KHM ABORTION, CHRISTIAN, EVANGELICAL, PROCHOICE, PROLIFE, SOCIAL JUSTICE, UNCATEGORIZED

Agape Defiled: How the Church Has Failed 55 Million Orphans | BreakPoint

Agape Defiled: How the Church Has Failed 55 Million Orphans

By: Rolley Haggard | Published: May 9, 2013 8:20 PM

There’s an elephant in the living room. Only it isn’t an elephant, and it isn’t in the living room. It’s a golden calf, and it’s in our baptismal font and our pulpit and our sanctuary and our Sunday School class and our Bible study group and everywhere else we worship and serve God, because, truth be told, it’s in our hearts.

To put it bluntly: We, the church of Jesus Christ, have an idol.

It’s called ministry.

Ministry?

Yes, ministry: busying ourselves with the things of God. Granted, ministry seems very un-idol-like. But then, subtlety is the hallmark of seductive sins. It has been the devil’s most effective stratagem since the beginning of time: Get the sin to seem no sin. Better, get it to seem like service to God. Better still, get it to be service to God. Sins don’t get more subtle than that, nor does idolatry seem like idolatry when we’re busy doing things God instructed us to do. It seems like true Christianity, like pure and undefiled religion.

But is it? Even ministry can be idolatry when it supplants what God most wants from us. What is the acid test of true Christianity, of pure and undefiled religion? What does it look like?

Pure and Undefiled Religion

We are not left guessing. In James 1:27, God tells us what “pure and undefiled religion” looks like: “Visit[ing] orphans and widows in their distress.” That’s divine shorthand for serving “the least of these” with sacrificial agape love. Acts of compassion, exemplified by coming to the aid of suffering women and children, are the distinguishing marks of true Christianity.

The American church, by stunning contrast, has been characterized the past 40 years—ever since Roe v. Wade—by the deliberate and thoroughgoing neglect of 55 million orphans in exquisite distress. One has to wonder if the cold indifference shown by the church to these orphans could have been any more absolute had salvation itself depended on completely ignoring them.

Orphans?

Yes, orphans, in the truest sense. These little victims, before having their lives snuffed out in abortion, were emphatically orphans, for there are two ways a child becomes an orphan: One is to lose his parents; the other is for his parents to abandon him. It doesn’t take a Solomon to see here the applicability of James 1:27.

Yet for four decades the church has fastidiously refused to muster aid on behalf of these little people and against one of the most barbaric and inhumane practices imaginable. Not only has the church opted not to visit these orphans in their distress, but by refusing to voice any significant public moral objection, the church has actually gone to the opposite extreme and given tacit sanction to their cruel mutilation and murder.

And this comports with James 1:27, how?

No one will answer that question because there is no answer. We are wholly without excuse. We have ignored not only the soundless cries of these abandoned orphans, but more ominously, the unequivocal declarations of our God and Father as well.

This raises the additional and perhaps more deeply soul-probing question: If pure and undefiled religion in God’s sight is to visit orphans in their distress, then just what kind of religion has the church been practicing since 1973? What kind of religion is it whose defining characteristic is the refusal to visit tens of millions of orphans in their inconceivably great distress?

Defining Characteristic?

Yes, defining characteristic. A defining characteristic is the feature most notable and distinctive about a thing. A hundred years from now history will remember us not for our missions or evangelism or our ministry, much less for our fidelity to the Bible. It will remember us for our breathtakingly thorough disregard of orphans in their distress.

Abortion continues to flourish largely because of us. We could end abortion overnight—if we really wanted to. The present generation of Christians will no more be lauded for its service to Christ than would a perverted pastor who preached spellbinding sermons and won thousands of souls by day, but committed pedophilia against a four-year-old child by night.

We will not be remembered for the religious busyness we called ministry—in the final analysis, this amounts to so much window-dressing in the sight of God—but for refusal to give Christ the one thing He wants in evidence of true love for Him: that we would love our neighbor as ourselves.

The logic is inescapable: If pure and undefiled religion in the sight of God is to give compassionate, sacrificial, agape love to abandoned children, then American Christianity is grotesquely impure and defiled—like a river of life befouled by the corpses of too many children for even the angels to count.

* * *

Solomon: The Mother’s Day Ruminations of an Abandoned Son

Call me her son, but not my mother deem
The one who gave me life enough to taste
The barest part of God’s ecstatic dream,
Then rid me from her womb with wicked haste.
“Considered innocent till guilty proved”
So said the law she praised, yet gave me death
With no defense, who not so much as moved
A tiny fist or raised his voice in threat.
She thought it wisdom plotting my demise
And naming “Orphan,” by default, her son;
But she by murder made that son more wise;
For cenotaphs shall dub him “Solomon,”
Who, like the Sage, is sure a mother true
Would not consent to cut her child in two.

Rolley Haggard is a feature writer for BreakPoint.

KHM ABORTION, CHRISTIAN, EVANGELICAL, MINISTRY, PROCHOICE, PROLIFE, UNCATEGORIZED

Unpreaching the Gospel | BreakPoint

It’s What We’re Doing by Staying Silent on Abortion

By: Rolley Haggard|Published: April 30, 2014

A recent article in “World” Magazine titled “Still-silent shepherds” summarized the top reasons evangelical pastors give for not preaching against abortion. Among them is that “preaching on the issue might politically stigmatize the pastor or politicize the pulpit, scaring seekers off.”

Aside from the fact that such reasoning is purely pragmatic—concerned with results (what works) rather than principle (what’s right)—it is also severely problematic in three of its underlying assumptions:

One, that pulpits should avoid moral issues with controversial political overtones;

Two, that silence is justified on issues that may “scare seekers off”;

Three, that ignoring issues like abortion won’t adversely impact gospel ministry.

I submit that pulpits operating on these assumptions are undoing the very work they hope to do. To varying extents, they are “unpreaching” the gospel.

Should Pulpits Avoid Moral Issues with Controversial Political Overtones?

The short answer is an unequivocal no. Moral/spiritual matters are preeminently the domain of the church. Political overtones notwithstanding, abortion is arguably the moral/spiritual issue of our day. If we don’t speak to it, who will?

Abortion is, in essence, a moral and spiritual issue. It is a violation of the commandment “thou shalt not murder.” It is political only secondarily and arbitrarily. Just because it has been made part of the national political discourse, that does not alter its fundamental character. No court on earth can vacate the laws of heaven.

As heaven’s ambassadors, therefore, it is not only appropriate but obligatory that ministers address abortion. Whatever political overtones may attach to preaching against the sin of abortion, silence is not an option for the church—unless the plan is just to quit preaching against sin altogether.

Christian leaders often act so afraid of political entanglement—of violating the treasured separation of church and state”—that if the devil himself should incarnate and run for president, it seems likely that many pastors would refuse to preach against him for fear of politicizing the faith.

But preaching against abortion is not politicizing the faith. It is not an encroachment of the church into the affairs of the state. In fact, the reverse is true: politicization of abortion is an encroachment of the state into the affairs of the church. Christians have not only the right but the solemn obligation to preach against abortion. When there is conflict or overlap, our duty couldn’t be any more clear: We are to obey God rather than men and governments.

Is Pulpit Silence Justified on Issues that May Scare Off Seekers?

In answer to this we might well ask, “seekers of what?” Seekers of a pleasant but shallow church experience, or seekers of the living Christ? Seekers of a mere “form of godliness,” or seekers of “religion that is pure and undefiled”?

Preaching on abortion may indeed scare off those merely seeking a church, but it will attract and keep those who are seeking a Savior.

We are a morally sick society. When a patient has a life-threatening illness, no reputable physician minces words about the seriousness of the disease for fear of scaring off his client. The disease must be named. Before our Great Physician can heal, there must be sober appreciation of the gravity of the case and submission to appropriate treatment.

Whether a seeker has had an abortion, is contemplating one, is pressuring someone to have one, knows someone who has had one, or is simply buying into the lie that life is cheap, preaching on abortion will help that seeker understand the depth of human depravity and the vastness of God’s mercy. It will open his or her eyes to the truth that human life is infinitely precious to God from conception to natural death, and that He is willing and able to forgive and restore any penitents who come to Him, no matter what sins they may have committed.

If we find ourselves reluctant to preach on the very sins that are ravaging our communities and families for fear of scaring off would-be converts, maybe it’s time we take a refresher on what Christianity is all about.

Is It True that Ignoring Issues Like Abortion Won’t Have an Adverse Impact on Gospel Ministry?

There is at the heart of evangelical silence on abortion another seriously flawed assumption, and it is this: that preaching on “social concerns” is superfluous to gospel ministry, and that Christ’s Great Commission is best fulfilled by not “diluting” the gospel ministry with entanglement in so-called “secondary issues” like abortion. Avoiding such “entanglement” is frequently referred to as “keeping the main thing the main thing.”

While it is certainly true we don’t want to supplant the gospel with issues like abortion, neither do we want to go to the opposite extreme and divorce the gospel from them, either. Like medicine for disease, the gospel is the remedy for all sin. And preaching the gospel is about calling sinners to repentance and faith. If sin is not preached against, those whom we would lead to repentance and faith in Christ are instead led to believe they have little or nothing to repent of. They are given to assume that Christ simply overlooks, rather thanforgives, what they’ve done (and, in too many cases, go right on doing).

To the degree that we minimize sin in our preaching of Christ, we wind up preaching not grace, but license; not forgiveness of sins, but permission to keep on sinning.

We may be “preaching the gospel” in the technical sense of telling people something about Jesus, but by skirting abortion we are effectively unpreaching it by sending the message that sins are not a big deal to God, that He simply overlooks them in the same way we do when we seldom (or never) mention certain sins in our sermons. Within such a homiletic framework, it is small wonder that 20 percent of women who have abortions describe themselves as born-again Christians.

By failing to preach on abortion we are encouraging not only cognitive, but moral, dissonance of the highest order. We are not merely giving sanction to the evil of our age, we are also misrepresenting the gospel. We think we’re making it easier for seekers to find Christ, but we’re actually making it easier for them to never feel any real need for Him. After all, if God isn’t all that upset over the heartless, cold-blooded murder of 56 million defenseless babies, how concerned can He be over any of our sins?

Rolley Haggard is a feature writer for BreakPoint.

KHM ABORTION

Coming back to the humanity of LIFE.

Church, what is your stand for Life? What is your written a policy about Life? Does your church know that you have a Life policy?

The humanistic world is creeping into the Church trying to change how we think about Life, abortion, the gay agenda and world unity. Relativism is tweaking the ears of the highly intelligent church member leading them to believe that if there is ‘more’ [to learn] out there, it would substantiate their need for creative thinking instead of the simple truth of the Gospel. Scripture has no real value beyond subjective moments of ‘inspiration’.

“The announcement that the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, MA, has chosen a lesbian, pro-abortion president to lead the seminary has sent shock waves around the Anglican Communion. The appointment of Katherine Hancock Ragsdale highlights a week that also saw TEC bishop-elect Kevin Thew Forrester replace a reading from the New Testament with a reading from the Quran at St. Paul’s Marquette, Michigan.” David W. Virtue

Humanistic values now reflect a perverse sense of priorities in the Post Modern Church…or rather, the Emergent. Morality and spirituality does not count for the truth or “real” knowledge of those in the Post Modern Church – they’ve moved from when Life begins to if Life can be sustained to their satisfaction.

And succinctly, Roe made sense to the Post Modern Church. The dignity of Life was effectively dismissed and replaced with the humanistic need to save the world without God.

The Emergent has taken ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ to mean that to murder unborn Life is to be merciful.

Certainly the Emergent is not Evangelical any longer, if they ever were. They’ve become an entity that is more humanitarian than Christian. Has being relevant changed how the Church views Life?

Most denominations make exceptions for abortion in certain circumstances but fail to realize that no matter the reason or situation, a child will die.

 

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For the love of Christ?

Or, A Post Modern Movement of a certain disproportion.

Can you do ALL things in the name of Jesus? NO. And when is church not church?

In West Town, Mark Bergin, 29, who leads prayer meetings wearing a cap embroidered with the Guinness logo. The self-described “hot-dog-eating, baseball-loving, tool-owning missionary” is part of the church planting movement in the United States — an effort to start thousands of churches a year that reach people in more culturally relevant ways….When he moved from Seattle a few months ago to start a church on Chicago’s West Side, he met more than 50 potential churchgoers by visiting neighborhood coffee houses and bars, including the Chipp Inn across from his house. Read the article here.

A commenter said:  “What a bunch of neo-hippie baloney!  Grow up. Go to a real church, you know…the ONE founded by Jesus Christ Himself!” The Post Modern Church regards things like the arts and the earth and food and drink and sex as things enjoyed while justified in the name of Jesus without reading the entire Holy Text but with their typical conjecture:

We believe that most all human behavior can be understood as the pursuit of beauty. God has built this passion into people for the sake of our joy. Accordingly, we value the arts, aesthetics, nature, sex, food, and drink, all of which point to the ultimate beauty of the creator, who is to be enjoyed forever.

Romans 5:8 says “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  If we were not sinners, we would not need a Saviour; without a Saviour, we would be most miserable.

I think these people haven’t read about holiness and sanctification as it regards living for God. Human behaviour is the sin nature that we are all born with since the Fall of Man. We are to be living examples of what Christ can do to separate us from our old man – because of His Cross – and live for God with JOY. As Christians we are to be separate from the world, not wallowing in it.

2 Thessalonians 5:6 clearly says “Therefore, Let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober.” If these Post Modern church planters had a lexicon, they would know that in the Greek the word sober is nepho and means three things:

  1. to drink no intoxicants
  2. to live righteously
  3. to watch.

Christians are to be Watchmen to mark those that preach another Gospel, another Jesus. The Post Modern Church seeks those that are unchurched so that they can indoctrinate them with a false Gospel, one that justifies sin as some hidden quirk that was god-given at birth instead of the truth – For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23).

Is Christianity so boring that we need this kind of distraction from the reality of what Jesus did and taught? Are we so arrogant?

We need a Redeemer, not a bartender.

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Abortion, the Church & a Diverse Agenda

Or, the fear and loathing of the Liberal Christian within the Post-Modern Church, part 2

More than 1100 clerics and religious professionals want U.S. Senators to provide women with access to abortion – why? Because the Religious Institute, STOP RIGHT THERE. Do you know about the Religious Institute? That name, Religious Institute, sounds so safe and…religious:

“Sexuality is God’s life-giving and life-fulfilling gift.  We come from diverse religious communities to recognize sexuality as central to our humanity and as integral to our spirituality.  We are speaking out against the pain, brokenness, oppression, and loss of meaning that many experience about their sexuality.”

No wonder the Post-Modern Church isn’t a church anymore. But read further:

“The courageous witness of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, along with a growing body of social and scientific research, inspire us to affirm sexual and gender diversity as a blessed part of life. Religious leaders must help to create a new understanding of sexual and gender diversity, and to promote full equality of LGBT persons in all areas of religious and public life.”

Christian Voice Magazine reports that there is a letter written by these fanatical zealots from the Religion Institute to push abortion to be included in the HR3200. Particular denoms that have sanctioned this letter include the American Baptist Churches, Church of the Brethren, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church, United Church of Christ, and The United Methodist Church – and that’s the short list. Most of these so-called 1100 clerics are part of the Religious Institute, an army of NONE. These clerics are from the Liberal Post-Modern Church that supports ALL sexual diversity and nothing about God the Father, God the Son or God the Holy Spirit.

Getting back to the letter, it contains verbiage that simply says that the sanctity of life is not sanctified; it is in fact secondary to an active sexual diverse lifestyle:

“All persons have the right and responsibility to lead sexual lives that express love, justice, mutuality, commitment, consent, and pleasure….We support responsible procreation, the widespread availability of contraception, prenatal care, access to abortion services and intentional parenting.”

Intentional parenting is saying that the only children that are allowed to be brought to term are babies that were ‘intended’, or meaning that all other pregnancies that were allowed by God because of Sin should be aborted or avoided. This would also lean toward IVF and artificial insemination used by single women and lesbian couples because the resulting children are ‘intended’.

Responsible procreation is kind of like saying ‘intentional parenting’ a little differently but making the connotation of using birth control and abortion as a way to control the hand of God in procreation that was originally meant to be; i.e.: Husband and Wife ONLY.

“Already, federal policy unfairly prevents low-income women and federal employees from receiving subsidized reproductive health services, but the new proposals would mean that even more women and families would lose access to these vital services,” said the Rev. Debra W. Haffner, executive director of the Religious Institute.”

Subsidized means YOU PAY FOR IT. Already our tax dollars have been procured and detoured to help women get birth control and abortion. The HR3200 is a smoke screen – pundits beat on it having abortion in it when if you look at it a lot closer, you’ll see the real agenda – a Diverse Agenda.