By James Wilson
America
is more pro-life now than at any time in the last half century. Close to sixty per cent of us believe human
life begins at conception and close to eighty per cent believe it just plain
wrong for taxpayers to fund the termination of unborn children. This attitude squares nicely with the
Christian scriptures although it is squarely out of step with most governmental
leaders. (More on that later.) This pro-life majority came about as the fruit
of thousands fighting the culture wars God’s way instead of their way.
In Luke 10 Jesus
sends seventy apostles out to share His revelation throughout Israel and
Judea. His instructions were explicit:
bless everyone they could; hang out with them and enjoy their company; meet
their needs as the Holy Spirit provided; and share their stories of encounter
with the Living God. The world thinks
this a silly way to fight a war, but that depends on the war and the objective
of winning. I praise God for our military
people who stand ready to protect me and my family from violent invasion, but I
don’t want to be protected against the lost.
I want to be able to reach out to them as I was reached out to
forty-five years ago. Most people who
want abortions are lost beneath the pressure of their circumstances. Forty Days for Life has one of the best track
records for relieving people in crisis of that pressure. They are one of the principal reasons for the
current pro-life majority in America.
Founded by David
Bereit and Shawn Carney in 2004; they gathered volunteers to stand in front of
abortion clinics and do what Jesus told His seventy friends to do – in that
order – nothing more and nothing less.
Mareza is one of the people who got blessed in that first campaign that
saw a near thirty per cent reduction in abortions in Bryan College Station,
Texas. She encountered a lone volunteer
standing on a wintery morning in front of the clinic she and her friend entered
to abort her baby. The man said, “God
bless you. God bless both of you. Actually, God bless all three of you.” Through her tears – even now – Mareza says
she marched into the clinic, turned around, and marched back out – still
carrying the child inside her womb.
Fueled by word of mouth, the movement went national in 2007 and was soon
an international phenomenon. Today six
hundred twenty-five thousand volunteers conduct semi annual campaigns in five
hundred forty cities in twenty-four nations.
Forty Days has
never wavered from their basic strategy of blessing. They count nine thousand unborn lives saved,
not to mention the physical and spiritual trauma to moms they avert. (Abortion is not the safe procedure it is
advertised to be.) More than one hundred
workers have left their clinic jobs and nearly sixty centers have closed in the
wake of the peaceful and loving witness of these humble people. Appointments for abortions tend to decline by
seventy-five per cent on days the volunteers are on duty. Their ministry addresses the number one cause
of death in the world today – abortion – and gives people involved an
opportunity to choose life.
The Fall
campaign begins Wednesday, September 24, and runs through Sunday, November
2. The theme of every Forty Days
campaign is 2 Chronicles 7:14 – If my people who are called by my name will
humble themselves and pray and seek My Face and turn from their wicked ways I
will hear from Heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. It is not about getting the rest of the world
to change; it is about us who claim the Lord as our own. Readers who want to participate can go to www.40daysforlife.com to contact the
ministry in their own community. Those
in live in or near Redding or Chico, California can contact PrayNorthState and
I will connect you with local leaders in those cities.
About government
leaders being out of step with the pro-life majority… Elections come in November. Most pro-life people – indeed, most
Christians – pay little attention to whether candidates reflect their values –
in pragmatic action – when choosing their voting preference. We are too busy rejecting the guy we don’t
like in favor of the guy we dislike less.
This is especially prevalent in state and local elections in which we tell
ourselves these candidates have no impact on issues of life itself. The trouble is, they do. California’s legislature cannot reverse Roe
v. Wade, but they can and do vote to fund thirty thousand abortions each year
with taxpayer funds. They do vote for
bullet trains and scholarships for illegals instead of benefits for veterans,
school curricula that teach traditional values, and crisis pregnancy
centers.
Whether a person
is pro-choice or pro-life – in the actual decisions and priorities they make –
is a harbinger of a fundamental mindset.
A pro-life mindset is a fundamental and across-the-board blessing at any
level of government; a pro-choice or a lukewarm attitude is a force for
business as usual.
This November
suppose we let the less objectionable know less objectionable will no longer
cut it with us. Just as we can choose to
go to war, but only in God’s way of blessing those we name enemy, so we can
choose to vote only for candidates who bless our culture – not just those who
don’t make it too much worse. God is in
this for the long haul, as is Forty Days for Life. It’s our turn now; once more into the breach
with gladness. Once more into the breach
for forty days and once more into the present with our eyes on God’s declared
future.
James A. Wilson is the author of Living
As Ambassadors of Relationships and The
Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by
e-mailing him at
praynorthstate@charter.net
No comments:
Post a Comment