Justin Bieber, Beware of Christians, and Hating Religion

What’s the “in” thing to do in Christianity? Why, it’s hating on the institutionalized church of course! Most often, this trendy topic focuses on hating religion but loving Jesus. The latest to jump on the church-bashing bandwagon is Justin Bieber. (I am so excited to have a reason to talk about the Biebs on my blog! Ooh! I think I’ll even add a picture. That will get the Internet traffic!) OK! Now that I have that taken care of, I should probably explain why Bieber Fever is making an appearance on my blog. If you haven’t heard (and seriously, why haven’t you?) Justin has gotten a new tattoo! His newest tattoo joins the ranks of his other tattoos which display symbols of Christianity. He already had the name Jesus inked on his body in Hebrew. He has a tattoo of praying hands. His newest “tat” (or is it “tatt?”) is a picture of Jesus’ head wearing the crown of thorns. Pretty bold display of his faith I think. I have no problem with Justin’s choice of tattoos. ( I personally would have gone this direction, but whatever.)

Here is what I want to talk about however. In a recent interview with V Magazine, Justin had this to say about his faith and about going to church. (Read the article here.)

”A lot of people who are religious, I think they get lost,” he tells V Magazine in the February issue (via Gossip Cop). “They go to church just to go to church.”

Justin, however, is not that way. He believes that he can still be a religious person without going to church.

“I’m not trying to disrespect them,” Bieber explains, “but for me, I focus more on praying and talking to Him. I don’t have to go to church.”

Now, Justin does not say anything to bash the church directly, but the idea behind his statement falls right in line with popular thought. The thought is basically, religion=bad, spirituality=good. Institutionalized church=bad, Me and Jesus=good. In Bieber’s case, this means that I don’t have to go to church to be a Christian. With other people, it means that the church has got it all wrong and is bunch of hypocrites and haters. For others, it means we have to concentrate not on “doing church” (worshiping in a building) but on “being the church” (serving others.)

Perhaps you have seen this video which blew up the Internet a couple of months ago:

Now apparently this was not the intention, but due to some unclear language, many people have responded to this video by saying, “Yeah! Religion stinks! The church is awful! I can be a Christian on my own terms! I can believe whatever I want to believe!” (They always yell their responses, hence the exclamation points.)

Just recently, I also came across this trailer for a documentary.

This documentary looks very interesting, and I would like to watch it. However, even just watching the trailer it sounds like the same ol’ message. The institutionalized church is no good. You have to discover your own brand of Christianity. Everything you learned growing up in church is no good. (You may not have gotten this out of the trailer, but you can learn more on the official website.) Plus, their official tagline is: “A movie about leaving religion to follow Jesus.”

The problem with this “bashing religion” movement is that Jesus seems to like religion. What Jesus doesn’t like, and what Christians should not like is “false religion.” This is the religion of the Pharisees who became very legalistic and were concerned with following the letter of the law, laws that they themselves made up. Certainly, many Christian churches can be accused of false religion and being Pharisaical. For example, the guys who made “Beware of Christians” came from churches that seem to be very legalistic e.g. no drinking. They have made up their own rules and are concerned with following the letter of the law. However, no one today makes the distinction between religion and false religion. It’s all religion, and by religion, they do seem to direct their anger toward the institutionalized church.

They seem to have forgotten who established the church. That would be Jesus. “Upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” Jesus blesses the gathering of his people for worship by saying “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am with them.” In Hebrews 10, the writer exhorts Christians “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” (Sorry, Justin)

Jesus has established his church as the place where He meets His people in Word and Sacrament. In worship, God’s Word is proclaimed and Jesus is delivered through the absolution of sins, the reading of the Bible, the preaching of the pastor and through the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper.

Look, I understand the accusations of hypocrisy. The church is guilty of accusations of hypocrisy when it focuses on what we should do as opposed to what Jesus has done. All of God’s people are guilty of hypocrisy in our daily lives. But the Christian religion, which Jesus established, is not about me and my works. It is about Jesus. His life, His death, His resurrection for me and you. It is about God’s grace received in faith for the forgiveness of sins. It is about the natural fruit of faith (good works) which is produced by those who are connected to the true Vine. It is about the body of Christ, the church, gathering together to be strengthened by the Head of the church, Jesus Himself, as He comes in Word and Sacrament.

Final thoughts then: Justin- go to church. Yes, beware of false Christians. Hate false religion. If you do have a church which emphasizes the Law and what Christians must do instead of the Gospel and what Jesus has done, don’t reject the Church or “religion” altogether. Find a different church. Might I suggest a Lutheran church. We aren’t perfect. We are full of hypocritical sinners. But we are honest about that, and we confess our sins every week and beg for God’s mercy. And we teach and preach Christ crucified for the forgiveness of sins. We do not teach that faith is found inside of us because that just leads to a reliance on emotion. We teach that faith is found “outside ourselves” in Jesus through the Word and the Sacraments. That’s where Jesus said He can be found, and we take him at His word. We humans are too fickle to rely solely on our own feelings or just “talking and praying to God.” If Justin, and the Youtube guy and the documentary guys want to truly follow Jesus, then embracing His religion and gathering together to hear His Word is where He is leading us.

For some great responses to the “I Hate Religion But Love Jesus” video, check out these three:

 

 

Don’t Look At Me!

Alright, this is my last post reflecting on Tullian Tchividjian’s book Jesus+Nothing=Everything. I thoroughly enjoyed this book as evidenced by the four posts dedicated to it. It was neat to read how a popular Evangelical pastor rediscovered the true Gospel message and how it has changed his life and his ministry. Many of the people who influenced him in his journey were Lutheran theologians, and as I read his book, I could see the Lutheran influence in his discoveries. (The only thing he is missing is Lutheran sacramental theology, but I can’t ask for everything.)

Tchividjian’s main purpose in this book is to recover the true message of God’s Word from a person-focused center to a Jesus-focused center. He recognized that much of popular evangelical theology focuses on what Christians must do and how they can improve instead of focusing on God and what He has already done through Jesus. Tchividjian refers to this teaching as “performancism” which is just another word for “legalism.” Legalism has been present in the church ever since Bible times. One of the temptations in legalism is to read yourself into all the Bible stories and make them about you.

For example, in the story of David and Goliath, a “me-focused” interpretation would be to place myself in David’s shoes and talk about how I can defeat my giant enemies with God’s help. To take it even further, the five stones all represent some sort of spiritual attribute that I can use to knock down giants. A proper, Jesus-focused interpretation of this story recognizes that David defeating Goliath points forward to Jesus’ battle with sin, death and Satan. Like David, Jesus stands in the place of His people and takes on the enemy that we could never defeat by ourselves. David caught off the head of Goliath. Jesus crushed the head of Satan. Just as David was chosen and anointed by God to be the leader and king of his people, Jesus was chosen and anointed by God to be our Savior and King.

A proper understanding of Scripture means that we will come to realize that the Bible is not primarily about me and what I must do, but rather it is about God and what He has done and continues to do for me. That doesn’t mean that we cannot learn anything about ourselves and the Christian life through stories like David and Goliath. But these stories are first and foremost about God, specifically God the Son, Jesus Christ. Tchividjian gets at this in his book:

The gospel doesn’t take you deeper into yourself; the gospel takes you away from yourself. That’s why Paul reminds the Colossians (and us), ‘You have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (3:3). The gospel frees us to realize that, while we matter, we’re not the point…The gospel causes us to look up and out, away from ourselves. It turns our gaze upward to God and outward to others, both to those inside the church and to those outside it. The gospel causes us to love God and to love others, which of course is how Jesus summed up the entirety of the law.

And some more from Tchividjian:

Reminded of the gospel, we’re reminded that sin enslaves by making us big; the gospel frees by making us small. Our self-esteem culture would have us believe that the bigger we become, the freer we’ll be. But the gospel turns that on its head- the smaller we become, the freer we will be. We begin to decrease; Christ begins to increase. The world says the more independent you become, the freer and stronger you’ll be; the gospel says the more dependent on God you become, the freer and stronger you’ll be.

This is true freedom. A proper understanding of the Gospel means that we do not have to be plagued by guilt as we look inside ourselves and see, not moral improvement, but sin. The gospel points us away from ourselves and toward Jesus. Legalism and “performancism” leaves us open to accusations of hypocrisy because we point to ourselves and pat ourselves on the back at the improvement we have made. When we grasp the true Gospel message, we can take comfort in the fact that it isn’t up to my performance. We can tell Satan who wants to accuse us in our sin through other people “Don’t look at me! I am not the standard. Look at Jesus! I am perfect because of Him only.” And when God looks at you, He sees you through the lens of Jesus Christ. He doesn’t see your works or your lack thereof; He sees Christ’s works, his life, death, and resurrection, for you.

What a great promise! I encourage all of you to read Tchividjian’s book and rediscover the Gospel message for yourself. I will leave you with one last quote.

Now you can spend your life giving up your place for others instead of guarding it from others, because your identity is in Christ, not in your place. Now you can spend your energy going to the back instead of getting to the front, because your identity is in Christ, not in your position. You can also spend your life giving, not taking, because your identity is in Christ, not in your possessions. All this is our new identity- all because of Christ’s finished work to us in the gospel.

Grow Up!

I used to think that growing as a Christian meant I had to somehow go out and obtain the qualities and attitudes I was lacking. To really mature, I needed to find a way to get more joy, more patience, more faithfulness, and so on…What the Bible teaches is that we mature as we come to a greater realization of what we already have in Christ. The gospel, in fact, transforms us precisely because it’s not itself a message about our internal transformation but about Christ’s external substitution. From Jesus+Nothing=Everything by Tullian Tchividjian

What is the life of sanctification all about? How do Christians mature in their faith? How exactly do you measure spiritual growth? These are important questions because there are so many wrong answers out there. Actually, there is probably only one wrong answer, but it takes many different forms. The wrong answer is legalism or to borrow from Tchividjian again, “performancism.” The idea is that justification is all about what God does and sanctification or spiritual growth is all about what I must now do.

Sanctification according to legalism focuses on my actions, on my need or desire to get better. Legalism ignores the cross and what Christ has done. It pushes the cross into the past and focuses on the present and what you are doing to stay in God’s good favor.We get fooled into thinking that we have to earn our keep in God’s good graces. Remember how Tchividjian  puts it: I have to get more joy, more patience, more faithfulness, more sincerity, more love, more (insert Christan attribute here) in order to prove that I am a Christian and that I am growing.

Now don’t get me wrong. Having more joy, more patience, and more faithfulness are all good things. But these are natural fruits that are produced from a life connected to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They are not some measuring stick in order to keep your room  in heaven. You aren’t gaining any favor with God by gaining new abilities. Actually when we think this way we are putting all the attention on ourselves. We are putting ourselves back under the law of Moses from which Jesus died to free us! As Tchividjian puts its,

Ironically, when we focus mostly on our need to get better, we actually get worse. We become neurotic and self-absorbed. Preoccupation with our effort instead of with God’s effort for us makes us increasingly self-centered and morbidly introspective.

So what is the life of sanctification really about? It’s about Jesus’ death and resurrection. How do Christians truly mature in their faith? By relying on Jesus.

Think of it this way: sanctification is the daily hard work of going back to the reality of our justification. It’s going back to the certainty of our objectively secured pardon in Christ and hitting the refresh button a thousand times a day. Or, as Martin Luther so aptly put it in his Lectures on Romans, ‘To progress is always to begin again.’ Real spiritual progress, in other words, requires a daily going backwards. Tchividjian

God's grace is a vast, endless ocean

Sanctification is still about Jesus’ work! Jesus has set you free from the Law! Yet we constantly try to get back under it because we are so trained in the mindset that we have to do something, we have to earn our keep, we have to make the grade. Real Christian maturity and spiritual growth comes with a deeper realization that we by cannot by our own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ or come to Him or get any better. Real Christian maturity and spiritual growth comes with a greater understanding that we must decrease, and Jesus must increase. The truly mature Christian plunges into the deep ocean of God’s grace. Spiritual growth occurs when we stop trying to please God by our efforts and realize that God has already given us his approval through Jesus. Once we’re already approved and accepted by God in Christ, we can freely follow God’s lead and grow in doing his will out of genuine gratitude for his amazing grace and without any fear of judgment or condemnation when we fail. And you will fail. Over and over again. Every day of your life. But your failures have been overcome by Christ’s death! “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” 1 Corinthians 15:57

The Birth Control Mandate

Perhaps you have heard a lot in the news about the HHS Mandate which was passed by the federal government recently. There has been a lot of outcry by religious leaders and churches in protest to this new rule. So what is it? Here is a brief summary:

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services enacted a rule in January 2012 under the “Affordable Care Act” requiring employers to provide access to health insurance that covers most forms of birth control, even those that can cause the death of an unborn child. The rule, or mandate, exempts churches but applies to other religious employers. On Feb. 10, President Obama announced an “accommodation” for religious employers, saying they would not have to cover birth control, but that insurance companies would provide free birth control, including “morning after” pills.

You may have been wondering, “Where does my church stand on this?” Now if you are reading this, I should let you know that I am a pastor in the Lutheran Church- Missouri Synod. So if you belong to another Christian denomination, I do not know your church’s official stance on this issue. (Unless you’re Roman Catholic, then you’re against. And as I’m about to point out, all Christian churches should be against this.)

The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod has an elected president. Currently that position is held by the Rev. Dr. Matthew Harrison. Last week, President Harrison was invited to speak before a panel of Congress to discuss the mandate. President Harrison spoke intelligently and forcefully against this mandate. He sat with a Roman Catholic bishop, a Jewish rabbi and a Baptist minister in objection to what the government is forcing religious institutions to do. It goes against our beliefs and our conscience. The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) objects to the use of drugs and procedures that are used to take the lives of unborn children, who are persons in the sight of God from the time of conception. This is clearly a case where the church must obey God rather than men, as President Harrison says in his speech.

I’m going to post some links with more information and articles about this issue. You can learn more from these than you can from me.

Here is a link to the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod’s site on this whole issue. You can find video of President Harrison before Congress as well as other news clips and articles. Find them here: HHS Mandate- LCMS

Here are a couple of articles which discuss President Harrison’s opportunity to speak before Congress. Click here and here.

Finally, you may have seen a picture going viral after the hearing which points out that only men were testifying at this hearing. “Why were only men speaking when this is a women’s issue? How dare they! That is wrong!” are the general arguments. This is an attempt to distract from the real issue. This is not primarily a women’s rights issue. This is a life issue and a first amendment issue. Also, women did speak on the next panel before Congress. Don’t let this straw man argument sway you. Read this article (by a woman) which puts the focus back where it should be.

I hope this helps to educate you on this issue. Please pray that President Harrison’s words and others’ words would have an effect. Please pray for the unborn who are the real ones at risk because of this ruling. Please pray that the entire country would repent of the sin of abortion and value all life.

One more link to add! President Harrison talks about his experience on his blog.

It is finished! For real…I’m not making this up

“A Christian may not struggle with believing that our good behavior is required to initially earn God’s favor; but I haven’t met one Christian who doesn’t struggle daily with believing- somehow, someway- that our good behavior is required to keep God’s favor.”

From Jesus+Nothing=Everything by Tullian Tchividjian

This is most certainly true! I have fallen into this thinking. You have fallen into this thinking. Entire church bodies are trapped in this kind of thinking. This kind of thinking, once again, is called legalism. It is the belief that after a person has been justified by God’s work and grace alone, the process of sanctification is their work. It is something that they must do in order to insure that they stay in God’s good graces. However, legalism places a Christian under the burden of the Law once again, the very Law which Christ set us free from in his death and resurrection.

“In his law-fulfilling life, curse-bearing death, and death-defeating resurrection, Jesus has entirely accomplished for sinners what sinners could never in the least do for themselves. The banner under which the Christian lives reads, “It is finished.” (Tchividjian) It is finished. You do not have to seek God’s approval over and over again. Jesus won it for you once and for all time.”

This is a difficult concept for us to understand. As I mentioned in my last post “Making the Grade,” we are used to performing in order to gain a reward or earn someone’s favor. It is easy to transfer that “performancism” over to our faith. However, living the life under the banner which reads “It is finished” is so much more freeing! Tchividjian accurately and wonderfully points out, “Once we’re already approved and already accepted by God in Christ, we can freely follow God’s lead and grow in doing his will out of genuine gratitude for his amazing grace and without any fear of judgment or condemnation when we fail.”

In my next post, as I continue to reflect on Tchividjian’s book, we will take a closer look at what sanctification really looks like. Here’s a hint: It’s still about grace alone and not anything that you must do! Check back soon!

Making the Grade

We live in a performance based society. Work hard in school, and your efforts will pay off. Go the extra mile at your job, and people will notice. Do something extra nice for your spouse, and you will be shown appreciation and love in return. We are driven by the motivation to get better and to perform well in every situation.

This is not a bad thing. How else will a school know that you are learning the material unless you perform well on all the assignments and tests? How else should your boss reward (or discipline) you other than basing it off your performance? While love for a spouse may not be primarily based upon performance, how else will your spouse know you love and care for them unless you tell them or show them?

The trouble with our emphasis on performance is when we transfer it over to our relationship with God. Your good standing before God is not based on your performance. It never has been. It never will be.

You are probably nodding your head in agreement. Most of you (my readers) are good Lutherans. It is by grace you have been saved, and this is not of yourself. It is a gift of God so that no one can boast. Jesus earned your good standing with God the Father through His sacrificial death and resurrection. We know this quite well. We coined the terms “Grace alone. Faith alone. Scripture alone.”

However, that does not mean that we do not get sucked into the same trap that, I would say, sucks in a majority of Christians. We believe that Jesus died for our sins and gave us new life. For us Lutherans, this new life was given to us at our baptism. We have been saved. Now what? Now we must obey. Now it is up to me. Now the Christian life is about a bunch of “do’s” and “don’ts” in order to lead a God-pleasing life. Isn’t that what sanctification is all about? Isn’t it about my performance? Isn’t my obedience the proof that I am a child of God?

It comes so naturally to us. Deep down, we have trouble with the concept of grace. We struggle with this idea that everything has already been completed for us. We don’t have to do a thing in order to earn a good standing with God or in order to keep our good standing with God. We always try to add something to grace.

In his book Jesus+Nothing=Everything, author and pastor Tullian Tchividjian (Yeah, I have no idea how to pronounce it either) tells his story about struggling with grace and with the trap of legalism. Legalism is performance based Christianity. Legalism sneaks into the church on the coattails of good intentions. Shouldn’t a Christian do good works? Shouldn’t we be learning about all the things we need to be doing? Shouldn’t we following the commandments: love God and love your neighbor? Pretty soon though, the Christian life becomes less about Jesus and his performance and more about me and my performance. Suddenly, I’m judging my worth before God in terms of my obedience.

As I said, legalism is tricky. We often fall right into it without realizing it. As Tchividjian  says, “Typically, it’s not that Christians seek to blatantly replace the gospel. What we try to do is simply add to it.” He adds,

The Bible makes it clear that the gospel’s premier enemy is the one we often call ‘legalism.’ I like to call it performancism. Still another way of viewing it, especially in its most common manifestation in Christians, is moralism… Legalism happens when what we need to do, not what Jesus has already done, becomes the end game… We know it’s wrong to worship immorality, like everybody out in the world seems to be doing; we find it harder to see that it’s just as wrong to worship morality, like everybody in the church seems to be doing…In fact, the most dangerous thing that can happen to you is that you become proud of your obedience.

In my next few posts, I want to explore this book a little further. Tchividjian has rediscovered the gospel and has also discovered Lutheran theology. He is not a Lutheran pastor but cites several Lutheran theologians as influential people for him in the writing of this book. He also quotes Martin Luther several times which makes sense because there is no greater champion of the gospel than Luther. (OK, maybe Paul) As I said, he is writing this book as a response to his own personal struggle and has seen the need to attack legalism which is resting comfortably in our churches right now. It is dangerous and needs to be opposed. The only way to do that is through the gospel. I hope you will join in this exploration of the gospel in these next couple of weeks because this is an issue that every single one of us needs to hear because I believe we all struggle with “performancism.” To quote Tchividjian again:

A Christian may not struggle with believing that our good behavior is required to initially earn God’s favor; but I haven’t met on Christian who doesn’t struggle daily with believing- somehow, someway- that our good behavior is required to keep God’s favor.

Remember: Jesus has made the grade for you!

5 Questions for Pro-Life Advocates

Did you miss me? It has been awhile since I have done a new blog post, and I am sorry about that. Even this post is a little bit lazy because I just want you to read an article that I discovered which I have found very helpful regarding the issue of abortion.

Scott Klusendorf is the president of Life Training Institute and was recently a guest on the Christian radio show, Issues Etc. He was discussing the article he wrote that I will post below for your own contemplation and edification. It is a tough subject, but abortion is a subject that I believe all Christians should have knowledge and have the ability to discuss it intelligently. This article answers five common challenges or questions put toward the pro-life movement. Here is the link to the original article: “The 2012 Elections: Five Questions for Pro-Life Advocates.”However, I have also copied the full text below.

In 2008, a handful of notable pro-life evangelicals and Catholics threw their support behind a presidential candidate sworn to uphold elective abortion as a fundamental right. They argued that doing so constituted an enlightened pro-life vote that was morally superior to the narrow party politics of religious conservatives. Instead of passing laws against abortion, so the argument went, the candidate and his party would “reduce” it by addressing its underlying causes.¹ True, he was mistaken on abortion, but he was right on other, important “whole-of-life” issues such as opposition to war, concern for the poor, and care for the environment. The candidate’s political strategy was simple: shrink the significance of abortion so it was more or less equal with other issues.²
It worked. Twice as many white evangelicals age eighteen through forty-four voted for Barack Obama in 2008 than voted for John Kerry in 2004. Catholics, meanwhile, supported Obama at fifty-four percent, up seven points from what they gave Kerry four years earlier. The candidate got just enough pro-life votes from these groups to tip the election his way.³
I submit that each of these alleged pro-life votes represents a profound misunderstanding of the pro-life position. The fundamental issue before us is not merely how to reduce abortion, but who counts as one of us. How we answer will determine whether embryos and fetuses enjoy the protection of law or remain candidates for the dumpster. As Francis Beckwith points out, a society that has fewer abortions but protects the legal killing of unborn humans is still deeply immoral.⁴ Given what’s at stake, it’s vital that pro-life Christians persuasively answer five key questions before the 2012 election:

1. Are pro-life advocates focused too narrowly on abortion? After all, informed voters consider many issues, not just one.

Of course abortion isn’t the only issue-any more than the treatment of slaves wasn’t the only issue in the 1860s or the treatment of Jews the only issue in the 1940s. But both were the dominant issues of their day. Thoughtful Christians attribute different importance to different issues, and give greater weight to fundamental moral questions. For example, if a man running for president told us that men had a right to beat their wives, most people would see that as reason enough to reject him, despite his expertise on foreign policy or economic reforms. The foundational principle of our republic is that all humans are equal in their fundamental dignity. What issue could be more important than that? You might as well blame politicians like Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt for focusing too narrowly on defeating the Nazis, to the neglect of other issues. Given a choice, I’d rather pro-lifers focus on at least one great moral issue than waste their precious resources trying to fix all of them.⁵

2. Why don’t pro-life advocates care about social justice both here and in developing countries?

They do, which is why pro-life crisis pregnancy centers vastly outnumber abortion clinics in the U.S. and why committed evangelicals, most of whom are pro-life, give more than their secular counterparts.⁶
Nevertheless, pro-life Christians should reject the premise that because they oppose the intentional and unjustified killing of innocent human beings, they must therefore take responsibility for all of the world’s ills. Is the American Cancer Society wrong to focus on one deadly disease to the exclusion of others? It’s highly unfair to demand that local pro-life groups take their already scarce resources and spread them even thinner fighting every social injustice imaginable. This would be suicide for those opposed to abortion. As Frederick the Great once said, “He who attacks everywhere attacks nowhere.”
True, as defenders of human dignity, we should care about the poor, clean water, and the rights of others everywhere. The U.S. government, however, is not going to solve those problems in developing countries the way it can solve abortion here. For example, our government can’t ban poverty or stop the sex trade of young girls in Thailand. That is the job of that nation’s citizens and government! However, the U.S. government can and should ban the killing of unborn humans within its own borders. That is why prudent pro-lifers have always sought both moral and political solutions to that problem. While poverty and the sex trade are evil, no one in America proposes legalizing them.
Abortion is different. Far from reducing the practice, our government currently advocates it both here and abroad. For example, during his first week in office, President Obama restored funding to organizations that promote and perform abortion overseas. A year later, he signed a healthcare bill that subsidized insurance plans that fund it here in the U.S. At the same time, he rescinded federal regulations that protect doctors from forced participation in elective abortion and threatened to cut off Medicaid funding to any state that denied tax funding to healthcare entities that provide abortions.⁷ Finally, he nominated to the federal courts justices sympathetic to the abortion license whose rulings could set the pro-life cause back for decades to come.
Because ours is a government of the people, Christians have a fundamental duty to work within the political system to limit evil and promote good. Shouldn’t social justice start in the womb?

3. Why don’t pro-lifers oppose war like they do abortion?

War can be a moral evil, but it isn’t always so. Careful thinkers make distinctions between intrinsic (absolute) moral evils and contingent ones. For example, the decision to wage war may or may not be wrong, depending on the circumstances. However, the decision to kill intentionally an unborn human being for socioeconomic reasons is an intrinsic evil and laws permitting it are scandalous. True, a general in a just war may foresee that innocent humans will die securing a lasting peace, but he does not intend their deaths. With elective abortion, the death of an innocent human fetus is not merely foreseen; it is intended. The problem is that many Catholics and left-leaning evangelicals are perfectly willing to support a political party that supports an intrinsic evil simply because its members promise to help us avoid contingent ones. This is bad moral thinking.

4. Instead of passing laws against abortion, shouldn’t pro-life Christians focus on reducing its underlying causes?

First and foremost, the abortion debate turns on the question of human equality. That is, in a nation dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, do the unborn count as members of the human family? With that fundamental question in mind, it’s unreasonable for liberals to insist that pro-lifers surrender the legal fight to focus on underlying causes. As my colleague Steve Weimar points out, this is like saying the “underlying cause” of spousal abuse is psychological, so instead of making it illegal for husbands to beat their wives, the solution is to provide counseling for men. There are “underlying causes” for rape, murder, theft, and so on, but that in no way makes it misguided to have laws banning such actions.⁸
Moreover, why are liberals even concerned about reducing the number of abortions in the first place? If destroying a human fetus is morally no different than cutting one’s fingernails, then who cares how many abortions there are? The reason to reduce elective abortion is that human life is unjustly taken-but if that’s the case, then restricting the practice makes perfect sense. Imagine a nineteenth-century lawmaker who said that slavery was a bad idea and we ought to reduce it, but owning slaves should remain legal. If those in power adopted his thinking, would this be a good society? True, politics isn’t a sufficient answer to injustice, but it’s certainly a necessary one. Martin Luther King, Jr., once said, “The law can’t make the white man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me.”⁹ Frankly, if  Christians don’t think the government-sanctioned killing of unborn children merits a political response, then they not only misunderstand the moral gravity of the situation, but also their mandate to love their neighbor as themselves.

5. Should pastors challenge church members who support a political party sworn to protect elective abortion?

Yes and no. They should challenge believers and nonbelievers alike with the truth that elective abortion unjustly takes the life of a defenseless human being-and that truth should impact which party we support. They shouldn’t claim that supporting a particular party or candidate saves us from God’s righteous wrath against sin (only the gospel does that!) or that members of the opposite party are not Christians.
Nevertheless, in a nation where the people are the government, Christians have a duty to apply their biblical worldview in a way that limits evil and promotes the good insofar as possible given current political realities. At the legislative level in particular (House and Senate races), that usually means voting for the party that, though imperfect, will best protect unborn humans against one that sanctions killing them. The reason is simple: at the legislative level, political parties more than individuals determine which laws see the light of day.
Consider the House of Representatives. If a party committed to elective abortion controls the chamber, it will squash pro-life bills and promote pro-abortion ones. Even if that pro-abortion party has a few pro-life members, those members will likely never get to vote on a pro-life bill unless their party is not in power!
But it gets worse. These same pro-life members of that pro-abortion party almost always put party politics above moral principle when it comes to the most important vote they will cast-selection of the Speaker. Remember, the Speaker of the House ultimately determines the legislative agenda and if the party committed to elective abortion controls the chamber, its candidate for speaker will inevitably be pro-abortion. Nevertheless, these pro-life members vote for their party’s candidate for speaker, which all but guarantees that pro-life bills never see the light of day. In most cases, then, they aren’t reforming their party’s pro-abortion stance; they’re enabling it!¹⁰
If parties drive legislation, how should a pastor educate his flock on the relationship between politics and Christian morality? First, he should teach a biblical worldview affirming that all humans have value because they bear the image of their maker. Second, he should challenge church members to live out that biblical view in every area of their lives, including their political affiliations. Third, he should stress that while no political party is perfect, on the question of fundamental human value, some parties are more in line with biblical truth than others.
Suppose, for example, that it’s 1860 and fifty percent of professing Christians in your church are members of a political party dedicated to the proposition that an entire class of human beings can be enslaved or killed to meet the needs of the white race. If you’re a pastor committed to applying a biblical worldview in all areas of life, is this OK? You might be sympathetic to new converts coming to grips with Christian teaching, but mature church members? Pastors can’t use church resources to endorse political candidates or parties, but they can (and must) teach that a biblical worldview informs our political behavior-including which parties we choose to empower with our vote. Saying so is not wrong-it’s leadership.

-Scott Klusendorf