Social Justice Adjacent Evangelicals React to Dobbs Decision

The Conversations That Matter podcast. I'm your host, John Harris. We're gonna talk today, and probably in a few episodes, actually, about the reaction from progressive, woke -leaning, woke -adjacent evangelicals to the

Dobbs decision and the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Because I think it's important for those who, on the state level, are gonna be fighting this.

On the anti -abortion side, there's a lot of fractures. I talked about it last Thursday. You have your groups that are a holistic pro -life approach.

You have your groups trying to carve out all these exemptions. And they're gonna be submitting competing bills.

They're gonna be fighting this out on the state level in some places. And so I think for people in those states, you're gonna wanna know where these fault lines are.

And then, I think the tactics that will be employed and are being employed against, really, the hardliner, just consistent, really, just the consistent, we can use that word, pro -life, anti -abortion folks, of which

I would claim I'm one. I would be someone who thinks it's murder, just treat it like murder.

So, in this episode, I'm not going through, I've done this before. You can actually go check out on the channel. There's a whole abortion debate

I did. And I put stuff out there. I might do more in the future on what the Bible says about this, why we think it's murder, all that.

But for this episode, I'm talking to people who already know this. And we're on the same page. And moving forward, what's gonna happen?

What are those fractures gonna look like? Because you're gonna have, on the one side, the pro -choice, quote -unquote, but really the pro -abortion side.

And they're gonna be united, really, or mostly. I mean, there might be some fractures in their side, as well, as to when you do it.

But mostly, they're pretty united. And then, you're gonna have, though, a fractured side, of which ours is. And so,

I wanna give you the reactions that I've seen. I've gone into the bowels of Twitter and Facebook today. And we will talk, probably in a separate episode, about David French, Karen Suala Pryor, and the

Gospel Coalition, and their reaction. But I'm gonna give you the reaction of some pastors and other leaders. And I've divided it into four points, four categories.

You have silence, which is a lot, a lot of people. Scott O 'Neill noticed the same thing.

The silence from any high -profile evangelicals in the Dobbs decision is deafening. And I just think of even a

Presbyterian church down the road from me that a lot of friends I know have gone to, and they were vocal about the

Ukrainian stuff, the mask stuff, the Black Lives Matter stuff, on social media, but nothing about the pro -life or anti -abortion stuff in the wake of the

Dobbs decision. And I don't know if that's just a fear that they, I mean, it shows utter moral, just insanity.

But it could be motivated by fear. It could be a bunch of things. But silence is a lot of evangelical elites.

And it's weird to me. It's strange. Even I'm a little surprised, because I thought, well, even the social justice side has had to tip their hat to the pro -life movement.

And wouldn't they be rejoicing, full stop, no qualification? Well, that's not the case, apparently, because most of the reactions are not that.

Their silence or their support for the Dobbs decision with the expressed disapproval in the same breath towards conservatives.

They can't just say, we're rejoicing today. Like, I rejoice the day that that happened. My wife and I went out,

I'm still in the glow of it. But they have to express some disapproval towards conservatives, that, well, the pro -lifers or their tone is bad or something.

And people like that, watch out for them, because they're without principle.

They're just gonna go towards the middle of whatever the two extremes are and call themselves reasonable and everyone else not reasonable, especially the conservatives.

And that's what I'm seeing a lot of. I'm also seeing a lot of support for the Dobbs decision, but express concern from others.

And this one, I think, is probably a lot harder for conservatives to recognize, because we all wanna support mothers.

That's just true. Of course we do. Of course we want all these resources that are given to mothers. We don't want them to get an abortion and we wanna help them.

Adoption and crisis pregnancy centers, all of that. The thing is, though, you just gotta think of it this way.

Would we do this with any other morally equivalent issue? And I'm saying truly morally equivalent. Like, let's say, you know,

Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia or any of the communist regimes that have killed their population, with, of course, always the intent of creating some great equitable new world.

Do we, in the wake of those regimes ever falling, say something like, you know, we are so glad that the killing fields have stopped, but we need to really support, we need to support the regime that's there that either was complicit in this in some way or now is kind of set back because now they can't achieve the goals that they had for their society and therefore we need to give them foreign aid or something.

I mean, we don't, we never do that kind of thing because it just seems stupid and ridiculous, and it is, it really is.

We, you know, love them, love them both. Right, we should love the mother and the child, but if you're talking about mothers who are thinking about the possibility of murdering their children,

I'm totally fine. Again, adoption, crisis, pregnancy, all that, I support that stuff.

But the both thing is where I think there's an impression given that there's, that in order to love a child who is being murdered under the sanction of the state, right, this is state -sanctioned, it's just as good or on the, we have to put just as much effort into, we have to care just as much about the circumstances that a mother facing that decision and or considering that decision is in, and that is not true.

You don't have state -sanctioned killing of mothers, right? It's okay to kill a mother and you can't call the police because the state gives that as a constitutional protection or something.

That was the case, and in some states it's still the case, it's legal to kill a child.

Totally different scenario. So most of the mothers who are in this situation have made a poor, sinful choice, we can say that, okay?

Biblical language here. And the ones that aren't, the ones that have unfortunately had an incident of rape where they've been forced to now they're impregnated and now they're considering this option, even in those cases, that's horrible, that's sinful, but you're never gonna find a state in this country where that's somehow legal.

That, oh yeah, rape's fine, right? So it's not morally equivalent, it doesn't mean that all our efforts should, it's fine.

If the Lord's called you to a crisis pregnancy center, if the Lord's called you to adoption or foster children or whatever, totally good, fine, supportive, all of that.

But don't think for a minute though that that is somehow, your actions in that are, your love for that mother in that situation, that that is on the same moral plane as the love for a baby who's about to be killed with the sanction of the government, who should be there to step in.

That's a little different. And hopefully people can see this, but my thought is that a lot of people probably can't, that this is kind of working.

So what's happening is a lot of the energy and the momentum and everything could be channeled into this, and it's fine if you have, like I said, there's nothing wrong with that, and it's good,

I support it, and we all should to some extent. But if you're in a state where the battle now is, hey, abortion's still legal here, but we have the option, like if you're in,

I saw Louisiana this morning, they have the potential to actually end this. It's still legal in Louisiana.

So where are you gonna put your limited resources and energy? And what's going to, what's a bigger emergency?

What's actually going to do the greater good? I think the triage would say, you go and you rescue the people getting murdered with the sanction of the state, right?

So hopefully people understand what I'm trying to say there. Doing my best to explain it, but I think this is one of the areas, and I'll show you examples where you could have this kind of softening, almost, of the abortion issue.

And I think that's what it, it gives that impression at least. And then fourthly, you have, you can use the decision, some evangelicals use the decision to gain

Christian support for morally equivalent issues. So now that abortion is somehow, well, it doesn't have at least the constitutional protection it did, well, now we gotta start doing work in not just, like I was describing before, for helping, assisting mothers who have children out of wedlock or something like that.

We have to now instead fight for racial justice and minimum wage and all the socialist dreams.

And so that could be the, that's the other angle that some evangelicals are playing here.

And we need to recognize it when we see it. So let me start with some examples. I'll play some videos for you as we go.

So, support but express disapproval toward conservative tone.

Here we go. Here's an individual by the name of Zach Lambert, Zach Lambert, and he's the pastor at,

I think it's called Restoration Church. Anyway, he's written for Christianity Today. And so I would say he would qualify to be in that big

Eva Guild if you write for Christianity Today. I think, wouldn't that qualify you? Or Gospel Coalition, that would probably qualify you too.

But he had a tweet that made a lot, I mean, had a lot of people liking it.

And he said, I really wish the Christians who are celebrating the overturning of Roe could see the anxious and fearful messages

I've been getting from women in our congregation all day. Okay, why is that? I mean, would we, you know,

I really wish the Christians who are celebrating the ending of the concentration camps could see the anxious and fearful messages

I've been getting from Nazis all day. Would that, yeah, John, you just compared Nazis to women. No, I'm not saying women are

Nazis. I'm just saying that if you want to try to do an apples to apples comparison here, realize the gravity of this.

It's murder, it's murder, okay? And any person who would be considering murder, if they are anxious or fearful, then what is that, what are we supposed to do with that?

Here's what he says, maybe take a break from your online victory laps and listen to people who are really hurting right now.

Okay, but the only women that would be hurting from this would be women that what? Would want to have an abortion or have had an abortion, or if you have had an abortion, then you just confess that to the

Lord, it's a sin. And guess what? Jesus takes the penalty for that sin and you're right with God. Doesn't mean that all the scars are taken away, but the scars won't be taken away by tweets from Zach Lambert either.

There is no way to justify it. It's wrong, it's murder, we all sin, confess it. That's all, go before the

Lord. But so this isn't about women. It's about a specific category of women.

Women who are willing to soft puddle abortion somehow. I don't know how else to read it.

He says this, if being encouraged to listen to someone else's perspective and fulfill the biblical imperative to mourn with those who mourn makes you angry, ask yourself why that is.

If a pastor caring for hurting people in their congregation makes you yell at them, ask yourself why that is. If people are mourning on the day that it is no longer constitutionally protected to murder children in some states, they have an issue.

I'm sorry. The people that need to be preached at are the people who are mourning for some reason on that day.

And like I said, if they're mourning because in the past they've had an abortion, then you go to the cross with that. But they should be rejoicing too that this practice that has done so much harm in their lives has finally ended in some states and it will not be wreaking the same havoc in the lives of other mothers.

So Zach Lambert has a broken moral compass. And you have others react in the same way.

So here's Adam Greenway. Now, Steve Smith is someone probably no one's ever heard of. Steve Smith is just the executive pastor,

I think, at the church that Adam Greenway was speaking at. Adam Greenway is the president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

But I'm gonna play clips from both of them. Here's how this whole issue was set up in that church. Here's how they presented it to the congregation.

And I have some choice clips. You can go watch the full video there. There's the link. And of course, the slideshow will be available for patrons in the info section here.

But check this out. This is just super interesting. This past Friday, you may have heard we had a Supreme Court decision, right?

So we are to celebrate this wonderful decision. But I wanna challenge us in light of that decision that as we celebrate, we also need to be sure that we are adopting the heart of Christ as we move forward from here.

We want to move forward with a posture of humility and of compassion for those who are affected by abortion.

So we need to be prepared to open our hearts, to open our wallets, to open our willingness to serve in the ministries that provide these services and provide these opportunities for women.

The Supreme Court decision last week that ended our long national nightmare of state -sanctioned abortion federally.

And it is something that we should all celebrate in terms of what has happened.

But it does not mean that our work is over, nor that we should have a triumphalistic spirit.

And in fact, even since Friday, I have been surprised and to some degree chagrined by the way that some have chosen to act and to react to what has happened, especially if you are on social media, if you're on the

Twitter or the Facebook or the gram, you can find all kinds of interesting and not always

Christ -honoring responses and engagements. Those of us who are called to be ambassadors and agents of bringing the gospel oftentimes are not those who are found to be credible.

In fact, in some cases, we are known as being those who are just kind of obnoxious, off -putting.

That we have a tone and a tenor that isn't a fragrant aroma of the gospel, but in many cases is a stench.

People aren't seeing enough that is authentically different in the life that you live and I live, and in the words that you say and I say, and in the tweets that you post and I post, and the post on Facebook that you and I do to where they don't really see anything that is actually attracting them to us.

And what they see actually pushes them farther away from us. So you can see in this where the energy is directed.

The energy is on the people who express disapproval or express approval for the

Dobbs decision, but are doing so with a tone that Adam Greenway disapproves of himself. So the energy isn't on celebrating, which is strange to me.

It's on all those mean Christians online who are rubbing it in somehow that the

Dobbs decision is in a vague term. So you don't really exactly know what they're talking about, but they're really upset about it.

And that's what I've come to expect from a lot of evangelical elites, unfortunately. It's very vague, but really angry.

And then you have this next approach is support for the Dobbs decision, but express concern for mothers.

And there's a lot of this. So Karen Swalwell Pryor says, our work now is just starting. We must help and support moms, dads, and babies, love them all, and in so doing make abortion unimaginable.

That's the new thing they're all saying, make abortion unimaginable. And then Beth Moore says, yes, step up church, take responsibility for the fact that pro -life is either pro -all life, which is in step with the truth of the gospel or pro -some life, which for many is in step with political expediency.

Unborn, born, babies, girls, women need immense support, compassion, and care. So here's where I'm talking about.

This is what I was talking about earlier about there's almost like a culpability that Christians have or the church has.

We're responsible somehow maybe for abortion because we didn't properly care for women or something. It's a strange thing to say, but that's somehow, this insane viewpoint is somehow becoming mainstream.

Now, others aren't saying going to that extent of what Beth Moore just said, but they are saying things like, here's

Justin Giboney from the AND campaign. He says, Roe v. Wade has been overturned. Time to double down on protecting, supporting, and advocating for sisters with crisis pregnancies, pro -life and pro -child, or pro -women and pro -child, whole life project.

So you have to be pro -women. So, I mean, what does that mean to be pro -women? I thought we were pro -women, which is why we ended the legalized sanctioning, sanctioned killing of women in the womb.

So, but you're really not pro -women. So see, that's the thing, pro -child and pro -women, that's the same thing in their minds.

And it's like, this is about murder though. This isn't about whether you're pro -child or pro -woman. It's, yeah, if there is a law that is, let's kill women and that's fine, it's open season, constitutionally protected, then yes, that we would, but you can, here's the thing, here's what

I wanna say. You can be, this is possible, okay, to be someone who has worked very hard towards making abortion illegal.

You can be rejoicing that abortion is illegal. You can consider abortion to be murder and you're happy that it's gone, and you're not volunteering at the crisis pregnancy, okay?

You're not adopting anyone. You are not supporting mothers outside the mothers in your own family because you have a million other things you're doing, let's say, and there's nothing sinful innately about that.

It's not like, so, and you're, you know, you support those who do, you like the fact that they do, but it's not like that effort is, you know, now you must make that effort.

If you don't, then somehow you're culpable or somehow you're really not consistently pro -life.

No, you're still consistently pro -life. And so, cause it's a different issue. And that's the point, it's a different issue.

Is it related? Yes, it's related in the sense that there are mothers who are opting to get abortions to kill their children, who are facing that decision and choosing that decision and being tempted by that decision.

And so that's all happening, but they're not, it's not like there's open season on mothers just like there is on children in the womb.

There's not, there never was. And so don't pretend like these are two morally equivalent issues. They're not, they're different in the nature of things.

You have Grant Gaines here from Bellevue Baptist. He says, wow, praise God for this, the

Dobbs decision. All right, churches, this is his first reaction. All right, churches, it's time to rise up and double down our efforts, double, double our efforts to support and care for vulnerable moms and increase our participation in foster care and adoption, which is, and there's nothing innately wrong with this, by the way, there's nothing innately wrong with that.

Yes, okay, let's get involved with that stuff. But is it not a little bit unusual of a reaction to look what happened, what's been in the works for decades and decades, 50 years has now come about.

And the first reaction is like, churches need to go get involved in foster care more. I don't know, this was like, this was immediately, this was like the day of.

So that's why I'm thinking like, was there ever like a processing time of just celebrating it? There doesn't seem to have been a big one.

And so that may be the reaction of some Christians, but you know what, some

Christians are gonna, that's not gonna be their reaction. In fact, some of them are gonna be in political battles to try to make it illegal in their states.

And that's where their attention is gonna be put. And that's fine. Jen Wilkins, Jen Wilkin. She says, the era of Roe has ended.

Jen Wilkins speaks a lot of Southeastern. She's kind of big in the women's ministries and stuff. She says, now we redouble and expand our efforts to address the underlying factors that make abortion appear the only alternative for so many women.

Let's give our money, time, and prayers to that end to render abortion unthinkable because support is so abundant.

And look, I empathize with it. I think we should be doing that, trying to put those resources out there.

But at the same time, again, this is not something that is, this is not something

I would expect the first knee -jerk reaction to this to be. I would expect a celebration.

And so there seems to be a overall, a general kind of pointing at the church, that the church needs to do something now.

I think this plays into the progressive assumption that now there's gonna be all these unwanted children.

I think people are afraid of that. That's the vibe I'm getting, that, oh no, there's gonna be all these unwanted children now.

And because of that, we're just assuming mothers aren't gonna take responsibility, they're gonna have all these children, and maybe they'll do the back alley thing.

I mean, all of that stuff. And so therefore, we gotta show that that's not going to happen.

We gotta get involved and make sure there's all these resources available so that women can make, and most of these abortions come from sinful choices, the sinful choices can be made, and they won't have to bear the brunt of it.

So instead of murdering their child, the Christians will take the child, give financial support, all of that.

And so, I mean, I think that Christians, we should be doing some of that. I think, though, also, though, we should be helping women take responsibility for their children as much as we possibly can if we're gonna be involved in that kind of stuff.

And I think a lot of people in my own community, people even at my own church who have been involved with caring at pregnancy and stuff,

I mean, that is what they're trying to do. But it's just disjointed, it's just disjointed.

I don't even quite have the words for it. Maybe people can put in the info section why this seems so unusual, that this is like the knee -jerk thing.

Trevin Wax, in 30 days, my state, Tennessee, will no longer sanction the destruction of unborn human life. I pray the pro -life ethic of welcoming into the world all human beings, even the most vulnerable, and loving and caring for mothers, will spread to all 50 states.

Make abortion unthinkable. It's like the same memo went out. They're all saying, make abortion unimaginable, make abortion unthinkable.

The regime set up Roe v. Wade has fallen. Finally, let justice flow like waters and righteousness like an ever -falling stream.

Okay, so, Trevin Wax is kind of saying something very similar here.

In the same breath, you can't just say, thank God that the babies are not being murdered in a state -sanctioned way.

You have to say, and we have to love and care for the mothers. And so, I think we should.

I mean, we could, I don't know. What if you put another, I'm just thinking thought experiment here, just came to my head.

What if you put in the place of love mothers, love fathers?

Because fathers are also part of this equation too, right? I mean, they have to supply 50 % of the

DNA here. What if we put that? And in the case of fathers, they're generally not the ones being raped, right?

If in those small percentage of cases where that happens. So, what about fathers?

We need to create a situation, I don't know, to put our economic resources into making sure that fathers don't feel like they have to rape women.

Just, we need to provide for them somehow and give them the tools necessary to, and we'd all be like, well, yeah, right.

But like, why are you saying that in the same breath as like, thank God for the ending of abortion being a state sanctioned as a constitutional protection?

Like, why are we saying that in the same breath, right? That's what I think makes it feel odd if I put the shoe on the other foot there.

All right, so Steve Gaines had a reaction, which again, nothing Steve Gaines says here is wrong, but especially if you watch the sermon, it's weird because Steve Gaines is like celebratory and really just really thankful for the praise team and how well they sang.

And he's so thankful for the VBS they just had or whatever it was, summer camp they just had. And he's just, and then all of a sudden his tone changes.

He goes somber and he's the pastor at Bellevue Baptist. And he's, well, he's high up in the

Southern Baptist Convention. But anyway, he, so he, but then he gets all somber and he even says like, hold your applause.

And he reads this. So this is what Steve Gaines said on Sunday.

I wanna make a statement and you don't respond until I get through. We are rejoicing over the

Supreme Court decision overturning Roe versus Wade. We thank the

Lord for answering this prayer that has been prayed for some time. And now we must continue to pray and continue to support life as the responsibility now moves to every state.

I want you to look on the screen and you're gonna see some various ministries that we at Bellevue support and also offer here at our church to help you get involved in future pro -life ministry.

So that was Steve Gaines. And it's just, he's kind of high up in the SBC. And I think he's pro -life, but it's just, it's a strange reaction to me.

It's like, why the long face? And in context, he's rejoicing about the choir and how the worship team, how they sounded.

And he's rejoicing about how the summer camp went for their church. And then all of a sudden he shifts tone and he's very serious and somber.

And it's like, yeah, we are rejoicing. I was like, what? I was happy at my church. Here's the other strategy.

This one's gonna be more obvious, I think, for you. Use the issue to highlight conservative hypocrisy. Use the issue to highlight conservative hypocrisy.

So you have Kyle J. Howard saying, I don't trust nor desire to have any relationships whatsoever with white evangelicals who are like, our prayers were answered today.

Your prayers ain't have, poop emoji, read between the lines there, to do with it. It was your embrace of a white supremacist, sexual predator, hypocrisy and power driven means to justify an end.

You trying to spiritualize things now as if your faith and piety that led to the

SCOTUS rule. Okay, we're done. Here's the issue. Kyle J. Howard hates white people and white

Christians in particular. That's the issue. So this is a man though, who's been praised by some of the biggest, he's been praised by Beth Moore, some of the biggest names in evangelicalism or what was evangelicalism.

And that's his reaction to the decision. It's like, way to be negative about something that, and this is probably someone who would say he's pro -life.

Phil Vischer, happy that elective abortion through viability is no longer the law of land.

Then he goes on, curious to see if actual net reductions exceed,

I guess that there's 12, I don't know what that means exactly. So I guess he's trying to see like, is this actually gonna reduce the number of abortions?

Okay, because that's what the leftists always say. Well, if you wanna reduce the number of abortions then you make, right? That's insane thinking though.

That's like, oh, you wanna make sure, we should legalize murder and then try to reduce the numbers of murders or something.

Anyway, concerned that SCOTUS issued rulings this week that will reduce death by abortion, but increase death by gun.

Okay, wow. Concerned that policies that support women and children are often opposed by those of us who also oppose

Roe. Longing for a consistent commitment to human flourishing rooted in the Bible, not in the politics of the left and right.

Of course, in saying this though, he's giving away that he's kind of on the left more. He's, and I think he could say easily though, oh,

I can't because I'm thankful for the decision. But in the evangelical world and where this has been just consistently over decades, there's been a pro -life sensibility, but also with that, a more generally conservative outlook and really honestly, a consistent outlook, personal.

That's why the gun thing is actually about saving life, about protecting and self -defense. That's the whole point, but they flip it around.

These people don't seem to understand that issue. And so he's saying that in that world, in that conservative world, he's coming out of that and pushing the needle and saying, well, basically they're hypocrites.

The people who really think that you should have the right to defend yourself in New York City, because that was the

SCOTUS ruling on guns, the people who like that, well, they are hypocrites because that's gonna lead to, the assumption is more deaths by gun violence or something.

And why? And there's a whole lot different than the state -sanctioned killing of babies.

I don't think there's a state -sanctioned killing of people by gun violence, is there? Is it like a constitutional right, you can kill someone with a gun?

I didn't think so. So there is no moral equivalency here, but Phil Fisher is Phil Fisher. And you have a

Derwin Gray, super popular pastor in the SBC. He says, when I speak out against gun violence and need for new gun laws, they say, shut up, you liberal.

When I speak out against abortion, they say, shut up, you conservative. Kingdom of God theology makes the right and left upset.

So this is how they like to position themselves as if even when it's an issue that they could just say, we're thankful for this decision, praise

God lives are saved, praise God that we're morally, we're actually reflecting the law of God now, or at least opening the door to do that more.

They can't just say that they have to, in the same breath, talk about their progressive credentials, that they're not really conservatives, we're not really liberal, even though we're pushing the need of liberal in the places in which we have influence.

We are just these great kingdom -minded, consistent Christians, which they're not.

They have just had broken moral compasses. Then you have, well, there's just so much of this one. This one was the more common one

I kept seeing. The Anne campaign, our conviction is to help the suffering women and children. That should match our convictions regarding the unborn.

And the Anne campaign made a whole statement. Karen Saul Pryor retweeted it. Micah Edmondson, now that row is overturned,

I pray that we will provide the access to healthcare, childcare, living wages, education, and job opportunities that will support the lives of people in desperate situations.

The church is called to support life, giving, and dignity, promoting resources for the vulnerable people at all times, not just now that row is overturned.

I wanna stop and make a point I just thought of. This whole, watch out for when people like this say church.

They often say that the church needs to. There's the institution of the church, and then there's what individual Christians do, okay?

The institution of the church is, and you can be careful with that when you talk about what the church should or shouldn't be doing.

There's many things that are fine for Christians to get involved with that aren't necessarily the institution of the church's responsibility, or a legalistic standard that needs to be put on all

Christians. There's some things that churches are gonna be involved with that are gonna differ from other churches, simply because they're in different areas.

You might have a church that's near a lot of gay pride marches. They're gonna go evangelize at gay pride marches.

And that's something that other churches that are in farm areas that don't have that aren't gonna be involved with. So it's not like it's a, guess what?

Both churches need to go preach the gospel and make disciples, but it's gonna look different. And your specific things you're involved with are going to be different.

And that's totally okay. And I get nervous about when these people like this start saying the church needs to do this, needs to do that, and they start bossing the church around, ordering the church around.

And the church needs to address these issues of healthcare, living wages, and childcare, as if that's very equivalent.

That's just like Christians who opposed abortion because it's murder.

It's part of discipleship to uphold the, and being salt and light to uphold the law of God.

That standard. It doesn't mean that the church applies the law of God, but the church upholds the law of God. It's a representative of the will of God, the law of God.

You can't have that and make disciples. You can't not have that and make disciples. So it's perfectly reasonable for churches to, and that is truly being prophetic by the way, to say that this is a state of affairs that is evil objectively on a biblical standard.

Here's what the Bible says in the law of God, black and white, thou shalt not murder. We have a state that is bent on that.

We also have a responsibility in our country and the ability to vote and people are going to, that's part of discipleship is helping people understand how to vote, how to steward that.

And so when, if it's an issue like that, where the law of God speaks into the issue very clearly, then yeah,

I think the church can speak into that. The church isn't going to be, it doesn't bear the sword. It's not the government.

It doesn't punish people who are abortionists, but it is, you have to preach through those things.

And when you make application and you make it to your own society, you're going to be talking about this stuff.

So perfectly appropriate for the church to be involved at that level in a anti -abortion cause.

But this doesn't make the church, now the church to be consistent has to be for a living wage.

Well, first of all, that's, we're now leaving the law of God and now we're focused on equitable outcomes.

And now we're reorienting the whole mission of the church and what the church is about. That's not about making disciples anymore.

That's just making society inclusive, diverse, whatever, some of these things. So this is the road to social gospel right here.

Tony Evans made a very similar statement along these lines and he endorses what he calls a whole life agenda.

So he's going down this road, Duke Quan in the PCA, the overturning of Roe will not erase the concern for any women's health issues and upstream issues of equity, access and injustice.

He goes down the whole road too. And so it's like, they're thinking through this issue.

They're like, how can we, like, what does this mean? This means that one of the things that we want is happening but let's remind everyone of how so far we have to go and how if they're for that, they have to be for all these other things.

And no, they don't. This is that holistic life approach. And I just wanna show people,

I have a whole thread here from Thabiti and Abouille, the same thing. I don't even know if I wanna read it. We'll just read it quick. The Scottish ruling overturning

Roe is one small but massively important step towards ending abortion. It's a small step, right? Massively important. However, it does end the practice but return it to the states.

He says, we need to, let's see. Oh, okay.

We need to carry work forward, not just to forbid abortion, but to make it unthinkable.

There's that word again, unthinkable. And create conditions for women that help them escape the dreadful situation altogether.

We must advance a pro abundant life ethic that saves a lot of babies, serves mothers and supports fatherhood.

So there you go again. It's creating these conditions. It's not the women so much, it's not their fault.

You can almost hear that between the lines. It's not so much women choosing to murder their babies. It's conditions that have led to this, economic conditions.

We gotta make it unthinkable. So if we bring in, I guess, what are we supposed to draw from this?

If we bring in socialism, does that make it unthinkable? Like what makes it unthinkable is the question.

And in a sin -cursed world, there's always going to be abortion. There's always,

I hate to say that, but you're never gonna 100 % get rid of murder. And I think some of these people, the language they're using, unthinkable keeps coming up.

This is a way, I think, to try to wed the conservative Christians with progressives because progressives have been saying this for years, that they just wanna reduce the number of abortions and the conditions, the situations that lead to an abortion.

We must address those, not make it illegal, just address those. And there's a combination of these things going on in the heart of what was once conservative

Christianity. But it's not much different than what LeBron James. Yes, all right, LeBron James, the great evangelical thinker who just retweeted, it was, if this was about babies, there would be universal healthcare, free education, free daycare.

Southern states would be doing all they can to drop the black maternal mortality rate. This is about power and control.

That's not much different than what you're seeing from evangelicals. LeBron James is saying something pretty similar, that you're basically a hypocrite if you're not going along with all these other things, because that's just one part of like the 15 pro -life issues out there.

And you had J .D. Greer say a lot of true and good things, but he also got in on this.

And here's what he said this past Sunday. He hasn't tweeted anything, posted anything that I can see on this, but he did say this.

One final thing before I pray, and that is I want to address what was and is a historic event that took place this past week, one in which we celebrate an answered prayer, one that gives us the continued opportunity as a church to be the hands and the feet of Jesus, and also one that I know is connected to past brokenness and pain for many, both in our community and also some in our congregation.

Friday, this past Friday was a day that I thought I might not see in my lifetime, when the Supreme Court of the

United States acknowledged that there is no constitutional right to an abortion, and they turned this decision back over to people in individual states to decide that.

So, my church, without apology, without qualification, we have prayed for an end to abortion because we believe it is the shedding of innocent blood.

And it does not matter what else we say about it. Oh, it's gonna create poverty. It's gonna create hardship.

You do not address those problems by killing innocent children. At the heart of the abortion debate is what we call the belief in the imago

Dei, the image of God. All those made in God's image are precious to God.

Whether we're talking about immigrants, whether we're talking about the poor, or whether we're talking about children in the womb, they're all precious to God and their lives deserve protection.

So, that's J .D. Greer. David Platt also said something fairly similar, and here's what he said this last

Sunday. This is why we care so much about an issue like this, and not just about those children in the womb, but children made in his image out of the womb, and moms and dads who are made in his image, and even all kinds of people who believe differently about abortion than we do, who are also made in his image.

And today, on our first gathering as your church following June 24th, 2022 in our country, we thank you that for the first time in almost 50 years in our country, it's no longer seen as a constitutional right for people to take the lives of children that you are forming in their mothers' wombs.

God, we know every good gift comes from your hand, and this is a good gift that you have given our country by your grace, for which we give you glory.

And yet we know, God, that there is still so much work to be done. Legislatively across states, and personally across the lives of so many people, we thank today of women with unwanted pregnancies who feel like abortion is their hope, and they feel like they just lost hope, even as they watch people, including us as Christians celebrating this decision.

So God, we offer ourselves to you for their sake today, and we pray that you would help us to love them and the dads involved in their pregnancies well.

Help us to care for them selflessly, to serve them, to honor them, to work for their sake, to address all the reasons, personal and relational, social and economic and educational and spiritual and otherwise, that lead them to desire abortion or decide to abort a child.

God, help us to provide the support they need to care for their children, or when that's not possible, to care for their children in our own homes.

God, help us as your church to lead the way in foster care and adoption. May we be known, oh

God, for loving and honoring and caring for every single person fearfully and wonderfully made in your image, including children who are unborn and born, and moms and dads with unwanted pregnancies, and every person who views abortion differently than we do.

And in all of this, oh God, help us to hold out true hope to all people. So you get the impression that this was, the state -sanctioned murder of children was only one of the pro -life issues.

Name for me any other group in this country that has had state -sanctioned constitutional protection to murder any class.

What group of people, what class of people ever had this? In the same era, we're talking about this, the last 50 years, name for me a group.

That's why the wheels come off this whole thing. If this is about murder and God's law and what it says about the unjustified taking of human life, then this is rectifying that.

And now on the state level, the battles are gonna be in the states in which it's still legal, rectifying it there.

But there's, what are these other issues though? These other issues, there's so far to go.

It's just one, it's like a small step. What is that? There was some interesting reactions.

And in fact, maybe I'll save this. I think I'll save this. I have David French and Karen Sewell Pryor and the

Christianity or the Gospel Coalition stuff lined up. I think I'll save this though. And we'll just go back to the initial slide here of what

I'm seeing. And so I'm still developing this a little bit. I'm still thinking through this, but you have silence, you have support, but express disapproval towards conservatives.

You have support, but express concern from others. And then you have using the decision to gain

Christian support for morally equivalent issues. These are the four responses I've seen. And this is coming from people like J .D.

Greer, who, remember when the Black Lives Matter stuff was going on and J .D. Greer, I could probably find it and play it, but we don't need to.

He said specifically that the reason that we should just say Black Lives Matter and not all lives matter is because it's black lives that are specifically being threatened, right?

Now, the disagreement with that was that, the whole disagreement with that phrase among conservatives was that the impression is being given that at a systemic level in this entire country, that the police don't care, that the government doesn't care, that churches don't care, that no one seems to care about black lives.

And that's a lie, that's not true. In fact, if you look at the stats, which we've gone through, you actually don't see the disparities, some of the disparities they're saying exists.

Like, when you see the amount of crimes and you compare that to the incarceration rate and that kind of thing, you don't see these disparities come out.

You actually see, if anything, that you're more likely to be lethally shot if you commit a similar crime and you're white.

And so we talked about all of that, but that was the issue. It was just an objectively, it was Black Lives Matter was giving the impression that like black lives don't matter to a bunch of people in this country at powerful levels and systemically, they don't matter.

And so what did J .D. Greer come out and say? It was, he basically doubled down and says, no, it's black lives that are threatened in this country.

The other lives aren't being threatened. So if you say all lives matter, you're distracting from, you're diluting the emphasis we should have on caring for black lives.

Well, here we have a case where objectively speaking, babies have been the only class of people in this country that have been allowed to be murdered with a constitutional protection.

That was now overturned. And he basically, J .D. Greer is doing his equivalent of all lives matter.

He has to say, well, it's the immigrants too. And it's these other issues. We have to now talk about, we rushed to talk about the mothers real quick.

We gotta talk about them. We gotta rush, fathers get usually left out of it. We gotta rush to talk about the mothers. We gotta rush to talk about other groups of people that might be experiencing some kind of hardship, barrier, discrimination, something along those lines.

They don't have a living wage, oh my goodness. And so, and that doesn't somehow dilute the emphasis on actually celebrating and then continuing to fight to stop the advance of murder.

Do you see how this is a broken compass? And you see how, you wanna talk about hypocrisy. J .D.

Greer, he can't bring himself to say all lives matter. That's somehow racist, but he does the same play.

He does the all lives matter thing. He does the, well, all kinds of life issues matter. When you have the one actual sanctioned, constitutionally sanctioned killing, protected killing, that's been now ruled to be unconstitutional.

So that's, I'm calling foul on that one. I'm calling, that's actually rank hypocrisy.

But that's what you get. So we're gonna talk probably more about this because I do wanna address the Gospel Coalition article and some of the other things.