Painted in oil on canvas with rich, vivid colours... capturing the accepted inhumanity of the day...
The eighteenth century slave ships would throw over the dead and dying mid-voyage so they could collect the insurance for loss of "cargo". If those shackled ones made it to shore alive, and then died - the cost would have been just. too. much.
"Prolife isn't my passion."
It needs to be... this is where the battle is for us - in this country - in this decade of this century. Our humanity cries out for justice - and science backs up that cry...
Life - a person from the moment of conception with it's own unique DNA - someone worthy of protection.
& there have been times in my life where i have done less - or more - for life. There's no guilt, or condemnation - there's just the challenge, "right now... this season... today... what could you do?" (Men, don't leave this to women. We need you too. Take courage, speak with gentleness and love.)
i imagine there were many who murmured to the abolitionists, "The freedom of those slaves... it's not my passion..." or during the Holocaust, "i'm not even part Jewish..." It's easy for us now to look back, and cry to the ones who should have spoken up against injustice, "it's so clear!"
When my grandchildren look at what our culture currently deems acceptable - and it's as revolting to them as the thought of throwing sold, half starved, abused, sick and dying human beings overboard mid-voyage is to me.... i want to tell them this loss of life broke my very heart too.
(*for those wondering, this is another jmw turner print _the slave ship_)
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9 comments:
I'd have to disagree with you on this one :-) I agree that we need to be involved with injustice in the world. The bible makes if very clear "what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God". Abortion isn't a women's issue ... it's all of our issues. We all need to act on it.
What I don't agree with is your statement that abolishing abortion "needs to be" everyone's passion. Just because God has placed something in the heart of one man does not mean all men should put it as their passion. Hudson Taylor had a passion for the Chinese People and evangelism yet he didn't have a passion to abolish slavery? Did he care about it? I'm sure he did but God placed a different passion within him. Don't mix lack of passion with neglect. Passion is a deep well and a man of understanding find it but I do think that some have a passion and some don't. Should we neglect injustice? Of course not. Is it reality that some are more passionate than others? Yes. Is it true that the passion that God has given me should be expected from all people? I don't think so.
I believe we SHOULD have a passion for all things that Christ has a passion for. I believe every Christ follower should have a passion for life. Every person is created in the image of God. Life is eternal...from the moment of conception. Just because God asks us to ACT differently in regard to our passion doesn't mean we shouldn't have a passion for all things that God has a passion for. I believe I SHOULD have a passion for the Chinese people who are lost. That doesn't mean I'll go and preach to them. Maybe I'll pray for them. Maybe I'll give money so someone else can go. But I certainly better have a passion to see them come to Christ. I believe the problem today is we are too focused on ourselves. I know I am. I know how easy it is to stay in my own comfortable world and forget about the lost...and forget about the dying...and forget about justice. I know how easy it is to forget the passions of God....truth, life, love, relationship. So...I guess I disagree with both of you. Yes, I think every believer should have a passion to see abortion come to an end...BUT...every person's role in seeing this happen will look different. Each person must listen to what God is asking him to do.
***AND....on a side note....I think it's pathetic that in a city of one million we can't even have 10 people praying for pro-life for 40 days. I don't care WHAT your passion is or isn't. That is a shame to God's name and a sign of where we are as the church.
nope - i totally agree with you Fawne, that it will look different for different people. That's what i was trying to convey when i said there's no guilt or condemnation - just a challenge.
Especially in this season of little ones at home, sometimes it's *very hard* especially for us in the SE to make the 45 minute drive to the clinic - but our prayers from home are valid and powerful & even just raising our own awareness - or softening our own hearts for the wounded in our city are important steps that we all can take.
Brad - sadly, i think that i do see a great deal of neglect when it comes to prolife in our nation... It has changed the way that Christians make decisions about their families, it has changed a mother's role (& taken away it's value). It's not just about abortion - it's about a shifting social tide that has had an enormous influence on the Body.
and can i just say...
thank you both for commenting? Sometimes it's lonely & i need people to sharpen my focus or make corrections in my direction...
i appreciate & respect you both.
I tend to agree with you Paige...in ALL areas of our lives we need to CHOOSE LIFE! Deut. 26:16 "Today ADONAI your God orders you to obey these laws and rulings. Therefore, you are to observe and obey them with all your heart and all your being. 17 You are agreeing today that ADONAI is your God and that you will follow his ways; observe his laws, mitzvot and rulings; and do what he says." This verse talks about passion 'all your heart and being' then farther along it says this in Chapter 30:19 "I call on heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have presented you with life and death, the blessing and the curse. Therefore, choose life, so that you will live, you and your descendants, 20 loving ADONAI your God, paying attention to what he says and clinging to him - for that is the purpose of your life! On this depends the length of time you will live in the land ADONAI swore he would give to your ancestors Avraham, Yitz'chak and Ya'akov."
This is Scripture speaking, not Lori-Dawn...and the message I get from these verses is that we are to ALWAYS choose life, in every aspect of our lives, and that we are to be passionate about our God and the things He holds dear...we are not saved by our works, but the evidence of our faith in Jesus should be our works. How obedient are we to our God, YHVH? HE is the author of life, we need to choose life in everything,and yet we have animal rights and various peoples rights groups saying that, euthanasia is the "humane" thing, or that abortion is the "humane" thing...I am SO SICK of the crazy talk of the world and how apathy has seeped into our churches regarding this choice of life. Yes, our God gives us a choice...it makes me so incredibly sad that so many CHOOSE death!
Sorry for being long-winded...although I'm not in a place to do the prayerwalk by the clinic, my passion for choosing life has been hugely renewed since the Above Rubies retreat...I also agree that while we should all uphold some simple Biblical Truths about life and death, it WILL look different in everyone's lives. I think we need to be careful in judging others because we simply don't know what is going on in another person's heart, even though their actions maybe aren't the same as ours. I like what you said, no guilt or condemnation...
Pro- Life isn't just about abortion. It's family planning, teen STDs, divorce, fatherlessness, poverty, IVF, custody battles over mbryos that are biologically the result of more than two DNA lines, immunization cultivated in a stew of materials resulting from abortion(to try to phrase it delicately). Abortion is the defining issue of our age, and we have lost, but that doesn't mean the tide can't turn and justice can reign one day for our culture just as it did for the black slaves, or the Jews at Auschwitz. I love this quote by Elizabeth Rundle Charles:
If I profess with the loudest voice and the clearest exposition, every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, howerever boldly I may be professing Christianity. Where the battle rages, the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace to him if he flinches at that one point."
OK, if this is at all possible...I agree with all of you. And mamazee, your quote is beautiful. Just beautiful.
Lesley - *YES* i think it is possible to agree with everyone on this one, because i really believe that there is more common ground here than not. i think sometimes we might get hung up on a person's poor word choices (that's why i agonize so much about blogging) & it distorts the spirit of what is said.
There's probably very little variance in how we see this playing out. We all have a broad understanding that people are different. Brad's perspective is obviously as a pastor - someone who is sensitive to a body (lower case) of believer's being weighed down with burdens they're not ready to carry.
i do think, like my sister said, that Prolife (not only abortion) is the defining issue of our time - & it's time that the Body (uppercase) started talking about it.
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