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Podcast counterpart | About Abortion with Dave Brennan Single Mum, No Money: What does the Bible have to say to ‘Problem Pregnancies’? Ft. Tim Lewis | 21 March 2023 | Episode 40 Over 98% of abortions in the UK are performed on healthy mothers of healthy children. These pregnancies are not the result of rape or incest, nor is there evidence of serious foetal abnormality or risk to the mother should the pregnancy continue. Essentially these are children that are unwanted by one or both parents. Maybe the pregnancy was not intended. Perhaps the relationship has ended, or it was an affair or one-night stand. It could be that the mother’s life situation is deemed not quite right - a new job, no job, or limited chances of promotion should a child be born. There may already be a number of children in the family and the parents feel they cannot cope with another. Whatever the reason, the pregnancy is deemed a problem. And our culture has taught us to rid ourselves of such “problems.” Does the Bible have anything to say to the majority of people seeking abortion for such “problematic” pregnancies? The context and culture of the Bible are different from ours in multiple ways. Children are regarded as a gift not a problem (e.g., Psalm 127:3). Moreover large families were prized for the labour assistance children provided. Nevertheless a number of pregnancies within Scripture are far from straightforward, and could easily be classed as problematic in some way. Considering four such instances can help our understanding of pregnancy and the unborn child. Hagar (Genesis 16) Hagar’s story is certainly unusual: the idea of a man marrying a second wife purely so he could have children is curious to a Western reader. Yet what happens next, the toxic mix of family tensions, relational breakdown and a father effectively abandoning his pregnant partner and her unborn child, is much more familiar. This is not Abram or Sarai’s finest hour. The irony is that this baby had been desperately wanted. Abram and Sarai had watched the years roll by with no sign of the heir God had spoken of. With faith wavering and after ten childless years in the land of promise, they take matters into their own hands. Hagar – the foreign servant girl – is married to the much older Abram. She is fertile and conceives; the plan appears to be working. The concept of the surrogate mother crops up later in Genesis, as both Rachel and Leah offer their maids to Jacob. The children Bilhah and Zilpah collectively bear: Dan, Naphtali, Gad and Asher are genuinely received as the children of Rachel and Leah. Yet Sarai is not so welcoming of her adopted child. In fact she rejects the unborn child along with Hagar, a situation in part precipitated by Hagar’s attitude. Abram and Sarai’s course of action was clearly not God’s original will for them, in fact the narrator deliberately echoes the Fall narrative (Genesis 3) in the way Abram consents to his wife’s plan. Yet here they are, with a pregnant Hagar. However a child is conceived, the response should never be to regard that child as a problem, let alone to end his or her life. The hardheartedness of Abram and Sarai contrasts sharply with the angel of the Lord, who seeks out Hagar, and addresses her by name (see Genesis 16:8–12). Hagar is the first woman in the Bible to receive this kind of annunciation, which includes a promise similar to that which Abraham received (Genesis 15:5; 22:17). She discovers her baby is a boy and Ishmael is also the first child in Scripture named while in the womb. His name, which means “God hears,” is an abiding reminder that God has seen and heard Hagar’s affliction. Hagar’s pregnancy brings her not only rejection and cruelty, but also a dramatic theophany revealing God’s character. “She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: ‘You are the God who sees me,’ for she said, ‘I have now seen the One who sees me’” (Genesis 16:13, NIV). So it is that a (possibly teenaged) foreigner, pregnant by her master and temporarily homeless, is given a profound insight into the nature of Israel’s God. She is the only person in the entire Old Testament to give God a name. While the Lord (re)names Sarai, Hagar names God! How many lives might have been different, had a “problem” pregnancy been allowed to continue, and the child bring new hope and meaning into the world? Tamar (Genesis 38) If Hagar’s story is messy, cruel and bitter, Tamar’s takes us to another level - Sunday school material this is not! Again, the background in terms of levirate marriage (see Deuteronomy 25:5–10) is specific to the Old Testament, but the themes of betrayal and sexual misconduct are all too common. Disguising herself as a prostitute Tamar conceives by her – recently widowed – father-in-law Judah. While carefully orchestrated by Tamar, her pregnancy comes as an outrageous shock to Judah, and he initially calls for her and her unborn child to be burnt. Tamar then reveals that Judah himself is the father, who eventually recognises Tamar’s superior integrity: “She is more righteous than I” (Genesis 38:26, ESV). It is Judah who has failed in his duty, by withholding his youngest son from marrying Tamar. Tamar, like Hagar before her, is vindicated for seeking to safeguard her unborn child – and going to some lengths to do so: “[s]he makes it her one aim to be able to become a mother in this house into which she has been placed by divine authority.”1 While Hagar’s surrogacy is unconventional and Tamar’s ruse scandalous, both narratives suggest God is deeply committed to these women. God sides with Tamar and her unborn children, one of whom, Perez, becomes an ancestor within the Davidic, and then Messianic, line (Genesis 49:8–12; Ruth 4:12, 18–22; Matthew 1:3). This is not the only occasion where children conceived in less than ideal circumstances go on to have important descendants. The unloved Leah’s third and fourth sons are Levi and Judah: “priesthood and kingship . . . have their origin in an unwanted and unplanned marriage.”2 God’s saving grace works through human brokenness. An unexpected pregnancy is never “unexpected” for God, and is not going to throw him. Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11) If there is one pregnancy in the Bible that qualifies as “inconvenient” in the way pregnancies can sometimes be regarded, it is Bathsheba’s. Bathsheba becomes pregnant as the result of David’s adultery – a one-off encounter – and David does everything he can to cover up the affair, which threatens his reputation and reign. How many pregnancies are ended to protect careers, cover up affairs and safeguard reputations (including within the Church)? Bathsheba’s objectification is apparent in the fact that she is described as “very beautiful” (2 Samuel 11:2) before we even learn her name. To David she is less a person, more an object of desire, the latest in a long line of sexual conquests. David is overcome with his own lust, forgetting that God gave the gift of sexual intimacy for within marriage, with a particular accent on procreation (Genesis 1:28; 2:24). Once pregnant, Bathsheba assumes a more active role in the drama; like Hagar, conception changes things. The announcement of her pregnancy to David (2 Samuel 11:5) is very much the hinge in the book of 2 Samuel. This is the point that David’s kingdom begins to crumble, as his grip on power, including his authority over his own children, rapidly falls apart thereafter. The remainder of 2 Samuel is a sorry tale of betrayal, rape and murder, with an ever-increasing body count. Our culture’s cherished separation between private and public, sacred and secular is shown to be a nonsense by the biblical text. Actions are never purely private, and often have a devastating ripple effect for numerous other lives. Abortion is never just a private decision: at least one other life is always lost. And, as with David, God sees all (2 Sam 11:27–12:12). Although David takes cynical measures to kill Uriah, he never contemplates destroying his unborn child. His attitude towards the infant is one of love, and he does all he can to preserve his life (2 Samuel 12:16–17), if unsuccessfully. As Nathan has prophesied, the child will not survive, with David’s guilt in some sense vicariously borne by the baby (2 Samuel 12:13–14). The child’s status as scapegoat is announced in utero. It is possible to see in Bathsheba’s first-born son a forerunner of Christ, in that the infant dies because of the sins of others. Matthew 1:20–21 presents an infinitely more hopeful message of salvation through forgiveness of sins, regarding a child as yet unborn, who is also a “son of David.” Mary This brings us to the beginning of the New Testament and the most scandalous pregnancy of all, involving an engaged teenage girl in an obscure corner of Galilee. Like Hagar’s pregnancy, Mary’s conception causes her considerable relational difficulties. In fact the gossip swirling around that unique event never completely leaves Mary, Joseph or Jesus. When Jesus is asked about his father’s identity and whereabouts (John 8:19), this is more character slur than theological enquiry (John 8:41). Of course the Virgin Mary’s is a unique pregnancy, but it is not without prophetic foreshadowing in the Old Testament. Like Hagar, Mary receives an angelic annunciation about the conception and birth of her child. Like Tamar’s children, Jesus, and those infants born in the same village as him, are threatened with violence. While Judah sees the error of his ways, Herod will not stop until he spills the blood of Bethlehem’s baby boys. Like Bathsheba’s firstborn, Jesus is born to die for the sins of others. The realisation of the enormity of what Mary has said yes to takes time to sink in. There will be all manner of unusual visitors and prophecies she needs to reflect on and process (Luke 2:19). There is never any doubt that her vocation leaves her vulnerable to pain and anguish almost too great to bear (Luke 2:35). Mary’s life, like any parent’s, has its ups and downs, including moments of genuine concern regarding her child’s behaviour (Luke 2:48–50; Mark 3:21). Yet Mary is one of the few constants in her son’s life. She is with Jesus from the womb to the tomb. Mary witnesses the public abuse, torture and execution of her son. And at the foot of the cross she and the disciple John become adoptive mother and son. We get no hint that Mary ever regretted her calling, still less saying yes to this pregnancy that momentous night in Nazareth. How many mothers really regret giving birth to their children? Yet how many mothers (and fathers) do regret aborting their children? Mary, who goes on to have several more children (e.g., Mark 6:3), bears witness not so much to the problem of pregnancy, but its privilege. May we heed her example and that of other faithful mothers in the Bible and be encouraged to celebrate, rather than dread or stigmatise, pregnancy. Subscribe to podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/aboutabortion Watch episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMS-dggPfpc&list=PLDpjMeLBA2s04iqEts4y4_3cxGqOGj-dU&index=56 Login and subscribe to be notified of the latest post

Podcast counterpart | About Abortion with Dave Brennan Tim Keller: Silence in the face of evil? | 21 Feb 2023 | Episode 36 If Tim Keller were living in the 1930s, he would declare that the gospel is neither pro-Nazi nor anti-Nazi, and that Christian leaders should remain politically neutral. When I first caught sight of the launch of The Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics, after a few moments of "Surely that isn't what I think it is?", I realised it actually was what I thought it was (named after Tim Keller), and I felt deeply uneasy. The fact that there are some great guys involved with this initiative, including one or two that I consider personal friends, and that the whole thing is no doubt well-intentioned and will probably produce some fantastic stuff, hasn't dispelled this sense of dis-ease. Mine weren't the only eyebrows to be raised; Kristi Mair asked some good questions and Steve Kneale wrote a thought-provoking blog. I won't spend much ink repeating them; my main reason for dis-ease is rather different from theirs. But before that, let me just briefly signpost what they and others have raised: 1) All eyes on...? There's an obvious danger with naming a ministry after an individual, especially a well-known one. It easily places the spotlight on them, and leaves people thinking more about them than about Jesus. Perhaps this is just me, but I come away from the launch page thinking more about Keller than anything else. I'm hit by a picture of him, a sales pitch for a book all about him (not by him), his name everywhere. There's just a bit of the whiff of the cult of personality here. It's for similar reasons that I find it difficult being at Christian conferences where close-ups of the worship leader's face are shown on massive screens right next to the words. I have to look or I don't know the words, but then I just can't stop thinking about the worship leader whose face is ever before my eyes! If names are meant to help rather than hinder focus on Jesus it seems strange to choose the name of a (still-living) Christian celebrity. 2) "Count no man happy until the end is known" These words attributed to Solon could be lightly updated for our purposes: "Count no man worth naming a ministry after whilst he's still alive!" It's not that I think it's always wrong to name a ministry after a living person. An itinerant evangelist or a singer-songwriter, for example, is most easily identified by their own name. But especially where the given reason for naming a broader ministry after someone is that they are considered an example worth following, is it not unwise to do so whilst they still have a bit of the race left to run? Not only could it backfire on the ministry and therefore on Christ's reputation - as someone else has remarked, all the devil has to do is take down one man to destroy a whole ministry if it's named after him! - it could of course make Tim Keller himself more of a target and so it isn't necessarily very responsible or loving with regard to his spiritual well-being. 3) Accountability and Abuse? Perhaps understandably some have alluded to recent scandals (e.g. Ravi) and are concerned that history is set to repeat itself. These are questions worth asking, but personally, I don't think it's warranted to leap to such conclusions. This is just a light-touch think tank, an online library of resources. As far as I can tell, there isn't going to be any pastoral context where vulnerable people are at risk. It's just content. But if only for the sake of optics and for not causing an unnecessary stumbling-block (à la Romans 14:16), again perhaps the name choice is unwise. He's not the guy for the job Controversially, though, here's my real reason for concern. Even if allowances were made for all the above, I'd still feel uneasy about the name because I don't believe Tim Keller is the person we need leading our cultural apologetics, even if only implicitly, deeper into the 21st century. It's not that it's wrong to have human mentors, people we seek to emulate, whether alive or not. "Imitate me, as I imitate Christ," says Paul (1 Cor. 11:1). Nor is it the case that I think Keller is generally a bad egg. On the contrary, he's a superb preacher of the gospel, a masterful Bible teacher, and a brilliant apologist when it comes to, for example, the reasonableness and historicity of the Christian faith. My contention is this: when it comes to cultural apologetics specifically, Keller is not the leader we need. Indeed, it's in this area that Keller is at his least cogent and compelling. In fact, it's the only area in which I've witnessed him - very uncharacteristically - failing to make even basic sense. "Where the battle rages..." The great issues of our day and culture are ethical and anthropological. Of these, arguably the most significant is the mass global baby genocide (more than one million a week), of which New York City is something of an international capital. How has Keller been responding to this, one of the most important moral issues in culture today? In a word: not. "Not to speak is to speak..." When "Freedom Tower" in NYC was lit pink to celebrate "abortion" up till birth in 2019, Keller was nowhere to be seen or heard. A prolific writer and speaker who has addressed almost every issue under the sun - including racism, extensively - could not find voice to confront the violence that has often left more black babies killed than born on a yearly basis in his own city. Accidental oversight would be troubling enough, but perhaps even more concerning is the fact that this turning a blind eye to child sacrifice is actually something that Keller defends and promotes. In an article for Christianity Today, Keller characterises seeking to defend unborn children from violence as "pushing moral behaviors"; it's "religion" as opposed to Christianity. He then relates the following anecdote: A woman who had been attending our church for several months came to see me. "Do you think abortion is wrong?" she asked. I said that I did. "I'm coming now to see that maybe there is something wrong with it," she replied, "now that I have become a Christian here and have started studying the faith in the classes." As we spoke, I discovered that she was an Ivy League graduate, a lawyer, a long-time Manhattan resident, and an active member of the ACLU. She volunteered that she had experienced three abortions. "I want you to know," she said, "that if I had seen any literature or reference to the 'pro-life' movement, I would not have stayed through the first service. But I did stay, and I found faith in Christ. If abortion is wrong, you should certainly speak out against it, but I'm glad about the order in which you do it." The "order" to which she refers is, it seems, "only after being asked directly". Which is fine if the only important thing is not putting off individuals who have already "experienced...abortions" (notice again the use of language, the perspective that is preferred), but it's not much help to the voiceless vulnerable we are commanded to be a voice for (Prov. 31:8), nor to women and girls who stand in danger of being damaged by a future decision for lack of clear and proactive gospel teaching on the issue. I am all for removing every possible hindrance to the gospel, but not to the point of ignoring clear biblical commands and turning a blind eye to child sacrifice. Keller, on the other hand, champions this kind of quietism as an evangelistic methodology. While it can't all be attributed directly to Keller by any means, this problem can be observed right across the Western church. I overheard a conversation between two UCCF workers during my student days about how they were going to address sexuality in a lunchtime apologetics talk. The accepted wisdom was that they would avoid disclosing any specific conclusions, and instead speak in generalities of worship and identity. It's beyond my scope here to go into this in any more detail but suffice to say: it's not how Jesus did things. The approach is endemic in "seeker-sensitive" approaches to church. Never say anything controversial, or they won't come through the doors. Joe Boot provides an extensive critique of Keller’s apologetics in his book Mission of God, showing that Keller’s compromise with worldly ideologies and failure to take seriously the law of God have led to weakness on all sorts of ethical issues – and where he does comment on justice issues, it is always from the (frequently unbiblical) “social justice” point of view. Bonhoeffer's Foil Unsurprisingly, Keller carries his ethical ambiguity into the political arena. In 2018 he wrote a tremendously influential piece in the New York Times about the role of Christians in politics. Whilst saying that Christians should not consider themselves above politics and should not withdraw from politics, he wanted to insist that parties on the left and parties on the right are morally equivalent and no-one can say which Christians should favour. Conveniently for his argument, he failed to mention the baby genocide whatsoever. The basic point is welcome: Christianity cannot be reduced to or owned by any political party. It's more than a set of moral codes. But it's not less than a set of moral codes. Keller takes his gospel-transcends-politics argument ad insaniam. Four years later, his "never-the-left, never-the-right" take on politics doesn't seem to have gone away. It's worth reading his whole thread here in the run-up to Roe v. Wade being overturned. The insania surfaces most disturbingly when he implies that even taking the issue of "abortion" - one of the very few times he's ever addressed the issue publicly - in isolation (so we're not trying to weigh different multi-issue packages here), there is no biblical or Christian answer as to which party or policy will uphold the dignity of unborn children more successfully: "the Bible doesn’t tell me the best political policy to decrease or end abortion in this country, nor which political or legal policies are most effective to that end". This is, of course, a nonsense: my seven-year-old daughter could tell you that the party working to end or at least reduce the genocide is doing more to benefit unborn children than the party looking to increase the genocide. But Keller, in zeal for his trans-political paradigm, wants to pretend that there's no answer to this very simple question. So fossilised is his philosophical commitment to political neutrality, he seems blind to the most obvious of facts right in front of him. When these were pointed out to him, his reaction was telling. "Sigh. People are focusing on the example (abortion is physical harm) and not the principle. You can do the same object lesson about gay marriage...why codify that moral in law and not others?" Yes, sigh he may well! It is indeed tiring when facts get in the way of a nice idea! One gets the impression of a man who wants to keep things abstract, even Gnostic, so as to avoid the hard, concrete implications. He doesn't want his paradigm shattered, even if it means unborn babies being dismembered. The overarching point of Keller's thread here was that churches and Christians shouldn't fall out over politics. Again, the point is well taken if we are only talking about slightly different tax thresholds. But we're talking about a genocide. As one response so aptly put it, this is "Sacrificing Children to Unite the Church". Keller explicitly denounces the idea of maintaining unity at the expense of the gospel. But he seems comfortable with maintaining unity at the expense of ethics, at the expense of forming a cogent or Christlike response to the greatest moral issue of our day. One of the greatest ironies of all this is that Keller wrote the foreword to Eric Metaxas's excellent book Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer in his day was up against the exact approach that Keller himself champions in our day. Stay out of politics, just preach the gospel, don't make a fuss about the genocide. If Keller were living in the 1930s, one can only surmise he would declare that the gospel is neither pro-Nazi nor anti-Nazi, and that Christian leaders should remain neutral in public. But as Bonhoeffer said, when the mainstream German Lutheran Church forsook the Jews, their evangelism became heresy. We don't get to opt out of moral integrity because we'd rather just preach the gospel. We have to be faithful on whatever front the attack comes from - including and especially when the attack is against a vulnerable people group other than ourselves. "First they came for the Communists..." As Bonhoeffer himself said, "Only he who cries out for the Jews may sing Gregorian chants." Keller refuses to cry out for the unborn, whose shed blood fills the sewers of his own city and nation in a genocide that far outweighs the Holocaust in scale and will be remembered as the defining moral issue of our day. When a Metaxas in 100 years' time looks back and writes up a history, will Keller be remembered as a Bonhoeffer? Or as one of the mainstream German Lutheran Church? I pray it's not too late for him to turn around, to raise his voice and be counted. But until then, why are we naming an institute for cultural apologetics after him? Subscribe to podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/aboutabortion Watch episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOtpeTm-RFo&list=PLDpjMeLBA2s04iqEts4y4_3cxGqOGj-dU&index=82 Login and subscribe to be notified of the latest post

Podcast Transcript | About Abortion with Dave Brennan THAT Guardian article. What a pregnancy [REALLY] actually looks like | 8 Nov 2022 | Episode 22 Dave Brennan: Hello and welcome back to this week's About Abortion episode. I'm joined once again by Christian Hacking and we are carrying on our discussion of lies in the public sphere, and the censoring of truth when it comes to abortion. And the title of this week's episode is Cruikshank returns. The Guardian whitewashes a genocide. Now maybe you're asking, “Who’s Cruikshank?” We will introduce him in just a bit. But before we go any further, since we are talking about The Guardian today, which describes itself as fiercely independent, a bastion of the truth, not owned by any sort of oligarch who controls this message. You've got an interesting insight into the behind the scenes working of The Guardian, which I know our listeners have been waiting all week long at the edge of their seats to hear. So tell us. Christian Hacking: So what is this information? Is that the question you're about to ask? Dave Brennan: Yeah. Tell us, what are these communications that you unwittingly received? Christian Hacking: Well, if you were listening last week to this podcast, you will have known that we went on a whistle stop tour of the inner mental workings of MP Stella Creasy. And part of this discussion around free speech and her attempt to repaint what free speech is, and the closing of free speech that she so willingly took part in, in the winter of 2019, was the role of the press to basically spout lies about harassment and intimidation. What happened after the CBR UK campaign was, another group, a political organisation called the Christian Parties Alliance ran their own campaign in Walthamstow. And I had the privilege of receiving a text message from a journalist who was trying to contact Stella Creasy about what this campaign was doing in her area. And let me just share my screen with you. So beeping on my Samsung 5S phone was this: Now I am delighted to share this with you, a good three years after it was first sent to us, because it really goes to show that these politicians don't operate in a vacuum, that they have media contacts and liaisons, and they work for each other and they work closely with each other. And should it surprise us that The Guardian, who has come up with all kinds of borderline defamation, and slanderous headlines about us, (but not borderline I would argue), should be in cahoots with Stella Creasy in producing more misinformation. The answer is absolutely not. Because this is the nature of the beast that we're fighting against, which is The Guardian, which at one point really was a guardian of free speech and minority views has just careered so far left that they are on the brink, if they haven't got there, of total insanity. And what you get from them is not the guarding of free speech, the guarding of the news as it is meant to be, but actually just unadulterated lies being pushed, and political agendas, like climate change. Over the summer every single headline I saw of theirs appeared to be some kind of climate change related issue. People's house fires weren't reported as house fires, they were reported as proof of global warming, etc.. And they've also got headlong behind the pro-abortion agenda of which we are exploring the latest manifestation of that in this stuff. It's also worth noting that The Guardian, because it is donor funded, and that's why you have to read the donor pledge after every article you read with them. They are also susceptible to lots of paid international journalism. So for example, when people were trying to stop abortion pill reversal with Dr. Dermot Kearney (president of the UK’s Catholic Medical Association), basically openDemocracy, that's George Soros’ media wing, was supplying information to journalists, funding journalists who were then submitting it to The Guardian. And The Guardian articles at the time had a kind of little disclaimer saying, “This is funded by open source,” etc.. I see less of those tags nowadays, so maybe they're going more covert in their funding streams. But basically, they’ve not only opened themselves up to political manipulation from global elites, etc, but it seems like they've willingly endorsed a lot of it and, and basically taking their readership on an absolute fool’s errand, really, of which the article that we're going to be looking at today is a prime example. Dave Brennan: And quite aside from the money trail and, whether anything illegal or untoward is happening at a kind of procedural level, I want people to see and appreciate the significance of the way in which The Guardian is effectively the propaganda arm of the abortion lobby, which is incredibly powerful in Parliament, as well as in, for example, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, and the British Medical Association. Now again, we're still talking mostly about soft totalitarianism here rather than the hard. It’s cultural Marxism, rather than political. So we've seen a takeover of the academies, we're seeing a takeover of the various institutions, largely Parliament and certainly much of the mainstream media. And I happen to think that one of the greatest problems with the UK Church today, practically speaking, is we all too easily believe what the mainstream media says, still. People still listen to the BBC, read The Guardian in particular, uncritically, and repeat what's been said there as if it is fact, as if there is no agenda behind it. And the piece we're going to show you now, is a really clear example proving that the opposite is true. There, there is a very strong agenda going on here and quite aside from who's paying who, it's clear from that text you showed us, Christian, that Stella is almost acting there as a sort of an informal, unofficial editor for The Guardian, “I'll send it over first thing in the morning and then, once I get the OK from you, I'll publish it by lunchtime”. It's almost ghost writing. It's not in organisational terms the government's newspaper, or the Labour Party's newspaper, or the abortion lobby's newspaper, but in practical terms, that's pretty much what it is. Christian Hacking: And it's just worth noting someone like Stella Creasy has huge editorial clout. When we did the CPN, we lined up a piece in The Times through the help of some friends of ours. And this very meticulous journalist came out and interviewed me, cross examined me for over an hour, or two, to really get to the facts of the case. And he was due to write some kind of piece, really telling our story, the stuff we affected in the last interview. But when he went to Stella Creasy, everything turned on his head. So an interview about unfair use of local political powers to silence opposition and silence political speech, basically became a headline; ‘MP blasts anti-choice activists’. So she has huge political clout. And when it came to the ‘Stop Stella’ campaign, we were invited to go speak on the BBC or one of these other kind of mainstream media outlets, and I think Stella refused to be on a panel with us. So she really has a very powerful right of veto, and is very respected in these circles, meaning that so many of her ideas can't be publicly challenged. And so she keeps a real tight editorial grip on lots of her content. So that's another example of all of that. Anyway, do you want me to share the article? Dave Brennan: So let me introduce this. So what we're going to show people now, and actually showing might not work so well, we'll talk people through it and give a summary. But this is an article that came out about a week or two ago. So, again, timing interesting, seemed to coincide with abortion debate generally, but in particular the buffer zones thing. And for those who are watching on YouTube, you can see this on our screen share, but for those who are just listening, let me just describe it to you. So this is an article that has the title ‘What a pregnancy actually looks like before 10 weeks – in pictures’, and it introduces the issue of Roe v Wade and so on and says that the issue is we very rarely see what pregnancy tissue, at early stages, looks like. There's a series of pictures, which we're scrolling through just now, which mysteriously feature white blobs of tissue, which are totally undiscernible. You can't tell what these things are. They almost look like it could be larvae, it could be anything, through various stages of pregnancy. So four weeks, six weeks, eight weeks, and so on. And there's a ruler next to it for scale. And purportedly, this is showing what pregnancy tissue actually looks like. Now, in none of these can you see anything resembling a human embryo. And that point is repeatedly made in the text. (See images below) (Photos: Dr. Joan Fleischman, MD, MPA/MYA Network) You can't see anything here that looks anything like a foetus. I think ten weeks might be as far as it goes. So most abortions are taking place around the ten week mark or slightly later. It’s worth noting that this is gestational stage measured from LMP. So that is from the last menstrual period. So if you want the age of the unborn from fertilisation, you have to take away about two weeks from each of these measurements. So many people will measure pregnancy from LMP, but it's two weeks later when fertilisation actually takes place now. Christian Hacking: Well, that's an average. The point about last menstrual period is the pregnancy can take place at any point from the last menstrual period to your next menstrual period. So the aging of them from last LMP could be entirely misleading because that baby could either be a few days old, or it could be four weeks old. And this is something I think we'll examine in a moment, when we look at the MYA Network, and you'll see just their methodology and how skewed it is in making this point. Dave Brennan: And that's why CBR UK and other organisations deliberately use from fertilisation dating because it's far more accurate, because that's actually measuring from when that life has begun, whereas LMP is notoriously inaccurate because of the discrepancy of when fertilisation may have taken place, as well as just irregularity of periods and so on. So, that's why we always date from fertilisation. And they don't hide that fact, they do explain their dating system there. But aside from that, this is just astonishingly, and deliberately misleading. The claim, and I'll just read out a couple of quotes here from the article is they've got no axe to grind, no political agenda. They're not for abortion or against abortion. They say this: “We're just putting out the information and the facts to counter the misinformation”. And by that, and they refer to this explicitly, e.g. images of human embryos where you can actually see the embryo, where you can actually see the hands, the feet, the eyes, and so on. That's what they're calling misinformation. And these images they are showing are the accurate images. We'll go on that in a minute. They carry on to say: “This is not something that's scary or dangerous or violent. It's just a picture of something that's in your body.” So in one line, they contradict themselves. They say they've got no agenda, they just pay out the information. But then they clearly give away their purpose. Their purpose is to try and make it seem like there's nothing violent going on here. It's not scary or dangerous. Of course, the opposite is true. So-called abortion is an act of violence. It's the poisoning or tearing apart of an unborn child. And it's this reality they have so deliberately concealed with these images. There's a lot that's bizarre about these images. One is the fact they're white, so clearly they've got rid of the blood somehow, which is interesting. Because if they're trying to depict what a woman is likely to see after an early stage medical abortion, it's not going to be white! There's going to be a lot of blood there. But they've also managed to conceal the unborn child, which we know is clearly discernible and visible certainly in those later eight, nine, ten weeks. Very clearly. Still small, but very clearly a baby. So, Christian, can you explain what's going on here? Are these images totally made up? What have they done to produce these? Christian Hacking: Well, the best way to answer is to go back to the article, and you'll see early on, from the third paragraph in the article:, “These images supplied to us by the MYA Network”. And it's got a hyperlink here. So if I click on that hyperlink, it goes through to the MYA website about the issue of tissue, and it has this lady with a video describing herself as a family doctor. And it starts with the question: “Do you know what early pregnancies actually look like?” What's really interesting is if you go further down the page you start to pick up what the agenda may be behind this. And in regard to what this organisation is about, it's got these quotes: “It didn't look human like what you see in the apps. I felt a sense of ease.” wrote one person. Sophomore and Grandma wrote “It wasn't what I expected at all. It was so small and seemed a lot less scary.” We Were Comforted wrote “It just looked like mucus. It was just a little thing. …nothing that made us feel guilty.” And finally, Religious Conflict wrote “Being able to look at what it actually is removed all the scariness and the guilt.” OK, so as far as this article is neutral, it is not. This website is as charged as a Tesla on a front porch after a full night being plugged into the socket. And this is when it gets really remarkable. If you scroll down to the FAQs on the page, I going to read them. It starts answering a bunch of questions: “What is pregnancy tissue?” “What is a gestational sac?” “What is an embryo?” This is when it gets really interesting. “An embryo is a cluster of cells that can develop into what we call a foetus in 8 – 10 weeks of pregnancy”. Clear dehumanising, a deconstructing of the fact that an embryo is a distinctive, living and whole human being. It's got its own genetic code. But this is where it gets really, really interesting. It says: “What does the tissue look like inside prior to being removed? The picture above shows you what the tissue of early pregnancy looks like. When this tissue is removed during an in-office procedure it looks the same, but we also see some of the menstrual lining (“decidua”) and some blood.” Interesting. So it talks about these vacuum aspirations using what is probably a handheld pump. It keeps on referring to them as in-office. I don’t know what point they're trying to make there. It says: “How was the tissue removed?” It talks about a “manual uterine aspiration” here. “The procedure itself takes only about 5 minutes and does not require surgery or medicines to put the patient to sleep.” OK. But it does often require a painkiller injected around the cervix, so a number of details are missed out there. It also requires the stretching of the uterus to get in using a series of tools. It can sometimes require pre-prep, the insertion of a seaweed material that expands with moisture and again, widens the cervix. So there a breaking and entering here that's totally ignored, but this is perhaps the most pertinent point. One of the questions: “I took abortion pills and it didn't look like this. Why?” OK. And now this is the key detail, which really is the giveaway of this whole agenda here. It says: “We rinsed off the blood and removed the menstrual lining (decidua) in preparation for these photos. What you see here is the gestational sac alone. If you are taking abortion pills at home or having a miscarriage, what you see will look different. Most people will experience a heavy period which may include blood clots of varying sizes, so it can be difficult to see the pregnancy tissue unless you purposefully look for it. If you are over 9 weeks pregnant and choose to look, you may see an early embryo.” OK, so it sounds from their methodology, like what they've done is they've literally washed away the baby and any other blood clots that could have the baby inside, and then they have clearly presented it in a petri dish. So all you're really seeing is the gestational sac and any evidence of an embryo or life, etc., is either washed away or it's been reduced and minimised by not using magnification. And, this is what was one of the most interesting quotes for me in article was this quote further down the page. I'm going to read it out for those who are listening on the podcast. It says further down the page, it says: “This image shows the decidua tissue to support the pregnancy and the gestational sac, which would eventually become the amniotic sac, which supports the foetus.” So they've made this distinction between the sac and the foetus. OK. “If we look closer under a microscope, would we see more human qualities?” To which this Dr. Fleischman says, “If you zoom in on anything, including sperm and an egg getting fertilised, it's just an incredible thing to watch. But that's different from the everyday ways we see life. That perspective, to me, is the most relevant. It is somehow absent from our consciousness.” So let's show people images of gestational sacs that have been washed away, potentially washed away the baby. And when asked, “Well, what happens if you zoom in?” Well, that's irrelevant because that's not what you can see with the naked eye. So how does that have any moral significance? It's the same argument to say if I fire a missile, I may not see the destruction it does 400 miles away. But what matters is what I can see with my naked eye. It's totally flawed, even from a human perspective. Introduce God's perspective, and we know God is not made in our image. We know God sees things very differently to how we see things. We know that the very thought of adult adultery is an act of adultery. The act of getting angry is an act of murder. So certainly in God's book, the fact that we can't see it with our naked eye, I don't think takes away any moral culpability here. So again, we've got layers upon layers of deception, distortion, and this stuff is being played out in the public sphere. What was that story you told me - didn't somebody actually reference this particular article? Dave Brennan: Yes, I was going to come onto that actually. So we were doing a display in Norwich just the other day. And someone had clearly just seen this article and they were claiming that our pictures were fake, because she'd seen what pregnancy actually looks like, and she's referencing this article. She said, “It looks nothing like what you are showing.” So it just shows the impact it has when a trusted newspaper, a mainstream media outlet rolls this stuff out claiming, “Here's the truth, don't listen to the people on the other side.” So it's very impactful. And clearly, on the website, those who were able to see might have noticed one of the tabs at the top is called ‘Abortion Normalised’. So clearly that is the agenda here. It's to make abortion not a big deal. So if zooming in and showing what's really there makes it feel like a big deal, we won't do that. If leaving the blood in the picture makes it a big deal, let's not do that. And they say that again in the article. It says showing this tissue in the way that they've prepared it and doctored it: “Showing this tissue can be a relief to patients”. “For those who choose to look at the tissue, you can literally feel the tension come down. People have been on this emotional roller coaster. And they’re like, ‘You’re kidding. This is all that was?’” So this is clearly the agenda here. It's to try and normalise abortion. It's the kind of visual equivalent to what you see in the verbal descriptions, so-called, of abortion by the providers. They say, “Look, it's just a gentle suction to remove the pregnancy. It's over in five minutes. Most people are ready to go home the same day”, etc.. It's designed to trivialise, it's designed to normalise, and it is quite literally whitewashing a genocide. They've washed away the blood and they've concealed the humanity of the baby, which we know so clearly, quite aside from what we can see with the naked eye, with the technology we do have, we can see sophisticated life at very early stages, which they even pretty much admit, when they say, well, if you look very closely, you will see the embryo there. We know there's a life there. We know the heart's beating from three weeks after fertilisation. We know there's a fingerprint from ten weeks after fertilisation, whether we can see that with the naked eye or not. But the whole agenda here is to whitewash the genocide and try and say, “Look, this is just a bit of tissue, there's, there's no killing going on here.” Now the thing I want to introduce to people, is a very interesting comparison point, because what we're seeing here from The Guardian is a very elaborate, ornate lie. They're not just lying about what the unborn child looks like, they're also lying about the people who are telling the truth. They're calling that misinformation, and in fact, they're weaving this really rich tapestry, this kind of narrative. Christian Hacking: You're making it sound like you could buy this thing in a charity shop. It's an ornate lie. It's a precious lie. It's a delicious lie. You're right though, it has this aesthetic appeal to it. It is a piece of work. It's a crafted piece. Dave Brennan: It's incredibly well crafted. It's thought through, because of course, if you’re going to do a really effective lie, you have to also explain how the other people are lying. You have to do your homework on that side and explain why their methods are wrong, they've got the wrong motives, how their pictures are the real fake images and so on. And so they've had to work overtime to make their lies as plausible as possible. And what's really interesting is we see a very exact parallel about what we're talking now with that of just over 200 years ago, with regards to the transatlantic slave trade. So what we're going to do is we're going to introduce this Cruikshank cartoon to people, who was a cartoonist, a satirist in the 1820s. So this is all about anti-slavery, not abolition of the slave trade, but actually anti-slavery. And Cruikshank was a famous cartoonist who was clearly in favour of the status quo. He was quite comfortable with slavery and the cartoon that he produced has a very similar sort of tactic at play to what we've seen The Guardian are doing here. So this is a two minute clip of David Olusoga analyzing this cartoon for us. Here is the picture itself. So I'm just going to play this now for us, and then we're going to see how at various points what's going on is extremely similar to the tactics at play with The Guardian. “This is a satirical characture by George Cruikshank, who is satirist of the early 19th century. The title is ‘John Bull taking a clear view of the Negro slavery question!’, and this is his image of two halves really. On the right is the Caribbean, luxuriating under the tropical sun, and on the left is Britain. Beside John Bull, is poor Pat, who is an English labourer, who's unemployed and hungry. No one's taking any notice of Pat because everybody in England in Cruikshank’s image is focusing on the issue of slavery. Behind him is an abolitionist, a thin, humorless looking man who's encouraging children to sign petitions. The petition was the favoured, the ingenious campaigning tool of the abolitionist movement, and here Cruikshank’s implying that people who are signing the petitions are young and naive, don't really understand the issues, and they can't vote anyway, so their opinions don't really matter. The only person in this painting who's not looking at the abolitionists is John Bull himself, who's looking through this telescope, which is in theory pointing towards the Caribbean. But what he's really seeing is a propaganda picture, a picture of a slave being whipped that's been pushed in front of the telescope by another of the abolitionists. And John Bull is again, like everybody else, shocked at this supposed horror of slavery. But the reality that Cruikshank wants us to consider on the other side of the Atlantic, in the Caribbean is a world which the black slaves aren't repressed or beaten or tortured or whipped, but they're cavorting under the sun, they've clearly been drinking rum. They're chubby and overweight because they're so well fed. What George Cruikshank is essentially saying, is that by becoming obsessed with the supposed horrors of Negro slavery, the country's taking its eye off the people that really it should care about, which are the poor and the unemployed and the destitute of Britain itself. And that this vision, this image of slavery that the abolitionists have pushed and rammed down everyone's throats is a myth.” Well, there we have it. Some really interesting points of comparison there that I want to pick up on. So, we'll put the link to that in the show notes so people can follow that up. Really recommend taking a closer look at that. And what you can see is there's real effort there, isn't there, to demonise the abolitionists, to point out their disingenuous tactics. They're targeting vulnerable, impressionable people, trying to get kids to sign their petitions and of course that's really an ad hominem isn't it. It’s trying to suggest these are dishonest people who will use any means, even exploiting vulnerable children, to advance their cause. Which of course is just one other way of diverting the attention away from the real injustice, which is in that case, slavery, and saying, “Look, the real crooks here are the abolitionists who are using these untoward tactics.” Christian, did you notice any other things? Christian Hacking: Well, that's very interesting, the kind of humorless gaunt, tall abolitionists, trying to get the petition signed. I can imagine you being drafted in that way within another few years. Huge ad hominem attacks. Very interesting that this sense of misleading the population, the African people, the Negros as they were called at the time, they’re fine, they're doing great. It's only these evangelicals who are trying to make us feel bad about what's happening to them. I think that was very clearly portrayed and clearly it's exactly the same today. What did one of the quotes say on that website? It said, “I looked, I didn't feel sad. It wasn't what I expected.” That website is trying to get people to look across the shore at these white, gestational sacs and say, “There's nothing to cry about here. There's no harm being done. There's no damage being done.” And very interesting about the kids, right? I spoke to a pro-abortion academic yesterday. And I asked her, because I wanted to get an accurate figure for the March for Life that happened in September this year. And I thought, no better person to ask than a pro-abortion academic for the count, beause I know she stands there and she counts the people as they go past. And I said, how many people were there? And she said, “Well, it's hard to say because we don't count the kids.” And I said, “Why don't you count the kids?” And she said, “Because we don't think the kids are fully consenting to be on the march.” So again, it's the same idea that clearly, although it wasn't stated emphatically by this person, it’s like you've got a bunch of wacko obsessed Christians on this pro-life issue, and they just bolster their numbers by dragging their kids along to these marches, and their kids don't even know why they're there. Again, it's all the same stuff, just being dressed in Primark, whereas it used to be 18th century clothing. And so the parallels are very similar. Dave Brennan: And the charge that we are ignoring the real problems of the day. What are you doing about foster care or the climate, or are you vegetarian? Or whatever it might be. It's trying to suggest that this whole baby genocide thing is just a total waste of time. There are real problems we need to get on with. And again, a very similar distraction tactic. Christian Hacking: What's very interesting about that particular point is obviously, unlike the slave trade, which was happening in the Caribbean and was happening far away, abortion is happening in our country, in these 360 clinics, in women's homes, as of March 2020. So it is on our territory. How do they get around this? They try to claim it's some American import. “Look over at America, look over at America. You don't want the UK to become like those kind of American pro-lifers!” So again they've had to work hard on that because obviously there is a very British argument to be made that killing babies at home - one in 17 women going to hospital is not good for British women. It's not good for the British next generation. The NHS is paying for each abortion procedure and then having to pick up the cost of cleaning up the mess, again is not very good for British taxpayers, etc. So how do they get around that? Well, let's keep on talking about how this is a real American thing, and these are just American tactics, American imports, even though the Americans that we speak to were inspired by the abolitionists in how they actually combat abortion in America. So the idea here is it's a basically strong emotional kick in the gut. It's not so much about the facts. It's not so much about getting to the truth. It's just pulling together various threads and pounding them into our gut. And I think that this Guardian article really has that effect. It's kind of like, “Whoa, these people on the streets, they are totally misleading me”. It’s a very visceral, emotional reaction that it's designed to trigger, and it does so very effectively, just like the Cruikshank picture that we just watched. Dave Brennan: There's an interesting little detail that Olusoga didn't pick up on there, but there's an abolitionist putting up a poster or something, urging people not to buy sugar from the West Indies, but to buy East Indian sugar because that was not slave sugar. And the cartoonist Cruikshank has placed in that abolitionist’s pocket, visibly, a sort of an invoice from the East India company, suggesting that he's in the pay of these India company to promote their sugar over West Indian sugar. And so of course the insinuation is these guys are doing it for the cash, they're being paid, their motives are not pure. And we hear exactly the same thing today. People claiming that we're handsomely remunerated by far right wing American Trump supporters, and so on. Which is funny because I would happily place a bet on every single one of those people who has made such a charge. I would happily bet that they are paid far more than any of us. These journalists are handsomely paid, Stella Creasey’s doing all right in Parliament on the MP's wages. And the idea that we're in this for the money is laughable, and yet so desperate is the pro-abortion lobby, and so weak are their arguments, this is the kind of thing they will resort to. Christian Hacking: It's worth noting, I did start this podcast by talking about some of the funding streams for The Guardian and how that opens them up to some of these political agendas. So I don't want to just be flinging mud back or throwing lies back, but abortion costs between £300 and £500 to the NHS every time you do it. So the ‘not-for-profit’ organisations that do abortions are benefiting financially from them. And of course, people like openDemocracy and George Soros are using the multimillion pounds that he's acquired as a head fund manager to fund very left wing agendas of which abortion is part of them. So, there is money changing hands and there are money streams that are taking place, and that can be evidenced. The question is, which ones can be evidenced and which ones can't? And just like in the days of the abolition, the slave trade lobby had a huge amount of money and they were paying people like George Hibbert, who supposedly went to the same church as Wilberforce, to be a voice for the slavery lobby within Parliament. And likewise, we see civil servants, people like Andrea Duncan and Isabelle Stevens, people who have either formally worked for large abortion providers or potentially could have worked in both places, now working in the civil service, forwarding the abortion agenda within of government. So the question is, where's the evidence and where does the evidence lead? And clearly it's not a multimillion pound business to be defending unborn babies in the United Kingdom. And if these buffer zones come in, the lot of us could end up having criminal records. It's not in favour, and it doesn't enjoy the renumeration that institutional injustice historically always has. Dave Brennan: But as you say, the key thing here, aside from the purity of people’s motives and so on, is what is the reality here? And the very powerful deception we see in the Cruikshank cartoon, and in The Guardian article, is they put forward a very compelling case for saying “Look, here’s the reality. This is the real deal and there's nothing to see here, folks. There's nothing violent going on. There's no problem here. You can feel good now.” It's a sort of satanic lullaby. It's sort of putting you to sleep. “There's no issue here. It's OK”. And in order to do that they have to construe the other side as the fear-mongerers, the mis-informers, and so on, and so they want to say that the likes of Wilberforce, they're the ones telling the lies, that, as David Olusoga said at the end there, it's a myth, this idea of slaves being badly treated, it's just a myth. Phew, what a relief. It's just a myth, I was worried I was going to have to do something about it. So it's really this kind of putting people to sleep. And of course people are all too willing to accept that because it lets them off the hook. It's very easy, it's very convenient to be given the sort of rationale to say there's nothing wrong with what we are doing as a nation. It really does make things a lot easier and so you see people swallowing this very quickly. But seeing something visually, they say “seeing is believing”, it's a very powerful way of getting people to believe that they've got the inside track. Like this girl we spoke with in Norwich the other day. She said, “No, I just saw it. I've seen it in the paper. So I've seen what pregnancy really looks like and it doesn't look like that.” So I think a quote attributed to Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister from a long time back, it's attributed to him, whether he said at first, who knows? "Lies, damned lies, and statistics." The point he was making was that statistics can be manipulated and can even give cover for a bad argument, but we're seeing something similar here with pictures. Lies, damned lies, and pictures! Because the moment someone's seen a picture, they think they've seen it. Now they might have, it could be an accurate picture or it could be a fiction, like what Cruikshank did with this sort of West Indian utopia, with all these slaves living happily ever after, and so a diligent propagandist such as we see here represented by The Guardian, has to make out the other side to be the propagandists and it's working. I can't really show this to you very easily, but one of our boards was vandalised in Norwich the other day, and I won't read everything that was said on it because it's probably not suitable for public airways. But what they have put in front of our warning sign, (saying there was going to be abortion related imagery up ahead. In fact, in this case it was just living human embryos, foetuses.) But in front of where it says ‘Abortion related imagery ahead’, it says, ‘fake’ abortion imagery ahead and then also says ‘scare mongering’ on the side. So this is exactly the same thing. We are that guy sticking the placard in front of the telescope in Cruikshank’s cartoon. The insinuation is that we are the fear mongers. We're the ones making up a problem where it isn't. We are exaggerating the problem. The reality is over the water there, and you can see they're doing absolutely fine. Can I wrap us up, Christian? Christian Hacking: Yeah, absolutely. Please do. All I was going to say was, it's images like this, the Cruikshank image, The Guardian article, it absolves the conscience and it protects the industry. That’s what they do. They make people think, “Oh, I've got nothing to be concerned about here”. And all the while the industry will carry on going. And that's why effective social reform strategy and effective anti-abortion strategy does the opposite. It does affect the conscience and it hinders the industry. And that's what we should be aiming for. And if more articles like this come out, then we can probably construe or surmise that we are actually having an influence. People are having to put money behind correcting what we are doing, or turning what we're doing into a myth. So in one sense it is a kind of compliment. Dave Brennan: And the stakes are getting higher, aren't they? Because injustice has to thrive on darkness, lies, deception, and of course the more the injustice is exposed, the harder it is for the deception to hold fast. So what you're seeing is the abortion lobby is resting on this ever growing sort of air-cushion of deception, and it's getting bigger and bigger, and more and more complicated and more and more precarious. And when it is finally popped, it's going to be so shaming for those who've helped to build up that castle in the sky because it's so clearly a lie. One day we'll be looking back on this Guardian article as we just look back on Cruikshank’s cartoon. We'll think, “Goodness, how did someone of any public standing get away with such brazen propaganda?” Even in the 1820s, about 30 years or more after the abolition movement started of the slave trade, even then trying to cling on to this idea, this myth, this convenient lie that there was no injustice at all. I'm reminded of Isaiah 30 v10: ‘They say to the seers, “See no more visions!” and to the prophets, “Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions.’ In other words, “Tell me lies. Tell me sweet little lies”, as one of our modern prophets Fleetwood Mac has said. But this is it, we want to be lied to because the lies are easier than the truth. And yet we know that it's a very dangerous business to be deliberately lying. And earlier on in Isaiah, Isaiah 5 v20, it says this: ‘Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.’ And that's exactly what's going on here in this article. The propaganda is saying it's the truth and it's calling the truth propaganda. It's taking the myth, calling it reality, and calling the reality myth. And it can be quite disorientating. But we need to see through it, because as we saw on the streets just the other day in Norwich, in particular young people, these teenagers being sold this convenient lie, which leads right down to the pit. We know that being in the dark as to what abortion is makes abortion itself far more likely. When people see it for what it is, many change their minds and choose life. So it is critical. In this post-truth world where people can even publish doctored images and claim that they are the real accurate information, again, it behoves us as people of truth to stand up and counter that with reality. Well, thank you everyone for listening. Again, please do share this with others. Help people to see through the lies of the media because they are lethal, and help people to see how The Guardian, and others, are whitewashing a genocide. Subscribe to podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/aboutabortion Watch episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VT9z2GSBWtE&list=PLDpjMeLBA2s04iqEts4y4_3cxGqOGj-dU&index=79 Login and subscribe to be notified of the latest post

Podcast Transcript | About Abortion with Dave Brennan Emotionally harmful to women? Soul or Spirit? Ft. Beth Davey | 20 Sept 2022 | Episode 15 Dave Brennan: Hello and welcome to this week's episode of About Abortion. I'm Dave Brennan, and I'm here with Beth. Beth, thanks for joining us. Great to have you again. For those who didn't catch Beth a few weeks ago, we did an episode together on the image of God. So I really do recommend going back and listening to that. That was a really helpful episode, looking at what the Bible has to say about why human beings matter and what it really means to be made in the image of God. But today we're looking at something a bit different. But Beth, we introduced you a bit last time, didn't we? You are married to the man behind the camera, Gwil, who our viewers may not know, be able to recognise his face or voice, but he is the man behind all of this. And you’ve just got back from Wilberforce, haven't you? Beth Davey: A fantastic time away. Dave Brennan: Tell us, what is Wilberforce? Beth Davey: So the Wilberforce Academy is an academy run by Christian Concern, which is seeking to equip people aged eighteen to twenty five in how to apply Biblical worldviews to their areas of work. So it's for people in media, in medicine, in education, in business, all these things, and how we can really live out what it means to be Christian in those areas. Dave Brennan: That's really helpful actually, because what we're looking at today is how we bring a Christian worldview to bear on a secular society. And that's very much the heart of what we're going to be looking at today. So that's great that you've come fresh from there. Before we proceed, we do need to do something very cringe, which I've been resisting for some time. We need to beg people to like us. We are asking you to subscribe, comment, and share. Hit the bell. You need to hit a bell, apparently. Please do that. That would be great. It is a bit cringe isn't it? It's a bit like sitting on the friendship bench, isn't it? Beth Davey: Oh, I did that. In first school I was the one who sat on the friendship bench. It was where you sat if you had no friends in the hopes that someone might come and befriend you there. And I got to play with some Tamagotchis, if you remember Tamagotchis? Dave Brennan: I do. This is a really inspiring story of how the friendship bench can work. So we are asking you to sit on our virtual friendship bench today by liking, subscribing, commenting, sharing, and dinging a bell. But seriously, it's not us you’re liking, it's this podcast. And to my knowledge, this is the only podcast in the UK, (this is no exaggeration,) speaking truth into the issue of abortion, bringing God's word to bear on this. It's the greatest issue of our day, morally speaking. This is the one, and there are no other podcasts out there. So the problem is of course, if someone goes on to Google and just searches for abortion, they're just going to be bombarded with propaganda that's supporting the baby genocide. So if you can just help our algorithms, we can get the message out there and people will find this instead of the sorts of lies that will encourage the taking of innocent life. So you're not befriending us, you're befriending the unborn. So please do that. Today's a bit different, isn't it? Beth, what we're doing today is we're going to respond some feedback, and we've got an email here. Now, just by way of context, I went to speak in a church some months ago. And it's a very large church actually, and certainly a church that I would say is Biblical and is seeking to be Biblical very intentionally. Indeed it has pretty much got that in the title of the church. And yet as one would expect within that church, a great diversity of people and ideas and so on. And interestingly, the response to this church on the day was one of the strongest I've ever encountered. People coming up to the front, committing themselves, recommitting in prayer to the Lord, committing to take action on this vital issue. A very responsive church. A lot of positive feedback, but then also this email, which we're going to read through in just a moment. When I received this email I was troubled by some of the things I was reading and felt it deserved an adequate response. I wrote back to the sister who wrote to me and said, “Look I really want to do justice to this and give you a full response, but I'm conscious by email that's going to take a long time. And actually, how would you feel about us doing a podcast on it? Because then others can benefit from thinking about these issues.” And to her great credit, this sister got back to me and said, “By all means, do a podcast on it and send me the link.” We're reading this through with her permission. We've taken out any personal bits so she can't be identified, including the name of the church. But the reason we are doing this is that it brings to the surface a number of issues that are shared by many in the UK church. And I thought it'd be a benefit to others to hear us talk these things through in the light of scripture. So the plan is, Beth, you're going to read it. I'm going to pause you just a couple of times to clarify some minor points and then we're going to talk through it. In these episodes, we're getting to the point now where we've set the landscape of abortion in the UK and we're coming to the conclusion that the great issue in a sense is not abortion, but the great issue is the church with regard to abortion. And I think what this email helps us to understand is just how deep that problem is. That's where we're going. So Beth, would you kindly just read this out to us? Beth Davey: “Following on from your talk on abortion at [the church] a few weeks ago, I felt a stir in my spirit, which led me to ask the Lord to help me to write and express some of my thoughts and views on this very difficult and emotive subject in relation to my personal experience on that Sunday. Speaking as a Christian with my nurse's hat on, I couldn't help but feel troubled by the amount of women who left the church in tears during the sermon and after the video. I was concerned by the risk of emotional harm that could have been caused to these women who may already have been in a vulnerable place. And I believe no person should ever expect to come to the church, their place of worship and be subjected to any form of harm. Even though I realise this would not have been your intention. Having listened to Pauline Peachy talking on her podcasts from her own experience, I agree with her views on the high levels of sensitivity that we should be using with women who have had abortions and may well be suffering with PTSD, as such, I gauge from the reactions of many, not just those who left the church early, that some women may not have been ready to watch such an explicit and brutal video on abortion.” Dave Brennan: Just pause you there for a second. Just to clarify what happened there and what happens whenever I go to speak at a church. It is true, there is a moment in the presentation where I do give people the opportunity to see the reality of abortion. And I won't go into the details now of why I do that, but if people want to see how I do that, there are probably literally dozens of videos on YouTube, etc. giving examples of that. The one thing I just want to clarify here is that I always give plenty of warning, a good few minutes of warning, and I make it very easy for people to opt out of that and say, “Look, that's not for me.” I even say that often. I say, look, maybe this isn't for you. Maybe you can't look at this. I know, for example, my own mother chooses not to look at it. She doesn't need to see it. She's already totally convinced. I believe she's seen it in the past anyway. But whenever she gets the opportunity nowadays, she doesn’t, and it's made possible for her not to. And so there is that optout. This is not sprung on people. It's up to them. So what we're talking about here is people who've chosen to leave and not see it, or people who have seen it by choice, but they've been upset. Beth Davey: “At the beginning of your presentation when you talked about forgiveness and no condemnation for women who have had terminations, I felt the spirit inside me became grieved, and I didn't understand why at the time, but after seeking God I had more clarity. A majority of women who have had termination of pregnancies do so lawfully under the authority of the NHS. They are cared for and guided by medical professionals who offer choices to women, and at no time are told that any of these decisions are wrong. In fact specifically, medical staff are told to hold back from using terminology with women who are considering, or have had terminations, which could be construed as suggesting that they are wrong or did the wrong thing. That said, medical professionals without being judgemental are obliged by their employer, the NHS, supported by the law of the land, to facilitate the abortion process.” Dave Brennan: Pause just very briefly, just a minor correction here. Doctors do have the conscientious objection possibility still under law. So they don't have to be involved in facilitating abortions. Certainly some doctors, nurses, etc., are put in very difficult situations. It may be easier or harder to use that right to conscientiously object. But I just want to clarify, it's not quite true that NHS workers are obliged to. Beth Davey: “As such, it is my strongly held belief that those who support the mission of saving the unborn child should target the legislative authority, rather than telling the women they are wrong, and need forgiveness for acting under the authority God has allowed. Romans 13 v1, ‘Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God’. As you're aware, the NHS lays out three choices for women with an unplanned pregnancy; to continue with their pregnancy and keep the baby, to continue with the pregnancy and consider adoption, and finally, a termination of their pregnancy. At a time when women are at their most vulnerable and distressed due to their situation, the NHS advise that she talks this through with a parent, family member, close friend, counsellor, or professional, to come to the best decision. Information on adoption is provided and a list of counselling organisations are also provided. If, however, she opts to terminate the pregnancy, then to be told afterwards that she was wrong to make the decision is completely going against the ‘established by God’ authority that the woman came under. I believe there are so many ways in this world we are called to preserve life, and I certainly think there are ways we can work with women to not only help prevent unwanted pregnancies, but also to help prevent termination of pregnancies in a way that never makes a woman feel bad about doing what she was led to do under the lawful authority of the medical professional. Maybe the health authority were wrong to offer abortions. But as a follower of Jesus, to point a finger and say the woman is wrong, especially before hearing her individual circumstance, I feel could potentially be very damaging. To save the unborn, I believe we have first to save the woman, come alongside, support. Do not judge them or withhold reassurance as the PASE leaflet suggests after they have been through such a potentially traumatic experience under the correct medical authority. To sum up, I do not think a woman in a desperate place, and coming under the law of the land, should be named as wrong by mankind for making her decision. In John 8 v7, when Jesus protected the prostitute in response to being questioned, he straightened up and said to them, ‘Let any of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.’ Thank you for reading my perspective, and of course I remain open to further discussion. God Bless.” Dave Brennan: Brilliant. Thank you, Beth. And again, all credit to this sister of ours who wrote and shared these thoughts and that's what we need so much in the church. It's what this podcast is about. We’ve got to bring this stuff to surface and talk about it. And I hope people can hear the spirit in which we're approaching this. I'm genuinely grateful that this has been brought to the surface. So thank you to that sister. So, Beth, we haven't colluded on this at all yet, have we? Beth Davey: No, not yet. This is the first time we're going to discuss it together. Dave Brennan: That's right. So I'm fascinated to hear, what did you make of this? At first reading, what, if anything, jumped out to you, anything you think needs looking at? Beth Davey: On reading it, the first thing that jumped out to me was when this person said, “speaking as a Christian with my nurse's hat on”. To me it seemed that primarily it was looking at it through a medical lens, through the professional lens rather than coming to it through the lens of scripture, which as I was saying, at Wilberforce, this is something that was really encouraged even in this medical field, that we can approach things first and foremost through scripture rather than just through what medical professionals say. Dave Brennan: Certainly that's something that hit me pretty hard when I first read it and I think it's quite common that people will adopt a certain persona, as a teacher or as a lawyer, as a medic, as a counsellor in particular. And this sort of persona comes with a whole set of rules, and its own morality, almost its own worldview. “I'm a Christian, but as a counsellor of course, I can't be directive. It's for the client to decide what's right for them”. I don’t know how we might label this, but I was thinking earlier, it's almost quite simply secularism in the church. It's a secular mindset that we adopt almost a godless perspective in certain situations, rather than taking our Bibles with us. Beth Davey: It's this idea that there are areas of neutrality, and we can enter those areas of neutrality and kind of have our Christian bit on the side. But in actual fact there is no neutrality. Everything is coming through a morality or a worldview that is saying certain things are good and certain things are bad. And so within the NHS there's this idea that it's this neutral field, it's neither good nor bad. There's no moral negative or positive to it. But in actuality some of the things that they say are okay, from a Christian perspective, we're saying that it is not morally neutral. They're making moral absolutes about these things. Dave Brennan: That's absolutely correct, for example, our sister here remarks correctly, “medical staff are told to hold back from using terminology with women who are considering or have had terminations, which could be construed as suggesting that they are doing or did the right or wrong thing”. That is correct. They are trained to use language that seeks to suck the morality out of this issue and suggest it's “just a medical procedure, there's no right and wrong here”, but of course, that itself is a moral judgment. It's like saying, “Look, when it comes to racism, let's not be judgemental here. There's no right or wrong. Some people are racist, some people aren't. It's up to them.” And yet, because so many have sought to construe abortion as a medical issue, it belongs in the medical world. Hands off. We can't touch it with our moral judgements. And yet, of course, that itself is a moral judgment. Saying it's okay to kill a baby is a moral judgment. So we've been hoodwinked by this secular worldview. And we're playing ball with it, which is quite concerning. And I think it's one of the deeper issues we're up against with regard to abortion. It's not just that the church has failed to understand this singular issue, or is unaware of the facts. It's a whole web of ideas and attitudes that means we've hardly even got the foundations to approach this issue correctly because our foundations are so unstable. Beth Davey: I agree. Dave Brennan: Anything else jump out at you in particular? Beth Davey: Yes. Even in that first paragraph, still this idea about what is the purpose of church jumped out. The talk about “the risk of emotional harm”, people shouldn't expect to come to church “and be subjected to any form of harm”. What is the role of the church? Are you expecting to go just to feel good about yourself? Or are you expecting to go to church and be challenged by your way of life and things that you haven't submitted to the Lordship of Christ, areas that you still need to repent on? What is the role of the church? Dave Brennan: That's really interesting because just to remind us this email said “no one should ever expect to come to church, their place of worship and be subjected to any form of harm”. Now, I'd agree with that. However, how are we using this word harm? And what's really interesting in this email, again, this is not by any means unique, (I've come across this in some other places, in recent history actually) this idea that being upset is equivalent to being harmed, and therefore offense is equivalent to violence. That if I've offended or upset someone, I might as well have punched them. Now, there's a story behind that if people are interested. About a year ago, we were on the streets of Norwich. You were there that day, when one of our team got punched and the policeman actually said that what we were doing by causing offense was equivalent to punching someone. So who’s to say in a law court, whether the judge would find in favour of the one who was punched or the one who felt offended? And he was trying to suggest that they're equivalent. But again, that way of thinking has made its way into the church. This idea that, there's risk of emotional harm. Upset, yes I'd agree. If you look at the issue of the baby genocide, yes, there's a risk of being upset. That's an emotionally healthy response that shows you've got a functioning conscience. But is that harm? Is it damage? I'd say no. We got to come back to scripture on this. Some scriptures that came to mind were in 2 Corinthians. Paul talks about these two kinds of sorrow. The Corinthians have been quite upset by Paul's challenge to them, his letters and so on. And Paul says in 2 Corinthians 7 v8 to v11: 8 Even though I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it - I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while – 9 yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended, and so were not harmed [interesting, the word harm is there!] in any way by us. 10 Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. 11 See what this godly sorrow has produced in you…” And it goes on to talk about all these beautiful characteristics and activities that have actually been generated by godly sorrow. So it's very interesting that not only Paul, but God intended sorrow there, but it's a godly sorrow. There is such a thing as worldly sorrow. We're not trying to heap manmade guilt on anyone. Of course not. And I'm very careful not to add any kind of emotional manipulation to my presentations. I don't need to. The facts speak for themselves. But what we are talking about here in this email, it seems, is the very fact that someone has been upset is meant to be evidence that harm's been done and wrong has been done. And that's an issue I think that's quite widespread in the church. Beth Davey: It's this distinction between conviction and condemnation. And there is a distinction there. And we never seek to bring condemnation, but we do believe that the work of the Holy Spirit brings conviction, as this passage then says, “which leads to repentance”. Dave Brennan: And again, just to say this is not a one off. Even just over the summer, I've been at a couple of events and one actually was an event packed full of church leaders. These are all adults. Probably the youngest there must have been, I guess twenty-two, twenty-three. These are not children, they're not teenagers, they're not even students anymore. And yet, because one or two people were a bit upset, the conclusion drawn by some was, “Oh, do you regret what you said because these people were upset. You must have got it wrong. Do you regret how you went about that?” And again, of course I'm not infallible. I can always improve the way I go about things. But the interesting thing was, the very fact of their upset was meant to prove something had gone wrong. And then you think, wow, what has church become, if there's no place for tears, there's no place for, “Oh that hurt”. We're in this kind of therapy culture. The other scripture that came to mind was the beginning of Acts when the apostles preach, and people are cut to the heart. And the apostles don't apologise, “I’m sorry, I didn't mean to upset you there”, but no, it's what we should do, godly sorry leading to repentance. Beth Davey: And leading to action as well, which is one of the things that we hope for, when you go to churches, is that it will lead to action. Dave Brennan: That's right. We need to be upset. One of the greatest problems in the UK today, without exaggeration, is we are not upset enough about the baby genocide. We ought to be upset. I was up in Wales recently, speaking on this issue, and seeing tears during the presentation, I thought, “Of course that's right. That's natural. How could you not be moved by what's going on? This is appropriate.” And yet here we are. It's a kind of hedonism, isn't it? We hate feeling upset. We just want to be happy. We're not people ruining our tea party, and so we just want to keep difficult things at bay. Here we are. The vast majority churches in the UK won't engage on the baby genocide. Beth Davey: And as you've been saying in the past few weeks, the problem is that this issue hasn't been coming through the pulpit. And I guess if the risk is that some people might be upset or offended, that only contributes more to the problem that people aren't talking about this, they're not hearing about it, and so then they are using their secular worldviews to engage with this issue rather than seeing it as something that they can bring their Christian faith to bear upon. Dave Brennan: And I think many pastors, if not advocates of this worldview, they are secondary smokers of it, and they do play along with its rules. So many pastors I've spoken with, or heard secondhand, the reason they're not speaking on abortion is they don't want to upset people. And they wouldn't necessarily use that language. They'd talk about causing further harm or damage. And there are wrong ways of doing this for sure. But again, the assumption that unless I can find a way through this where no one gets upset, it can't be right, I'm not going to do it. And actually what we're so often doing there is just protecting our own emotions. We don't want the backlash. We don't want the agro, we could do without the complaints. And again, I think some of that is exaggerated fear. I think the enemy loves to psych us out, and suggest that your whole church is going to blow up if you look at this. What tends to happen from my experience, is 95% of the people are just so grateful to hear the truth. Many people feel helped, including those who've had abortions. And then maybe, one or two people will complain, or say I didn't like that, or whatever. And that also is great because it brings the surface, “What's going on there? What is your world view? “ It's a great discipleship opportunity, but perhaps a word to pastors out there: Are you, are we, unwitting falling prey to this idea that we've got to avoid upset at all costs? Beth Davey: Because the very notion of the gospel itself is that it's an offensive message. And so if we're not willing to cause offense, are we truly preaching the gospel? That would be my question. Dave Brennan: Absolutely. This is something that underpins a lot of this, and it's about discernment, our very tools for distinguishing truth from falsehood. And something that struck me actually even before the paragraph we started with, the very opening paragraph was, “I felt a stir in my spirit, which led me to ask the Lord to help me” and so on, and similar language came up elsewhere. Beth Davey: “I felt the spirit inside me became grieved and I didn't understand why at the time”. Dave Brennan: That's right. And then another line, “my spiritual awareness can be extremely sensitive”. And I think what we are not very good at in the church in the UK is distinguishing between soul and spirit. And of course for that we need the word of God. So I just want to read some verses from Hebrews 4 v12 & v13. I was so grateful another sister in the Lord actually texted this to me just moments before I went into a debate on the morality of using vaccines that benefit from organ harvesting from babies. It was such a helpful, timely reminder that the word of God is that sword that divides between what maybe feels right and what actually is right. So I'm just going to read this: 12 For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. 13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account. What it's talking about there in verse 12, dividing soul and spirit, is a soulish response to something is really how it feels, it's our emotional ‘doesn't feel right’, ‘doesn't resonate with me’. But there's something which can feel quite similar, but is different, which is spiritual discernment. Conviction would be spiritual, but feeling uneasy could be just a soulish thing. And it's difficult to distinguish, because we experience so much through our feelings. Our feelings feel very real. They feel who we are, they feel what we really believe, and yet scripture is able to help us to distinguish between what is just a soulish or fleshly response, and what is actually the truth of God. I think our anthropology actually is very weak in the church. We don't understand what we are. Yes our spirits are alive to Christ, but we still need to be renewing our minds, our flesh still needs to be crucified. And so we are, I think, ill-equipped to distinguish truth and falsehood. Beth Davey: I agree. We just caught back from a course on prayer ministry and they were talking about the soul being the seat of the mind, the will and the emotions. And so I think you can see all of those things can seem very similar to the spirit, which is made alive to God. And we know God's spirit communicates with our spirit. So we can have that discernment, but we do need that sword, the word of God, which is the sword of the Spirit, in order to judge between whether it's us, or it is God's spirit. And I think that's a problem in the church today about elevating experience above scripture. And so it's often about sensitivity to feelings. People go to churches and they base their judgment on the church as to whether it felt good. Again, this comes back to the offense doesn't it? If it doesn't feel good for me, then it must be wrong, or if it doesn't feel right, then it must be wrong. And we need to be careful that we don't disregard the word of God and say that God's word is wrong, just because we feel something different. We need to submit our feelings to the word of God. Dave Brennan: I was saying to a dear pastor friend, Ebo in Basingstoke, who's been out with us on display. I'm really grateful for him. His understanding of this stuff is really clear and he helped me to think through this. Our minds are still in the process of renewal. And we were talking about how in a sense, it never feels right. Going out on the streets and doing a display never feels right. It never feels like a good idea, really, moments before you set up, that people are out and about doing their shopping and you're about to put up these massive banners confronting them with the reality of life in the womb and the genocide. It violates etiquette basically. It violates the kind of spirit of the age. It violates people's agenda. People are just doing their shopping, they don't want to hear about this, but that's precisely their problem. There's a genocide going on and no one wants to hear about it. And so you actually have to, like Paul said, “I'll beat my body and make it a slave.” You actually have to fight against your flesh, and what kind of feels right in a sense, and do what is right. And I think when this email says, “I felt the spirit inside me become grieved. I didn't understand why at the time, but after seeking God, I have more clarity”. And then it goes on to say basically people who have abortions are acting lawfully, therefore we are not to judge, basically is the argument. And that's why she felt uneasy. I think what's going on there I think she's feeling defensive of women who've had abortions. I can understand that. That's a natural sort of loyalty. Maybe she feels she doesn't want them to be upset. Again, that's natural. But does that mean it's wrong to bring the word of God to bear on something because it was legal? And perhaps we'll come on to this in a second, to this treatment of Romans 13, but that's where the word of God needs to be understood correctly in context. Beth Davey: And that it reminds me of the passage in 2 Corinthians 10 that talks about: 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, 6 and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. I can't remember who it was, but I think it was Martin Luther who talks about you don't have control over the air traffic in your mind. So things can fly through your mind, but you do have control about what lands in your mind. And we need to be careful about only allowing those things that submit themselves to the authority of Christ to land and make a home in our minds. Dave Brennan: That's helpful. And I think, speaking for myself, my experience growing up in the church, I think a lot of the church is quite good on doctrine, quite good on gospel, and maybe quite good on the more sort of pietistic, (I don't mean that a pejorative sense,) but the sort of, the personal disciplines, prayer and whatever. But I don't think we're very good at managing our minds and our feelings and preaching to ourselves. And it's hard work. It's not easy. Just going with your feelings is the easy thing, and that's what our culture's telling us to do. But taking thoughts captive, beating our body (again, not literally), this daily warfare inside of us is hard work, but we’ve got to do it. And I think that's something we need to catch up on. So maybe as a case in point, then, let's take this issue which is raised, this idea. And you could say, this is one particular example of secularism. You could call it legislationism . It's not legalism. We're all quite hot on that. Most of the church is quite good on saying we're not justified by the Law. That's another story. But legislationism, this idea that the law of the land tells you what's right and wrong, is something we've come across elsewhere and we come across it here. So just to recap the basic argument here: Abortions are lawful. God has established the authorities and therefore the law of the land. Therefore, they weren't wrong to have their abortions. That's the argument that's really being made here. And Romans 13 is being cited. How do we deal with this Beth? If this is not correct, where has it gone wrong? Because God has established the authorities. Beth Davey: I think the fallacy comes by assuming that if God has established, then the laws that come from that, that government must be right and godly. And just because God has allowed that government to be established doesn't necessarily mean that then the legislation is godly. You can, for example, say, God allowed Hitler to be established in Germany. Does that mean that because the Holocaust was lawful, that it was right to do that, that we shouldn't judge or condemn him for that? Because God established that and and it was within His authority to make those laws. I think there's a fallacy there by by conflating the two. Dave Brennan: Someone remarked everything that happened in Hitler’s Germany was legal, but just because it’s legal doesn't make it right. But where can we go to in scripture that shows us examples of disobeying? Because of course, the default is to obey the law of the land. And the default is to say it's right to obey the law of the land. And yet there are exceptions. So where can we see men, women of god actually violating maybe the etiquette, the customs of the day, or even actually the laws of the day? Beth Davey: I think my go-to was always Acts 4 in this where John and Peter heal the lame man outside the gates, and then the authorities tell them not to preach in the name of Jesus anymore. And they say who are we to obey, God or man? And the very next thing that they do is go out and preach in the name of Jesus again. So it seems that there's a discernment as to what laws are lawful, and what laws are unlawful under the authority of God. Dave Brennan: And actually that's similar to a phrase that Martin Luther King used to use. There are unjust laws and there are just laws. And he said it's unjust to obey an unjust law, actually. And that's where the case for civil disobedience does come in. Another example I think of is Daniel. Daniel and his friends were respectful of the king. They went along with everything they could, but when they decided, for example, where they couldn't eat this food in good conscience, they risked not only their own lives, but the lives of the steward who was overseeing them. And yet they did that and they were willing to pay the penalty. Because God is ultimate. Every authority is derivative. God is the ultimate authority. I have the authorities of a father, but if I start transgressing and acting against God's will, I'm not the ultimate authority. God is the ultimate authority and there's a sense in which you can forfeit your God-given authority if you are working against God. If we really were to be consistent with this idea that what if it's legal, it's right, we'd have to say Bonhoeffer was wrong to oppose the genocide in Nazi Germany. We'd have to say that the reformers were wrong to stand up against the authorities of their day, the Papal authority, which was so tied up with the authority of the land. Printing the Bible in English was wrong. Overseas mission is wrong because often it's illegal in the country where you're going to. You end up being able to do very little actually, in terms of the mission of God. Beth Davey: And I think what strikes me particularly about this Romans 13 passage, is that Paul from verse 3, says: 3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. And so he's talking about authorities that are supposed to be rewarding, good and punishing evil. And that's the context under which we should submit to the governing authority. What happens when the governing authority is praising evil and condemning good? That seems to be a different situation to the one that Paul is talking about. Dave Brennan: That’s right. And it's one thing what we can actually stop the state from doing. We certainly do our best where there's abject evil, but it's quite another one when they’re telling us to participate. And that's not even quite what we're talking about here. No one is forced to have an abortion. That would be a different situation which would deserve another discussion. But we are not talking about forced abortion. We're talking about as a legal possibility. So even it being possible under law apparently is saying it's therefore right. And that's pretty problematic. We need to read scripture in the light of scripture. We need to take the whole Bible together as one and see things in context. And we see that there are cases where people disobey the authorities if they're being asked a sin. A couple more points I wanted to raise. It's a subtle little phrase. “As a follower of Jesus, to point a finger and say that the woman is wrong, especially before hearing her individual circumstance”… It's a small phrase, but I think it's significant because there is this kind of situation ethics that's made its way into the church where it's personal, and it depends on the situation. And so it is that many people are very resistant to saying killing a baby is wrong. Abortion is wrong. They say it depends on the circumstance. Even in the church. Now in the church, the parameters might be, “We're happy to say that in 95% of cases it's wrong, but the last 5%, we just don't know her situation. What about rape, incest, abnormality, whatever?” And so even some of the most conservative evangelicals out there I've spoken with, are resisting to this day clarity on abortion, because what about those hard cases? And so it's that situation ethics that's causing confusion, not just on those hard cases, but actually across the board. Because of course, it's the thin of the wedge. If you allow for those, what about this? Beth Davey: And I think people have misunderstood the Torah, the Law, as being situational ethics. I think it's very easy to read all these different situations that there seem to be specific laws for, and think, okay, we need to apply our ethics, our morals situationally. Which comes from a misunderstanding of those first five books of the Bible, not being situationally based, but being practical outworkings of black and white issues. Just in my brief understanding I think it comes from a misunderstanding of scripture, that has allowed for people to think that situational ethics is possibly Biblical. Dave Brennan: I hadn't quite thought about that before. But I think there is that sense of whether it comes from a wrong understanding scripture, or just a lack of consultation of scripture. I think it's certainly an idea that's popular in our culture. I think it's the kind of man-centred approach. It's, “I start with me and my world, and the things I want to achieve or avoid, and then I basically bend things to get there. I could say that abortion is generally wrong, but if I'm really upset about being pregnant, and I haven't got the support, it's not ideal, but it's the lesser of two evils, so I'll have that abortion.” So I think it is a form of idolatry really. The chief end is not glorifying God and obeying Him. It's actually, “I want to have a happy life,” or whatever. And so everything is bent around that. But I think there's a lack of understanding of the law of God, and we are very keen to relativise it, aren't we? Beth Davey: Which ones apply to me? And which ones can we just get rid of? Dave Brennan: And we are used to, I think we're used to that idea of, “I'm the ultimate interpreter and I decide what applies to me,” Even down to how we discern our calling or whatever. People can have quite a worldly approach to that a bit like a career. What am I into? What am I interested in? What suits me? And it's it can be quite individualised rather than the bigger picture, the glory of God. Beth Davey: I think talking about, “especially before hearing her individual circumstances”, this idea that we can't have a say and it's just that individual's choice and it's their situation, and so we have absolutely no authority or right to speak into that situation. It does become a very individualistic choice. Making the right decision for me. Dave Brennan: And that is the whole pro-choice ideology. That propaganda that's just repeated again and again is, “It's nothing to do with you, it's down to the woman. It's her choice, it's private, it's personal, it's medical. And it's nothing to do with you, so stay out of it.” And so the great push by the abortion advocates is to say, “Look, she shouldn't even have to justify this decision. It's just her decision. Stay out of it.” And that's been embraced by, perhaps in a subtle way, those who say, “Look, until we know her individual situation, we can't judge.” Beth Davey: And that's quite isolating, isn't it? To take the women out of a communal, relational context, and to isolate her to her own decision. That's very isolating and like we were saying in the image of God podcast, about it being who we are in relationship to one another, to remove that essential part of humanity from the woman and just to put it all on her and on her individuality. That's quite a tactic in my mind which can become quite scary and can feel quite pressurised for the woman, who's been cut off from all these people to say, “No one can inform you. No one can speak into your situation.” Dave Brennan: It's certainly a tactic by the enemy to isolate, to put a woman in a situation where she can't get that information, that help, that perspective, and it makes it a lot more difficult for her to hear the word of God and to choose life. And that is a tactic by the abortion industry. They always make sure the partners don't come into the abortion room or where the decision's made. They want to keep that support out, that perspective out, and just get the woman on her own. And of course they'll tell you it's to make sure it's her choice. But actually again, what worldview is that resting on? The idea is that the individuals are sovereign on his or her own, and doesn't actually have any accountability to other people. And of course that simply isn't true. Have you got anything else, particularly you want to really bring to the table here? Beth Davey: I think possibly in this final reference to John. I think it ties in with what has been said earlier about sensitivity, you talking about forgiveness and no condemnation, which seemed to be interpreted as being quite condemning. So the opposite of what you intended. I think that kind of relates to this reference to John 8, doesn't it? Dave Brennan: It does. Because I think it's interesting that the idea is; how can anyone suggest that what someone else has done is wrong? That's not loving, it's not Christian. And so often John 8 is used as evidence for that, isn't it? Don't be judgemental. It's not for us to judge. But tell us what what's missing here? Beth Davey: I'll read v7, but I'll continue with the story: 7 So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.” 8 And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground. 9 Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. 10 When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, “Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?” 11 She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.” Dave Brennan: So I wonder how the woman felt when she heard those last few words. Beth Davey: It's quite a high bar that's set by Jesus really, isn't it? Dave Brennan: And of course the clear implication is that she has sinned. He's made that very clear. Beth Davey: He's acknowledged that there is a transgression there. Dave Brennan: And He's called for a change of attitude, a change of action. So isn't Jesus judging? Beth Davey: But we're not to condemn! Dave Brennan: It's interesting isn't that we use these words. A word like judge can be used in a number of different ways. And Paul actually says, “I do judge the church.” Beth Davey: In 1 Corinthians. Dave Brennan: Paul also says that we will judge angels. We're called to make judgements. “The spiritual mind makes judgments on all things”. So we are called to judge. That is to distinguish right from wrong. To say what is true, what is false and yet we even need to judge ourselves and each other, in love, not as a superior. We don't judge as the Lord judges. We don't have that moral authority, certainly don't have that kind of sense of superiority that I'm in a position to judge someone as less than myself, but we are commanded to make judgements and we need to. Beth Davey: And it seems that there is a difference between making those judgements, distinguishing between right and wrong, and condemning people who have transgressed or acted in the wrong. So Jesus says, “Neither do I condemn you,” but He clearly has made a distinction that she was in the wrong. So we need to distinguish when we are making those differentiations, as you said, there's no condemnation in just pointing out what is wrong. Dave Brennan: And that is certainly the intention. I think it was Bonhoeffer who said that the problem was they were in a situation where the church was justifying sin without justifying the sinner. What he meant by that is we're saying sin is not a problem, but what does that do? It ironically actually leaves the sinner unjustified because the sinner cannot discern his sin, cannot repent and receive forgiveness and be clean. So actually paradoxically, when we lovingly point out someone's sin, we're giving them the opportunity to escape condemnation and to receive forgiveness. So it is precisely the opposite of what people sometimes believe it to be. It is to free people from condemnation. And that's certainly the intention, that's the spirit in which we are trying to bring this message to those who've had abortions, those who've been complicit, those who've been supportive, and say, “Look, here is the truth of the word of God. And now that you can see that, there's an opportunity for you, through the grace of God, through the cross of Jesus, to be cleansed and forgiven and free from all of that and escape condemnation.” Beth Davey: And what we find so often speaking to women on the street, is that they have this sense that there is a wrong there. But because everyone is promoting it or celebrating it, or saying, “It was lawful, so you have nothing to worry about,” they're wrestling with their conscience and what is lawful. And so just in bringing it out into the light, I've spoken with women who say, “Thank you for just acknowledging this.” And so it's not about condemning, but it is about bringing to light what is going on under darkness. And even in this John passage, there is a bringing out from what's happening in secret into the light, and it gets dealt with, and then they move on from there. But it does need to be brought into the light, doesn't it? Dave Brennan: Absolutely. And it's like any kind of illness needs to be diagnosed before it can be cured, and needs to be brought to the surface so the patient can experience that wholeness. And that is very much the spirit in which, hopefully people can understand, we're bringing this particular episode today. This is not to condemn anyone, be it the individual who wrote these things, or those out there who share these ideas. Quite to the contrary, this is to help people to see what thinking is of the Lord and from scripture. And of course come back at us if we've got any of this wrong. Write in, comment, whatever. This is a discussion. We're not claiming to be the experts here. What we're trying to do is bring these ideas under the light of scripture and that is to help people. And that's very much what Paul does in all his letters. He doesn't write his letters to condemn people, but to correct, yes, and help them to see what's the truth of God and where do they need to get free? Because of course, sin oppresses us. Falsehood oppresses us. It’s not helping someone if we leave them deliberately in their sin, or deception, or whatever it might be. This is part of how we love each other, is we help people to see the truth. And that's been our intention today. We'd love this to be an ongoing conversation. People, do write in. Let's hear what you think on this. But we thought it was important, helpful, to bring these ideas so prevalent in the church today, under the light of scripture. We need to continually renew our minds in the light of scripture so that we can even have the right equipment to tackle an issue like abortion correctly. Great. Thank you so much, Beth, for joining me again, and thanks everyone for listening, tuning in, and look forward to seeing you again next week. Subscribe to podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/aboutabortion Watch episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3eLNnaARa8&list=PLDpjMeLBA2s04iqEts4y4_3cxGqOGj-dU&index=96&t Login and subscribe to be notified of the latest post

Podcast Transcript | About Abortion with Dave Brennan 1967-2022: The Evangelical Story in 4 Books (How did we get here? Part 4) | 13 Sept 2022 | Episode 14 Introduction Hello and welcome back to this week's episode of About Abortion. Thanks for joining us. My name is Dave Brennan, and together, we've been journeying recently through the question of, “How did we get here?” How has it got to the point in our nation where more than 500 babies are being killed every day in the womb? How have we got to the point where one in four babies in the womb are killed? And how have we got to the point where, though this has been going on for more than 50 years, still plenty of people in the streets and even in our churches don't even know what abortion is, let alone how to think about it? And we've been looking in particular at the legislative answer to that question. We've been looking at the cultural shifts, in particular the sexual revolution, and we've also been looking at the part the Church has had to play in shaping culture. And last week we looked at the shocking fact that the Church of England not only stood aside and allowed the Abortion Act to pass, not withstanding the fact that the Church of England has, e.g, Bishops in the House of Lords, and certainly in the sixties and even today, had a great deal of standing in the public eye. The C of E didn't only stand aside, but actually actively helped the Abortion Act to be passed, even drafted their own abortion bill in 1965. If you missed that episode, please do go back and listen in. The devastating truth is this, that the answer to the question, “How do we get here? How have we arrived at this point?” is in large part answered in this way: “Because of the Church.” Yes, in particular, perhaps because of the established Church, the Church of England. Not just the C of E But in today's episode I want to help you to understand that it wasn't just the Church of England. Those of us who are perhaps non-conformists, perhaps those who are Free Churches or Baptists or whatever, we can't just say, “Bad old Church of England,” and lay this all at their door. No, we have to face our particular heritage in this area. And so in today's episode we're going to carry on this approach of using books as particular milestones to observe along this journey of how the Church helps to bring the nation to where the nation is today. And largely I don't mean that positively. Sadly we've helped them in the wrong direction. We're going to take four books in this episode and we're going to go real quick through them. I'm not going to give a lengthy review. We're not going to go through paragraph by paragraph as we did last week. We needed to last week because that document is not very well known, the Church of England's document on abortion in 1965, and yet it's incredibly influential in that it helped to pass the Abortion Act. So it's important we did that. 1. Abortion: The Personal Dilemma by Reginald Gardner But I want to take us just through four books now very briefly, and show how they really encapsulate different phases in the Church’s response to abortion. And so the first one I want to show you is this book by Reginald Gardner, Abortion: The Personal Dilemma. And this book was written in 1972. And for many years this book was seen as the go-to evangelical book on abortion. This man Gardner was a non-conformist. He was not a Church of England guy. He was actually what we might call a lay-preacher, a part-time preacher. He was a doctor, a medical missionary at times. He was a preacher. And this book really was seen as the authority on how Christians ought to think on abortion for many years. From ‘72 until about the mid eighties this was the most significant book. It heavily influenced, for example, the Christian Medical Fellowship. And many people really saw this as authoritative, the main treatment on abortion from an evangelical perspective, so-called. But the reason I say ‘so-called’ is this. Much like the paper we looked at last week (Abortion: an Ethical Discussion by the Church of England), this book also failed to take seriously what God's word has to say on the issue. You have to get to about page 100 before any scripture is mentioned directly. And the way this book opens is rather similar to the way that the Church of England paper opened. Just looking at the situation, looking at all the different voices. Explicitly a deference to the medical professionals as the great authorities, not only on on science but on morality. Medical or moral decision? And Gardner explicitly says in his book that the morality of abortion (he's quite demeaning of the practice of pure theology) is not for those ivory tower theologians and academics to decide, but it's for those who are on the coalface, it's for the doctors. They're the only ones who can make the decision. And being a doctor himself, I believe one of the most significant and toxic influences this book has had, is that it's reinforced this idea that only the doctors really have moral authority in this area of abortion. It's a medical issue. And of course, that's a great deception. Abortion is not a medical issue, in the way that suicide is not a medical issue. It's not a medical question. Assassination is not a medical question. Now, you may use medicines or drugs, you may use poison to do any of those things, but the decision involved in suicide, in assassination, in abortion, the decision is not a medical decision. In less than 0.5% of cases, yes, there's a medically acute situation going on with regard to abortion. Very occasionally there's a pregnancy situation where the mother's life is threatened, but in more than 99.5% of cases it's not a medical question. Let's be clear on this. Even when the baby has some kind of abnormality, for example, Down’s syndrome, the question of whether to have that baby killed in the womb is not a medical question. It's a moral question. It's about whether we value that baby as much as every other baby, or whether we decide that baby can be discriminated against and killed, because they have, for example, Down’s syndrome. That's not a medical question. And Church, we need to wake up because for too long we have yielded and we've handed this whole area over to the so-called experts. And we've said that it's not our place to say. This is a personal issue. It's a healthcare issue. It's between a woman and her doctor. But abortion is not a medical question. And Gardner helped to encourage that idea, accelerate that idea and really, this book, like the paper from the Church of England that we looked at last week, it failed to do the one thing that we needed it to do. It fails to establish with clarity what the Bible has to say about when life begins and why life matters. Abortion is okay according to Gardner Gardner gets caught up in these ideas of ensoulment, the idea that the soul enters the baby's body, the embryo, the fetus at some point. Who knows when? And he also entertains this idea of what's sometimes called the ‘gradual growth in value’ of the child. You've either got the moment of ensoulment that takes place at some point within the pregnancy, or you've got this gradual growth in value over time. And even today a colleague of mine Christian Hacking stood outside (the Church of England’s) General Synod not long ago, asking people what they thought about abortion. And one of them, today, a member of General Synod, repeated that idea that it's gradual, the baby gradually grows in value over time. And so having entertained those two options, Gardner gives no clear answer, and then all of a sudden halfway through his book he concludes therefore abortion is sometimes okay, and now let's talk about in which situations those might be. Gardner is very sympathetic to abortion for social reasons. He's very sympathetic towards abortion for those who just feel like they've got enough children already, for those who've got babies who've got abnormalities. Gardner himself performed abortions. He was an abortionist. And so this book, which for more than a decade held influence over the evangelical… I'm not talking about Church of England here. We can't just dismiss this as a kind of woolly liberal, Anglican problem only. These are the evangelicals in the sixties and seventies. This was as good as it got and it was poor. What was astonishing really was that for the longest time no one stood up to oppose Gardner. There's no counter-book that I can find. No one stood up and said, “Hang on, what does the word of God say?” This book stood relatively unchallenged for more than a decade. 2. Issues Facing Christians Today by John Stott Let's move on to the second book in our pit-stop journey. The second book, which I think really encapsulated it well, was I think a real turning point in the history of the Church's engagement on abortion, was Issues Facing Christians Today by John Stott. I believe it was 1984. (I could be mistaken on the exact year there.) But this book really was pivotal. It was a turning point, because up until this point no evangelical, no Protestant in the UK had clearly articulated what I would call an orthodox Christian pro-life position. No one actually took from scripture what God has to say about the unborn child. And this is what Stott did. Of course, his book tackled a number of different issues. But in this book he had a chapter devoted to abortion and he clearly, from Psalm 139 in particular, drew out the value of the unborn child as someone created and known and loved by God. And this was a turning point. A turning point for evangelicals And because John Stott was such an influential figure, it was at that point… and I'm only focusing on a few specific books here, a few specific moments. Of course there's more to be said. There are other influencers. There are no doubt other books which are also very significant. But in particular it was John Stott who helped to bring into the UK this fresh understanding, a restoration to a biblical understanding of this issue. Of course, hugely helped by Francis Schaeffer, who visited the UK and gave lectures, but I think it was John Stott who helped to embed this in the evangelical mind. And that was a turning point, because from then on, at least for most conservative evangelicals, a broadly pro-life position has been, at least theoretically, the consensus. If you'd asked most conservative evangelicals over the last couple of decades, mostly they would say, “Yes, we're pro-life, at least notionally, at least in general.” They may not have thought through the details, the ramifications. They may be unsure on what they might see as the extreme hard cases. But the general centre of gravity shifted there from Gardner to Stott in the space of about 12 years. At least the notional consensus shifted onto the pro-life side of the fence. 3. Matters of Life and Death by John Wyatt About 10 years later along came John Wyatt, who actually was mentored by John Stott, a friend of John Stott’s. And he really took some of those issues in Stott’s book and expounded in particular on abortion, as well as euthanasia and some other life issues. So for matters of life and death, another pivotal book, which for many Christians is seen as the go-to book and again, further crystallised, at least notionally a pro-life position. But what's happened since Wyatt's book is just observing what the Church has been doing, and I'm talking now really about the evangelical Church broadly speaking… In none of this have we been touching on the Roman Catholic Church who have been clearly pro-life for centuries and have been unwavering and have put us to shame in their witness. But what didn't really happen since Stott's brilliant book and John Wyatt's brilliant book is, although it changed to some degree the private thinking of Christian leaders and preachers and seminarians, it never really made it into the pulpits. Not in any long-lasting way. And so you speak to many Church leaders today and they would say, “Of course we're pro-life, of course we're against abortion.” But they don't talk about it in the pulpits. Many times they'll assume that people in their congregations are as pro-life in their thinking as they are. We know that's not true. 80% of evangelicals say that abortion is sometimes okay Because it's not being preached from the pulpits, there is a vacuum, and that ideological vacuum is quickly filled by the thinking and the ideology of the world around us. And so it is that 80% of evangelicals think that abortion is sometimes okay. We've got two surveys showing that. One is the 2011 Evangelical Alliance survey: 80% of evangelicals say that abortion is still sometimes okay. I've shared that often with Church leaders and others. And one of the comebacks I received was, “Well, the question's not that well defined. We can't read too much into it. What does it mean about extreme cases? Does it mention health issues, life of the mother and so on?” And so I thought, “Okay, let's make sure of that and find out.” There's new data now coming out which clarifies. It said, ‘Laying aside issues of the life of the mother, (so we're not talking about any kind of procedure to save the life of the mother), looking at all other cases, do you think abortion is sometimes justified?’ And again 80% of Christian women, (it was Christian women in this instance,) say that abortion is sometimes justified. Silence from the pulpit The people of God, those who bear His name in the UK, more than 50 years on from 1967, from the Church of England’s paper, from Gardner’s awful book, but even after Stott’s and Wyatt’s brilliant books, the average evangelical is still not clear in their thinking on abortion. Why? Because it's not come through the pulpits. In many cases there’s been a lack of conviction or a lack of courage from the pulpits, and that's led to a lack of clarity in the pews. There are, however, and interestingly it seems they're often the younger evangelicals, there are evangelicals who are clear in their thinking, but not yet active in their doing. The word of God in the book of James says, “We shouldn't just be hearers of the word, but doers also.” We don't want to be like a man who “looks in a mirror and goes away immediately forgetting what he looks like.” Pro-life: an action, not a position And so there needs to be a shift in understanding of what it means to be pro-life. Many people tell me, “I'm pro-life.” What do they mean by that? They mean in their heads they would say, or maybe out loud if you ask them, “Abortion isn't okay.” But here's the thing. In Matthew 25 Jesus doesn't say to the sheep, “I was hungry and you were pro-nutrition. I was thirsty and you were pro-hydration.” He didn't say, “I was naked and you were pro-clothing.” We need another monumental shift in our thinking as Christians today.We need to totally re-work what it even means in our heads to be pro-life. Being pro-life is not a position. It's an action. It needs to look like something. It's not enough to be pro-life and do nothing when more than 500 babies are being killed every day. What good does it do then, what I'm thinking privately in my head, if I won't even speak it out loud, if I won't do anything? The priests and the Levites were anti-robbery in their beliefs, but they didn't help the man lying half dead on the road to Jericho. Only the Samaritan did something. And so the Lord's not going to say to us, “I was in the womb and you were pro-life.” He's going to say, “I was in the womb and you did something. You spoke for me. I had no voice. You were my voice.” 4. For Those Being Crushed by Camilla Olim So the final book I want to point out to you on this journey is this book, which is For Those Being Crushed by Camilla Olim. And I'm not going to speak about this in detail today because we did a whole podcast on it a few weeks ago. And you can go and find that. Camilla came in and we talked about this book, and in my view this is the best book we've got today on abortion. There's a lot that I love about this book, but what I particularly love about this book, and what I've observed as people have read this book, is I've seen it move people to action. Moved to action I've seen people read this book, and then go out and do something. I've seen Church leaders read this book and be compelled to do something different, to speak differently. I've seen prayer meetings start because of this book. I've seen people going out onto the streets and doing things because of this book. And what this book represents is something that's exciting. There is a rising generation of, in particular, younger evangelicals, and that's just a fact that's been observed - younger evangelicals are more likely to be pro-life than older evangelicals. We could think about why that is, but it just is. And what this book represents is that younger generation of evangelicals who do get this issue, and who see it as a justice issue, and who are willing to stand up and be counted and be a voice for the voiceless. And that's not to try and drive any kind of ageist distinction between younger evangelicals and older. We are standing on the shoulders of giants. We are deeply indebted to our forebears who've taught us in God's word and the ways of the Lord. There's a huge amount that previous generations have got right that we need to keep learning from. We must at all costs avoid this us-and-them dichotomy. That's not at all what I'm trying to get at here. But what I'm saying is there is a young generation of evangelicals rising up to be a voice for the voiceless. And this book encapsulates that. And really in this book we see some of that concentrated, and brought in a way that's digestible to anyone who picks this book up and reads it. But as this podcast develops quite soon we're going to be moving much more into equipping and training and encouragement, and how we can be that voice for the voiceless that we're called to be. The inescapable choice we face And this book I think, is a fantastic introduction to that. So this book represents an opportunity and a choice that, as the people of God we are called to choose life, not to choose death. Not just choosing life if we happen to be expecting a child or ‘don't like abortion, don't have one’. We're not talking about that ‘choose life’. We're talking about standing for life. We're talking about standing against the persecution of these innocent children in the womb. And so this book, I think is heralding a new move that God is at work in today in the UK. It's small, but it's real and it's growing, of people who are seeing this issue in the light of God's word, seeing the facts and seeing the fact that we can't just say, this is nothing to do with me. Conclusion So that brings us up to the present day, a quick pit stop tour through four books from Reginald Gardner to Camilla Olim. And next week we're going to be looking at philosophically how we've got to this point in the abortion status quo today. So tune in next week and follow as we continue the discussion. Thank you. Subscribe to podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/aboutabortion Watch episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPQMasNhV5M&list=PLDpjMeLBA2s04iqEts4y4_3cxGqOGj-dU&index=15&t=1s&pp=gAQBiAQB Login and subscribe to be notified of the latest post

Podcast Transcript | About Abortion with Dave Brennan But the Bible doesn't talk about abortion, does it? Ft. Tim Lewis | 12 July 2022 | Episode 5 Dave Brennan: Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of About Abortion. Today I'm joined by my friend Tim Lewis. Tim, welcome. Tim Lewis: Hi, Dave. Good to be here with you. Dave Brennan: Thanks so much for making time for us. Tim, tell us a bit about yourself. You've been in pastoral work for a number of years now? Tim Lewis: Yes, that's right. So over 10 years really in different churches. And I am currently working part-time for a church at the moment in North Yorkshire. I also, a couple of years ago, started part-time, a PhD in biblical studies. And really the focus of that is looking at what the Bible has to say about the unborn child. So the kind of cumulative picture really from Genesis through to Revelation. And my thesis really is that, taken as a whole, the Bible actually has quite a lot to say and does paint quite a coherent and robust picture of the unborn child. Dave Brennan: Brilliant. And that's what we're going to be hearing more about from you today. Thanks for coming to share that with us. We first met 4 years ago. I came to speak at your church and you were already just getting into that study. So we've been having some good chats about that since. Tim Lewis: That's right. The research has roughly segued with my knowledge and interaction with Brephos and CBR UK, so it's been a fruitful relationship in that sense. Dave Brennan: Brilliant. And you are you're a family man? 3 boys? Tim Lewis: Yes, we have three boys. We have twins that are five and a little baby about seven months. So if I look slightly tired that's the reason why. Dave Brennan: And also a dog that looks somewhat more like a wolf. I don’t know the breed, but… Tim Lewis: Yeah, we have an Akita. So I was saying to Dave before we started recording, if you hear a random dog barking, that will be it. Don't be alarmed viewer. But yes, if anybody would like to adopt a Japanese Akita then do message Dave afterwards. Dave Brennan: It’s quite overwhelming. It's a lovely dog, but it's a large white wolf-like… Tim Lewis: It's just moults all the time. That's the main problem. Dave Brennan: Brilliant. Tim, let's get cracking. You mentioned as if a rebuttal to what's often said, the Bible actually has quite a lot to say on abortion, because of course one could reasonably conclude looking in from the outside, or indeed from within the Church, especially looking back at the history of the Church's engagement on this issue, especially in the 60s and 70s, one could be forgiven for thinking it's up to everyone just to make up their own mind about this issue. Because the Bible doesn't really talk about abortion, does it? So tell us, does the Bible talk about abortion? What's the deal? Tim Lewis: That's a great question. So the word ‘abortion’ is not the Bible, just as the word ‘Trinity’ is not in the Bible. Does that mean it's not there? I would suggest no. I suppose my approach in this research is looking at the materials which are there to build a very clear picture of the value, the humanity, the worth of life in the womb, indeed from conception. So I think when you have that, then clearly an act that takes that life, which to all intents and purposes is innocent, (obviously as a Christian, I believe an original sin,) but to all intents and purposes, is innocent, then that's a problem. That's a transgression I would suggest, of God's law. So that in a nutshell is where I would come down on that particular issue. Dave Brennan: That's really helpful because I think there's data coming out showing that only about one in 20 evangelicals have ever heard thorough teaching about abortion in Church. There are plenty of us who've grown up in the Church and yet we've not really been walked through what the scriptures have to say about this. We're going to do that now. We're going to do that together for those listening in. We don't want to assume people have heard this before. So let's look at those things you mentioned. The way I see it is, yes, the Bible doesn't mention the word ‘abortion’, but it's as simple as two plus two equals four, in that we've got a very clear picture of life from conception, and we've also got a very clear prohibition when it comes to the taking of innocent life. Can you just help us to understand where do we get those things biblically? So specifically, you mentioned life from conception, didn't you? Not just life generally. Tim Lewis: Absolutely. Let's start at the very beginning. And the interesting thing just in the Old Testament is that the verb for ‘to conceive’ is used well over 30 times, which is interesting. And when that is the case, the text always goes on to describe the child who is born. And the first occurrence of the noun ‘conception’ is actually in Genesis 3 which is talking about Eve's fate post-fall. It's often disguised in a number of translations, but where God says, “I will increase your pain in childbearing”, ‘childbearing’ is actually the word ‘conception’. So we have conceptions of childbirth in view here. So there's a focus, there's an interest in conception, in pregnancy, in offspring, right at the start of the Genesis narratives. And of course, if you look at the verse immediately preceding where conception's mentioned Genesis 3:15 it's through one such pregnancy, of course, that the Messiah will be born, who will crush the serpent's head. So there's a kind of Messianic interest in these things. Salvation, historical, big picture, biblical, theological interest. But more generally, human existence in the Bible consistently, I would suggest looks back to conception rather than birth. So Job 3:3 famously, when he is in a pretty gloomy mood, I think it's fair to say, he says, “Let the day perish on which I was born, and the night that said, “A boy or male child is conceived.”” So he sees the problem there, beginning, not so much on the day of his birth, but on the night he came into existence nine months previously. And of course Psalm 51:5 has something similar in terms of “being brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.” Even the love poetry of Song of Songs. If you look at Song of Songs 3:4 the woman talks about “bringing her beloved into the chamber of her mother who conceived her.” It's a strange expression really, but I think it just shows that consistent kind of mindset, that life begins at conception. This is when a new life comes to exist. And I think the other thing to say, particularly Genesis narratives, the stories of the matriarchs and the patriarchs, there's a very strong sense in scripture that without God's involvement there is no conception, there is no pregnancy. God is the one who opens the womb. God is the one who superintends the formation, the development of a child, which is of course seen as a great blessing, something to be celebrating. Psalm 127: “Children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, a reward.” And if you go really back to the very first chapter of the Bible, Genesis 1, humanity is made in the image and lightness of God, and part of humankind's commission is to “be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth.” So procreation is part of God's original blessing I would suggest. “God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply.” And of course that is reiterated after the Flood.” So even after God begins again, Genesis 9:1, Genesis 9:7, humankind through Noah and his sons are told to be fruitful, to multiply. And some people might say, “Okay, that's all very well and good, but this is an ancient near Eastern culture. Social and cultural expectations were a world away from 21st century post-modern Britain. And to an extent that's true. And of course, tragically in the biblical world, there were high levels of infant mortality as well as maternal mortality. Pregnancy and childbirth were very dangerous for women and girls. There's also, of course, a suggestion that, you needed large families, because a lot of children might die very young, but also you needed those families to help support, farm the land, care for parents in old age. There were, in other words social and cultural factors around having big families, the desire for many children, and probably starting families much earlier than we would typically now in the West. And one could admit that to an extent, one can see that cultural context. But I think other things can't be explained away as easily as that. I think the idea that God is the one in charge, God is the one who opens the womb, God is sovereign in every pregnancy, in every child that comes to be. I don't think you can simply airbrush that out as as easily. So I would suggest that is part of the biblical worldview from the very first page of Genesis, which inform not just Old Testament thinking, but I think they inform Jesus's view of children as a gift from God. And pregnancy is something to be celebrated. Dave Brennan: And it's worth mentioning there, isn't it, that actually we can take for granted this idea that human beings are at least meant to be intrinsically valuable, that we care about people, not because of what they can do for us, but just because they're people. But actually that's not a universally accepted doctrine. But in the ancient Near East, actually and in Greco-Roman cultures infanticide was rife, abortion also very common. And actually children were not valued automatically. They were not considered valuable in a lot of cultures until they've got at least a potential to become a great warrior or whatever it is. And child sacrifice very common in the culture surrounding the biblical Old Testament writers. And indeed, of course it invaded Israelite culture as well. So it's very easy to think it's obvious we care about life. Actually that's not always and everywhere been the case, from conception or otherwise. So it is distinctive, isn't it? Tim Lewis: I think so. That's exactly right, Dave. I think every culture generally has struggled with that temptation to end life prematurely or as you say, even once a child is born and I think Greco-Roman culture was particularly abhorrent in that regard, and particularly for young girls, female babies would often just be gotten rid of or it would've been a future of eventual prostitution or slavery, really. And one of the ironies I think is that often Christians perhaps or or a biblical worldview or the Bible itself is seen as quite patriarchal, seen as a male text with male interests. And I think it's fascinating the amount of air time, if you like the Bible gives to women and their stories. You think of Luke's gospel, it begins really with a conversation between two women, but more generally, I think in the Old Testament there are a huge number of pregnancies that are narrated in some detail, and it's often from the perspective of a woman. And many times it's about how that sort of seed line of promise continues through the matriarchs. But sometimes it's not even that. So for example, Hagar who becomes the mother of Ishmael, (so not part of that promise line of seed,) lovely depiction in Genesis 16 of her story of pregnancy. And it's a pretty difficult beginning to motherhood really. But the text makes it very clear how God safeguards Hagar, safeguards her unborn child even when she's been effectively abandoned by Abraham/ Abram, her husband at that point. And in the context of her pregnancy, she has this revelation, this theophany. God appears to her and she names God in scripture that “you are the God who sees me – El Roi”. It's quite an incredible text. And there are many other stories like that. You could look a little bit further than Genesis, the story of Tamar in Genesis 38, who goes to the great lengths to be pregnant and then to watch over her child when the father at one point wants to kill her. And Tamar, of course, becomes one of King David's and eventually Jesus' forebears. Or I suppose if you wanted to pick one story in scripture that summed up a problem pregnancy, an inconvenient pregnancy, that would be the story of Bathsheba and David of course. And I guess most folks know David essentially takes this woman, sleeps with her, Bathsheba becomes pregnant. It's intensely inconvenient for David, yet he never contemplates, the text never gives us any hint that he thinks, “Okay, if I just get rid of this pregnancy, if I just get rid of this child, all my problems will go away.” No. He goes to great lengths to get rid of the Uriah which is awful, but that for him is never an option really on the table. And Nathan even talks about this child dying for the sin of others while still in the womb. And I think that can even be seen as prefiguring Christ. So there are some wonderful stories. I think the most detailed descriptions from those pregnancy stories come in the story of Rebecca and her twins Jacob and Esau, which is Genesis 25. And again, it's an amazing account. Rebecca's been unable to conceive for a long time, as many of the matriarchs are. Eventually after 20 years, Isaac prays and Rebecca conceives, but the problem with her pregnancy is there's these very violent uterine movements. And of course a lot of women would be reassured by movements in the womb. But for Rebecca, these are a little bit foreboding. And she actually goes to seek the Lord to make sense of what on earth is happening. And of course, she's told that she's actually carrying two peoples or nations, even at that time, within her womb. And the older will serve the younger. And Jacob and Esau are fighting in the womb. It’s seen very much as a precursor to their tempestuous relationship as adults and the people they then come to represent. So Israel as Jacob, and Esau as Edom. And of course, Jacob comes out grasping Esau's heel. So their independence, their character, their personality is communicated while they're still in the womb. That informs very much the biblical portrait of them, later in Hosea, for example, talking about Jacob and Esau. They're absolutely not simply a part of their mother's body. They are individual, separate people who make their presence felt and when the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek, it's interesting that the words used for their movements, these kind of fairly violent movements, is the same word actually, that Luke uses for John the Baptist leaping in the womb when he hears Mary's greeting. Although there it's a kind of joyous moment. So that's interesting. And then, finally, one final scripture would be Judges 13 which is the story of the birth narrative to do with Samson and Samson's mother and Manoah's wife. We're never actually told her name, which is interesting and you might think that denigrates her as a character, but the other person we're never told the name of in that story is the angel, who is a fairly glorious and awesome presence. So I think we are meant to make a link there between the angel and Manoah's wife. And Samson is described very clearly as a Nazarite from the womb, meaning within the womb. And because of that, his mother is given certain Nazarite stipulations to observe during her pregnancy. Obviously today we have all sorts of pregnancy vitamins and things to do when you're pregnant to help the baby. But the Lord, the angel of Lord gives her a sort of certain regime to follow for the sake of her unborn child. And the text makes it clear that Samson's mother follows the angel's instructions to the letter, which is a little bit more than can be said for Samson, because his story is a bit of a mixed bag really. So I would suggest that women and women's stories and particularly including their pregnancies, are very much a part of the biblical narrative in that regard. Dave Brennan: That's fascinating. Because what so many of those passages really emphasize is the continuity, isn't it, of life from conception, right the way through? We see Jacob and Esau's temperaments almost, their destinies, already beginning to be played out in the womb. And what's all the more remarkable about that of course is this is millennia before there's anything like the kind of technology we've got today, where we can see at least in the biological sense, the continuity. We know from conception, that's where the new DNA is formed. We know the sex is determined biologically speaking there and then. And it's amazing. The more I'm learning about what goes on in the womb, it is in so many cases, it's the baby actually that triggers certain responses in the mother. It's the baby that emits signals right after fertilization saying, “I'm here, don't expel me.” And then later on when it's time for delivery, it's the baby that sends out those signals. So of course they're not conscious protagonists and it is not a willful decision, not a decision of the will in that sense. But the baby is an independent, distinct living human being, and it's amazing that these inspired, biblical writers saw that in such detail, because one could forgive (it's a crude word,) but a pre-scientific culture being totally unaware or at least ambiguously silent about the wonder of life in the womb, especially from conception, weeks before you can feel any movement, observe any movement, and weeks before you can really see any difference in the mother's body. Tim Lewis: Absolutely Dave. I think that idea of continuity is really important. And one of the things that scholars would say is that the vocabulary that's used of the child in the womb, these are words that describe children, or sometimes even adults once they're born. So it's exactly the identical kind of vocabulary for a life before birth compared to a life after birth. And that's interesting because even in some of the voluminous rabbinic discourses following the Old Testament, a kind of distinct vocabulary at times is developed by the rabbis to describe what we might call an embryo or a fetus. You don't really get that so much in the Old Testament or in the New Testament. It's that identical kind of language. And just going back to what you're saying about the child triggers the response, there are some amazing scriptures. Look at Hosea 13:13 for example. It's figurative language, it's making a kind of point about salvation history, something else, but it talks about “an unwise child not knowing when to present itself at the opening of the womb,” which is just a fascinating little aside in the text. But I think it shows you that pervasive worldview really. And one of the fascinating things – there are several words for ‘womb’ in Hebrew and Greek, but probably one of the most significant, the word ‘Rechem’ is connected in its roots with the Hebrew word for compassion: ‘Rachamim’. And that's something that's long been observed by theologians, but also feminist theologians have taken that up and run with it, particularly developed that motif because it's quite significant in this association between God's love on the one hand, and the intense and intimate love of a mother for her child, the fruit of her womb on the other. And essentially saying that within the human sphere, in terms of how we understand love, perhaps the closest analogy we get to divine love is that sort of maternal affection which begins during pregnancy. And I think when God wants to express the depth and strength of His love, He often turns that metaphor. So think of Isaiah 49:15 – “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?” And of course the rhetorical response is ‘no’, but the scripture goes on, “Even though these may forget, yet I will never forget you”. And there are other parts elsewhere in Isaiah 46:3, God talks about “carrying the house of Israel from birth, carrying them from the womb” even. Isaiah 42:14, God compares himself to a woman in labor, gasping and panting to bring forth her child, to bring forth His people. So I would suggest that's a really interesting other fruitful avenue of exploration really. Dave Brennan: And that's something that's worth picking up on in that, for those listening in, maybe some listening in who aren't even Christians, but you're just interested, you’re really welcome and we love having you here. And I think something that we Christians sometimes miss, perhaps in our tradition, more so Protestant Reform tradition, is just how wondrous it is the way God has left his fingerprints everywhere in creation. We see something of what God is like in creation. Nothing is by accident, the way He's designed things. They're gloriously suggestive so often of what He is like. And that's especially true when it comes to human beings. So when we think about the way God has designed, for example, the female body, the way he's designed this womb as this place of unique embrace, and safety, and secrecy, and hiddenness, and whatever else, we mustn't just dismiss that of as a bit of biology. But God is actually showing us something of His own nature and His own love, especially in the way He’s designed human beings and the functions of our bodies and the way we relate to each other. And in particular, as you say, that parental relationship, that, time and again, the marriage relationship, the parental relationship are picked up as analogies, aren't they, for God's love for us, for His people. And it's worth just spending a bit of time chewing that over and contemplating that. And I think our tradition is sometimes guilty of that. We can forget the expansiveness of the revelation of God in the natural world which He made. We don't believe in a God who is not interested in physical matter, in biology, science. No. All of this is created by Him and it's just glorious, isn't it, to consider? Tim Lewis: Absolutely. And I guess within the Old Testament, Dave, some of the most detailed descriptions of the unborn child come within what we might describe as the Wisdom Literature. So the Wisdom Literature is Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, and certain Psalms are often seen as Wisdom Psalms. But the interesting about Wisdom Literature is it's often presented as, or has a major focus on creation and creation theology. And it's often seen as a little bit of a bridge perhaps from Israel into the nations around. And because we all live in the natural world, we can all make sense of a beautiful sunset or the wonders of creation, if you like. And I think it's interesting that some of the most detailed descriptions come within, say for example, the book of Job, e.g. Job 10. I won't read the the Scripture now, Job 10:8-12 are incredible in the context of Job's wrestling with God. And, it's important to understand what the context is here. Job feels he's being mistreated, and wants to point God back to the way God fashioned him with such care, patience, and love in the womb. But Job 10:8-12 is a fascinating scripture. One theologian and bioethicist David Albert Jones says that it goes into more detail about the process of embryogenesis than any other passage of the Hebrew cannon. And as I say, I won't read it, but there are various ways that happens. So in verse 9 God speaks of molding the infant body like clay. And of course that's I think, a fairly obvious allusion to Genesis 2 where God molds Adam, the first human being from the dust of the earth, dust and clay being used interchangeably. And in the same way, the creation of every child in the womb, I suggest, involves that intimate involvement of God. I think you described as God's fingerprints are on us in a way akin to the way they were on Adam and then Eve. Job 10:11 - God clothes the child, and of course, to be clothed by God in the scriptures is incredibly significant. It confers status, dignity, importance and within those detail descriptions there's a high level of anatomical detail. So Job talks about skin and flesh, bones and sinews. And those four terms appear elsewhere together only in Ezekiel 37, which is the prophet Ezekiel's amazing vision of the the valley of dry bones becoming an army of resurrected people. And I'd suggest a couple of things are going on there. There's a link there between the wholeness and completion of the body of the child in the womb. And also a connection between God's recreation of a resurrection body and the creation of the body at its origin in the womb of a woman. And in the later tradition that the Old Testament inspires sometimes called the intertestamental literature, that is picked up. So when people are mocking the idea of resurrection, often what happens is God's people point them back to the miracle of life in the womb, to say, “If God can do this, then why on earth can't he recreate bodies at the judgment in the resurrection? And verse 12 just finally describes God's gift of life to the unborn child. It is God's gift. It is not ours to give or take. It's God's gift of life. It expresses His covenant love, even in utero, even at that early stage of development. So if people do nothing else after watching this, I would suggest they go back to read Job 10:8-12, because I think Psalm 139 is probably the most well known and understandably so, and it's a beautiful passage and I'll say a couple of things about that, but I would encourage folks to read Job 10 and certainly in the context of Job, which interestingly Job is a book which mentions the womb more than any of the book in the Bible by quite some distance. Dave Brennan: That is interesting, isn't it? And also what get in Job, and also in Psalm 139, is a real emphasis - we mentioned it earlier on - with conception in particular. God's direct and personal involvement is not just that he designed the womb and the way that conception works and so on, which in itself is wondrous. God is not just an inventor who set up the blueprint and then, off it goes and it runs itself, replicates itself. No. He's intimately involved. And that just seems to be stressed again and again, doesn't it? You mentioned it with conception. God opened the womb and allowed whoever it was to conceive, especially in the Book of Genesis. For anyone interested we have had a couple of podcasts on the Brephos website about IVF and talking about God's intimate involvement in conception and the significance of that. But there's a passage isn't there, in Job 31, that makes it clear that it's not just that God has a special interest in some people. It's not just, okay, God had an eye on David and Jeremiah or whatever but no, we can actually say that God personally created each and every human being. Tim Lewis: Absolutely, Dave. Because that is often a point that's made where people say, “Okay, these are lovely descriptions, but they're about special people - Jeremiah, David, Job or Jacob. There's no surprise God has a special little bit focusing on their origins. It doesn't really apply to everyone else.” I think that's a curious argument for many reasons. I don't think it's very hermeneutically sound, but I think it's directly challenged by what Job goes on to say later. Job 31 is a chapter where Job is asserting his innocence of various sins and ethical transgressions. And he says to God in verses 13 to 15, "If I've rejected the cause of my manservant or my maidservant when they brought a complaint against me, what then shall I do when God rises up, when he makes inquiry, what shall I answer him?" So Job is expressing a fairly enlightened position for his time that he's open to investigating complaints against himself, even by his own servants. He's willing to do that because he recognises he has an ultimate master that He is going to give an account to. And of course you get similar ideas in the New Testament, but then he goes on in verse 15 to say this; “Did not He [meaning God] who made me in the womb make him [i.e his servant,] and did not one fashion us in the womb?” So in other words, along with God's just judgment Job's other reason for fair and equitable treatments for his servants, is that Job and his unnamed and otherwise unknown servants have the same creator. They were made in the same place, in the same way, that is within the womb. I think what Job is saying of his servants I think he's stating as a universal truth for human kind. And that was a context, a culture where there were major social differences, but whatever differences came to be after birth, they were not intended by God. I saw a t-shirt the other day that stated, “Social justice begins in the womb”. And I would suggest that's exactly the point Job is making in Job 31:13-15. And if that's Job's logic, then it's bizarre really, isn't it, to deny human status to the very individuals, the very people (children in the womb) he's using to argue for a common humanity and he's using to argue for a common created status. If they're not human, then it doesn't make any sense, does it? And so it's texts like that, Dave, they also give us a kind of legitimacy to extrapolate to other texts, say Psalm 139 or earlier in Job 10, that scriptures teaching on God's ways in the womb have a relevance, have a significance for all people. Dave Brennan: That's helpful, and again, worth pointing out how distinctive this is, and this was in that culture. We're talking about a culture in which kings were seen as gods or semi-gods, where there were in many cultures, religions the priests were a kind of god-like class and slaves were like property. Growing up in a Christian, or at least a post-Christian culture we pay lip service to this idea that all people are valuable, but it's a Judeo-Christian principle. And perhaps most fundamentally and famously, it's founded on this idea which is connected to what we've been talking about, but we haven't gone for it head on yet, the fact that we are made in the image of God. And this is certainly universal. We talked about, “Oh, is it just David? Is it just Job?” No, it's ever so clear right from Genesis 1:26 – “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.” It's really clear. That's reiterated again in Genesis 9 after the Flood. So post-fall it's still true. Made in the image of God. And it's a really important concept. Now, we're not going to go into it in any great detail here in terms of what it actually means. We're going to do another whole podcast on that. But let's just talk about some of the implications of the fact we're made in the image of God, especially early on in Genesis, how do we see that being applied? Tim Lewis: I think the image of God is one of those things that's had a huge influence on Jewish and Christian, (especially Christian) theology I would suggest, and anthropology of course, which is interesting because the phrase itself, as you say, David only appears those three times in Genesis. So Genesis:1, Genesis 5:1-3. It's interesting because that's essentially Adam's genealogy, but it begins with God, which is interesting. And it's talking about Adam passing on his image to his son Seth. And of course we can look at any mother and child, or father and child and we see often a family likeness or resemblance which often is the case that the baby, the child, becomes increasingly to look like their parents. So Genesis 5:1-3 talks about Adam passing his image onto Seth, but it's very clear that the image he passes on is the image of God. So God's image remains, I would suggest, after the Fall and theologians debate the extent to which it remains or has been damaged or defaced. But whatever you want to say about that, it remains. It remains after the Fall. It also remains after the Flood. We've talked a little bit about Genesis 9, where Noah is sometimes seen as a second Adam. God starts his project afresh really because of the wickedness that has come to take over the earth, and the lack of respect actually for human life that the world is rife with violence. That's the word that's used. So God begins again. But as I say, He communicates that desire to to recreate, and He also warns mankind very clearly that they are not to take life. And the rationale for that is this third usage of the image of God, that human beings are made in God's image. Human beings are on a scale above the animal kingdom. We're to take care of the natural world, we're to steward it well. So Christians should be concerned about those things, but we're also to recognize there's a very clear ontological difference between a human being and a chimpanzee or a dog or whatever. Only humans are made in the image of God. And sometimes there’s a functional element to that, that is linked to rulership and stewardship of the earth. But I would suggest there's at least as strong an argument for a kind of ontological status there, and that it doesn't matter whether you've got a child, doesn't matter whether you've got someone who's very seriously handicapped or disabled, doesn't matter if you've got someone who's quite old and has lost some of their mental faculties. That person is still a person. They're still in the image of God. They are still owed respect and human dignity. And Genesis 9 makes it very clear that one is not to take human life at any stage or in any way, shape, or form. I think that's important. And if you look at the New Testament, it's clear from the book of James 3:9, that humankind continues to be an image of God, whether Christian or non-Christian, regenerate or not, human beings are human beings, and are owed a certain dignity. Dave Brennan: And I wanted to pick up on that James reference actually, because I think what the Genesis 5 reference shows us… I remember finding that very striking. We are made in God's likeness, and then Adam has a son in his likeness. We can therefore say that at least in part, at least in some way, being made of the image of God is akin to being father, son. We resemble him. And there’s a limited sense therefore in which all of us are God's children, we're all God's offspring. That's there in the Book of Acts when Paul's preaching to pagan audiences, Acts 17, in Athens. We are His offspring. Now, of course that's not true in the special sense of only when we trust in Christ, we're born again and we become the children of God who are actually brought into his family. But there is a sense in which every human being, in the way that Seth or Adam's likeness because he was his son, there's a sense in which we all bear God's likeness because we are His children. And I see in scripture that God takes the killing of human beings, innocent human beings, God takes that personally. I think in our culture, you're not allowed to deface are you, an image of the queen? It's seen as a personal attack on the queen. And in some similar way, God takes it personally when his innocent image bearers are killed or otherwise mistreated. I'll come on to that in a second, but just very briefly, Ezekiel 16 is very striking. The Lord's talking here about child sacrifice. And he's taking issue with His own people who adopted child sacrifice. And He says this in verse 21, "You slaughtered my children and sacrificed them to the idols". “My children”, the Lord says, so He's taking this personally. You're attacking God's kids here. And that's a really big deal. But what's very striking in James 3, and actually the whole book of James is interesting and the language is so strong, but we're talking about not paying people's wages here or bad-mouthing people. It's mild compared to the violence of actually killing someone, although that's there as well, that's suggested. But here in James 3:9, “With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men who have been made in God's likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.” The suggestion here is that praising God is directly at odds with cursing men. Why? Because men are made in God's image. So the cursing of men is not irrelevant to how we're treating God. Actually, again, God's in some way taking that personally. You can't just curse men because they're made in My image. Tim Lewis: Absolutely. And going back to the Ezekiel passage for a second, Ezekiel 16:20 is interesting because it's talking in the context of Israel sacrificing their own children to God. But in Ezekiel 16:20, God says that you "give birth to children, sons, and daughters for me". So who does the child belong to, whether the child is in the womb or whether the child has just been born? It's not society, it's not even the parents, actually. The child belongs to God, so every human being is ultimately God's property, if you like. Who are we to take the life of a child? We are all made, we're all stamped, I suggest with that image. Ambrose, the Church father Ambrose of Milan has a lovely phrase where he talks about God's artistry and making human beings like a beautiful painting. And he says, “Who are we to erase that painting? Who are we to erase God's image in another human being?” Dave Brennan: It's particularly this being made in the image of God which connects us to: Therefore, do not take innocent life. And that's the other great and very clear teaching of scripture with regard to abortion. It doesn't mention the word ‘abortion’, but it's ever so clear that the shedding of innocent blood is a really serious offense. It has an effect on the standing of the nation before God, it has an effect on the land, there's a curse brought in the land. And we could go a lot more into that. So I think we've established beyond any doubt human beings begin life from conception, they are made in the image of God, they're precious. We're not permitted to take innocent life. And of course that's where some Christians stop, isn't it? They say, “Okay, I won't therefore have an abortion. That's my Christian response to abortion. I won't have one.” But scripture does go beyond that, in terms of what we're obliged to do proactively and the cause of justice and not just standing by. Do you want to throw anything in on that front for us? Tim Lewis: Yes, obviously the whole tenor of scripture in the Old and the New Testament is about safeguarding the vulnerable and having a concern for those who are in need, whether that's the poor, whether that's the orphan, the widow the sojourner. And of course, Proverbs talks about the way we treat the poor, for example, being a reflection on our attitude to God as creator. And that kind of motif is almost taken up by Jesus in the parable as sheep and the goats in Matthew 25, where Jesus talks about the way you acted, the way you treated the least of these is a direct consequence, a direct reflection on your attitude to me actually. So that's of course interesting because Jesus puts himself in the place of God in that kind of ethical tradition. But ultimately, how can you have an ethic about the sacredness of life? It's never a purely in-house thing, Dave. Life is universal. Life is for everyone. God gives life. It's God's prerogative to take life. It's not ours. So of course, I think there is a consequence beyond the boundaries of the Church. We are obliged as Christians to contend for the unborn, just as we would contend for those sold, trafficked into slavery as children or sex workers or any other human injustice. We are obliged, I believe as God's people to contend on that. Of course, if you go back to the early traditions of the Church, it's very clear right from the first centuries, that abortion is something that puts one out of the Christian mainstream. So the decalogue mentions abortion very clearly when it's discussing murder. So there's no kind of moral ambiguity about what abortion is or what it involves for the early Church, I would suggest. Dave Brennan: And what, to those who might say, “Yeah, we see a lot about justice and reforming the culture in the Old Testament, but now we're in New Testament, New Covenant. Our focus just needs to be preach the gospel and we don't really see that same emphasis.” How would you help people to see the continuity there? Tim Lewis: Sure. Let's dive into the New Testament from the Old Testament. That's probably an appropriate transition point. And I think just to say there are loads of other scriptures we could have touched on. We've not really gone into Psalm 139 at all, or Ecclesiastes 11:5-6. But the New Testament, of course, picks up very much where the Old Testament left off. And Matthew and Luke have these amazing infancy narratives which tie together, bring a lot of these threads and themes together around birth narratives in the Old Testament from conception to the birth of children. And the message is very clear that Jesus is our redeemer and to quote one book's title, ‘He's a redeemer in the womb’, from the womb. This is where life begins. This is where human life begins. And so Christ, as the perfect human, His life begins at the same point. Jesus is fully human from conception. Of course, that tells us something significant about the incarnation, about the lengths God goes to, and the humility of the Son to save the world, becoming a baby in the tiny confines of the womb, but also something profound about the nature of the unborn child. How can the child in the womb from conception not be regarded as a human? Because if that's the case, then what is Christ in that state? Christ is not in some sort of limbo state. He's not somehow less than human, less than a person. He is still a person even at that early stage. So I would suggest incarnation is the crowning proof for the humanity of the unborn child. So we take all those amazing descriptions from the Old Testament, which cumulatively paint this beautiful picture of God's creation, God's intimate concern and love for the unborn child, God's plans for the unborn child from the womb of course, even before the womb. That's true as well, but certainly from within the womb. And they crown that with the incarnation, which of course is unique to Christianity. And one of the phrases I've used recently is, “If the gospel is about God's entering the womb to bring life and salvation to the guilty, how can man entering the womb to bring death and destruction to the innocent, how can that not be a “gospel issue”? How can that not have an impact on our preaching, on our teaching, on our kind of ethical thinking? The Apostles Creed: “I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit.” There's that word again, ‘conceived’, born of the Virgin Mary. For Orthodox believers, (and this is not actually just for evangelicals,) for any kind of Orthodox Christian believer these things are non-negotiable. The infancy narratives are not myths. They can't be airbrushed out without doing substantial damage I suggest to Christology, to soteriology, to how we're saved and to human anthropology. And we've talked about women in the Old Testament. Of course, Luke, he puts women front and centre in chapter one of his gospel. There's a lovely exchange of conversation between the older Elizabeth and her younger relative Mary who are both pregnant. And focusing on the unborn John for a moment, in Luke 1:15 Gabriel tells John's father, Zechariah, that John is going to be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother's womb. And so immediately thinking of this other Nazarite, Samson, because John is told he must refrain from wine and strong drink, of course, as Samson was told, whether or not he stuck to it, I don't know. So Gabriel's description of John picks up those Old Testament threads, but it elevates it. This John is going to be filled with the Holy Spirit and his life is going to be a successful ministry, unlike Samson's, of turning people back to God. Actually reconciling parents with children interestingly. And of course Luke goes on Luke, 1 v41 to v44 to talk in more detail about what happens when Elizabeth hears the greeting of Mary. John leaps in her womb. And that's that word that was used in the Greek translations of the Old Testament for Jacob and Esau doing battle. Here John is leaping for joy. With Jacob and Esau obviously they're in the same womb. Here John is leaping in Elizabeth's womb at the presence of Jesus, who is maybe only a few days old at this stage. He's a zygote or whatever. He's a really embryonic stage. But at the presence of Jesus, John leaps in the womb. It's a beautiful picture. I think it's very hard to read those scriptures and to say, “This is just poetic”, or “There's no significance here for other human pregnancies.” And one very final point, a biblical theological point: Theologians get very excited with the way Luke has presented his material in terms of Mary's journey to Elizabeth in the hill country of Judea, and then her eventual return to Bethlehem and then presenting the child Jesus at the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus is a light to the nations, a light to the Gentiles. And of course, I think what Luke is doing there, (this is the biblical theological connection,) is that he is mirroring what's happening in 2 Samuel 6, where the Ark of the Covenant is taken up into the hill country of Judea, where it remains for three months, before eventually coming back to Jerusalem. And David leaps and dances in front of the Ark of the Covenant just as Elizabeth and John leap. And Mary, in other words, is the Ark of the Covenant. Jesus is God's presence, the Word made flesh. The Ark of the Covenant contained the Tablets of the Law, God's word written, if you like. Jesus is God's word made flesh. And he is even at that stage in Mary's womb, our redeemer. Dave Brennan: That's fantastic, because what I think you've helped us to see there is that the abortion issue, and being pro-life, is not some distraction from the gospel. It's not an embarrassment. It's not something that if we have to do it, we'll try and do it quickly, and get it over and done with. Because actually, this is part of bearing witness to who God is and what He's like and what the Gospel is. The Gospel inherently, as you say, it's care for the vulnerable by the strong. It's sacrifice, self-sacrifice for others. And there's something about authentic Christian martyrdom, that is, if I can put it this way, it' more than the sum of its parts. I'm thinking of Bonhoeffer as one example. When someone lays down their life for Christ's sake, it's not just an extreme act devotion, it's Christlike. It reminds us of the cross where Jesus himself laid down his life for others. And martyrdom itself bears witness. Martyrdom tells a story. We're not talking about suicide bombers here. We're talking about people who lay down their lives and allow themselves to be abused for the sake of the gospel. And I think it's very common when we're in those moments in history, to think, “Oh, we don't want to get caught up in that. Bonhoeffer, don't worry about the whole Jewish thing. Let's just preach the gospel. Here we are today. Let's not get caught up in politics.” No, there's an amazing opportunity here to bear witness to the glories of the gospel in the way we actually position ourselves as the strong on behalf of the weak, and take the ridicule and whatever else. Why? Because God cares for these people. And we want to follow Him in that. So this has been really enriching. Thank you Tim. Before we round up, is there anything else you want to put out there? Anything you'd like to leave with people? Any particular thought or challenge or something for people to go away and chew on? Or just anything we've already talked about that you think needs to be especially highlighted? Tim Lewis: I could go on for a long time. Just picking up on what you said, very briefly, that idea of witness to Christ and of course ‘witness’ and ‘martyr’ - it's the same word. If you go to the very end of the New Testament, Revelation 12, it's interesting that God's people, God's children, if you like, part of their witness to the world is cast in this incredible kind of mythic vision of a woman about to give birth, and the dragon wanting to destroy the fruit of her womb. And even once she's given birth, the dragon pursuing her children. So I think absolutely this is baked into the script. Just a couple of final threads in the New Testament. Of course Jesus has a great love for children, and of course we see that in various places and we see that in Him welcoming children to him. I think Jesus is absolutely formed in that Old Testament Jewish mindset, that children are a gift from God and He receives children, which in Luke 18 is ‘brephe’, the plural of ‘brephos’ which is the word for a child within or without the womb. So how would Jesus welcome a child once they're born, but not have anything to say to them or any interest in that child for the nine months or so they're in the womb? It just doesn't make sense to me. And in Jesus' other other teachings, for example, John 16, he uses the image of pregnancy and childbirth to talk about His resurrection. The disciples are going to weep and be in anguish like a woman in childbirth until the baby is born, at which point, her sadness and her grief, her anguish evaporates. In the same way it's going to be like that with the vision of the resurrected Christ. So Jesus is all the time using this kind of imagery. And I think what you said just briefly on the New Testament about these ideas of welcoming the other, hospitality, how we understand the body as Christians. Ultimately none of our bodies belong to us. Our bodies are the Lord's and how we use our bodies reflects our relationship with God. “Glorify God in your bodies. You are not your own. You were bought at a price.” And I think there are the materials in the New Testament in Paul's writings around welcoming the other, hospitality. You've done a lot of good stuff on ‘Who is our neighbour?’, and how the unborn child, of course qualifies as our neighbour. So hospitality to welcoming the other, and I would understand pregnancy as a very particular and unique form, but am understanding of a situation of hospitality where one puts one's body and one's life, if you like, at the service of another human life, for a certain window and time. One uses one's body for the sake of another in a very particular way. I think there's a lot of work to be done on Christian understanding there of pregnancy from the New Testament. I think what I'd leave people with is, we've mentioned a lot of scriptures, I would, I think first and foremost, I would encourage people to go back and read some of those scriptures, read some of those wonderful depictions, and whether it's Psalm 139, whether it's Job 10, or Ecclesiastes 11:5, or some of these people who are talked about from the womb, and that includes Paul, it includes Jeremiah, the plans God has for them. Just immerse yourself in the scriptures, because I don't think this is something we are inventing as Christians. It is something that emerges, I would suggest, organically from God's Word. I think God's Word gives us wisdom for the whole of life. And I would suggest for an understanding of the unborn child and the related issue of abortion, God's word I think has the resources to develop a robust Christian account of these things. And I would just encourage you, if you are a Christian, great. If you're not a Christian get into the Word and see what you make of them for yourself. Dave Brennan: Thank you, Tim. I love how you mentioned that idea that we are not our own, our bodies are not our bodies. And that does real violence, doesn't it, to the thinking of our day “my body, my choice”? Not just in the consequence that’s sometimes played out there, to the point of taking the life of an innocent human being, the baby in the womb. But actually even prior to that, just this idea that it's my body, it's my choice. Actually what we're talking about here is really quite radical. It does violence to that cherished idea of our culture. We are not our own. And if the people out there are wanting to be radical as disciples of Christ, they want to go the whole hog, let's get our head around this idea that really is diametrically opposite to what we're hearing all the time. And if you're out there listening, you're not a Christian, but you want to understand what is Christianity all about? Be prepared, we are talking about something that is a radical overhaul of your values, your thinking. But it's so good and it's glorious and it's because God has made us. And it's a real joy to my heart actually to be talking about this and to be reminding one another that we're not our own. It is so much better to be living for the God who created us than trying to do our own thing. Tim, thank you so much. Really enjoyed this. Wish we could go on, but I think we aimed to be about thirty minutes. I think it's coming up to an hour. Tim Lewis: Thank you Dave. You can tell I'm probably passionate about this. I spend a lot of time thinking about these things and reading into them. And so I'm just delighted to have this opportunity and thank you. God bless you and your ministry which is just shining a light on these things, and I'm so grateful to the work of CBR and Brephos which I've had the most interaction with. So thank you. Subscribe to podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/aboutabortion Watch episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW9Qws93IBQ&list=PLDpjMeLBA2s04iqEts4y4_3cxGqOGj-dU&index=7 Login and subscribe to be notified of the latest post

Podcast Transcript | About Abortion with Dave Brennan Trump and triumphalism | 4 Oct 2022 | Episode 17 Dave Brennan: Hello and welcome to this week's episode of About Abortion. I'm very excited to be joined this week by Dr Joe Boot. Joe, thank you so much for coming on today. Joe Boot: Great to be with you Dave. Thanks for having me. Dave Brennan: And welcome back to the UK. You've just got back from Canada? Joe Boot: That's right, yep. Dave Brennan: Fantastic. And I guess this must feel almost like a liberal Western democracy by comparison. Is that fair to say? Joe Boot: Yes, it did feel good to touch down in what felt like a return to freedom and liberty in the United Kingdom. But yes, we've been in Canada for 19 years. So it is a significant adjustment as we arrive back in the UK to live, and develop the work of our Ezra Ministry in Christian Philosophy and Cultural Apologetics here in the UK. Dave Brennan: Fantastic. So just tell us a bit about Ezra, if you don't mind. So where and what is it? Joe Boot: The Ezra Institute was founded in Canada in 2009 as a Christian worldview think tank and and cultural apologetics training organization. Sounds like a bit of a mouthful, but what we do is we write and research, we speak, publish a journal, have a publishing house, books, and we do short term training in Christian worldview, developing a Christian philosophy for all of life, and cultural apologetics, which is the vindication of the Christian view of reality; not just in the narrow sense of traditional Christian apologetics, where we tend to think about the existence of God, the problem of evil, some of the more traditional evidential or rationalistic questions, although those remain important to address. A cultural apologetic is interested in those things, but much more broadly, how do we develop a Christian view of reality in totality? So is there a defense of a Christian view of the law? A Christian view of family, a Christian view of human identity and sexuality, a Christian view of life, a Christian view of economics, a Christian view of business, arts, media, all of these things. How do we develop a robust defense and vindicate the Christian philosophy of life in its totality, not just a narrow subset of Church dogmatics? So it's a broader project. It includes the former, but it is much broader in its implication and application. Dave Brennan: Excellent. And that's very much where I'd love us to go today and what you bring from that Ezra Institute world of thinking, but also your experience living across in Canada for so many years I trust will help us bring something of a sort of trans-Atlantic perspective to where we are in the UK today. Because really what I'd like to speak about, is really the relationship between the state of a nation, culturally, politically in terms of legislation, and the behaviour of the Church within that nation. Is there a causation there and how should we think about the role of the Church in influencing the nation? And of course focusing particularly on the UK, but it'd be interesting to hear reflections as well on Canada and the United States. I haven't come up with a title for this week's episode yet, but I was thinking something along the lines of ‘Trump and Triumphalism, the UK Evangelical's worst nightmare’. Because one of the things we're certainly grappling with here in the UK is a real aversion to Christians getting political. So I'm hoping we can talk about some of those things, but perhaps before we get there, maybe we should define some terms a bit. So is abortion a political issue? Joe Boot: The question of life’s sanctity is a fundamentally religious issue, and religion touches every single area of life. So there are inescapable political implications to the Biblical teaching about human life. And this is one of the things that we, Ezra, are concerned to explain as best as we can to Christians and to the Church, is that we've tended within secularism to divide reality into a sacred and a secular space. And religion, narrowly defined, belongs to the sacred. So think of a London double-decker bus, and on the upper deck are the spiritual sacred things that are really important, like Bible reading, personal spiritual disciplines, going to Church, going to Bible study, and doing some evangelism. And then on the lower deck are the secular issues of law, politics, life, the area of education, culture in general. And the upper deck is really important, and the lower deck is less important, possibly irrelevant, and certainly not that significant to Christians. The problem is, where is the driver? The driver is always on the lower deck. And so when Christians disengage and have this dualistic two-storey view of religion, you end up actually with the culture being driven radically away from Christ. So, the important thing to remember as Christians, is that life is religion. There is a religious root grounded in a worldview or faith perspective in every human being, in every single area of life. And so, the life issue, like every other critical issue in culture, is a fundamentally and inescapably religious issue. And because it is religious, religion is something that gets worked out in all of cultural life. The conservative thinker, Henry Van Till said that “culture is religion externalized”. And that's absolutely true. So what we believe about life and how we live politically in our cultural life as it relates to abortion, is an expression of a religious commitment. So, the answer to your question is yes, abortion is a religious issue with profound implications politically. Dave Brennan: And I know one should never mix one's metaphors, but would it be helpful to think of it alternatively as the political, the cultural is the embodiment of the spiritual belief. So they're inescapably bound together. And so where the bus goes, we are going, whether we like it or not. And so for the Church in the UK we've got this issue, where we tend to think of the spiritual things, (Bible reading, prayer), those are important. The other things we leave by the wayside in our thinking, in our attitudes. But Biblically how do we correct that? Or to put it in another way, can it be argued Biblically that abortion, for example, is something we should be engaging? So before we get onto how we should engage politically, can we just address or should we even, Biblically, aren't we just here to preach the gospel, say our prayers? And OK, maybe within the Church reform behavior, but even that's not happening. Abortion's rife in the Church. We've got data, experience, bitter experience of just how supportive of abortion evangelicals can be. That aside, does this belong in the mission of the Church to be engaged in these things? Joe Boot: You've touched on one of the most important and profound artificial dichotomies, artificial divisions, that doesn't belong in the Christian worldview. And it expresses itself in how we think about the life and role of the Church institute. So let's talk about it in these terms: From a scriptural standpoint, the central thrust of the meaning of the Bible is the Kingdom of God. So Jesus came proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom. We often forget that. People talk about the Gospel. But Jesus came proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom. Now the word kingdom in the New Testament, basileia, is used dozens and dozens of times. The word Church, ecclesia, is only used a handful of times, appears only at a couple of moments in Jesus' ministry. So the message of the Kingdom of God and the functioning and life and role of the institutional Church are involved in each other, but they need to be distinguished. So God's work in history is about the expansion and the extension of His Kingdom under the Lordship of his appointed King, Jesus Christ. So you look at Psalm 2, Psalm 110, we look at all the prophecies, e.g., in the Book of Daniel about the uncut stone. It’s going to shatter all the false empires of men. And then Jesus' parables about the Kingdom of God. He doesn't teach parables about the Church. He teaches parables about the Kingdom of God - the mustard seed, the leaven within the loaf and so on. And then the ecclesia is a called-out people who are on mission in terms of the Kingdom of God. So actually Biblically, what has priority is the Kingdom of God, the rule and reign of God in all of life, throughout God's good creation that's been marred and distorted by sin, and the redemptive work of Christ is going to go into every area that has been touched by the destructive work of sin’s power. So redemption in that sense is creational. It's cosmic. It's not institutional for one narrow aspect of our life in the world as God's people. So the word of God comes to God's people, His children, believers. And the kingdom of God is the priority. Now, within that, you have the centrality and the vital importance of this called-out people, the Church. And the Church comes together as a form of government, actually. That's where the very word is borrowed from in the ancient world. A gathering that's concerned with the affairs of God's Kingdom. And there in the Church, we preach the word of God, we administer the sacraments and we exercise Church discipline, so that as a people, we are prepared and equipped to go out on mission in terms of the Kingdom of God. Now, the way in which we tend to use the word Church, in popular parlance as Christians, is, that building at the end of the road. And then if we're more switched on to this discussion, we think no, of course the Church is not the building, it's the people. And we're used to hearing that kind of expression. But we will still speak of the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, the Lutheran Church in Germany, the Baptist Church, and actually, those are the ways in which the Bible doesn't speak about the Church. It actually talks about the Church as an invisible body, the body of Christ. There's the historical, actual Church in the world right now all over the globe; that's another meaning of the word Church in the Bible. And then there is, what we might call the Church in a given region. So the Church in Corinth, the Church in Ephesus, the Church in London, the Church in Norwich, the Church in Birmingham. That's all God's people historically situated there. And then there's the local Church, which is a particular gathering of people within the Church, let's say in Birmingham, there are multiple local Churches governed by specific elders in a given region, where an individual Christian might go to worship, hear the word, receive the sacraments, hopefully experience the exercise of Church discipline, although you've already alluded to the fact that is not happening for the most part. And where we are equipped and set out on mission as his people in terms of the kingdom of God. And I think this is where the critical mistake that you are alluding to, actually happens. We conflate the kingdom of God and the Church. We collapse them into one and we think the kingdom of God only exists within the ecclesia. And if you really want to serve God, then Dave, you have to become a pastor, you have to become a minister, you have to be in full-time ministry, because that's the only place where you can really serve the Lord if you're really serious. That is a complete misunderstanding of the Biblical message, and it runs us into trouble when you talk about politics, education, law, abortion, sexuality, human identity, all of these issues, and suddenly the question arises, “Should the Church really involve itself in politics?” The called-out ecclesia, the institutional Church as an institution, doesn't have a direct responsibility. In other words, the pastor doesn't have the responsibility of being the local judge or the local civil magistrate or running for office in politics. But the local pastor in the local Church does have the role of teaching and the word of God and applying it, and Christ’s Lordship, to abortion, to law, to, to all of these different areas of life so that we are equipped as Christians to go out in Kingdom service. And as a Christian, I might be a lawyer, I might be a teacher, I might be a judge, I might be a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker. But whoever I am, and whatever I'm doing as a Christian, the word of God speaks to me in that field and in that space, to apply God's word in his Lordship. So that's where the risk comes in, is people assume that guys like you who are talking about the importance of Christians engaging the issue of abortion, think that you are saying that the Church institute needs to take over politics. That's not what we're saying. The Church institute does not need to run political life, but Christians, in political life, need to be equipped by the Church to apply a Christian worldview in their political life. And it's rooted in this confusion of a failure to properly distinguish between the Kingdom of God (the basileia) and the Church (the ecclesia). Dave Brennan: OK, so that cultural engagement then, how is that distinct from just evangelism? So without wanting to stereotype, there is an idea out there that a good Christian banker pays their taxes, goes home, loves his wife, gives to the Church, and evangelises to be fair, he's there to evangelise. How is this pursuit or the advancement of the Kingdom of God more than evangelism? Joe Boot: Yes. That's a great point too. Because evangelism in that early metaphor we had of the double-decker bus is on the upper deck. That's really important - snatching brands from the burning. But actually the economy and people's economic life, is in the lower deck, and there isn't necessarily a distinctly Christian view of that. So two things I think are important. First, evangelism is the calling of every Christian to share the good news about Christ the King, the Evangel, that the King is on his throne, and that he's calling people to repent, to enter it, to come to the foot of the cross and find new life in Christ - evangelism. And then there is the question of evangelisation. And evangelisation is a bigger project than personal evangelism. Of course, personal evangelism is an aspect of evangelisation in the same way that the Church is an aspect of the work of the Kingdom of God. But evangelisation is about the inculcation, it's about the application, the steady realisation of the rule of the Lord Jesus Christ in the various different aspects of my life. For example, when I lead my family as a father and as a husband in the right way in terms of the word of God, I may not be personally evangelising my wife, or even my children, in just giving them the gospel, but in the application of God's word to my family life… Imagine, towns and villages are made up of families. And imagine if you saw a turning to Christ of many people in a given town or village, and then those families applying the word of God to their lives. You would begin to see what we would call the Christianisation of their cultural life, their social life, of their educational life. So personal evangelism, in the narrow sense, is about verbally sharing the redemptive work of Christ with somebody. Evangelisation is about the application of Christ's Lordship and his word, to every area of life so that the plausibility structures around us in law, in politics, in the family, in social life begin to be structured in such a way that they lead us towards the Lord Jesus Christ. So these are mutually reinforcing. Let me just give you one illustration of that. There was a book a few years ago by Mary Eberstadt, a sociologist, who wrote a book called How the West Really Lost God. And it's assumed that people as they stop believing in God, stop believing in the family as central to human society. And there's certainly truth in that. We look at today, as 44% I think of British children will at some point live in a home with only one parent. But what she shows in this interesting book, is that it's a reciprocal relationship that actually as the family collapses, and our idea of fatherhood and family, (because God reveals himself in covenantal terms, in familial terms,) as family collapses, people stop believing in God. So it's not just tell people about Jesus so they come to Him, because as you've said, you can have people who accept the propositions of the gospel, but can live in rebellion against God's law most of their Christian life, and never actually apply it, and therefore have no cultural impact. So evangelisms that narrow an important issue of communicating verbally something that Christ has done, but being not just a hearer of the word, but a doer of the word, is critically important in the process of evangelisation, where we begin to change the very plausibility structure of our society. And that's been done to us, if we look for example, at the radical issue of human identity and sexuality today, in the way the radical movements have sought to shift our perception of human identity, sexuality, and marriage. Look how that's reshaping the culture. Tiny minority of people shift the plausibility structure of a culture, so that corporations, businesses, schools, the law, Churches even, everything is being radically altered in terms of a totally pagan vision of human sexuality and identity. And that's because an ideology there, which has nothing to do with the Holy Spirit, is being applied. Here we are as Christians with the word of God in our hands, and the power of the Holy Spirit at our disposal. What if we actually started the process of evangelisation, not just personal evangelism and applied our faith? How many more people would pour into the kingdom of God? I mean if you don't know what a father is, because you've redefined the idea of parenthood, and you don't know what marriage is, how do you understand a Biblical message where history begins with a marriage, God reveals himself as Father, God's relationship to his people is as a bride for Christ and his Church, and history ends in a marriage? That's the essence, that's part and parcel of the message of the gospel. If you destroy that framework socially, the message starts to fall on deaf ears because the categories aren't there to even understand it. So that's the difference I think between personal evangelism, and the banker, the illustration you used, if we can put it this way, it's not just that we need bankers who are Christian, and have a Bible study and a prayer meeting for bankers at their bank. What we need is, yes, bankers who are doing that, but bankers who have a Christian view of banking, who have a Christian view of economic life, who have a Christian view of debt, who have a Christian view of how we should use our funds, who have a Christian view of markets. Many Christians don't think in those terms, but if we want to liberate life in terms of the fullness of life that Christ comes to bring us in John 10:10, being a Christian banker is not just being a banker who happens to share that Jesus loves the clerk sat down on the floor of the bank. It means developing a Christian vision of money and of economic life and how we can bring the prosperity that God wants to bring into people's lives, through the reality of the gospel, by a Biblical vision of money. Dave Brennan: And so could you almost say that kind of evangelisation is itself, apart from everything else, pre-evangelism that's actually making the gospel more intelligible? It's adorning the gospel, it's introducing the gospel, again, through the flesh, the embodiedness of the faith. I think that was a lightbulb moment I had some years back, actually. I was at an evangelism conference that Andrea Williams was speaking at, and I definitely came very much from that way of thinking: the only thing that matters out there in the world is evangelism. That was my mindset, and the penny just dropped for me as Andrea was speaking. Apart from anything else, this cultural engagement stuff serves evangelism. Because without it, we're removing those contact points. Joe Boot: That's precisely what William Wilberforce argued, because similar questions were raised even in his time about slavery, about various social issues. He said, “Changing the law doesn't alter anybody's heart, but it gradually changed the structures in which people live that will gradually shape people's hearts.” Law is a teaching device. So you have a precept and a penalty, and the penalty is teaching people the value of the precept. I'll give you an example from Canada. Up until 1950, the maximum penalty for rape in Canada was the death sentence. Now, what did that communicate to Canadians about the value of women, about the value of the protection for the family and the vulnerable in our society? Today you are unlucky if you get prosecuted at all for that offense. Whereas if we said, “If you jaywalk it's $100,000 fine. And if you rape somebody you're unlucky if you get prosecuted at all, but if you do, it's a hundred bucks.” You see how law (precept and penalty) is teaching values. You'd look at that culture and say, “Wow, they really value the free movement of traffic.” So as we look at things like law and education, what we're seeing is values. Law is teaching us what really matters. So as laws change, people's behavior change. And as Blaise Pascal, a wonderful Christian apologist mathematician pointed out, actually, if you can get people living like Christians, acting almost as though they're Christians, suddenly the structure of their lives, the plausibility of the gospel is there. The law is a school master that leads us to Christ. Paul says so, and that's why he affirms the use of the law in 1 Timothy:1 in a civil context. So it's a terrible mistake to think that all that's needed is this very narrow, verbal sharing of a few propositions about Jesus and my personal life, as though that is going to transform somebody's life and heart and family, (which is what we're ultimately driving at,) and culture, so that we are in line with God's word. The more we can see people recognising… humor me with one final illustration what I'm trying to say here. Billy Graham in the 1950s, came to Britain for a series of evangelism crusades, something that most evangelicals would agree, “Now that’s evangelism.” Here you've got a man saying, “The Bible says”, preaching the gospel in these large events. In the 1950s with the Harringay crusades he was filling stadiums every night for several weeks. So impressed and impacted was Winston Churchill at the time by this, that he invited Billy Graham to 10 Downing Street for a conversation which Billy Graham relates in his biography Just As I Am. And you would look at the Harringay crusades of the fifties and say they were very successful in terms of the number of people that came forward and responded to the message. Billy Graham comes back in the 1980s, at which point I'm now alive and a small boy, and I'm being taken along to these crusades by my parents, and they were not even a fraction of the success or of the attendance, or1950s! What's happened between the 1950s and the 1980s? Has Billy Graham lost the anointing? Is the gospel no longer powerful? Was there something wrong with the planning and the execution? No, it wasn't any of that. It was to do with the change in the culture, a change in the education of the people. When you said in 1955, "the Bible says", you're dealing with a culture of people who grew up on the Bible, who took the Bible seriously and respected it. You say, "The Bible says" today to Generation Z, many of them wouldn't even know what you were talking about. Radical de-Christianisation has massive implications for evangelism. Talking about repentance from sin in the mid 1980s compared to the 1950s is a completely different issue, in the same way that Peter speaking to Jewish proselytes in Acts 2 to converts to Judaism, 3000 converted in a day, telling them, “Jesus is your Messiah”, to Paul speaking to radical pagans in Acts 17, is a completely different proposition. Here's a group of Biblically illiterate pagan philosophers. The fact that some of the leading members of that council became followers of Paul is incredible. Yet you hear evangelicals sometimes saying about that, "Look, Paul wasn't very successful in Act 17, but look at Peter in Acts 2 because he stuck to the gospel". It's complete nonsense. So that difference between the 50s in England and the 80s, illustrates the point we are making, that the cultural shift in the collapse of the Christian worldview and de-Christianisation in that period, meant a far less, a much reduced impact for those evangelism meetings because of what's taken place in the de-Christianisation of the people. That's the mutually reinforcing issue of evangelisation, the work of the kingdom of God, and simply personal evangelism. Dave Brennan: And fundamentally that's Christians becoming de-Christianised in their behavior. That's where it starts. Would you agree that what we're talking about primarily, is Christians behaving as Christians? It's Christians being Christians in the world. That must have been what stopped to some degree. Joe Boot: Yeah. That's a good point too. Again, the images of the Bible are salt and light. And being a preservative, being like leaven in the loaf. And as goes the Church, we might say, so goes the world. If God's people, if the ecclesia, the called-out people, who are called out to be concerned with the issues of the Kingdom of God for their king, who is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, the ruler of the kings of the earth, if they stop applying the faith, if they stop externalising the reality of the Lordship of Christ in every area of life, then the seasoning impact is radically reduced. The preservative stops taking effect where the light is now under a bushel. It's not up on a lampstand so all can see it. And yes, it starts almost imperceptibly, but you can absolutely trace the steady collapse of the West, the de-Christianisation of our culture, to liberalism in the Church in the latter part of the 19th century, the inroads it made into the mainline Churches, the decimation of the Churches through liberalism, its denial of the reality of the gospel, the identity, the Lordship, the Kingship, the death, resurrection, ascension, glorification, session of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the denial of those realities, the Church gets hollowed out. First, the men leave in the late 50s, 60s, some of the women stay and then the women start to tip out. And of course, the only places today in the West where we’re clinging on, is in orthodox forms of Catholicism, and strong evangelical pockets of the faith where people have remained true to the gospel. To an extent of course we've got profound weakness even in those evangelical pockets because of this dualistic view of the faith. And of course, that becomes even more popular as the cultural pressure increases because, with de-Christianisation comes marginalisation and increased persecution for the Church that puts pressure on Christians to keep their mouth shut, not to apply the faith. And then you get eschatologies of escape from the world and you get pietistic theologies developed that basically say, “Leave the world to itself, it's not our concern,” which becomes a mutually reinforcing prophecy of de-Christianisation and further decline. So yes, as the Church surrenders the truth of the Kingdom of God and the reality of the gospel, do not be surprised when society follows and then begins to fall off a cliff. Dave Brennan: Now I'm sure there will be people out there who will still be misunderstanding some of this and what they have in mind is a sort of, theocracy, (Is caliphate the word, the Muslim caliphate?) then we're going to force non-Christians to act as if they're Christians. So, what can you say to that idea? Because I think that's what some people think you’re talking about when you talk about the Kingdom of God, more than just evangelism. And that appears to me what people are running a mile from. So can you just comment on that? What's going on with that thinking and what are we actually saying? Joe Boot: In terms of that boogeyman word, ‘theocracy’, the first thing I would say about that is that every social order in the world is a theocracy, because behind every social order is an idea of sovereignty, and behind every concept of sovereignty is a divinity concept. So even if you take a radical secular approach, Vox Populi, Vox Dei, of the French Revolution. the voice of the people is the voice of God. You have a divinity concept there. You take communism, radical communism in Marxism. You've essentially got the infallibility of the party and you've got the zeitgeist, the spirit of the age, the God, if you will, is manifest in the authority of the party. If you go to parts of the Islamic world, of course, Allah is at the root of the social order. And of course, behind every idea of law, whether it's Islamic law or Marxist law, or pagan law, whatever it may be, you've got the idea of morality lying behind and beneath every conception of law, because all law is reinforcing, is the legislation of morality or its procedural there too. At least within the juridical aspect of our lives, that's where it's being expressed. So you never get away from morality. Behind morality, a source of sovereignty and behind the idea of sovereignty, a divinity concept. So whether it's Islamic, secular, Marxist, whatever it may be, you have a theocracy. And as was seen very clearly from the queen's funeral this past couple of weeks in England and people then hearing about, even in some of the words of the funeral, or at least the commentators commenting on the funeral, the nature of the coronation oath, and Britain is a theocracy, right? It has a recognition constitutionally of the supremacy of Christ. People seeing on the queen's coffin the sceptre of justice and righteousness, and then the orb, the earth with the cross at the top, symbolising the rule and empire of the Lord Jesus Christ, under which the monarch, and under whom the monarch serves, also in extending the sceptre of justice. And then she's given in the coronation that the Bible as the royal law for the government of all princes. That goes all the way back to ancient Israel and the requirement that the king read the law every day, and not elevate themselves above the people and so on. So the first thing to point out with this sort of boogeyman theocracy is that you do not get away in any society in the world, from a divinity concept and from an idea of sovereignty, lying at the root of every social order. And in the West, historically that has been Christian. It's been the rule of Christ. In the United States the President still takes the oath of office on the Bible. It used to be on an open Bible to Deuteronomy 28, invoking the blessing and cursing of God upon Israel for Covenant violation. That is the history of Christendom. Sorry if people don't like it, but that's just the reality, that there was a recognition of Christ's sovereignty, and every social order is a theocracy of some form or another. Now to the question of the imposition of something, which as you say is the kind of thing that people get scared about. Are we wanting to, like some Sharia Islamic caliphate, enforce Christianity on people? Notice, first of all, that all law is coercive. Police officers don't give you advice, generally speaking. You don't get pulled over for doing 80 in a 30 and get told, “It would be really helpful if you could just slow down a bit, thanks. That's the advice of the government.” No, you're going to get a ticket, you're probably gonna have your car impounded at that speed. It brings the element of coercion with it. So right now, every Christian in this country in Britain, is being coerced to pay for abortion. In Canada, they're being coerced to pay for sex change operations and for euthanasia. We're being coerced to do all kinds of things that actually we don't really want to do as Christians. We're being coerced in our state education system in Britain against our will and our wishes. So to have a state, for the state to function means coercion, because that's the essence of the state. That's why we have to be very careful where we bring the state, because wherever you bring the state you bring its God-given character, because the state is important, the state is ordained of God. And it's necessary for the restraint of evil. So wherever you bring it, you have to be very careful because if you bring it into areas it shouldn't be, it's going to bring its coercive authority to bear. So none of us should think, “Oh, nobody's being coerced right now.” No, the culture is being coerced by law. The question becomes, “Whose law is it and who is Lord?” And a really important question that this comes down to for Christians, is, do we actually believe really in our heart of hearts, that the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the principles of his Word and of his Law, of the decalog, of His commandments, of love of neighbour, and love of God, are for our good and for the blessing of all people? If we don't believe that, then yeah, forget God. Just leave it to go to hell in a hand basket. But if we actually do really believe that Jesus is Lord, and that His word is true, and that His commands are not burdensome, and that if the Son sets you free, you really will be free, and that his Law, as the apostle says, is a law of liberty, then we will, for the good of our neighbour, and for the love of our neighbour, want to see God's Word being brought to bear in every area of life. Now, you cannot impose laws that people don't want on an unwilling population. That's a simple reality. So you're not going to be able to impose, at least at this stage, Sharia law, for example, on Britain. You are not going to be able to impose Hindu law on Britain. What we've been doing though for about 70 years is slowly repealing Biblical law. Because Biblical law is nascent within English common law, going all the way back to Alfred the Great. It's so much been part of our everyday lives we don't even notice it. But, the working week, even things like inheritance law, and property law and all of these things, they're so much part of our own history that we don't even notice the way the Bible's playing a role in our lives. But we've been repealing our laws on marriage, we've been repealing Christian law on divorce, we've been repealing our blasphemy laws. We've been replacing them for other blasphemy laws - what you can and can't say. So you don't actually ever rid yourselves of them. What happens is that law that favours the new God now comes into play and coerces people. So what we're not saying is that what we can do is lay siege to the levers of power in Britain, take control like statists and revolutionary radicals, which is what actually we are dealing with among pagans in our culture, and then now holding these levers of power, impose Christianity on the entire land against their will. That's not going to happen, and that's not the Christian way. Our way is regeneration, not revolution. But as we work and serve in the sharing of the gospel in all these areas of life, so if we're Christians in law, we're Christians in politics, we're Christians in education, we're Christians in any given area, in advocacy, in campaigning to change people's minds like you do at CBR UK, you're reaching hearts and minds, so that when laws are brought forward to the legislature, or changes in educational curricula are brought forward, that actually they'll be welcomed. And I think we're already beginning to see, in this country and in Europe, and in the United States, (look what just happened with Roe v. Wade,) we're beginning to see people say to themselves, “We're getting a bit tired of the last 70 or 80 years of this revolution against basically Christianity and Christian values. It's destroying us, and we may not understand it all. We may not fully understand what this Christianity is all about or have a good handle on what the Bible is all about, but what we do know is that it felt a lot better back then than things do right now, even back in the 70s and 80s. The way we cared for our children, thought about the family, thought about marriage, thought about life”. And actually, interestingly enough, I think the younger generation coming through are becoming very disillusioned with where our culture is at. And so that is a moment of great opportunity for Christians to take our message into the public space, not just cloistered within the walls of the Church, but into the public space and say, “This is good for all of us. This is for the common good. This is what has blessed our nation in the past for centuries. This is what can bless us again if we conform to this”. Sometimes people can receive the blessings of obedience to God without actually even having personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. They can be the recipient of obedience because God promises blessing on certain behavior and cursing on others. So the notion that those who want a transformative Christianity, a Christianity that speaks to culture, not just to personal evangelism, are some sort of Constantinian boogeymen waiting in the wings of history to impose by violent force Christianity on the culture, is worse than pejorative, it's a kind of slander. To say that's what William Wilberforce was up to, for example, would be an insult against one of the founders of modern evangelicalism. No, he had a proper grasp on relation of law and gospel, on their integration, and he understood that the good news that Christ is King has implications for the whole of Christ's domain, which is the entire cosmos. And that His word is true, not just when I'm inside the four walls of an ecclesiastical building for a liturgical service, but it has implications when I'm at the bank on Monday morning, when I'm in the classroom, when I'm at the dispatch box, when I'm in the courtroom, when I'm at the hairdresser. Wherever I am, the Lordship of Christ and His word has implications. And as we share the gospel personally and as we apply the good news of the Kingdom of God broadly in society, that two-handed approach, like two pedals on a bicycle, is what is going to propel us forward. And we have to just destroy this artificial dichotomy between those two things, and say that this is all part of the Christian’s calling in the world. Dave Brennan: Yeah. I found it very helpful what you pointed out there, that you can't get away from theocracy. You can't get away from a divinity concept of sovereignty. And I think one of the big problems we're up against is this illusion of neutrality, that there is such a thing as spiritually neutral, or there's such a thing as morally neutral. And I think a lot of us Christians have fallen for that. We think there is no Christian response to the economy, therefore it's immaterial how we respond in our actions and even politically, even on issues that clearly are moral, like abortion. In a sense you could say they are especially moral or the morality of it is especially clear, especially evident. Reasonable minds might disagree over specific tax thresholds, but we're talking about here the killing of innocent children. And yet the other side have done such a good job at trying to convince us that abortion is a morally neutral issue, is a preference issue. If you don't like abortion, don't have one. But you should not interfere with other people's personal choices. And actually for the large part, we've bought that, but if we recover this idea, this reality, that there's no such thing as neutral. You are tacitly supporting the baby genocide, and albeit under coercion to some extent with our taxes, but that is the status quo. We are all contributing to a genocide. There's no neutrality here. And so what are we doing with our voices? What are we doing with our hands and how are we actually seeking to influence the culture on that issue? It'd be interesting to just revisit Roe v. Wade there. You were, I guess, still in Canada when that news broke just about. We were here in the UK and the response amongst Christians was really very interesting. There are certainly some Christians who were celebrating, giving all the thanks to God. There are others who would say that they're privately pro-life, but were admonishing one another not to celebrate or be triumphalistic about this. And I even know some friends of mine were in Churches. They were celebrating and they got a slap on the wrist actually from their leadership that said, "Do you know what? We shouldn't be trumpeting about this. And there are some people in this Church who think differently anyway on abortion". So obviously there's a bundle of issues there. There's people don't even know where they stand as it were on the issue, purely speaking. But there is this great aversion to the spectre of the religious rights in America. And one gets the sense that genuinely a lot of UK evangelicals hate Trump more than they hate abortion. Just judging by their behavior, how they speak about what gets them really animated. They definitely don't want to be associated with Trump, but if they're part of the pro-choice, apathetic, accepting the status quo, they're actually quite comfortable with it. So how do we tackle that? What's going on there with this aversion to the religious right. Because I think there is in UK Evangelicalism, there's almost a pride that we are not like our simpleton American cousins. We're far more nuanced and thoughtful, than to jump both feet, and I guess the parody is, and pledge our unqualified allegiance to the Republican party . So what's going on there and how can we think our way round this in the UK? Joe Boot: I think part of it is rooted in your first, very important summation about the myth of neutrality. Jesus said, “If you're not for me, you're against me. He who does not gather with me scatters abroad.” Because as I explained in the beginning, there is a religious route to all of these issues. It comes back to the heart of man, and the heart is not simply the seat of your emotions. It's the root of your being. It's the self, it's the ego. When the heart is transformed, that's the root of our being. Think of it like the palm of a hand. And these might be the various aspects of our lives our thought life. So our thinking, our feeling, our doing, our being. But the heart is the palm of your hand, that's at the root of your being. So that means that if you've been transformed by Christ, there can be no area of neutrality in any area of your life. Paul says that the man who is at emnity against God, he cannot obey God's Lord. He won't do God's will. He's at emnity against God. If you've had your heart transformed, then in every single area of your life, the myth of neutrality is exploded. There is a way to think and live in terms of Christ and his Lordship in every area of life. So I think that's absolutely vital, and I think there's a lot of this that if my first point would be, I think in Britain perhaps more than in the Christian community in America, there is the prosperity of this myth of neutrality that, “Oh, we are common sense Brits, and we always take the middle road. We're balanced. We're the classic English, British compromise. We always find the compromise solution. We take the happy medium, these extreme rednecks in the United States, they lack the kind of nuance.” So there's the myth of neutrality. I think there's also conceit, if I can put it that way, as a Brit, myself, there's a British and English conceit that we are better than our American brothers and sisters in Christ, that somehow our Britishness, our reserve, we think of ourselves as more balanced and so forth. At what point does Christ spew us out of his mouth for our so-called irenic posture with all of these things? And I think the whole Trump phenomena for a start, having lived in North America for almost two decades, I have numerous Christian friends in the United States and ministry leaders across the United States, who I admire and respect enormously, of people who hold very similar positions to myself, who were not supportive particularly of the Trump presidency. They would've preferred a Ron DeSantis type figure, for example, there in Florida. So I think that's all an excuse. It's smoke and mirrors. There are different views of Trump as a person. We can have the discussion about that. This show is probably not the best place for it. I think that of Trump personally, my first question to people on that issue, would be, okay, we may not like his tweets, but let's have a discussion about the actual policies that the man implemented. He was the first US president ever to appear at a pro-life march in the United States. His Supreme Court picks by any measure, but from a Christian standpoint, were better than anything we've seen in a very, very long time. And so what I want to say is, okay, let's have a concrete policy discussion about the policies that the Trump administration with Mike Pence, who was an evangelical as the vice President, were implementing. That would be the place to start. Not personalities, orange hair, rhetoric, Twitter, all of that kind of stuff that tends to just obfuscate, and put style over substance. You've got to take a look at Ron DeSantis in Florida. Okay. So there you've got (I think he's Catholic actually) somebody who's serious, who is every bit as conservative as any previous Republican, more so than Trump, ideologically for certain. But he doesn't come in for the same kind of vitriolic attack. So I think that's a red herring, that sort of Trump doctrine. In fact somebody recently was writing some sort of review of my work and talked about the Trump doctrine mindlessly, and this is just a red herring. It's nonsense. What are the issues? What is the challenge that we're actually facing? And with Roe v Wade, the fact that you've described some responses in the Churches there that I would call nothing short of aposty from the living God. We are forced in Western nations today in many contexts to celebrate Pride, fly flags. People are told to rejoice in marches down the street, at rebellion against God. And we can't thank the Lord and rejoice when a piece of legislation is likely to prevent the slaughter of thousands of children in the womb? If we can't rejoice at that, what can we celebrate? And again, most Brits misunderstand what actually happened even in the Roe v Wade case, which was the Supreme Court saying, as they looked again at what was a notorious miscarriage of justice at the time, is that this is not a case for the federal government. This is not a federal issue. And so again, a lot of Brits don't understand American politics at all. They don't understand the federal and the state system. This is an issue for the states themselves to deal with. That's what the Supreme Court effectively said. This is an issue for the various states. It is not a federal issue. And so if various states want to regulate and reduce abortion through legislation, that is up to state legislatures. That is something to be rejoiced in because it also is about localism. It's about local accountability. It's about political power not being radically removed from people, but being closer to people. What does the state of Texas want? What does the state of Florida want? What does the state of New York want? So why wouldn't those states and their legislatures be able to make those decisions? So it’s a misunderstanding. It's the same with the whole notion of separation of Church and state in America. The separation of Church and state has to do with a doctrine of the jurisdiction of the officers of Church and state. It is not about the separation of religion from the state. And in fact, during the constitutional period, various states are allowed establishment. Various states are allowed, but there could be no federally established Church because of course, the experience of the founders in America had been escape from a persecution in England, and they didn't want to be in a possible situation of persecution again at a federal level in the United States. So having this sort of hysteria that came up around that was misplaced. And then the notion that somehow this was the fruit of gun-toting rednecks trying to take over America in some kind of wave of Taliban-style, but just Christian instead, nationalism, is utterly absurd and bears no relationship whatsoever to what is going on in the United States today. And I travel constantly into the United States to speak and to work with ministry partners there, and that is a complete misrepresentation of what's going on. And I have to say, Dave, some of the most lovely Christians, some of the most generous Christians, some of the most faithful Christians I've ever known, in my life, are American evangelicals, who are concerned for the Gospel, the Glory of God and the Kingdom of God. And I think this sort of long-enduring anti-Americanism that's endured to some degree in British culture, we're up in arms about any form of prejudice/ racism in our culture, but it's fine if you're a totally anti-American and a prejudice towards people in the South or whatever. That's a completely acceptable form of prejudice, even amongst Christians who love the same Lord. There's no place for it, in my view in the Church or in the Kingdom of God. If we want to have a discussion about the merits of policy, and the merits of legal decision, and the merits of the place of God's word in political life, let's have that discussion. But these sorts of jibes and insults and tired clichés, are total red herrings, and I don't think have any place in the discussion today. Dave Brennan: I totally agree. And actually, this is anecdotal, but I would say possibly the number one objection or hesitation I've heard in my work from pastors is, “We wouldn't want to do this the American way.” That is literally what they say. We wouldn't want to do this the American way, or we don't want to come across like the Americans. Joe Boot: My first question would be, “What are we talking about? What is the American way? What freedom, liberty, advocacy, what?” Dave Brennan: Doing something against the genocide? Joe Boot: Doing something? Acting against genocide? Allowing the highest court in your land to follow the law to actually apply the constitution? What exactly is the substance of that objection, “We wouldn't want to be like the Americans”. What does that even mean? That's the problem with it. And if being more like American Christians means being bolder to speak out for life, being bolder to speak for Christ publicly, and working in terms of litigation, and in terms of advocacy for the unborn, for those who are being cut to pieces in the womb, for those experiencing chemical abortion in the womb, for the destruction that reeks on the lives of mothers and families, and the ruin it's doing even demographically to our culture, the ruin it does to our economy. All of these things have a vast implication. If that's what it means to be a bit more American in England among Christians, then I say bring it on. Because the question should not be, “Is that being more American?” The question should be, “Is it being more Christ like? Is it being more faithful to the Word of God?” Now, there may be things in Britain where we are being faithful to the Word of God, more so than perhaps in America or in Canada, or in South America, or in Africa, maybe. If we are being more Biblical in some area, let's do that. But if the Americans are being more scriptural and more faithful to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in an area, then let's do that. It's not whether it's American, British, African, Asian, South American, or anything else. It's, is it what God requires? Dave Brennan: And wouldn't it be great if we had that humility to learn from our American brothers, sisters, our Chinese brothers and sisters. That's really helpful. Thank you. I'm conscious that I would love to sit here all day long. Let me just give you one last question, if I may, drawing this together. What do you think needs to change? What would you like to see change in the UK evangelical Churches thinking on this? What needs to change? How should we be behaving with regard to abortion specifically, but more broadly, the cultural mandate? If you were to boil it down for us a bit, what would be the one thing or the few things that really need to turn around? Joe Boot: You've used an expression there that I don't think we've used so far in the podcast, and that is the ‘cultural mandate’. What we call the Great Commission in Matthew 28, that the Lord Jesus gives, in many respects is a restatement of the cultural mandate in a post-sin world. So you have the pre-sin world of paradise: rule, subdue, take dominion and so forth. Then you have the problem of sin entering. Actually you get a form of the cultural mandate restated post-sin when Noah emerges from the Ark. And that command to rule and subdue has never been rescinded, but it's unsafe to rule and subdue in a sinful world without the Lordship of Jesus Christ. So the Great commission doesn't begin ‘…going into all the world and preach the Gospel.’ How does it begin? “All authority in heaven and on earth,” Jesus says, “belongs to me. Therefore, you can go.” And he doesn't say, “Do personal evangelism.” He says, “Disciple nations.” Not even individuals, of course that's involved in that, but “disciple nations and teach them everything I've commanded.” And John the apostle said, “The world could not contain the books of all the things Jesus taught,” and we know everything that He taught was in line with the fullness of his Word because He says, “Man can't live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” So the mandate is, “Teach and apply, in my authority, this word, this truth, this gospel, to all of the nations. And I'm with you in doing it.” Now, if we could do that, and that's the meaning of the cultural mandate post-sin, that we can only rule and subdue in terms of the Lordship of Jesus Christ and his Word. And if we could see a reconciliation of those ideas in terms of the truth of the Kingdom of God, if there was one concept that, from this interview, I would say that we've lost, it is the reality of the basileia of God. I challenge any Christian, look, go into your concordance, go to a Bible dictionary. Look up that word Kingdom. Look how many times it appears. Then look up the word Church and see how many times it appears in the teaching of Jesus. And you will see the Biblical emphasis is the Kingdom, the rule and reign of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if we could recover in the evangelical Church a vision of the Kingdom of God and of the cultural mandate, so that the ecclesia takes its proper place within that, advancing the Kingdom, bound to the Kingdom, never separated from it or lessened in importance, but so that those concepts aren't collapsed into each other, so that the only time you are expressing the Kingdom is when you're in Church or doing something ecclesiastical. If we could dispense with that dualism, recover the Biblical vision, and recognise that culture is simply religion externalized, it's our faith applied, in 20 years, we would be in a radically different place for the gospel in this country. We would be in a radically different place in the family, in school, in politics, in education, in every area of life. We'd be in a radically different spot. And our love for the Lord, and I think the enthusiasm in particular Dave of men, because men in particular need a cause, men rally around a cause and that rallies families around a cause. If you just sit men in a pew in Church and say, “Be more holy, be nicer, and tell people about Jesus,” but they don't think that’s their vocation, their work, that there's no martial plan, that there's no cause for them to go to bat for, then the Church collapses. And yet the imagery of Paul in the letters is a martial imagery. We are soldiers of Jesus Christ. Be a good soldier of Christ. Take up the armour of God. “This is a battle,” he says. We are in a conflict. We're in a cosmic configuration that requires men of faith and valour and power to step forward in terms of the Kingdom of God. If we recover that image of the Kingdom we recover some of the martial imagery of the Bible that there is a cause for which to fight. And that calls men forth in the Church, which calls families to the fore and which takes us into every area of life seeking Christ's victory. To assert the crown right of Christ the King. Think of the martial imagery of the queen's funeral - soldiers bearing the queen on their shoulders, the military bands, the display of that martial imagery. This is a kingdom, it's the United Kingdom and it serves a greater King. That's not ungodly, that's not toxic masculinity. That's the language of the Bible. And if we can recover that as we think about the Kingdom of God and the cultural mandate, we will be in a radically different place a generation from now. Dave Brennan: Fantastic. Thank you so much, Joe, just tell us your podcast so people can follow you up. Joe Boot: So if people want to hear more of that week by week, they can tune into the Podcast for Cultural Reformation. That's wherever they get their podcasts from, or it's also available on the Fight Laugh Feast Network. And they can find us at ezrainstitute.com. Dave Brennan: Fantastic. And as you've been told at the beginning, this is About Abortion. Please do share, comment, etc, and do pass this on to others you think might appreciate it. Thanks so much for listening in, and we'll see you again next week. Subscribe to podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/aboutabortion Watch episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICJ2-TcRa8c&t Login and subscribe to be notified of the latest post

A guest post from Rob Rawlins “What can we do pro-life?” I asked my doctor friend. “Make it easy for women to keep their babies.” She was thinking of support for single mums and she was speaking from her GP experience with desperate women who saw abortion as the only way out. “What about education?” I asked. “That can be so condemning,” she said. “I always listen and explore.” “So would I in a pastoral situation. Only advising them after that.” “Advising? That’s the problem. Counselling is not telling people what to do.” “You’re talking about non-directive counselling. There’s a place for directive counselling.” “That’s not counselling.” “Didn’t Jesus sometimes tell people what to do?” “Jesus was the Son of God and we are not.” Our environment: 1. We live in a country where tolerance is like a god and you don’t tell people what to do or even what is right and wrong. If you do, you can lose friends or split families. 2. Professionals like my friend are trained in and expected to use non-directive counselling and risk their jobs if too directive. Just to note – she says she has never signed an abortion form, so she is strongly pro-life. 3. Good Christian counselling aims to help someone hear and follow God directly, not to be a mediator for them, locking them into dependence on the counsellor. Non-directive? – Yes. This obviously applies to “Shall I marry this person?” and “Should I take this job?” and a range of morally neutral issues. But what about issues where the bible has teaching: “Do I have to include that in my tax return?” and “No, I won’t ever be in the same room as that person, after what they did to me.” Etc. Abortion: This is a moral issue arising from one of the Ten Commandments: ‘Do not kill.’ So directive counselling is appropriate. It is also a justice issue: the victim, the baby in the womb, needs defending. So directive counselling is doubly appropriate. A parallel – Mary Slessor Mary was a Scottish missionary to Nigeria: Wikipedia: ‘Because of her understanding of the native language and her bold personality Slessor gained the trust and acceptance of the locals and was able to spread Christianity while promoting women's rights and protecting native children. She is most famous for having stopped the common practice of infanticide of twins.’ Nigerians all know of her from school history lessons. Scotland honoured her on a £10 note. I imagine her counselling to be directive: “Stop killing twins. It’s wrong. They are human like us. They have done nothing wrong.” I imagine some mothers of twins being so grateful as they accepted her offer to adopt or hide their twins. I imagine other mothers, along with village headman, opposing her. Some with sadness, “Mama Mary, you don’t understand. Twins bring bad luck. Our crops will fail. Our people will get sick. Some will die. For the good of the village we can’t keep them. I wish we could believe what you believe.” Some with anger, “Go back to Scotland. How dare you offend the spirits and bring bad luck on us. Our crops will fail. Our people will get sick. Some will die.” Mary persevered over many years and Nigerians now thank her. Subscribe to podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/aboutabortion Login and subscribe to be notified of the latest post

Factual errors, contradictions, and worryingly unchristian attitudes: my response to Megan Cornwell’s opinion in Premier Christianity, “I’m a pro-life Christian, but here’s why I’m not rejoicing over Roe v Wade” Let me start with the good stuff. There’s plenty in Megan Cornwell’s piece that I agree with. She’s absolutely right that the striking down of Roe v Wade won’t eliminate America’s abortion problem, or other problems for that matter. And she’s right that a holistic, far-reaching response is needed to support babies, mothers, and families. Support for mothers More can and should be done to support motherhood in the States. Giving birth is eye-wateringly expensive over there, and maternity/paternity leave is almost non-existent. Discovering that you are pregnant in the States comes with a price tag that we Brits can hardly even contemplate. It seems to be Cornwell’s assumption that it’s the State’s job to address this, to which I would add that it’s important not to give the private sector a free pass. It’s shocking, when you think about it, that Amazon and others have been announcing that they will pay for employees to travel for abortions, but their arrangements for maternity leave remain so paltry. Cheaper to kill an employee’s baby, you see, than help them to raise it. Calling all fathers I am particularly glad that Cornwell puts fathers under the spotlight. It is indeed a great scandal of our age that so many fathers take zero responsibility for the children they beget. It is of course fathers, more than the State, more than private companies, whose job it is to look after their children and to support mothers through pregnancy, birth, and motherhood – and yet it is often fathers who do the least. It is strange, though, that Cornwell doesn’t seem to notice how abortion actually fits into this fatherlessness epidemic. What is the easiest way for fathers to dissociate from their responsibility to raise the children they beget? What is the easiest way for a man to make sure the woman bears all the cost and he bears none? Abortion, of course. It is ironic that those (like the Polly Toynbee she quotes) who see oppressive patriarchy everywhere fail to identify one of its most egregious manifestations and actually end up championing it. Nothing has served the selfishness of men who want to use women for their own ends like abortion. It has been called the great liberation of men. It has consummated the divorce between sex and the responsibility to raise children. Need I point out how much fatherlessness has increased in nations like the States the UK since the legalisation of abortion? It’s not a coincidence. Legalised abortion hasn’t called forth fathers to take responsibility, it’s done the opposite. These, then, are the points on which I’m broadly in agreement with Cornwell. From here on in, I’m afraid, I have grave concerns. The argument crumbles The keystone of Cornwell’s non-rejoicing stance is this: “This latest ruling won’t result in fewer abortions taking place, it will result in them going underground…” It’s one of the oldest ones in the book, and it’s completely false. This 8-minute video takes you through some of the data exposing the myth, and there are links to the sources in the description beneath. Common sense alone tells you that if you make something illegal, it will happen less often. Indeed, Cornwell herself appears to acknowledge this: she contradicts herself by saying how there will be mothers who will have “to feed another mouth and clothe another body” and there will be more children in care. So there will be fewer abortions! This keystone has no substance, and so the whole archway of Cornwell’s argument crumbles. This ruling will result in far fewer abortions, and there’s no way someone can claim to be pro-life, but say that thousands of babies being spared a violent death is not a good thing. Think abortion helps women? Another assumption underpinning Cornwell’s response to all this is the idea that abortion is at least sometimes the way to help women, and that therefore to withhold abortion from a woman is to deprive her of something beneficial. “Victims of incest and rape…could…be forced to give birth, exacerbating their trauma,” Cornwell writes. The assumption here is that giving birth will exacerbate trauma, whereas abortion won’t. I’ll deal with the deeper theological and moral questions later on, but for now let us just observe the following. Victims and Victors documents the stories of almost 200 women who experienced rape or incest pregnancies, and found that most women who become pregnant through sexual assault do not want abortions. An overwhelming majority are glad they kept their babies, and find this to be a therapeutic and positive experience. Conversely I have spoken with a woman who had been raped and who had an abortion. She told me that the abortion was like being raped again. It is an unnatural, violent, and invasive procedure. Post-Abortion Stress Syndrome is becoming increasingly well-known and testifies to the trauma of abortion itself. Mental health problems proliferate following abortion, including increased risk of suicide. And that’s not to mention the effects of abortion on physical health, and the long-term link with maternal mortality. Once we stop agreeing with the abortion industry’s lie that abortion is healthcare, anything left standing in Cornwell’s argument topples. Think abortion helps women of colour and women from low-income backgrounds? When you take seriously the fact that abortion kills innocent babies and will be reduced by the overturning of Roe v Wade, and the fact that abortion also harms women, Cornwell’s point about racial and socio-economic inequality is completely flipped on its head. Why would we want to go on killing babies of colour and babies from low-income backgrounds at a disproportionately higher rate? Is this the answer to questions of racism and poverty? Cornwell seems to think so, because she says it’s an injustice that these mothers won’t be able to have their babies killed any more. Margaret Sanger, the eugenicist founder of Planned Parenthood, thought so too, and this appears to be what lay behind her Negro Project of 1939, and is why the abortion industry has set up a disproportionate number of centres in black neighbourhoods in America. Abortion has indeed succeeded in keeping the black population down; in New York in some recent years more black babies have been killed than born alive. Progressive. And let’s be clear that abortion is disproportionately harming, not helping, women of colour and women from low-income backgrounds in the States. Because killing a mother’s baby is never the way to help her. So we should be rejoicing that the overturning of Roe v Wade will disproportionately protect (poorer) babies of colour from destruction and (poorer) women of colour from damage. This is a great turn of events for racial and socio-economic equality. I confess that I find Cornwell’s suggestion that killing poor babies is better for addressing socio-economic inequality than letting them live deeply abhorrent, but what matters is not what I think, but what God thinks. More on that later. Think there will be more children in care? One more point of fact before we go on to examine the theological and moral confusion that underpins Cornwell’s argument: the claim that the care system will be overwhelmed. Again, Cornwell needs to decide between “this won’t result in fewer abortions taking place” and “there are going to be lots more unwanted children”: she can’t have it both ways. But let’s say for sake of argument she sticks with the latter. Cornwell seems to suggest that American Christians only pay lip-service to adoption. This is absurd. The culture of adoption in American Christianity is incredibly strong. In some communities it’s almost a given that you adopt, whether you have biological children or not. According to some sources there are 2 million couples waiting to adopt in the US – 36 for every one child who is placed for adoption. Presumably this is why so many literally travel the world to adopt babies – because in the States most of the unwanted babies are killed in the womb. The two pro-life leaders I am in most frequent contact with in the States have both adopted – one has adopted 3 girls and the other 1 boy. The anti-pro-life slur “you only care about babies before birth” is not only irrelevant as to whether or not it’s ok to kill babies in the womb, it’s also a filthy lie, and I wish people – especially professing “pro-life Christian”s – would stop believing and regurgitating it. We need to stand firm against this gaslighting, and stop offering ourselves as carriers for pro-abortion propaganda. Even if Cornwell’s claim were true – that the care system would be overwhelmed – is she really saying it’s better to kill children than to let them live on in care? Theological and moral confusion This leads us onto what’s really worrying about Cornwell’s views. It’s not just the errors and self-contradictions – dangerous though those are. It’s the deeply unchristian attitude towards life and morality that’s revealed. It’s not just the factual keystone, it’s the theological foundation, that’s flawed. It rings alarm bells when Cornwell uses pro-abortion rhetoric such as “forced to continue unwanted pregnancies”. Translated into plain English, she means, “not having their babies killed in the womb”. It is abortion, not pregnancy and delivery, that is the unnatural act of force. And let’s be clear, it’s not an “unwanted pregnancy” that’s “terminated” in abortion: it’s a child made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27, Psalm 139) who is poisoned or crushed. Cornell finds voice to condemn all-too-brief maternity leave as “barbaric”, but she doesn’t seem to think abortion is barbaric. Has she seen what happens during an abortion Instead, she speaks of abortion as not the “ideal”, and “heart-breaking”. Yes, it’s sad, but isn’t it also wrong? The issue here is whether we see abortion as God sees it: whether we submit to the authority and clear teaching of Scripture, or make up our own minds according to whatever criteria we select. Cornwell says that she’s “pro-life” and that she believes that “life is sacred”, but I’m not convinced she knows what these things really mean. Biblically, we see the value and sanctity of life directly related to the prohibition of shedding innocent blood. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God has God made man.” Genesis 9:6 The Mosaic Law is packed full of this principle: you can’t kill innocent people, because they’re made in God’s image. It means nothing to say that we uphold sanctity of life, if we won’t oppose clearly the shedding of innocent blood. It is, therefore, utterly unbiblical and unchristian to suggest that killing an unborn baby is ever a viable solution to poverty or racial inequality. It is abhorrent to liken not having a baby killed to “millstones and heavy burdens placed on people’s shoulders by the Pharisees (Matthew 23:4)”. In what world is looking after your baby instead of having him/her killed a Pharisaical heavy burden? This is lightyears away from Christian thinking. Cornwell’s claim that it is more reflective of the “love and grace of Jesus” to kill babies in the womb in some instances (and she’s not talking about medical emergencies here) than to let them live is not only deeply mistaken: it’s blasphemous and it’s demonic. I confess that I grimaced as I read her use of Matthew 23, but once again, it’s not my gut reaction that counts: it’s God’s. If you want to see how God responds to child sacrifice read Psalm 106, Jeremiah 7, Ezekiel 20 for starters. The problem here is that Cornwell’s attitude towards child sacrifice is nothing like God’s – so it cannot be claimed as a “Christian” response or a “pro-life” one. Her whole response to Roe v Wade is predicated on the idea that it’s sometimes permissible, or “better”, to kill a baby in the womb rather than let him/her live, and that you can help a woman through something that’s sinful. (John Piper’s “Doing the right thing never ruins your life” is instructive on this point.) These are deeply unchristian ideas. A far better response, thankfully, has been provided by a number of Christian leaders in this beautiful video. The wider crisis of the Church I don’t want to pick on Cornwell. I wish her well; I pray that she repents. Her piece is merely one example of a much wider and deeper problem. The fact that someone can even be considered a “pro-life Christian” saying what she is saying shows how unschooled we are in biblical ethics and specifically abortion. For years now I’ve been face-to-face with the crisis of almost zero teaching on abortion within the UK church. Data is coming out soon which shows that only 1 in 20 Christian women have heard thorough teaching on abortion in their church, and half have never even heard it mentioned in church. The confusion and ignorance in the pews is due to silence from the pulpits. The abortion debate isn’t going anywhere, so it’s incumbent on churches and especially church leaders to play catch-up fast. (Consider this example of how to teach on abortion in church, and our brand new podcast About Abortion.) If we don’t get to grips with the facts and how we are to think biblically about this, we’ll end up like Cornwell fighting on the wrong side, even whilst calling ourselves “pro-life” and “Christian”. Subscribe to podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/aboutabortion Login and subscribe to be notified of the latest post

We take it as read that: 1) Life begins at conception; made in the image of God, the unborn are equal in value to the rest of us. 2) “Abortion”, the intentional killing of an innocent human being, is a violation of the Sixth Commandment. 3) “Abortion” is child abuse (a serious safeguarding concern). 4) “Abortion” is child sacrifice (an idolatrous, blood-shedding outrage against the Living God). 5) “Abortion” in the UK is a genocide (a national crime against humanity). 6) “Abortion” is taking place in the UK Church. 7) Not only is “abortion” a sin; doing nothing about “abortion” is a sin: there are numerous commands in Scripture to take proactive action against such evils. 8) UK Church leaders have been clearly presented with the reality of “abortion”. 9) UK Church leaders are still doing largely nothing about “abortion” (they are, variously, silently tolerating, indirectly condoning, expressly justifying “abortion”, both within and without the Church). 10) Most Christians in the UK still believe that “abortion” is sometimes morally justifiable. 11) The UK Church has been called to repent over this in word and deed. 12) The UK Church at large is not repenting. (Click here for a substantiation of points 1 to 12.) What next? A warning to those who will not repent. In line with Revelation 2-3, the Lord Jesus would say to us with regard to the above: “I have this against you”. God is not indifferent to our indifference. He takes it personally. The Lord has a controversy with us over this. God’s word to us at this moment in time is surely not a commendation but a stern warning combined with a merciful call to repentance. The fact that we are not repenting is spiritually very dangerous. We are provoking the wrath of God and testing his patience. Judgment Biblically, judgment is characterised by plague, famine, natural disasters, oppression by enemies, economic downturn; by a famine of the word of God; by a “handing over” of sinners to insanity and deception, to moral (particularly sexual) depravity, and to a culture of selfishness and violence. Our nation is under judgment for turning away from God and his word, for worshipping created things, and specifically for the legalised mass killing of human babies (e.g. Isaiah 10:1-4). But judgment begins with the household of God (1 Peter 4:17). Possibly for those who have been encouraging the Church in the above sins the opportunity for repentance has already elapsed (“I have given her [Jezebel] time to repent…but she is unwilling”, Revelation 2:20-22). There may yet be time for those who have followed them in these sins to repent and avoid harsh judgment (Revelation 2:22). But we should not think we can get a “forever” extension (Amos 7:8). Here is a warning as to what can be expected to happen and is already happening because of our refusal to humble ourselves and change our ways: 1) Are not our prayers, corporate and individual, falling on deaf ears because of our resistance to God’s word and in particular his call to justice and mercy? “If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered.” Proverbs 21:13 “If anyone turns a deaf ear to the law, even his prayers are detestable.” Proverbs 28:9 “When you offer your gifts – the sacrifice of your sons in the fire – you continue to defile yourselves with all your idols to this day. Am I to let you enquire of me, O house of Israel? As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I will not let you enquire of me.” Ezekiel 20:31 “When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood…” Isaiah 1:15 Why would God listen to us if we won’t listen to him? Notwithstanding the fact of Jesus’s finished work on the Cross and our access to the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16), there is New Testament evidence that the prayers of genuine believers can still be hindered because of their behaviour: 1 Peter 3:7. 2) Are not our services, conferences, ceremonies, songs, worse than worthless when we ignore God’s word and in particular his call to justice and mercy? He hates them. “What right have you to recite my laws or take my covenant on your lips? You hate my instruction and cast my words behind you.” Psalm 51:16-17 “Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths, convocations – I cannot bear your evil assemblies. Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts my soul hates. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.” Isaiah 1:13-14 “Is this not the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice…?” Isaiah 58:6 “I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies… Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” Amos 5:22-24 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices – mint, dill, and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law – justice, mercy, and faithfulness.” Matt. 23:23 Although we are robed in the righteousness of Christ, the New Testament is clear that our corporate church life is not automatically pleasing to God: 1 Corinthians 11:17; Revelation 2-3. 3) Is it biblically or historically reasonable to expect revival to begin with us who are apathetic to God’s word and far from his heart of holiness and justice? Biblically and historically it would be much more reasonable to expect God’s judgment. (We are already experiencing something of this, and there is probably more to come.) By refusing to fulfil our part of the 2 Chronicles 7:14-15 deal, we are telling God not to hear our prayers, not to forgive our sin, and not to heal our land. Revival has always followed earnest, humble, contrite God-honouring repentance and prayer, and reverence for his word. Will God bring revival if his people, by their actions, tell him not to? “…if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayers offered in this place.” 2 Chronicles 7:14-15 4) If professing Christians are unmoved by child sacrifice and our aiding and abetting of it, it may be an indication that they are not saved in the first place. “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves.” 2 Corinthians 13:5 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evil-doers!’” Matthew 7:21-23 “…faith without deeds is dead.” James 2:26 We are not saying that a lack of conformity to the will of God in this particular area is necessarily a sign that someone is not saved. What we are saying is that a new way of life necessarily springs forth from the gracious gift of regeneration that comes through real saving faith in Jesus Christ. The Spirit-filled life of a born again believer will be evidenced by fruit. If there is no visible fruit, it is right to question whether there is any new life. 5) Those who do demonstrate evidence of salvation, yet remain unmoved by child sacrifice, show themselves at least in this regard to be blind, cold, and experientially (if not in spiritual status) far from the heart of the Living God. They are “worldly” or “fleshly” (1 Corinthians 3:3), still “conformed to the pattern of this world” (Romans 12:2). Their intimacy with God is limited and their effectiveness in the kingdom hampered. God will still achieve his purposes, but inasmuch as we resist the fullness of his transformative call on our lives we consign ourselves to spiritual irrelevance and redundancy in this generation. “For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish.” Esther 4:14 6) The Church is to be a “pillar of truth” (1 Timothy 3:15) and has a mandate to expose the “deeds of darkness” (Ephesians 5:11) and to protect the fatherless (James 1:27). When we fail to issue the warning and play our part, blood is on our heads. God will hold us accountable (Ezekiel 3:16-27). 7) We have now gone past the point of, “But we knew nothing about this,” (Prov. 24:12); we have crossed the line from ignorant culpability – which is still a thing (e.g. Leviticus 4-5) – to knowing, conscious culpability. The consequences for this are much more serious. “If you say, ‘But we knew nothing about this,’ does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?” Prov. 24:12 “That servant who knows his master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows.” Luke 12:47-48

Here are Points 1-12 from A Warning to the UK Church fleshed out - essentially a summary of where the UK Church is at with abortion: 1) Life begins at conception; made in the image of God, the unborn are equal in value to the rest of us. See Psalm 51:5; Matthew 1:20-23; Genesis 1:26-27; Luke 1:41,44; 2:12,16; Psalm 139. Modern medical science has also concluded unanimously that the life of a genetically unique human individual, distinct from the mother, begins at fertilisation. As a leading medical textbook says, “fertilization…is a critical landmark because, under ordinary circumstances, a new genetically distinct human organism is formed when the chromosomes of the male and female pronuclei blend in the oocyte” [Ronan O’Rahilly and Fabiola Mueller (2000) Human Embryology and Teratology, 3rd edn. New York: John Wiley & Sons, p. 8]. 2) “Abortion”, the intentional killing of an innocent human being, is a violation of the Sixth Commandment. This follows on logically and inescapably from point 1. This connection is explicitly made in some of the earliest Christian writings, such as the Didache and the Epistle of Barnabas (both are late first or early second century). 3) “Abortion” is child abuse (a serious safeguarding concern). This is explained here. 4) “Abortion” is child sacrifice (an idolatrous, blood-shedding outrage against the Living God). This is explained here and here. 5) “Abortion” in the UK is a genocide (a national crime against humanity). This is explained here. 6) “Abortion” is taking place in the UK Church. This has been known for a long time anecdotally and can be reasonably deduced from statistics we have on the prevalence of “abortion” amongst evangelicals in America and the extent to which UK evangelicals believe that “abortion” is justifiable (see below). 7) Not only is “abortion” a sin; doing nothing about “abortion” is a sin: there are numerous commands in Scripture to take proactive action against such evils. See Isaiah 1; 58; Proverbs 31:8; Proverbs 24:11-12; James 1:27; Galatians 6:10; Luke 10:25-37; Leviticus 20:1-5. 8) UK Church leaders have been clearly presented with the truth about “abortion”. The official government statistics for the baby genocide have been openly published for decades. Several organisations have been working for years/decades to expose “abortion”, some focusing directly on churches and church leaders (such as CBRUK’s Brephos project), making information and resources available to them. Since John Stott’s Issues Facing Christians Today (1984) and John Wyatt’s Matters of Life and Death (1998) in particular, the value of life in the womb and the immorality of “abortion” biblically have been clearly known to the UK Church. Hundreds if not thousands of church leaders have been contacted personally by members of their own congregations and by others in the pro-life movement, and have been asked to respond to “abortion”. An overwhelming majority have responded negatively or failed to respond at all. Recent events on the international stage (e.g. America, Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland) have brought “abortion” to the fore such that mainstream media have been talking about it. 5,000 Christian leaders were shown the reality of abortion outside HTB’s leadership conference in 2019 (read here). Christian publications in the UK such as Premier, Evangelicals Now, Evangelical Times, and HEART frequently raise the issue of abortion to a wide readership. 9) UK Church leaders are still doing largely nothing about “abortion” (they are, variously, silently tolerating, indirectly condoning, expressly justifying “abortion”, both within and without the Church). Inaction on “abortion” is perhaps most clearly seen against the backdrop of the great volume of activity in response to other issues: one does not have to go very far to uncover the UK Church’s response to racism, Covid-19, climate change, debt, homelessness... 10) Most Christians in the UK still believe that “abortion” is sometimes morally justifiable. As well as a great wealth of anecdotal evidence, we have these statistics from an Evangelical Alliance survey showing that only a minority of evangelicals exhibit firm opposition to “abortion”. The National Director of the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches, one of the most conservative evangelical groupings in the UK, confirms this picture: whilst “most” evangelicals oppose “abortion” generally when it is used as a form of contraception, “some” will be unsure when it comes to “rape” or “incest” or where the child is “severely disabled”. This range of views is described as valid and acceptable within conservative evangelicalism: they are “nuances”. 11) The UK Church has been called to repent over this in word and deed. Several voices have called the Church in the UK to repentance in recent days. To name a few: Andrea Williams of Christian Concern. Voice for Justice UK. Brephos (e.g. here and here). Prophecy Today UK. The front and first few pages of the most recent edition of HEART. Admittedly these are relatively marginal voices but this is precisely the problem we are seeking to address: Why is it left to fringe “parachurch” ministries to call the Church to repentance over child sacrifice? 12) The UK Church at large is not repenting. Though there has been some, very small response by a few individuals and churches to the above calls to repentance, in the grand scheme of things the UK Church has not heeded the call in any meaningful way, but instead has been focusing on “business as usual” whilst responding to other issues (e.g. Covid-19 and climate change) as directed by the Government and the mainstream media. There has been no real change with regards to “abortion”. It is rare to find a church teaching on “abortion”, let alone striving in repentant prayer and action.

Everyone agrees that looking after the planet is important, but the “Gaia” exhibition touring UK churches crosses a line into pagan idolatry. I’ve never met a Christian who objects to the idea that part of our responsibility under God is to look after the earth he created as God’s undermanagers (Genesis 1:28). Although explicit biblical support for the importance of looking after the non-human aspects of God’s creation is slight (e.g. Genesis 2:15; Leviticus 25:2-5) compared with how we are to treat human beings made in God’s image (e.g. Genesis 6:9; Exodus 23:7; Proverbs 6:17; James 5:6), it chimes with the biblical principles of humility, gratitude, wisdom, and consideration of others that we should steward the earth with moderation and selflessness. But much of the spirit and messaging of the “Climate Emergency” narrative that we are now hearing from many quarters – including the Church – is very different from this biblical idea of stewardship, and we are in danger of being swept into a deeply unchristian way of thinking and living if we don’t perceive what is pagan and decide to stand against it. Christians need to understand that many of the common elements of this narrative are in fact incompatible with biblical Christianity and are harmful. In the case of the “Gaia” exhibition currently being hosted in St Peter Mancroft church, what we are talking about is nothing short of pagan earth-worship. “Gaia”, named after the Greek mother-of-all goddess of the earth, features a large globe hanging in the air and “gives us the opportunity to experience the fragility of our planet in a new light”. Allow me to spell out why this is anything but innocuous: 1) “Gaia” isn’t just a random name It’s important not to quarrel about words (2 Timothy 2:14). The names of our days of the week have pagan roots (Thor, Saturn…). But what we are talking about here is far more than mere etymology. The artist Luke Jerram consciously and deliberately chose this name because of the identity of the Greek goddess, and she was referenced uncritically in a speech made in St Peter Mancroft by the Lord Mayor at the exhibition’s opening: the installation “named after the Mother of All in Greek Mythology hung in the church ‘like a mother patiently waiting’”. The idol is also mentioned in some of the text accompanying the exhibition inside the church building. The constellation of the pagan name, the personification of the earth, the sense that our survival depends on it (see below), the willingness to take drastic sacrificial action to keep it happy - together with the abandonment, even denial, of key biblical perspectives (see below) - all begins to look a lot like pagan earth-worship. Indeed, if this isn’t enough for it to qualify as idolatry, what would be? At the very least we have to see that this is misguided, confusing, unhelpful. Can we imagine Paul bringing a statue of Artemis (a virgin goddess) into a first-century Christian meeting to teach about chastity?? 2) The earth is being viewed from a God-less perspective The exhibition portrays our “planet home” as “fragile” and alone, “hanging in a void”, and insists that it is up to us to change its destiny through drastic action to ensure its survival and ours. Notable for their absence are the following biblical truths: i) Far from being alone in a void, “the earth is the Lord’s” (Psalm 24:1) and he sustains it “by his powerful word” (Hebrews 1:3). “He’s got the whole world in his hands,” as the old African-American spiritual goes. Whilst of course this doesn’t mean that it doesn’t matter how we steward the earth, it does mean that its destiny is not in our hands. There is a big difference between the biblical concept of obedience to a loving God, trusting him with the future, and the pagan concept of trying to manipulate nature through human activity to control future outcomes. Gaia falls very much into the latter category. ii) We know that earth will be destroyed when God decides (2 Peter 3:10), so the idea of making its indefinite survival at all costs a top priority for the Church is misguided. (Again, not an excuse for wanton abuse of the earth.) Our top priority surely needs to be to prepare people for what happens after the inevitable destruction of the earth or of their earthly bodies – whichever comes first. iii) Whilst our “planet home” has its importance, there is nothing here about the eternal home (John 14:3) that Jesus has gone ahead to prepare for those who put their trust in him, nor about the “everlasting punishment” (Matthew 25:46) that awaits those who reject Christ, after this brief “planet home” life is over. Granted that this earth is in a sense “fragile”: why not use this as an opportunity to point people to a hope that is truly secure? iv) Gaia offers no biblical interpretation of why “the whole creation has been groaning…right up to the present time” (Romans 8:22). Biblically, it is clear that it is because human beings, from Genesis 3, have sinned against God, worshipping created things. But the Gaia exhibition would have it that we have merely mistreated Mother Earth directly, nothing more. There is no mention of sinning against a holy God. v) Consequently, there is no call for biblical repentance “from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead – Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath” (1 Thessalonians 1:9-10). Ironically, in attempting to address one of the symptoms (earth pains) in isolation, Gaia actually aggravates the root cause (self-reliance and God-forsaking idol-worship), and this may well result in even worse symptoms! 3) We are simply following the ways of the nations To declare the climate an “emergency” and “the defining issue of our time and the greatest threat to our well-being, globally and locally” is to follow the zeitgeist, not the Bible or the facts. How can it be maintained that climate change (predicted by the World Health Organisation to cause an additional 250,000 deaths per year between 2030 and 2050) poses a greater threat than the global baby genocide (already taking 73 million lives a year, according to the same World Health Organisation)? And how can it be argued biblically that 2°C grieves the heart of God more than mass scale child sacrifice? Prioritising climate change above issues such as “abortion” – or deeper issues such as idolatry – betrays the extent to which the Church has followed the ways (and invisible gods) of our culture, rather than taking the lead; has become a thermometer rather than a thermostat. “…they mingled with the nations and adopted their customs. They worshipped their idols, which became a snare to them. They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to false gods. They shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan, and the land was desecrated by their blood… Therefore the Lord was angry with his people and abhorred his inheritance…” Psalm 106:35-36 We cannot “save the planet”. We cannot even save ourselves. But by God’s grace we can be saved, through Jesus – if we repent of worthless idols and put our trust in him.