DOING WHAT IS LAWFUL

#1 · January 23, 2006, 9:09 am

Quote from Forum Archives on January 23, 2006, 9:09 am
Posted by: bhfbc <bhfbc@...>
DOING WHAT IS LAWFUL

January 22, 2006

Text: Luke 6:6-11

Mike Fichter, Executive Director of Indiana Right to Life, writes in a recent letter: By the time the train came rumbling past our church yard, we were singing at the top of our voices. If some of the screams reached our ears wed just sing a little louder until we could hear them no more. Years have passed and no one talks about it much anymore, but I can still hear that train whistle in my sleep. I can still hear them crying out for help. Dear Friends of Life, I chose to start this letter with a small portion of a story told by an elderly man who lived in Nazi Germany during World War II. He came forward one day after a pro-life speaker appeared at his church, eager to remove the hidden burden he had carried in his heart since those awful days so long ago. You see, he remembered as a boy in Germany during the war, often hearing the rumors of the Final Solution and the whispers of death camps for Jewish men, women, and children. But like many, he refused to believe. Then something happened that made this nightmare unavoidable. A railroad track ran behind his church, and on Sunday mornings it was not unusual to hear the train whistle and clacking of the wheels as the train approached and rumbled past. He recalled the terror when one Sunday morning he and others recognized the sounds of crying coming from the train, and instantly knew the train pulled boxcars filled with Jewish families being transported to the concentration camps and gas chambers. But what could anyone do to stop it? What could he do? Thats when church members learned to avoid the sounds of children crying, men pleading for help, and women sobbing for their loved ones. Thats when they all learned to sing a little louder when the train approached. Just sing a little louder - until the train had passed. Today in America we stand 33 years removed from a United States Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion on demand for the full nine months of pregnancy. Since that infamous decision almost 50 million unborn children have died in abortion clinics across the country. In Indiana alone, over 13 thousand unborn children die in clinics in Fort Wayne, Bloomington, Indianapolis, Merillville, and South Bend. Since a disastrous 2003 Indiana Supreme Court ruling, many of these abortions have been paid for by our tax dollars. (Mike Fichter, Indiana Right to Life, letter, January, 2006)

The portion of Scripture I read, Luke 6:6-11, makes it very clear that Jesus confronted the Pharisees and teachers of the law about their Sabbath legalisms and hypocrisy. As has been read, The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath. Yes, amazingly, healing on the Sabbath was an infraction of the law as defined and practiced then. They were just waiting for Jesus to break their law. Of course, we already know that Jesus knew what they were thinking

Embedded in this confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees is this question asked by Jesus, which is lawful: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it? Notice that there is no answer given to the question. This is a rhetorical question; that is, a question that actually answers itself. The Pharisees and the teachers of the law knew that there is only one answer to the question, and that answer went against them. The answer: it is lawful to do good and to save life. Even though they did not provide a verbal response, they knew that they had no case against Jesus when he healed the man with the shriveled hand. So Jesus healed him.

Into the midst of the perpetual debate about abortion for more than 33 years, we need to be reminded of Jesus question: Which is lawful: to save life or destroy it? The question is still rhetorical, and there is only one answer.

Yet, culture has moved in the opposite direction. Through a rather convoluted series of falsehoods masquerading as compassion, the destruction of a fetal child has been celebrated for 33 years. And, to make matters worse, the use of abortion has expanded over the decades to include all nine months with partial birth abortions, to offer abortions to teenagers without parental notification or consent, and to restrict abortion opponents right to protest.

Now, although I am adamantly opposed to the increasing encroachment of pro-abortion arguments, I can understand their rationale among secularists. It is not surprising to me that those people who openly reject morals and ethics derived directly from Gods commands would seek to replace them with their own relativistic ethics. Once they have replaced Gods commands with their own moral and ethical relativism, then it comes as no surprise that the most vulnerable of all humanity would be sacrificed at the altar of personal convenience.

No, I am not surprised that secularists develop and push forward a culture of death agenda. I oppose it, but am not surprised. However, what does frustrate and anger me is when moralists and ethicists who claim to write from the Christian perspective support pro-abortion laws. It is clearly deceitful to believe that a follower of Jesus would want to justify infanticide. There is no foundation or basis for pro-abortion support from the Christian community. Well, what about our personal rights? Dear friends, our allegiance is not to our so-called personal rights, a cultural philosophy that has perverted our personal freedoms established by this nations Founding Fathers as much as the Pharisees perverted the gracious laws of God into religious legalisms. Instead, our allegiance is to Gods commands made alive in Christ Jesus. Submit yourselves, then, to God, James writes (4:7a). Which is lawful: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?

In Christian Ethics in Secular Society, Philip E. Hughes writes, Throughout the Bible there is no suggestion that abortion is an option for women who are pregnant; indeed, abortion is so foreign to the biblical perspective that it is not even mentioned Until recent times the church has traditionally been of one mind in the condemnation of abortion. Thus in the second century the Epistle to Diognetus affirmed that it was not the practice of Christians to abort unborn children; and Athenagoras defined the Christian position by stating that women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder and will have to give an account to God for their action. In the fourth century Basil expressed a similar judgment: The woman who purposely destroys her unborn child is guilty of murder. With us there is no inquiry as to its being formed or unformed. Today, however, humanistic philosophers are to their surprise finding a number of professional theologians who join hands with them in their rejection of all supernaturalism and in their definition of man as merely naturalistic phenomenon. By insisting that man is a being who has emerged within the evolution of the forms of life on this earth and that the idea of supernatural divine intervention is simply incredible to modern man, these theologians are busily attempting to reduce Christianity to a nature religion akin to the naturalistic paganism from which the leaders of the early church were intent on dissociating Christian faith and practice. As Jeremy Jackson has said, We may expect to find abortion practiced in societies that see man in purely natural terms. The cutting short of human life is not qualitatively different from the thinning of trees or the drowning of kittens. (Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, Christian Ethics in Secular Society, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1983, pp. 176, 178) Actually, ethics professor Peter Singer, who has given shape to much of the animal rights movement, would argue that it is more morally reprehensible to drown a kitten than to commit infanticide through abortion. (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer#Abortion.2C_euthanasia_and_infanticide for more discussion)

I quoted at length from Hughes work to emphasize that modern theologians and scholars claiming to support abortion from a Christian perspective are instead breaking from historic Christian belief and practice. Siding with secularists such as Peter Singer does great harm by catapulting Christian obedience to the revealed will of God back to terrifying forms of naturalistic paganism. There is no Biblical justification upon which a Christian can support the pro-abortion agenda and movement today. Only by setting aside Gods life-giving commands can a Christian, or anyone else, arrive at beliefs that justify a right to abortion on demand. Which is lawful: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?

Thankfully, Christians in America today are not merely singing louder as the train of injustice rumbles by. We continue to oppose death-creating secular philosophies and the favorable judicial rulings they have obtained through their partial-truths and deceptions. Results of these challenges have been encouraging. In November, 2005, the Indiana Supreme Court upheld the Indiana waiting period on abortions. The Indiana Legislature has passed a law that requires a woman seeking an abortion to give her informed consent prior to the procedure and, except in the case of a medical emergency, specifies that a physician (or other medical personnel) must orally and in her presence provide her with certain information at least 18 hours before the abortion is performed We hold that this law is not unconstitutional because the plaintiffs cannot demonstrate that there are no set of circumstances under which the statute can be constitutionally applied. (more at www.in.gov/judiciary/opinions/pdf/

11230501rdr.pdf)

On January 18, 2006, the United States Supreme Court affirmed state laws requiring parental notification of minors seeking an abortion. The National Right to Life press release states, Today, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously remanded Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood, the case dealing with New Hampshire's parental notification law, to the First Circuit Court of Appeals. Today's decision reaffirms that parents have a right to know and that girls have a right to have their parents involved--it is a victory for both parents and minor girls, stated Mary Spaulding Balch, State Legislative director. There is no abortion procedure that can be performed so quickly that there is not enough time to make a short phone call to a minor girl's parents. It is outrageous for pro-abortion activists to try to prevent parents from even knowing that an abortion is being performed on their minor daughter, said Balch. It is during times like these that girls need their parents most. This law does not preclude a doctor from treating any life-threatening medical emergencies. In other situations, a parent of the minor girl would have to be notified or a judicial by-pass obtained before an abortion is performed. (nrlc.org/press_releases_new/Release011806.html)

These and other cases do not reverse Roe v. Wade and other court decisions, but they do create a positive environment in which accurate alternatives to abortion can be presented and in which the number of abortions can be reduced. And in a culture in which even abortion advocates claim that we should all work to reduce the number of abortions, as former President Bill Clinton wrote in Between Hope and History, then both sides can be pleased with decisions that do just that. (Bill Clinton, Between Hope and History, 1996, p. 137)

Let us pray that Christians will never again sing a little louder in order to escape the responsibility and even danger of confronting the injustice of secular philosophies of death. Instead, let Christians sing louder in order to confront the philosophies of injustice and to proclaim the Lord of Life and the Lord of Love. Ultimately, our witness is not to be found in overturning the Roe v. Wade decision. Yes, we believe that this decision is bad law and needs to be overturned, but that is not where our witness begins or ends. Our goal of testimony and witness is to change the hearts and minds of our neighbors with the life-changing message of Gods love and salvation. The issue of abortion can easily - well, maybe not easily - be solved not through legislatures and courtrooms, but in the decisions of men and women, convicted by the loving mercy of God Himself, to not seek the end of an innocent infants life through abortion. Now thats what pro-choice should be about. (with apologies to Peter Heck)

One of our bulletin inserts on this Sanctity of Human Life Sunday is from the Indiana Right to Life. It includes suggestions that we can do to ensure that we are not ignoring the cries from the innocent for help. Consider seriously what you can do to make a difference to a life, to a community, to our nation, and to our world. Sounds overwhelming at times, but we cannot afford to allow the trains to rumble by unheard. We are not going to sing a little louder today to drown out the cries of the victims of infanticide; we are going to sing a little louder to let others know that we are doing what is lawful. Which is lawful: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?

Rev. Charles A. Layne
First Baptist Church
Bunker Hill, Indiana
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Posted by: bhfbc <bhfbc@...>

January 22, 2006

Text: Luke 6:6-11

Mike Fichter, Executive Director of Indiana Right to Life, writes in a recent letter: By the time the train came rumbling past our church yard, we were singing at the top of our voices. If some of the screams reached our ears wed just sing a little louder until we could hear them no more. Years have passed and no one talks about it much anymore, but I can still hear that train whistle in my sleep. I can still hear them crying out for help. Dear Friends of Life, I chose to start this letter with a small portion of a story told by an elderly man who lived in Nazi Germany during World War II. He came forward one day after a pro-life speaker appeared at his church, eager to remove the hidden burden he had carried in his heart since those awful days so long ago. You see, he remembered as a boy in Germany during the war, often hearing the rumors of the Final Solution and the whispers of death camps for Jewish men, women, and children. But like many, he refused to believe. Then something happened that made this nightmare unavoidable. A railroad track ran behind his church, and on Sunday mornings it was not unusual to hear the train whistle and clacking of the wheels as the train approached and rumbled past. He recalled the terror when one Sunday morning he and others recognized the sounds of crying coming from the train, and instantly knew the train pulled boxcars filled with Jewish families being transported to the concentration camps and gas chambers. But what could anyone do to stop it? What could he do? Thats when church members learned to avoid the sounds of children crying, men pleading for help, and women sobbing for their loved ones. Thats when they all learned to sing a little louder when the train approached. Just sing a little louder - until the train had passed. Today in America we stand 33 years removed from a United States Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion on demand for the full nine months of pregnancy. Since that infamous decision almost 50 million unborn children have died in abortion clinics across the country. In Indiana alone, over 13 thousand unborn children die in clinics in Fort Wayne, Bloomington, Indianapolis, Merillville, and South Bend. Since a disastrous 2003 Indiana Supreme Court ruling, many of these abortions have been paid for by our tax dollars. (Mike Fichter, Indiana Right to Life, letter, January, 2006)

The portion of Scripture I read, Luke 6:6-11, makes it very clear that Jesus confronted the Pharisees and teachers of the law about their Sabbath legalisms and hypocrisy. As has been read, The Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, so they watched him closely to see if he would heal on the Sabbath. Yes, amazingly, healing on the Sabbath was an infraction of the law as defined and practiced then. They were just waiting for Jesus to break their law. Of course, we already know that Jesus knew what they were thinking

Embedded in this confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees is this question asked by Jesus, which is lawful: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it? Notice that there is no answer given to the question. This is a rhetorical question; that is, a question that actually answers itself. The Pharisees and the teachers of the law knew that there is only one answer to the question, and that answer went against them. The answer: it is lawful to do good and to save life. Even though they did not provide a verbal response, they knew that they had no case against Jesus when he healed the man with the shriveled hand. So Jesus healed him.

Into the midst of the perpetual debate about abortion for more than 33 years, we need to be reminded of Jesus question: Which is lawful: to save life or destroy it? The question is still rhetorical, and there is only one answer.

Yet, culture has moved in the opposite direction. Through a rather convoluted series of falsehoods masquerading as compassion, the destruction of a fetal child has been celebrated for 33 years. And, to make matters worse, the use of abortion has expanded over the decades to include all nine months with partial birth abortions, to offer abortions to teenagers without parental notification or consent, and to restrict abortion opponents right to protest.

Now, although I am adamantly opposed to the increasing encroachment of pro-abortion arguments, I can understand their rationale among secularists. It is not surprising to me that those people who openly reject morals and ethics derived directly from Gods commands would seek to replace them with their own relativistic ethics. Once they have replaced Gods commands with their own moral and ethical relativism, then it comes as no surprise that the most vulnerable of all humanity would be sacrificed at the altar of personal convenience.

No, I am not surprised that secularists develop and push forward a culture of death agenda. I oppose it, but am not surprised. However, what does frustrate and anger me is when moralists and ethicists who claim to write from the Christian perspective support pro-abortion laws. It is clearly deceitful to believe that a follower of Jesus would want to justify infanticide. There is no foundation or basis for pro-abortion support from the Christian community. Well, what about our personal rights? Dear friends, our allegiance is not to our so-called personal rights, a cultural philosophy that has perverted our personal freedoms established by this nations Founding Fathers as much as the Pharisees perverted the gracious laws of God into religious legalisms. Instead, our allegiance is to Gods commands made alive in Christ Jesus. Submit yourselves, then, to God, James writes (4:7a). Which is lawful: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?

In Christian Ethics in Secular Society, Philip E. Hughes writes, Throughout the Bible there is no suggestion that abortion is an option for women who are pregnant; indeed, abortion is so foreign to the biblical perspective that it is not even mentioned Until recent times the church has traditionally been of one mind in the condemnation of abortion. Thus in the second century the Epistle to Diognetus affirmed that it was not the practice of Christians to abort unborn children; and Athenagoras defined the Christian position by stating that women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder and will have to give an account to God for their action. In the fourth century Basil expressed a similar judgment: The woman who purposely destroys her unborn child is guilty of murder. With us there is no inquiry as to its being formed or unformed. Today, however, humanistic philosophers are to their surprise finding a number of professional theologians who join hands with them in their rejection of all supernaturalism and in their definition of man as merely naturalistic phenomenon. By insisting that man is a being who has emerged within the evolution of the forms of life on this earth and that the idea of supernatural divine intervention is simply incredible to modern man, these theologians are busily attempting to reduce Christianity to a nature religion akin to the naturalistic paganism from which the leaders of the early church were intent on dissociating Christian faith and practice. As Jeremy Jackson has said, We may expect to find abortion practiced in societies that see man in purely natural terms. The cutting short of human life is not qualitatively different from the thinning of trees or the drowning of kittens. (Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, Christian Ethics in Secular Society, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1983, pp. 176, 178) Actually, ethics professor Peter Singer, who has given shape to much of the animal rights movement, would argue that it is more morally reprehensible to drown a kitten than to commit infanticide through abortion. (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Singer#Abortion.2C_euthanasia_and_infanticide for more discussion)

I quoted at length from Hughes work to emphasize that modern theologians and scholars claiming to support abortion from a Christian perspective are instead breaking from historic Christian belief and practice. Siding with secularists such as Peter Singer does great harm by catapulting Christian obedience to the revealed will of God back to terrifying forms of naturalistic paganism. There is no Biblical justification upon which a Christian can support the pro-abortion agenda and movement today. Only by setting aside Gods life-giving commands can a Christian, or anyone else, arrive at beliefs that justify a right to abortion on demand. Which is lawful: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?

Thankfully, Christians in America today are not merely singing louder as the train of injustice rumbles by. We continue to oppose death-creating secular philosophies and the favorable judicial rulings they have obtained through their partial-truths and deceptions. Results of these challenges have been encouraging. In November, 2005, the Indiana Supreme Court upheld the Indiana waiting period on abortions. The Indiana Legislature has passed a law that requires a woman seeking an abortion to give her informed consent prior to the procedure and, except in the case of a medical emergency, specifies that a physician (or other medical personnel) must orally and in her presence provide her with certain information at least 18 hours before the abortion is performed We hold that this law is not unconstitutional because the plaintiffs cannot demonstrate that there are no set of circumstances under which the statute can be constitutionally applied. (more at http://www.in.gov/judiciary/opinions/pdf/

11230501rdr.pdf)

On January 18, 2006, the United States Supreme Court affirmed state laws requiring parental notification of minors seeking an abortion. The National Right to Life press release states, Today, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously remanded Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood, the case dealing with New Hampshire's parental notification law, to the First Circuit Court of Appeals. Today's decision reaffirms that parents have a right to know and that girls have a right to have their parents involved--it is a victory for both parents and minor girls, stated Mary Spaulding Balch, State Legislative director. There is no abortion procedure that can be performed so quickly that there is not enough time to make a short phone call to a minor girl's parents. It is outrageous for pro-abortion activists to try to prevent parents from even knowing that an abortion is being performed on their minor daughter, said Balch. It is during times like these that girls need their parents most. This law does not preclude a doctor from treating any life-threatening medical emergencies. In other situations, a parent of the minor girl would have to be notified or a judicial by-pass obtained before an abortion is performed. (nrlc.org/press_releases_new/Release011806.html)

These and other cases do not reverse Roe v. Wade and other court decisions, but they do create a positive environment in which accurate alternatives to abortion can be presented and in which the number of abortions can be reduced. And in a culture in which even abortion advocates claim that we should all work to reduce the number of abortions, as former President Bill Clinton wrote in Between Hope and History, then both sides can be pleased with decisions that do just that. (Bill Clinton, Between Hope and History, 1996, p. 137)

Let us pray that Christians will never again sing a little louder in order to escape the responsibility and even danger of confronting the injustice of secular philosophies of death. Instead, let Christians sing louder in order to confront the philosophies of injustice and to proclaim the Lord of Life and the Lord of Love. Ultimately, our witness is not to be found in overturning the Roe v. Wade decision. Yes, we believe that this decision is bad law and needs to be overturned, but that is not where our witness begins or ends. Our goal of testimony and witness is to change the hearts and minds of our neighbors with the life-changing message of Gods love and salvation. The issue of abortion can easily - well, maybe not easily - be solved not through legislatures and courtrooms, but in the decisions of men and women, convicted by the loving mercy of God Himself, to not seek the end of an innocent infants life through abortion. Now thats what pro-choice should be about. (with apologies to Peter Heck)

One of our bulletin inserts on this Sanctity of Human Life Sunday is from the Indiana Right to Life. It includes suggestions that we can do to ensure that we are not ignoring the cries from the innocent for help. Consider seriously what you can do to make a difference to a life, to a community, to our nation, and to our world. Sounds overwhelming at times, but we cannot afford to allow the trains to rumble by unheard. We are not going to sing a little louder today to drown out the cries of the victims of infanticide; we are going to sing a little louder to let others know that we are doing what is lawful. Which is lawful: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?

Rev. Charles A. Layne
First Baptist Church
Bunker Hill, Indiana

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