Let me begin by asserting unequivocally that I am thrilled at the prospect of some baby, who was facing a horrific death sentence since the reversal of Roe, might now be spared that barbarity. So, I want it to be clear that I give no leeway when it comes to a mother or a father believing they have some mystical right, based on the opinion of a majority of nine men, to murder another human being. Please do not read this as me being sad at the actions of the Supremes’ reversing Roe. That would be disingenuous on your part.
At the same time, the Roe decision cannot be reduced to a good/bad binary thought process. To do so would cause people to miss this massive teachable moment.
Let me begin with this premise: The celebrating of Roe being reversed has shown a deep and perverse attachment to something very evil masquerading as something good: the U.S. Constitution along with government it created, and the processes it developed to supposedly resolve huge political disputes.
As I’ve discussed in prior Substacks, process (when it comes to building bridges and performing surgery) make sense.
But process related to such weighty political matters as life and death must not be embraced by any moral person. This is especially true for Christians who claim to embrace objective truth; whereby the God they serve states without any exceptions:
Thou shall not murder. - God
It is to this community I will address my strongest critique for celebrating the end of Roe, which created a forty-nine year national holocaust, and will now simply be a state by state holocaust.
Repentance should be the order of the day, not celebration.
Let me explain. I want us to burn into our minds the number 49. That number represents the number of years babies had to suffer while we, who were alive, waited patiently for just the right mix of Supreme Court Justices to arrive who would then reverse an earlier Courts decision.
49 years.
17,885 days
1,073,100 minutes
This patient waiting for a Constitutional process to work out is EXACTLY the complaint of Martin Luther King in his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail where he describes the ease at which those who are not suffering can say, be patient, your time will come:
I MUST make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection
While the history of Kings letters and speeches is a weaving history, the point made in this section of the letter is unmistakable - timetables to correct injustice when injustice can be corrected are indictments against supposed moral people. And for the Christian the indictment is much worse because of what Scripture tells us: when possible, those being led to slaughter must be rescued.
Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter. - Proverbs 24:11
In his sermon on abortion back in 1989, John Piper put it this way:
If there is a group of humans who are stumbling [literally: slipping] to the slaughter who ought not to be slipping to the slaughter, the people who fear God ought to try to hold them back from the slaughter.” What is being commanded here is some kind of intervention from us when we become aware of humans being killed who ought not to be killed.
Piper has this correct. When there is a way to end the suffering of the innocent, the Christian is biblically OBLIGATED to rescue those who are being led to slaughter.
Sadly and sinfully, White, Black, Chinese, Native American, etc. Christians relied on a timetable created by a constitutional process to end the slaughter of the unborn. This reliance on constitutional processes and the timetables related to process reveals something very sinister that has infected the mind of those claiming to follow Jesus Christ. The timetable went something like this:
January 22, 1973, The Supreme Court hands down Roe v. Wade. Under what became their Article III authority, murder of the unborn baby was now a constitutional right.
Whining and complaining from Christians and conservatives ensues, but no effort to end the beginnings of a holocaust.
June 1992 another case makes its way to the Supremes. Christians and conservatives pray once again that the Constitutional process will work and the Court will reverse Roe. The exact opposite happens. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey backfires and actually reaffirms and strengthens Roe.
Christians and conservatives stick to the Constitutional process of voting to get the “right Supreme Court Justices” in place. By 1992, around 20,000,000 babies have been butchered via abortion.
In 2016, conservatives and Christians are back praying for a majority of 8 Supremes to overturn Roe in the case Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt. This fails again and continues to strengthen Roe.
Holocaust total is now around 43,000,000 horribly butchered babies but conservatives and Christians assure the unbutchered that their time is coming.
Finally, 49-years later and 65,000,000 butchered babies later, the Constitutional process finally works. Christians celebrate, some claiming God only took 49 years to end this holocaust. They are jubilant!
I hope you get the point. I really do. All of us, me included, have suffered a kind of warping of our minds. And now, the only resolution to this warping is to repent and obey Jesus Christ when He commands us to: “love God with our…minds.” We must think our way out of this mess the Constitution and our devotion to it created.
While there is no evidence Dietrich Bonhoeffer said or wrote this popular phrase that routinely circulates in the Christian community, the truth of it remains:
Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.
Using this phrase as a backdrop, timetables to rectify injustice are evil actions in and of themselves.
All Christians who subscribed to a U.S. Constitution, its processes, and a 49-year timetable are guilty of these acts of evil. And I stand just as indicted as do you, the only difference being that in most cases I am willing to accept that I will give account to God for my inaction. Are you?
49 years. Don’t forget that number. Let the horror of delayed justice do its work in your mind.
Because that is how long butchered babies created in the image of God Himself had to wait while Christians patiently awaited the arrival of just the right mix of Supreme Court Justices. Only there was no way for them to live to see the day when the Constitutional process would work - they were Constitutionally murdered. It does not matter how many times you cling to the perverse notion that: “The constitution does not allow abortion.”
We still have 65,000,000 babies butchered. You cannot unsee this.
All because Christians and conservatives were more devoted to the U.S. Constitution, the government, and the processes that were created by it than they were devoted to truth and justice.
And by now the mind of the average Christian has been so tainted by a deep sense of devotion to an idol, the U.S. Constitution, they exchanged truth for a lie. Just as I once had done.
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. - Romans 1:22
In context, God through the Apostle Paul is telling the church in Rome (and we Christians in the U.S.) that the gentiles there are without excuse by trying to claim they are guiltless. Why? Because God’s majesty and His divine attributes can be observed even in nature and in this case, we all knew that butchering a baby was wrong. God accuses we Christians in America of exchanging His glory for mortal idols, following them instead of Him.
Romans 1:22 alone indicts the average Christian in America who played a political game with the lives of 65,000,000 precious image-bearers. But the Christian didn’t lose this game. No, the child who had their limbs torn apart lost.
And in a perverse, wicked act of the futility of their thinking (ἐματαιώθησαν ἐν τοι~ς διαλογισμοι~ς αὐτῶν,), they now celebrate. Like the Israelites dancing around the golden calf Aaron had built while Moses was receiving the Ten Commandments, American Christians are dancing around the golden calf of the Constitution, trampling on the blood and graves of those 65,000,000 butchered babies as they cry out for justice.
As I have heard for the last few days since I launched my biblical and moral salvos at the cheering going on, the Christian will protest:
Mark, what else were we supposed to do other than vote and pray for the right Supreme Court Justices to arrive and reverse Roe v. Wade!?
At this point, they will have no defense and are 100% guilty of inaction. Why? Because the “organic law” related to the origins of our country are beyond dispute and rests in this fact: in our form of government, the final human authority is NOT Government, but the people. And here is the indictment penned by Thomas Jefferson 246 years ago:
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. - The Declaration of Independence
God providentially placed you and me within the jurisdiction of this sentence in this founding document.
On January 23, 1973, Christians could have begun calling for the abolition of this government for its evil Constitutional decision. INDICTMENT #1 - THEY DID NOT!
In 2016, Christians could have organized under a Trump presidency and called for the abolition of this government for its delayed justice? INDICTMENT #2 - THEY DID NOT!
June 24, 2022, after reversing Roe, has there been any call by any Christian leader to abolish this government created by the Constition so it cannot make another evil decision like this? INDICTMENT #3 - THEY HAVE NOT!
Jefferson, his pen, and the actions of those who fought for independence from the King indict all of us. YOU INCLUDED.
God gave us the privilege of living in a geographic location where the people had total control and we squandered it. But it is so much worse, we exchanged the ability to right wrongs (i.e. Blacks, Native Americans), to end evil, and to live free for a stupid, poorly thought out illusion of self-government though some dumb constitution.
And that is why repentance and not celebration is the order of the day.
After all, had we called for, organized, and worked to abolish this evil government constituent with Jefferson’s writings, who knows?, this idea being such a BIG IDEA, maybe the government would have collapsed on January 24, 1973 and no baby would have been Constitutionally butchered.
But what we do know for 100% certainty is this: our voting, hoping and coping; our patient waiting for just the right mix of Supremes to arrive, and our unearned sick affection and devotion to the biggest ruse ever foisted on people, the U.S. Constitution, led to the wholesale slaughter of 65,000,000 of His image-bearers. We are without excuse.
Repentance is the only way forward now.
Thank you for your principled, well thought out comments. I completely agree with you. I have had the same thoughts, but you verbalized it much clearer than I was able to.