This Is Why Abortion Is Legal: Pluralism

Hello and welcome back to another edition of This is Why, reforming the pro-life movement with a biblical worldview. And on this issue of This is Why, we're examining the idea of pluralism, and more specifically the idea of fighting against abortion alongside people who aren't Christian.

Pro-life organizations like Right to Life pride themselves on their ability to work inclusively with those who identify as pro-life, but share different faith commitments. Although it's well known that the base of Right to Life is largely Catholic, they work in tandem with people of diverse beliefs who are united with them on the issue of life to fight against abortion.

Pluralism and Coalition Building in the Pro-Life Movement

This idea of coalition building is based on an idea of shared values, a kind of natural law that these pro-life affiliates point to as their unifying principle, even though they have a different gospel, or a different God, or even profess not to believe in God.

So here's the question, does it matter? Does it matter who we stand beside as we fight against evil giants like abortion in our culture? Do we set aside the exclusive claims of our faith, or at least temporarily suspend them for the sake of unity?

To answer this, we have to first examine these prevalent ideas of natural law and pluralism. They're not novel concepts, but ideologies that have existed for thousands of years, and have infiltrated the modern evangelical church today.

Pluralism exists heavily within our current culture. It's what happens when people of many different religions and worldviews, all the way from secular humanism to Islam to Buddhism, are brought together under the unifying rule of the state.

After all, someone has to have the authority to reign in all those differing points of.

View.

And in a society like this, relativism reigns supreme, and the virtue of tolerance is championed as the greatest of all virtues. As a result, Christians have largely shed their exclusive claims of the gospel and the moral law and scripture, and substituted them for a seat at the table where there are other ultimate standards and paths to God.

And someone may say, wait, aren't tolerance and freedom of religion American values? Well, yes, but freedom of religion is penned with a biblical worldview attached to it, saying that from the perspective of God's people, an out-of-control government state church has no business telling Christians how to worship.

And as far as tolerance, in our time, this has gone from meaning to put up with people or opinions we don't agree with, to instead a radically politicized, all-inclusive buzzword that acts as a mask for the state-sanctioned marginalization of the Christian church.

The response of the church has been to eject our faith out of the public and into a private piety that doesn't assert the reign of Jesus, but appeals to an approach of compromise for the common good. Which leads us to the concept of natural law.

Natural law is a principle that reemerged from the anti-Christian Enlightenment, whose creed was faith in human reason rather than the revelation of God. This view, which is rooted in the ancient Greek principle, sees reason as this thing that exists independently, rather than seeing it as a God-given tool to think in accordance with God's revelation.

And natural law is this allegedly inherent thing present in nature that all creeds and belief systems can appeal to in order to get common ground. For Christians in the pro-life movement, this appeal to neutrality is something that allows them to engage with the public sphere and have a voice, but never direct culture and advance the kingdom of God in the way that they're commanded to.

No Neutral Culture or Neutral Ground

So in this view, we see the exclusive biblical claims become relative, and Christians become ineffective in establishing justice and enacting legislation according to God's standards, because they don't want to be accused of setting up a religious theocracy.

They instead opt to work on a moral common ground. Now to be clear, there's really only one common ground between Christians and unbelievers, and that's God's ground. The ground we all share in that we're His image-bearers and we can't shake that image no matter how hard we try.

We're all rebels against God and His law, not an impersonal set of supposed common standards. Many will argue that there isn't a Christian way to fight abortion, or count to ten, or cook stir-fry, or change a child's diaper, because these are all common areas of life.

Those who superficially criticize a consistent Christian position fail to realize that this alleged common ground of activity in the Western world doesn't exist because of a natural law, but because of centuries of faithful Christian witness, the effects of which can still be felt even in a rapidly deteriorating culture like ours.

And it also fails in acknowledging that no matter what activities we do, whether baking a cake or ending abortion, there is an orientation of the heart that has either been transformed by the gospel, or is in rebellion against God, and thus there is either a direction of activity moving towards anti-Christian culture building, or an orientation towards the God-honoring, Christ-exalting culture that is the kingdom of God.

There's no such thing as a neutral culture. Pluralism is merely another term for polytheism. Society can't be governed by more than one ultimate source of authority, and it's not a question of whether an authority will be imposed or not, but which one.

Take the early church under the rule of Rome as an example. You have a self-proclaimed divine state saying that all religions can serve the God they want, but they must pay ultimate allegiance to the state and Caesar.

This is us today. But listen to what the Apostle Paul says about Christians who are working for Christ, armed with the message of reconciliation. Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers, for what partnership has righteousness with.

Lawlessness?

Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Lyle? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God.

As God said, I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them and I will be their God and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst and be separate from them, says the Lord. Now some will hear this and say, you're really going to limit your reach in the pro-life cause by alienating yourself.

To that I'll say, unity without truth is really nothing more than uniformity. Now does this mean I can't stand in agreement with others who recognize abortion as evil? That don't share my framework? No, but it does mean my approach to ending abortion and ours as Christians exclusively entails the claims of Jesus Christ and the propagation of his gospel message, which includes the fallen condition of man and the exclusive claims of Jesus for salvation and justice ultimately to society.

And so Christians must draw clear distinctions in how we fight. Jesus owns the table and we must take this movement to end abortion for his crown rights. The pro-life movement only wants a seat at the table of an idolatrous culture and this is why abortion remains legal today and why we would love for you to continue to partner with us at EndAbortionNow .com.

If you haven't already, go there, partner with us, equip yourself, get involved legislatively and help us by sharing this content far and wide to help equip Christians to end abortion.

Thank you.