Correcting Ligon Duncan on Abolition | Highlight

Correcting the Claim That Abolitionism Appeared Only After Roe v. Wade

And just like the abortion abolition movement, you know, Roe v. Wade gets struck down and suddenly there's an abortion abolition.

Movement. And you go to like,.

Where were you like for the last 50 years while all these evangelical pro-life people were out here, you know, scraping and clawing and trying to do what they could do to, uh, to, to roll back Roe v. Wade.

And you go, okay, this one hurts.

Ligon, if anyone gets this in front of brother Ligon, brother, that was one of the most inaccurate statements you could have possibly made. Um, we were actually, we're abolitionists. We believe in equal protection for all humans from fertilization.

We want to see the absolute abolition of abortion. Uh, we were working for years before Roe was overturned as abolitionists promoting abolitionism and actually having bills written and put into state legislatures that actually specifically said in the bill, not only was it saying equal protection for all humans from fertilization, what's in the womb is in the image of God.

It's a very theonomic law there, by the way. Uh, but it also said in our bills for the state legislature and civil magistrate in that state to ignore Roe v. Wade. So there wasn't an abolitionist movement that really rose after Roe v. Wade.

Lex Rex, the Law of God, and Resistance to Unjust Court Rulings

Uh, it was active and moving and writing bills and saying, ignore Roe v. Wade because Roe v. Wade was not a law.

Our, our,.

Our law is pretty clear about that that Congress creates law in our nation, not the Supreme court. Uh, the Supreme court can't operate as Supreme being. We, uh, we, you Christians have thankfully developed a doctrine, Lex Rex in history that argued very strongly that it is the transcendent night.

Isn't Ligon a presby? Yes. He's Presbyterian Samuel Rutherford, Ligon, uh, Lex Rex, the law of God is transcendent. It's ultimate. It, it, it's not the king is law. It's the law is King Samuel Rutherford.

He's one of your homeboys. Um, and, uh, I mean, he really, he's a giant. Um, but, uh, you know, we were arguing before Roe that Roe was a court opinion that needed to be resisted by lesser magistrates, that it was unjust.

It was a violation of God's law. It was inconsistent and needed to be rejected and they needed to do with Roe, what some States did in the Dred Scott case. And that is tell the Supreme court, your, uh, your declaration is wicked and evil and we will not obey that opinion and go pound sand.

We were saying, uh, before Roe was overturned as abolitionists in our bills that we had in legislatures, ignore Roe versus Wade. So this whole idea of like Rose over and then it's abolition movement pops up.

It's like that, that is not the case. I can introduce you to the people who have been arguing for God's law and abolition, uh, who go way back to the rescue days. Yeah. So that's just, it's just completely Ligon.

You got that wrong. That's completely inaccurate.

Funding the Dobbs Amicus Brief and the Continuity of the Abolitionist Cause

Not to mention the fact that we paid for the amicus brief attached to that Supreme court ruling. That's right. We didn't just magically poof appear in the air after that.

The Dobbs case. Yeah. We actually funded the Dobbs case, uh, amicus brief, uh, with Bradley Pierce, constitutional attorney. Uh, and I, we can have it sent to you. Uh, this didn't arise after Roe. We've been, we've been here long before.

And I would go even one step further and say, you know, God blesses faithfulness. So if there hadn't been any abolitionist Christian abolitionist movements before, I'm not sure whether Roe v. Wade, um, what would still be in place?

Because I believe because you are working towards the seeds, God is blessing.

That's right. That's right. And there's more, he says here on this too.

Like, where were you like for the last 50 years while evangelical pro-life people were out here, you know, scraping and clawing and trying to do what they could do to.

Ligon, that's bad, brother. And, uh, I'm sorry, you, you need to be corrected here. Uh, there have been faithful abolitionists and preachers against this evil, uh, through the duration of Roe v. Wade, actually what you're arguing for that pro-life establishment, that pro-life movement, uh, argues that it is fundamentally not Christian.

The leaders of the top Ligon will tell you we've can give you their interviews. We've done with them. We can give you their writings. What they've said that they're not Christian organizations. They're arguing the basis of, of just basic biology.

They're not, uh, they're not having any allegiance to Christ. They're not calling people to repentance and faith. And they have argued the movement you're arguing for, uh, these people clawing and scratching and everything else, uh, from the very top argue that they do not want a woman ever to be, uh, criminalized or punished for taking the life of her child in the womb.

They actually want legal immunity and impunity for women who take the lives of their children in their womb. That is not a con that is not, that is not a conspiracy. That is not an exaggeration. That is what they argue in their laws.

Uh, that is what they have argued against our bills that they, they want legal immunity and impunity for women who take the lives of their children in their womb. And so actually, uh, there has been a major problem over the last, uh, 50 years of Roe versus Wade.

And that was inconsistency and un-Christian commitments. Actually, I would argue it was the lack of theonomic commitments and it was the problem of neutrality. Both things that Bonson argued strongly for, um, that caused the problem in the pro-life movement and stunted true justice, because look, God's law says you shall show no partiality.

The pro-life movement has, has literally legislated partiality for 50 years and they're still doing it with Roe gone. They're still arguing for partiality, which God says is an abomination, unequal weights and measures abomination.

Christ's Authority, the Rejection of Neutrality, and the Need for God's Law

And so this gets to a main point. Why am I harping on this? Here's the reason I am, is because what you're being told is that we don't need an objective standard given to us from the law word of God. We don't need that.

It's not abiding irrelevant today in the, in the Christian era. And, and we can live as Christians in a place where there's just this neutrality. We don't need people to have allegiance to Christ and his Lordship and the law of God.

We can live, uh, in this world as Christians faithfully and ignore the law of God and actually pretend neutrality. That's essentially what I'm hearing from Ligon here as you hear him describing why theonomy is bad.

And I want to say, uh, we need to, we need to believe our Bibles when Jesus teaches us that that's not possible. Him saying he has all authority in heaven and on earth, I believe means that he has it today.

And when he says you're either with me or you're against me, I believe that too. Jesus doesn't allow neutrality in relationship with him. And you have to have total allegiance to him. And so I would say there's, there's major errors in the, uh, applications that Ligon is trying to make here.

And also this only, this argument only works for, for America, right? So there is no Roe v. Wade in Germany. Nothing was overturned in Germany and in all other countries. Right. So, um, this argument could only be true for America, but not for the rest of the world.

And there are other theonomists, there are other abolition movements in other countries as well.

That's right. So that's exactly right.