is that a headline, “Communist Governments Overthrown, Bloodlessly; Democracy and Capitalism Come to Europe,” was one I never expected.

A similar headline – “Roe vs Wade Overturned and Invalidated by Supreme Court” – is one I dreamed of for half a century, and simply never believed would happen. Indeed as with the subsequent “Casey” ruling, I was certain that America would continue down (!) the path of disrespecting and dismantling our cultural heritage. Declining. What I have called “The Culture of Death.”

My friends know that in the days of “Roe,” those almost nihilistic times, I was untroubled by the idea of abortion… unpersuaded by opposing arguments… and approving of its legalization. Those views and actions are never merely abstract in debates and events; when you choose sides in such matters you become a complicit enabler. There are few things from which I have reformed that have caused such bitter tears and prayers for forgiveness. So I became an activist on the “pro-life” side.

… and therefore I was, frankly, astonished to learn that Roe vs Wade has been overturned. And without violence or bloodshed (except, that is, for the 63-million babies that have been killed since the Court decided it).

Growing from my concern and activism, in 2005 I managed to secure a magazine interview with Norma McCorvey, the “anonymous” Jane Roe (a female “John Doe”) of the landmark case. She was famously reclusive and granted few interviews. Her own baby (of the case’s focus) in fact never was aborted, but was given for adoption. After her “win,” she worked in abortion clinics… was disgusted by what she witnessed… became a Christian… and then worked to counsel other women.

That interview will soon appear in a national magazine, and I will share it here, too, in coming weeks.

But let us not celebrate too soon or too enthusiastically. Just as Communist governments fell, but Communism lives on – in other governments; in academia; in the media; in “progressive” politics – so abortion will continue. Sobering facts to realize and remember:

• Overturning Roe and Casey does not end abortion in the United States. It merely lets states accept or reject the practice. Some do, some don’t; more will, more won’t. Just as drug laws are local, so will legal abortions be available here and there. I have been to “dry” counties and towns in Kansas and even California – where alcohol is outlawed – but people drive a little bit; and they will for abortions too. Vacation packages might be designed around abortions.
• Abortifacients will abound; “morning after” drugs probably will become more common than weed; and even in proscribed locales, “procedures” likely will become as common as Botox treatments. They always were, of course: what has really changed in our lifetimes is this: what people once whispered about, many people these days brag about. Savage, but true.
• Is the Court’s decision, therefore, futile? No. Societies define themselves by laws, art, and literature. So the “overturn” might in a larger sense be a codification of our nation’s essential standards. IF it stands, or holds. No sure thing.
• So the “fights” will continue, but in state capitals, in town councils, in local elections. That is the point of the Court’s reversal: the Framers meant that some matters (not only concepts and technologies they could not anticipate) are best decided in communities. Of, by, and for communities. We might not be perfectly united, but we are states.

There is another point that might not be appreciated going forward… but it is a lesson in democracy. For all the tumult and shouting about guns and abortions, and about election frauds and discredited stories about Russian collusion, “impossible” dreams do come true. Communist dictatorships did collapse. The guarantee of self-defense according to the Second Amendment finally seems secure. And contrary to social drift in America, and standards in other countries (our abortion policies are generally more permissive than dozens of other countries’ around the world)… we are in fact reading headlines that bring hope on the issue of infanticide.

Other battles remain to confront us: crime; abuse; drugs; the breakdown of the family; education reform… but we can sense redemption from pessimism!

And perhaps the most unlikely surprise among startling news is the “vessel” who successfully carried water on these issues. The Bible has many examples of unlikely or unknown or untested people who God used to exercise His will. In a future generation, Americans will read in history books, not only newspapers, the headline: “Orange Man Good.”

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Music Video Click: Unplanned

1-18-21

Can we imagine a day, or a time, when things will be “back to normal”?

“Normality” has been the mantra of politicians and pundits, and the dream of friends and family, in this year of plagues, riots, political crises and much else. Warren Harding ran for president in 1920 – after a traumatic World War, an unprecedented influenza epidemic that killed more than our soldiers’ death tolls, an economic crisis, and a raft of Communist and labor violence – his promise: “A Return to Normalcy.”

America wanted reassurance, and even accepted invented words in pursuit. What America got, with Harding, was the Roaring Twenties with Prohibition, gangsters, an Administration riven by scandals, and the president’s mysterious death.

Meaning? We wish, and learn (not really) that wishes seldom come true. We pray, and expect God to check the boxes on our prayer list. God doesn’t work like that, no matter how much we ignore history or God’s ways.

Of course my context here is the recent panorama of disruption in our national life. We have all been affected, and, uniquely, not one soul in a positive way. Yet to know what these crises will mean, what changes might come in our national life, requires “time and chance,” which happeneth to all – a historical perspective. Rudyard Kipling wrote in his poem “IF,” … Meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those two imposters just the same.

In Ecclesiastes we are told that “there is nothing new under the sun,” and we humans need that reminder, because we tend to think that our problems are unique… that we are the first generation to face certain challenges… that old rules are irrelevant when we want to solve our new crises.

In II Corinthians 4:17-18 we have God’s perspective on… perspective; Now vs Long-term. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

I am not dismissing the crisis of the old order, or the new order. I think we are at a deflection-point, and America’s survival is in jeopardy. The continent will still be here; houses and highways and weddings and babies will never cease being a part of everyday life. But the United States might cease to be united; the government might govern differently.

The social fabric is ripping.

We here in this country can, and do, argue about taxes and rules, foreign policy and domestic justice. Our disputes sound important, and often are important. But far more important – more dispositive of who we are as a people – are questions of our national integrity. Our character. Our morality.

The visitor from France Alexis de Tocqueville “got it” almost 200 years ago when he observed that “America will cease to be great when it ceases to be good.”

In that regard, we recognize that there has not been a straight line in manners and morals over the millennia regarding monogamous marriage, infant sacrifice, slavery, the role of women, personal freedom and liberty, democracy, even monotheism until the Revealed God revealed Himself fully. “Progress” is defined by the codification of “humane” standards about such things.

Yet abortion is an act that mostly has been regarded through history as anathema at all times and in all places, by whole societies and by individual women. Its sanction, and its approval, have always been exceptions. Mostly it is regarded as something to be discouraged because of the implicit recognition that it is horrible, contrary to human impulses.

Until our generation.

We all know the arguments, many emotional and many persuasive, about the burdens of unplanned births. Many justifications for “terminating a pregnancy” – or “killing the baby,” take your pick – are economic and social. But in history’s richest and purportedly happiest culture, these reasons are hollow. Some years ago I interviewed Norma McCorvey, the “Roe” of Roe vs Wade, who had regretted her manipulation, reversed her views, and became a Christian. Pro-Life. Before she died, this victim of manipulation reportedly was contrite about her contrition, a one-woman tornado of contradictions.

Her testimony confirmed my views, but did not change them. That happened earlier; for a long time I was indifferent to the issue, and saw it as more a matter of convenience than morality. I even took that point of view in public, and now am conscious of blood on my hands.

But one does not have to trade Pragmatism for Christianity to realize that abortion is murder.

I offer this on Celebration of Life week, Sanctity of Life Sunday.

A lot of the world preceded the US, or closely followed us, in the legalization of abortion. We are among the few human-rights garden spots like North Korea and China that allow late-term abortions, killing babies otherwise viable outside the womb.

The mists must part. Are we doomed to suffer the proper dissolution of a society no longer dedicated to savoring life? Why do we buy the lie that “true” women must support abortion – a “litmus test” for votes or employment. It is a Big Lie that women are pro-choice and men want disposable women and babies, belied by the profile of marchers at Pro-Life rallies. Mostly women. And men who are passionately against abortion.

If you don’t like being a woman who is “wired” to bear babies, don’t conceive. You cannot reverse nature. A lot of times it stinks to be a man too, but whatever. People have intimidated the culture to an extent; but they cannot reverse nature. They can tinker with the plumbing, but we still are men and women. Period (no pun intended).

Therefore, abortion, as a litmus-test, is a symbol. It is the result, not a cause, of America having become a Culture of Death. Our current challenges will seem small in the long run.

And when we have become desensitized to death, we have become desensitized to life. There are ramifications beyond “correcting a mistake” 60-million times over.

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Click: Slumber My Darling – YouTube

10-24-16

Democrat Vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine grew up in Kansas City KS. Recently, that city’s Archbishop, Joseph F Naumann, described the senator as a “Cafeteria Catholic” for picking and choosing the Church doctrines he chose to respect.

Kaine, who has a rare lifetime Zero rating from the American Conservative Union – which I realize is not a religious organization – favors abortion, and voted for its legality, extension, and federal funding; among opposing other teachings of the Church.

There are Protestants who have conflicts, too – claiming belief in the God of the Bible, but denying large portions of the Bible of God. “Pick and choose Christianity” is a cancer in Protestant (and Evangelical and Pentecostal and mainstream and post-modern) churches too; a cancer that metastasizes rapidly.

Kaine, and others, predictably fall back on the crutch of Relativism and say, “I am personally opposed to abortion, but I will not impose my view on others.” You have heard such things. Maybe you have said such things.

Some Day, these nominal Christians will answer for their hypocrisy. Abortion, death penalty, whatever the issue, if you believe something… stand up for it. If, further, your opinion is informed by your faith – if you believe it involves God’s will – then I worry for your soul if you fail to share His truth in public.

“Whoever disowns Me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.” That’s Jesus, quoted in Matthew 10:33.

Hey, politician – Hey, neighbor; Hey, person in the mirror – if you “personally oppose” abortion but tolerate it in society, how were people wrong to “personally oppose” slavery back in the day, but permit its practice? Slaves were private property, it was argued – who would you have been to interfere? Hey – what about the persecution and slaughter of Jews during World War II? It was argued that Jews were sub-human, after all; and how would have it affected you? Was it your business?

Since babies who are murdered up to hours before natural birth cannot speak for themselves, I will make their plea: Why are their lives less important than babies one day old? Or two years old and disabled? Or… why are their lives less important than your life?

The administration and party whose power Mr Kaine wants to perpetuate frequently has shown less compassion, and expended less political capital, on behalf of little victims of infanticide, and uncountable Christians martyred for their faith around the world, than toward trans-sexual persons who claim that landlords don’t like them; or sexual predators who demand free access to women’s restrooms in malls.

America, 2016.

Republicans are not off the spiritual hook. The Supreme Court that has written offensive rulings, and “discovered” rights that were not enumerated in the Constitution, have largely been Republican courts. Republican Congresses have been Big-Brother enablers since the 1930s. Conservatives, let’s admit it, have become mere foot-dragging liberals.

Speaking personally – c’mon, that’s what we all do – when Donald Trump, for all his many flaws, said that he is opposed to abortion; describes “late-term” abortions in graphic detail; and promises that any Supreme Court nomination he makes will be committed to overturn Roe vs Wade… that did it for me. No matter what other promise he makes or breaks; no matter what Hillary advocates and pledges… Trump deserves the vote of Christians and those who respect life (including descendents of slavery and holocausts).

Can we step back and realize that as few as four years ago, even most Republicans, conservatives, and “faith-based” candidates, refused to voice approval of Roe vs Wade being overturned? to dare to admit that they had a “litmus test” for judicial nominees? Mr Trump does. It is a political earthquake few have noted. In his Gettysburg speech, he further committed to positions — school choice, for instance — that conservatives and people of faith have wished for in living-room discussions and Republican “leaders” have failed to commit.

To those many people of faith, so-called, who lament our spiritual crisis, and the moral swamp wherein we slog: I am often among you, and hear many prayers for God to “bring revival to this land.”

I am not optimistic about a response that you people pray for. God could send revival; He is sovereign. Of course. But just as He did not send ten thousand angels to pluck Jesus from the cross… so He will not cause the Supreme Court building to spontaneously combust; or The New York Times building to float into the Hudson River and sink.

True revival comes less from God, and more from the hearts of His people.

And, when it comes, things are directed to Him, and not to rulers or candidates or politicians.

Everything else – everything – will fall into place when we seek revival as a people. Be not deceived, God is not mocked (Galatians 6:7). Do you believe God wants a relationship with a people who snap their fingers so He can clean up their holy mess?

Until and unless true revival comes, we deserve the mess we have created. I will support any candidate who commits to core biblical principles (apart from generic “caring” and compassion” as even the heathen do), and who is forthright about it.

We have sunk so low in America that I actually am grateful to have spiritual straws to grasp.

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Click this Johnny Cash performance: Help Me, Lord

8-17-15

Well… actually, that’s a lie. If it really were simple, in America and many places in the world, there would not be hot debates, policy fallouts, family feuds, “litmus tests,” stockpiles of weaponized arguments, court cases, broken churches, broken families. Or, often, broken women, erstwhile moms, bitter regrets. And, not recalled enough: tens of millions of dead babies.

But I hope any pro-abortion, “pro-choice,” readers will stick with me here. I acknowledge the “issue” is not simple… and my thoughts here, which have evolved through my life and I feel have arrived where they should be, might yet be a snapshot in time, evolving still. I think theology is clear, but public policy is difficult. Family management, counseling friends, is challenging.

And my theological point of view – where colleagues might part company – is that I believe the Bible is clear, although without the preponderance of specific references, on the proper spiritual and ethical attitude toward abortion. But I do not think that it is the Unpardonable Sin. It should not be encouraged in or out of the family of God… but mothers who made the euphemistic “choices” to “terminate” should be welcomed, not shunned, by Christians.

Friends know that I once was quite comfortable with the practice (not alone among other issues I have abandoned). Even before Roe vs Wade it was legal in Washington DC, where I went to college, and there was a culture that was very mechanistic – arguments about affordability, family “planning,” the soulless nature of blobs.

In truth, two attitudes fueled that culture, in those days: Washington, with its large black population, was a focus of abortion advocates like Planned Parenthood, whose founder, Margaret Sanger, frankly targeted her work, hoping to minimize or eventually eliminate the black population in society. Ugly, but true. And in the 1960s and ‘70s there was the attitude, if not explicit argument, that abortion simply was after-the-fact contraception.

My views changed through the years, the closer I drew to Jesus; but, also, the more I thought about the “issue,” the implications, the repercussions, the legacies. Abortion says something about the women, and men, involved. It says something about the society that permits – or encourages – it. It says something about dead babies. Not aborted fetuses: shut up. Dead babies.

The “issue,” once thought settled after Roe vs Wade, is more contentious than ever in America. Less settled. Science has made astonishing advances, both in maintaining viability of the pre-born, and in determining what, frankly, is a human – what is life, who is living – after conception. Traditionalists often are labeled “anti-science” about issues like evolution and global warming, but science is on the side, today, of the anti-abortionists. Or pro-life advocates.

The “issue” has invaded politics. Candidates might disagree on war and peace, the economy, government snooping, the threat of Iran, anything and everything… but (to employ the extreme labels) killing babies or a woman’s “right to choose” are defining issues of the age.

The “issue” is such today that almost every day its implications rise before us. At least for me. The news stories, of course, that disclose videos of Planned Parenthood leaders discussing the sale and efficient harvesting of babies and their organs. (Opponents fulminate against the hidden cameras, or the relatively small profits, shamelessly ignoring the horror of it all.) This week is the anniversary of my granddaughter Sarah’s birth. She lived nine days, a fragile preemie, and I look at the photo of my daughter Heather holding the tiny baby; I still cry to see the hope in Heather’s smile – and then I look at tiny Sarah and cannot help, today, picturing “scientists” and abortionists who would have swept in and carved her up at so many cents per pound. I watch an afternoon of Smithsonian documentaries about primitive societies and realize, peripherally, how many practiced infant sacrifice. Primitive. societies.

I believe abortion is current-day infant sacrifice. We appease the gods of convenience, guilty conscience, and callous morals.

History has a term for these primitive, and contemporary, practices writ large: infanticide. China long has practiced selective – and mandatory – abortions and infanticide in order to manage its economy. And the world shrugs.

Again, not an issue easily discussed or dispatched. Does it come down, after all, to women grasping for a legal sanction to resist biological, as well as moral, imperatives? Five Supreme Court justices aside, there still are differences between the sexes, and always will be. We have a generation of women – I know not all, despite the implications and claims of surveys, or, rather, poll-takers – who refuse to be women, at least in the most defining, distinctive, and glorious, way possible: motherhood.

Theodore Roosevelt once said (a propos expanding women’s right to vote), “Equality of rights does not mean equality of functions.” He did not mean cooking and cleaning; he meant to resist the revolutionary and degenerate aims of his contemporary, Margaret Sanger.

Of course there are the assertions, whether sincere or convenient, of those who argue that many children born to disadvantaged families are abused; that one “mistake” of passion should not be “punished by a baby,” as President Obama rationalized; that our planet cannot support more people. With these arguments the “issue” finds itself shifted alongside those of barbarians, Nazis, and ethnic cleaners.

To me, certain responses are increasingly hard to resist:

If death is determined by when a heart stops beating, why is life not measured when a hearts begins beating?

If fetuses are not human, why are their little body parts considered human?

We are told that people have rights to health care, to food, to schools, to hospital care; why not a right to life?

If a single cell were discovered on a distant planet, the world would celebrate life existing elsewhere in the universe. If it were found in a woman’s womb, why is it not considered life?

Women abort – let us say, kill their children – when babies are inconvenient. Under Hitler, Jews were deemed inconvenient; their mistreatment was legal; their slaughter not punished. Are pre-born babies guiltier, more deserving of execution, than Jews?

If these unborn babies can be dismissed as tissue masses and “blobs,” why do we not discuss “blob control,” so nice and antiseptic, instead of “birth control”?

This is not a man/woman perspective. I know as well as any man can, how life-altering an “unwanted” pregnancy can be. Well, there are millions of women who cry for babies, their own and others, who are more militant than I. There are uncountable women who were spared being aborted, sometimes at the last minutes, who thrive today – happy, healthy, and grateful for life. There are women who decided to give their babies up for adoption – maybe the second most wrenching decisions they could make – and those children live amongst us.

Our society is not sensitive to fathers of “unwanted” babies who are bound to support their child until majority; but have no say if their girlfriends kill the baby. I have met women who were consumed with grief for being misled, for killing their babies, and have lived with their “choices,” to use the hallowed word. One I know, have interviewed, is Norma McCorvey – the “Jane Roe” of Roe vs. Wade – remorseful and a pro-life advocate today.

But still, not an easy issue. This is my determination, and a plea to my allies – celebrate life, all life; welcome sinners (as we all are) who repent; wrap them, as we wrap ourselves, in Jesus’s love; and exercise forgiveness. As God offers forgiveness to us.

To those who still wrestle with the morals and ethics of the abortion issue, I close. Like it or not, there is a Heaven and a Hell. And as we understand God’s mystery, in Heaven we will all have “perfected” bodies. More than that we really don’t know. But consistent with what the Bible teaches, one’s aborted babies will be there, too.

Can you imagine looking into the eyes of these? “Why, Mommy? Why, Daddy?”

You might think you would answer, “I was afraid I would fail you. I was afraid you would stumble through life…”

And what if the answer is, “But what if you had not failed but succeeded? And what if I had not stumbled, but blossomed and flown and danced… and lived?”

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The poignant lullaby by Stephen Foster, sung by Alison Kraus:
Click: Slumber, My Darling

2-2-15

If the world survives long enough to look back and reflect on recent historical trends, I think we have an inkling that Posterity might view the past half-millennium as the Age of the Individual. (How’s that for “recent”?) By my estimation, individual rights and individual responsibilities reached their apogees sometime in the 1700s, about the midway-point since Luther and now, and I regard Luther’s “Here I stand” defiance of arbitrary church threats as the trumpet-blast of Individualism.

But rights have been taken for granted of late; responsibilities are being surrendered to entitlement mentalities. In spite of individual initiatives in commerce, industry, and the arts, it was our 20th century that saw new solutions in anti-individualism: Marxism; Leninism; Syndicalism; Socialism; Communism; Fascism; the Corporate State. Hardly humanity’s nostalgia for boots on their necks, but, likely, a mob psychosis arising from Individualism run amuck (“WE know better than you”)… or a subconscious insecurity about the duties that are incumbent upon Individualism.

Last week I was asked, after a speech, whether there has been a time in history when an individual (or, perhaps, a movement or even a nation) has made a difference in policies regarding life, respect for life, ugly policies like genocide or (specific to this query) about the issues we collectively call Sanctity of Life.

The great founders of religions around the world, through history, often were quite comfortable with, say, infant sacrifice. Mohammed engaged in bloodbaths before he was himself consumed in one. Luther was indifferent to Jewish persecution. Catholics, including “reformers,” made a sport of torture and death; so did Calvinists and Covenanters, et al.! Christian reformers who came to the Colonies more often escaped persecution than exercised toleration; the land was broad and empty enough to accommodate sects, here and there, not dissolve the differences between them. Mary Dyer was hanged in Boston for being not only a Quaker, but a Quaker preacher; and a woman preacher.

The Aztec and Incan cultures practiced infant sacrifice; and to a lesser extent did the Mayans. To a greater extent, around the world and at another time, ancient Carthage practiced it actively. But no individuals or reformers succeeded in cultivating the consciences of those groups. I don’t think there are records of anyone trying, actually. It is only when the societies disappeared that the practices disappeared.

It is troubling that religions generally practiced these horrible practices more than governments did – or, when governments exercised such practices, it was often with the initial sanction of the prevalent religious establishment. Religious reformers who argued against, say, genocide or infanticide were either a) quickly dispatched themselves (i.e., not successful in the efforts); or b) simply unable to persuade their societies of such horrors.

Indeed, persecution and even slaughter very often are adopted, rather than vanquished, when cultures and nations collide. In the frontier wars of the American colonies, white men (colonists; British troops; French settlers alike) became adept and brutally casual about scalping the natives. It was not revenge as much as adopting local customs.

If my intimations of pessimism are justified, then at least we can see a ray of sunshine – and only in these latter days – that are fruits of Individualism. Not often, in history, have individuals or nations “made a difference” when basic societal attitudes have been prodded and needed change. And it is in things happening right now, most notably, in areas as Right to Life and the Sanctity of Life. Not a complete U-turn! – but evidence of change.

Abortion has been legal for a generation in the United States, codified in court decisions, and virtually set in stone, yet this week’s polls say that 84 per cent of Americans now oppose abortion after 20 weeks, maybe sooner. A major turnaround; a harbinger.

A different topic… but of the same flavor: Cruelty to animals (including wanton slaughter, such as of the buffalo) used to be commonplace. In the world’s history. The same with cruelty to children, which still remains a major problem, but now widely condemned. In Dickens’ time it was as common as oatmeal, a virtual “right” of brutal parents and employers. That is changing, and among other agencies we can point to is the SPCA and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

Another different but related topic: the fall of Communism. It was the cancer of the 20th century; we have witnessed its downfall in so many countries, largely bloodless. Similarly, the rock-ribbed, entrenched apartheid system fell in South Africa. Battles continue in our world against hunger and disease, and – I am not a Pollyanna – against religious persecution, more brutal than ever. So, the sanctity of life is not yet universally embraced. But let us return to my point about individuals.

Latter-day reforms, attitudinal improvements to the human spirit, changing views about life before and after birth, have come from INDIVIDUALS. Some analysts say that Communism fell because Gorbachev decided to “ease up” the system. No, that viewpoint is an insult to thousands or millions of individuals who resisted: those who were willing to die, or did die. For freedom. Also, usually, for their faith. Martyrs.

And so with the changing attitudes toward abortion, which was the focus of the question I was asked. God knows (literally) that it was not politicians or judges – they are the villains. It was thousands of protesters, like the people in DC last week (the anniversary of Roe vs Wade); you know, the multitudes ignored by the Mainstream Media. Christians, almost all. Henry Bergh, founder of the SPCA – Christian activist. Founder of the Salvation Army, Gen Booth, and so on – Christians all. Mother Teresa, Samaritans Purse: not revolutionary figures and movements… but arguably more efficient as individuals working together.

Maybe for the first time in history, INDIVIDUALS are making a difference. Humanity is wising up? Better technology / communication? Maybe. But things are different these days. I think, and hope, and pray.

These successful reformers have been Christians. Some other religions, but frequently Christians. And I recognize that sometimes the reforms needed to be made against institutions FORMED by other Christians, but that makes the fight ironic, not less worthy, or holy. Individual Christians.

Why is this? We need to recognize that the only honest, bedrock, challenging, successful, and demanding “voice” in human history, against such horrors like infanticide, genocide, persecution, and hatred, is the Voice of Jesus.

This is not only religious apologetics; I believe it is a statement of fact.

Secularists will scoff, but the historical evidence is preponderant, as is recent history. The voice of martyrs, the faith of martyrs, the witness of martyrs, the sacrifice of martyrs. Many martyrs who sacrifice comfort, family and friendships, careers; not only their lives. Any other “motivation” than the Voice of Jesus is futile when it confronts the darkness of human nature, even the Culture of Death that threatens to consume us.

That darkness – sin – scarcely changes down the pathway of human history. But love, even the love of individuals, like single candles that can pierce the blackest darkness, slowly, slowly enlightens humankind’s often stumbling steps.

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Music video: Monks performing a somber masterpiece by Henry Purcell (1659-1695).

Click: Funeral March for Queen Mary