11-30-20<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat a year this has been.\u201d This has been a common theme of all our conversations with friends these days.<\/p>\n
Turn from the pandemic to, say, the economy, which is related (some areas of rebound are remarkable), yet lost jobs, ruined businesses, and shuttered schools because of the oppressive, overhanging shadow \u2013 the long-term implications of which we only see through a glass darkly. Meaning, it will get worse before it gets better; the world has changed. Turn from that<\/em> and we recall, and still face, the rank bitterness of politics, and the lies and thievery so evident. Turn from that<\/em> and we find ourselves in an America where vandalism, destruction, and riots are virtually condoned and widely accepted as a way of life. Turn from that<\/em> situation and we shudder to realize that unseen forces, Big Tech and Mainstream Media and Big Brother and others, are spying on us, manipulating us, and censoring us.<\/p>\n In sports, a team has a bad season but applies the balm, \u201cThere\u2019s always next year.\u201d We cannot say that in 2020 \u2013 or, as it used to be known, 1984. Next year is no guarantee of much better times; probably worse.<\/p>\n We have done our work this year \u2013 and by \u201cwe\u201d I am referring here to Christian Patriots and Cultural Traditionalists \u2013 aware of these things. Except perhaps for the insidious infection of Social Media\u2019s villains, they suddenly have loomed up, and we have tested their spirits.<\/p>\n For us the challenge is not so much to see what is right and wrong\u2026 but what to do about it, how to fight, and (frankly) to choose what risks we need take to redeem our culture and save our families.<\/p>\n I invite you to recall the words of John Donne from his Meditation XVII:<\/p>\n Every human\u2019s death diminishes me, because I am involved in humankind. And therefore never look far to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for you.<\/em><\/p>\n I have brought 1633\u2019s language into the 21st century, but we all know these observations. John Donne\u2019s \u201cinvolvement in humankind\u201d did not suggest membership in some club. He says in a unique way that we are all one; no person is an island; we are bound together, interconnected \u2013 and should be, and should want<\/em> to be.<\/p>\n Now more than ever. And if our inescapable fellowship in humanity compels us to react to \u201cevery human\u2019s death\u201d when and where and how we can\u2026 then we come face to face today with the genocidal impulse behind abortion.<\/p>\n And the terrifying numbers. Not that I run to numbers, in fact usually the opposite, like polls. But this is a question of reality, not charts and graphs; of blood, not ink. The numbers are so cold and so many that they deaden our minds. In recent years: I will not crusade here beyond this, attempting to be calm, wondering where in hell this is leading us. Excuse me, but I choose my words deliberately. I know the debates; I know the history; I know the horror stories that \u201cjustify\u201d abortion; I myself once was comfortable with the whole idea. Of that, I repent daily; and I can empathize with women who seek it, to an extent. (Not, now, the monsters who perform it.)<\/p>\n My objections are moral; my reasons are spiritual; my reactions are many. Mechanistic \u2013 how<\/em> can we operate and thrive and continue as a civilization when life is worse than cheap but very often contemptible? Why is this the litmus-test issue for half of society, where people who love the unborn are shunned, condemned, and threatened? How do pro-abortion crusaders ignore the fact that many churches, many ministries, many parents desire to adopt \u201cunwanted\u201d babies?<\/p>\n If we have objections, reasons, and reactions, as I just shared, there is another agenda item: we must have responses. If this moral, culture-of-death challenge is spiritual (and it is)\u2026 then we need spiritual responses. It is political (and it is)\u2026 then we need to get political. If this private angst is, one by one across this country, personal (and it is)\u2026 then we need to get personal.<\/p>\n I am tempted not to qualify one moral outrage, or one festering problem, over another, but at the root of the abortion issue \u2013 beyond America\u2019s obvious drift from God and the secularization of society \u2013 is what I called here \u201cLazy Virtue.\u201d<\/p>\n Not \u201ceasy virtue,\u201d or really even \u201clack of virtue.\u201d Dr Bill Bennett notwithstanding, \u201cvirtue\u201d is a malleable term. Our problems are not because people figuratively smash the 10 Commandment tablets, or burn down churches. Yet.<\/p>\n No: lazy<\/em> virtue is the worst, because people fool themselves, and are persuaded to fool others, that good is evil and evil is good. For instance, that: \u2026 whoops, but it is OK to harm a baby close to birth. Even kill it. During the pandemic we hear people yammering about \u201ctrusting science.\u201d Well, \u201cscience\u201d is now discovering that those blobs and fetuses are (of course) humans; unborn babies can feel pain much earlier than previously thought; and they can survive outside the womb at ever younger ages.<\/p>\n The \u201ctumult and the shouting\u201d of the recent campaign has stopped\u2026 No. It hasn\u2019t. But we are supposed to say that every four years. Candidates and presidents come and go. Parties change their appeals and profiles.<\/p>\n But our problems<\/em> will not go away in America; not automatically. And not easily. As horrible as the sin of abortion is, it is a symptom, not our real disease.<\/p>\n Christian Patriots, Cultural Traditionalists: you might be looking ahead two years or four, and that is good. But start looking to tomorrow<\/em>. Those bells toll for us, otherwise.<\/p>\n + + +<\/p>\n We toil and look toward that City. Beulah Land, as sweet as it will be, is not Heaven but the border before we cross to the Promised Land which is our home eternal. But what does God require but that we, as believers in Christ, are good and faithful as His servants; do justice and walk humbly.<\/p>\n Music Vid: \u201cSweet Beulah Land\u201d (For readers with hand-held devices, click or copy and paste: ) + + +<\/p>\n
\nDo any of us disagree, that the death of someone, especially when it is heinous, when we could have intervened, has an impact on the world in general, the human family, and the future? And how we then shall live? Or, at the other end of that scale that thinks of the entire world\u2026 that we, individuals, our souls, are diminished too?<\/p>\n
\n\u2022 One in five American pregnancies ended in abortion;<\/em>
\n\u2022 Approximately 862,000 abortions performed in 2017 (the most recent stat I found);<\/em>
\n\u2022 Now, more than 22,000 abortions performed each day in America;<\/em>
\n\u2022 Since 1973, almost 65-million babies killed by abortion \u2013 are we \u201cdiminished\u201d as a people 65-millions times? Yes.<\/em><\/p>\n
\n\u2022 concern for baby animals is more sacred than saving human babies;<\/em>
\n\u2022 Lazy Virtue forces those who oppose abortions to participate and even fund them;<\/em>
\n\u2022 \u201cconvenience,\u201d defined so many ways, is more important than others\u2019 morality;<\/em>
\n\u2022 \u201cWhat\u2019s right for me is OK, as long as nobody is harmed.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch_popup?v=avntXsW6WhU<\/p>\n