The writer of the following essay is John Malek, a faithful and principled man whom I'm proud to say is one of my most trusted friends. He is a husband and father, a professional in the insurance industry, a leader in his church, a standout athlete, a Board member of Vital Signs Ministries, a veteran sidewalk counselor, a founding member of our literary club, and more...including being quite able with a persuasive argument. Please read his appeal carefully.
In my opinion it is imperative for a leader to have moral clarity. These days, that seems so lacking, especially when it comes to the issue of life. Why is that? With the presidential election less than a week away, we have two very clear options on who to vote for. In my lifetime, there have never been two major party candidates that have stood so clearly on opposite sides of the fence on so many moral issues: sanctity of life, marriage, poverty, war, etc.
All of those moral issues are important, but I would say there is no issue today or in any day, nor is there any issue in our nation, or in any nation that is more important than the issue of life.
Deuteronomy 30:19: "This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live."
America's Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life..."
These two passages are intricately linked. Indeed, the Scripture reference above is the basis of the Declaration of Independence passage which has it’s authority from the Scripture. In Scripture, we are admonished to choose life and accept a blessing, or choose death and receive a curse.
Let me clearly state that I do not believe that there is such a thing as a Christian government. At the very essence Christian leaders are called to lay down their lives in service to others. Governments, by definition, rule. At best a government can be informed by Christian principles and enact laws that uphold righteousness and punish the unrighteous. As a nation does that, so will it prosper. Such was the intent of our founders and for many years (and with many, many faults, sins, injustices, etc.) the nation did just that.
I say the above to underscore that I understand that the USA is not a “chosen people,” nor do I think that we are a “Christian Nation” per se. However, for most of our history we have been a nation that honored and respected faith and that had many godly people in positions of leadership. We enacted just laws and respected life, as we were instructed in Deuteronomy and was echoed in the Declaration of Independence.
There will be many who will scoff at the idea that God would bless this nation, because of all the historic injustice among African-Americans, American Indians, Japanese-Americans, some wars, etc. That will not raise an argument from me. In the midst of our faults and sins, why should we experience His blessing?
At our nation’s birth, it was affirmed that we had a right to life given to us from God that could not be taken from us by the government. In our Declaration of Independence, we stated that God gave us the right to life as well as the right to pursue what God would call us to be and do. In the very beginning, He created Adam and Eve and told them to be fruitful and multiply and fill and subdue the earth. He spoke destiny to them as He does to us and the Declaration ratified that very thing. As long as we honored that, as long as we were a people with the right to life empowered by God to become what He called us to be, I believe He promised that there would be prosperity in the land. Notice that this is not the same as God blessing us because we were a “Christian nation,” but because we were a nation that valued His principles.
Rights have been chipped away from us over the years. Basically, our government has taken back what they had no right to take: rights that were endowed upon us by our Creator. However, none have been so grievous to God as when the courts stripped millions of children in the womb of the right to life in 1973. His word itself states that blessings follow choosing life, but curses follow choosing death.
Many have said that abortion is only one issue and that we should care for the poor as well. The argument goes something like this, “I am opposed to abortion, but that is just one issue. I know Candidate A opposes abortion like I do, but Candidate B is promising to alleviate poverty, therefore making it less likely that people will need abortions. That is pro-life also, isn’t it?” This argument draws a moral equivalence between not doing enough to eliminate poverty and the sanctioning of the direct termination of children’s lives in the womb. These two are not morally equivalent. They are completely different issues. Abortion is the direct killing of an innocent child. Death by starvation (which is very rare in the nation) is the indirect death of an innocent child. Both are horrible and sad, but they are not the same.
If we changed the subject in the argument cited above from abortion to murder, we would feel very uncomfortable saying, “I am opposed to legalized murder, but that is just one issue. I know Candidate A opposes legalized murder like I do, but Candidate B is promising to alleviate poverty, therefore making it less likely that people will kill each other. That is pro-life also, isn’t it?”
When the British first settled in India and encountered the tradition of burning wives at the funeral pyres of their deceased husbands, they did not temporize by saying that they would teach the people new traditions so that fewer wives would be burned with their husbands. They simply told them that life was too valuable to murder these women and they creatively stopped the practice.
I agree wholeheartedly that we need to care for the poor. If, however, we do not protect nascent life in the womb, why are we caring for the poor? Indeed, if abortion is sanctioned by our government and, by extension, us, (since we are a government of the people,) what moral imperative is there to care for the poor? A leader or a nation that can take innocent life, can take anything else from its citizens. I would argue that is exactly what this year’s pro-abortion candidate is proposing.
It seems to me the choice is not between abortion and caring for the poor. We simply can’t do one without the other. The argument above implies that there are valid reasons for abortion such as poverty and we should vehemently resist the idea that any reason justifies the abortion of an unborn child. Scripturally, there is justification for that argument.
Mark 14:7: "The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me."
Jesus seems to say that despite our best efforts we will always have the poor. Every government program initiated since the 60’s has only trapped people in cycles of dependency and robbed them of dignity, family and self esteem. Don’t misunderstand me (or the verse.) We must still seek ways to care for the poor, but we should be very wary of state solutions (at least the tried and failed approaches). Besides, let us not miss the obvious: protecting the right to life of the poor is the first and best way to care for them.
Poverty is a serious issue that we, as the church, need to take the lead in alleviating. We need to encourage programs that help people escape poverty, and yet protects them from falling into cycles of dependency. We need to seek ways to enable people to have access to affordable health care. All of this is crucially important, but is ultimately meaningless if we determine that some do not deserve to live.
So, for me, it boils down to choosing a leader who will work to defend the inalienable right of life, (given to us by God) and opposing a leader who would seek new and even more extreme ways to deny life to our most defenseless. If one candidate is going to protect innocent life, then they are demonstrably better than the candidate that agrees in infanticide. In my mind, this could not be clearer. No amount of discussion about caring for the poor can change the basic facts of who stands for life and who does not. Does anything else really matter if there is no sanctity of life?
Finally, I believe that abortion affects all that we do. It affects how we care for the poor, it affects health care, it affects our military actions. If we value human life in its most innocent form, that value carries over to how we value every other life on the planet. If we believe that each life is endowed by it’s creator with the right to life, then we will also ascribe greater value to their dreams and do more to encourage the pursuit of those dreams. We will assist each individual to be all that God wants for them. We will celebrate their life and the unique person that God has created them to be. We are better people when we truly value life. Conversely, when we concede that abortion is sometimes acceptable, we set ourselves on the path to disregard other rights as well.
Matthew 25:40: "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'"
As Christians, we can disagree on many issues. However, I cannot find a Scriptural basis for disagreeing on the sanctity of life. The other issues can be dealt with, but we will ultimately fail to find godly solutions to any of those issues if we don’t protect the right to life of the weakest among us.
I, therefore, am asking Christians to come out and choose life so that you and your children might live. We need not be afraid of aligning ourselves with a political party. Instead, we are aligning with God at the most basic level. Our lack of clarity could cost the lives of thousands and maybe millions of unborn children in this nation, not to mention millions around the world. We need to stand up and be counted as clear moral thinkers in an age of relativism. If the children of God are confused about this issue how much more so is the world. It is time to break the silence! It is time to stop saying that we don’t know who to vote for, because now is the time to get back to basics and vote and act to protect innocent life.
John M. Malek
10/29/2008
