Looking at the Abortion Debate
Through the Supremacy of Christ
Through the Supremacy of Christ
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As a Jesus Follower, I’m Also
“Pro-WHOLE Life”!
“Pro-WHOLE Life”!
Second of a four-part series
David Bryant
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John 1:1-5
Before anything else existed, there was Christ, with God . . .
Eternal life is in him, and this life gives light to all mankind.
His life is the light that shines through the darkness—
and the darkness can never extinguish it (TLB, emphasis added.)
Eternal life is in him, and this life gives light to all mankind.
His life is the light that shines through the darkness—
and the darkness can never extinguish it (TLB, emphasis added.)
Have you ever worked in a soup kitchen serving the homeless? Have you cared for someone in a nursing home? Are you assisting the herculean task of relief work among the tens of thousands of hurricane victims this fall?
Would you be willing to join AmeriCorps and spend a year teaching children among our nation’s poorest of the poor? Or would you consider volunteering with a local hospital hospice outreach?
Each of these questions relates to where you come out on the abortion debate.
That’s because each is really asking you this: Do you take the sufferings and yearnings of every human life so seriously—as both precious and sacred in God’s eyes, the focus of his saving work in Christ—that you value them on the same level as you do the little ones inside the womb and fight for their fullness of life as zealously?
In Part 1 of this four-part series, I shared with you my conviction that human life begins at conception. But we also saw that the mother bearing the child is equally of eternal value.
But the abortion “debate” does not stop there.
In Part 2, I’m calling all Jesus followers to join me in taking a “pro-WHOLE-life” position as well as the “pro-EVERY-life” position we discussed in Part 1 of this series.
That’s because, under the lordship of Jesus, every life made in God’s image—from the womb to the tomb, at every level, in every situation, facing every kind of threat, and pursuing every heartfelt dream—is eternally significant.
Join me as we explore this second dimension in the battle for life. Unfortunately, this is where the decades-old traditional “Right to Life” movement too often falls short and thus faces unnecessary blowback.
I’m “Pro-EVERY-Life”
Just as Jesus Is in His Redeeming Reign.
Just as Jesus Is in His Redeeming Reign.
President Ronald Regan may have put it best during a talk on abortion in 1985, using this metaphor: When a deer hunter in the woods hears a rustling in nearby bushes, he holds his fire until he’s convinced it clearly is a deer and not another hunter. The sportsman’s guideline is this: Don’t shoot until you know for sure it’s not a human being.
In the same way, Reagan urged that we should not take another human life at any stage until we have come to an agreement as to precisely when that life has truly become a person existentially and legally. That’s why it is so essential to defend the life in the womb because our society is not yet in agreement as to when to bestow personhood on the fetus.
In other words, “don’t shoot until you are sure”—which is what it means to be “pro-EVERY-life.”
The “pro-EVERY-life” position calls us to give equal weight to the infinite human value of both the preborn and the post-born life. It calls us to hold sacred the life of the mother as much as the life of the “human with potential” within her womb. In a pregnancy, we are always dealing with two separate human beings, though one depends on the other for survival, which is true for the first few years.
This conclusion carries even greater significance for a Christian. That’s because Jesus reigns over both lives. He died for both lives, conquered death for both lives, assumed the Kingdom for both lives, and desires to become Savior and Lord equally for both lives—for the preborn and for the mother who carries that child. (See more on this in Part 1.)
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In the Same Way, I’m Also “Pro-WHOLE-Life”
Because, in His Redeeming Reign, Jesus Is.
Because, in His Redeeming Reign, Jesus Is.
Attempting to look at the abortion debate from the perspective of Jesus and his throne, I find my vision includes but expands beyond the issue of protecting the unborn.
Therefore, for the same reasons I am “pro-ALL-life,” I also must respond with equal concern for all the people around me who are outside the womb. Surrendered to follow Christ, I must heed thousands of verses that clearly call believers to care not only for the littlest but also for the lost and the least among us.
That means when caring about the sanctity of human life, I must also care about the regular concerns, challenges, needs, and hopes of ALL people created in God’s image. This agenda comes with walking daily under the supremacy of God’s Son.
Just looking at the ministry of Jesus to multitudes as well as individuals recorded in the Gospels—and knowing that he is the same person today, alive and ruling over creation as he was in the days of his flesh (see Hebrews 13:8)—how can I be other than a “pro-WHOLE-life” Christian?
Every vulnerable human being on planet Earth is part of the focus of “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16).
That includes the poor, the disabled, the homeless, the war-ravaged, the sick, the dying, the lonely and forgotten, the hungry and the destitute. All of them were in view when Jesus became one of us—as well as when he died, rose, and ascended, having accomplished our salvation to sit on the throne of the universe. Granted all authority in heaven and earth, he desires to rain down God’s redemption, bringing eternal riches prepared for every person inside and outside the womb.
Scripture will not let those belonging to Christ to stop with defending only the life of the preborn. We are called to care equally for the post-born, especially the downtrodden, the rejected, the brokenhearted, the abused, the oppressed, the starving, the demented, the addicted, the refugee—as well as the millions of migrants around the world fleeing war, crime, poverty, drought, hurricanes, and famine, especially those nearest us.
As Christians, we are familiar with Jesus’ exhortation to us in Matthew 25, when he told his disciples:
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.
‘For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me in. I needed clothes, and you clothed me. I was sick, and you looked after me. I was in prison, and you came to visit me.’
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry. . .’ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for ME’” (Matthew 25:34-40, NIV, emphasis added).
In context, Jesus is talking first about “brothers and sisters of mine” (v. 40), meaning our fellow Jesus followers. Truly, serving them, particularly in the worst circumstances, is like serving Jesus since all believers are united to him by faith and the Spirit.
But the principle carries forward into all our engagements with hurting people wherever we meet them. This is what Paul suggests:
Love must be sincere. . . . Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with the Lord’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. . . . (Romans 12:9-16, NIV)
In fact—get this!—what we call the “golden rule,” in context, actually relates specifically to foreigners, immigrants, and migrants among us, especially those who have nowhere else to go and no one else to turn to (like a baby in the womb)—because in truth, in relationship to God’s family, that’s what we all were before we came to Christ. Consider the context in Leviticus 19:33-34 (NIV, emphasis added):
When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.
However, Here’s What Deeply Concerns Me
As Jesus followers, we are confronted with a clear biblical mandate to care wholistically for all human beings, at all stages of life, as unto the Lord of our salvation. But here is what I’ve seen over and over—what has burdened me for decades:
All too often, self-professed Christians who fight against abortion—especially those in America and even more so in the evangelical stream of the Church in America—exhibit minimal concern for the “life” of the multitude of the post-born but similarly vulnerable human beings around us.
Far too many pro-life Christians and churches in our nation demonstrate little active involvement in intervening in the life-threatening conditions of people right around them. Compare our lack of compassion for the post-born with the way we so quickly make our verbal appeals and act on behalf of the people inside the womb.
Broadly speaking, the “Right to Life” crusade in America pursues a deformed agenda. It needs to be full-bodied, in keeping, for example, with our own Declaration of Independence, which says that ALL human beings “are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights.”
Long ago, I, along with many other evangelical leaders, concluded that a major reason the pro-life movement struggles to gain the level of traction it desires—and deserves—is that the movement is crippled by a profound underlying spiritual deficiency inside the American Church.
We have failed to take on and act on a “pro-WHOLE life” ethic because we have explored and experienced far too little of the person of the Life-Giver himself.
Consequently, if our “pro-EVERY-life” movement is to expand, it must include the post-born. We must be willing to enter into the abortion debate as those who have a consistent passion for the pressing needs of EVERY life, inside and outside the womb.
This kind of vision and heart should dominate the pro-life movement as we begin to rediscover the breadth and depth of Jesus’ love for every facet of the human experience and how his response to our cries is always in keeping with his sovereign, saving purposes for the whole earth.
We can tackle the challenge of abortion and prevail in our campaign for the unborn when these truths from Colossians 3 become our starting and ending point:
So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective (Colossians 3:1-2, MSG)
Many of us believe that the only answer that will bring a more constructive, unified approach to the abortion concern—as well as to many other crises facing our nation that impinge on all forms of human surviving and thriving—is what we here at ChristNow.com call an American CHRIST Awakening—a comprehensive, Spirit-driven revelation of the glory, greatness, goodness, and grace of our reigning Savior that overtakes our churches and then our nation.
Only as we see the Lord Jesus Christ more clearly for ALL he is today in the full extent of his supremacy will we be able to gain his perspective and heart on the significance of the whole spectrum of human needs and potential—and respond accordingly.
Along with many other serious Christians, I am convinced that God’s people must become wholly alive to the whole vision of God’s Son and what his whole Kingdom agenda requires of us in serving the “whole person” with the “whole gospel.” Only then can we hope to succeed in turning people’s hearts to know God’s heart concerning the issue of abortion.
But as we mobilize an army of Jesus followers ready to live out a message of life that consistently cares about the whole experience of every person as equally sacred in God’s eye—from conception to death—will our concerns for the unborn child be given a fresh look by the world around us.
When the society around us becomes convinced that we care just as much about lives outside the womb, they will be more willing to listen to our appeals for lives inside the womb.
In other words, as God’s people, we must become far more PERSON-driven—pursuing the person and power of the living Lord Jesus as the source of life in this world and for the ages to come. Then our fellow Americans will increasingly take more seriously what we have to say about the fullness of life that our Lord Jesus Christ brings both to the brokenness as well as the God-endowed potential of all humankind.
Let’s remove the scandalous stumbling block of our perceived indifference, relatively speaking, to the poor and needy. Let’s make sure our less-than-winsome, even at times harsh reputation in this regard is replaced with the testimony of our Jesus-focused, servant-hearted love that responds with meaningful deeds that meet the crises of human suffering and yearning all around us.
As we do, we will be building greater credibility—and securing more open minds—for our biblical convictions about the sanctity of the “as-yet-unseen” person in the womb who is equally deserving of care from all of us.
If we as Jesus followers are truly “pro-EVERY-life” as well as “pro-WHOLE-life,” then now is the time for us as God’s people to prostrate ourselves before his Throne, crying out with all our hearts for a Spirit-birthed, Christ-exalting, “Church-shaking,” nationwide awakening to the Lord Jesus Christ in all his glory and supremacy until it transforms our hearts and, therefore, our churches throughout America.
This must become our top priority. The effectiveness and future of our love and labor for the rights of all “humans with potential” depend on it!
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Be watching for Part 3
when we’ll tackle this question:
when we’ll tackle this question:
Why is there so little emphasis on
abortion in the Scriptures?
abortion in the Scriptures?
Coming soon!
About the Author
Over the past 50 years, David Bryant has been defined by many as a “messenger of hope” and a “Christ proclaimer” to the Church throughout the world. Formerly a minister-at-large with the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, president of Concerts of Prayer International (COPI), and chairman of America’s National Prayer Committee, David now provides leadership to ChristNow.com and Proclaim Hope!, whose mission is to foster and serve Christ Awakening movements. Download his widely read ebooks at ChristNow.com. Enjoy hundreds of podcast episodes. Watch his weekly vlogs at David Bryant REPORTS. Meet with David through Zoom or in-person events through David Bryant LIVE!
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