Some of the thoughts I have been attempting to collect since our time in DC has concerned the concept of being prolife.
While in class with Si, we had a chance to discuss with people at our tables. The idea that Christians are often known by what they are against came up. There is a lot of negative terminology out there, a lot of it being the liberal media’s attempt to label us {think homophobic or antiabortion}.
Even when one uses a positive term like prolife, the outlawing of abortion is usually implied. Now, please do not misunderstand me. I have never been more prolife than I am now, and I am all in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade.
However, through some recent conversations, I now have reason to think that there is no real prolife vision beyond outlawing the killing of the unborn and the elderly. A lack of a cohesive, encompassing vision is detrimental to the movement.
Remember Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.? Did he march out into the street and explain how terrible discrimination and segregation were? Is that what he is remembered for? No! He is remembered as a man of vision, the man who dreamed of a world that was better with the absence of segregation and discrimination. And he could describe exactly what this world looked like. He didn’t tell how bad things were as much as he told how great things could be.
I find myself challenged to do likewise when it comes to being prolife. I don’t want to march around and only say how terrible abortion is {though that is true}. Rather, I want to develop a vision of what a culture that values the sanctity of life really looks like.
Being a Christian can and must translate into being prolife, for the prolife cause stands on the central doctrine of the imago Dei–man, made in the image of God. To destroy that image is to trounce on the authority of the Creator. But we can’t stop here. Being prolife can and must become a behavior and an attitude that affirms that life is sacred in every word and every deed, no matter how difficult, no matter how unpopular.
1 Comment
Oh wow! I completely agree. I find myself uncomfortable with the majority of the PL movement for just that reason. For me it’s more than just “don’t have an abortion” it’s “let me teach you what wonderful gift that life is”