Hello, friends. Welcome to the Case for Life podcast. Got a question for you today submitted by a reader, and here it is. Should my pastor remain silent on abortion for the sake of evangelism? And basically what the email is asking is this. that when this particular person talked to their pastor about abortion, his reply was that he didn’t want to talk about it because he didn’t want to drive people away who might otherwise be drawn to church. and they may eventually hear the gospel and respond to it, and he doesn’t want something that looks like and smells like a political issue, to drive them away from coming to church where they might eventually come to saving faith. Well, what’s wrong with that approach? Well, let’s talk about what’s right first. What’s right is that this pastor cares about people hearing the gospel. That’s a good thing. Don’t get so anxious about pro-life that we forget that churches ultimately are about sharing the good news of the gospel, namely this. that Jesus Christ the righteous one came to earth and stood in our place condemned bearing fully the wrath of God for sin that you and I deserve so that those that trust in him alone for salvation get reconciled to their creator and one day go to heaven to be with him. That’s the essence of the gospel. And of course, our churches must be about that. But where the pastor gets it wrong is that not only do we have a duty to convey the essential gospel to people—we must always do that— But we also have a duty to teach the whole counsel of Scripture, which means imparting to those that the Lord trusts to us as leaders a biblical worldview that aligns with Scripture. And in Scripture, we see some very clear principles. And here’s the biggest one to recognize. Scripture is clear that all humans have value because they bear the image of God. Genesis one teaches this. James chapter 3 teaches this. So we’ve got it represented in both the old and new covenants. Scripture also teaches that because humans bear the image of God, the shedding of innocent blood is strictly forbidden. You see this in Exodus 23. You see this in Proverbs 6. You see it in Matthew 5. Now from that, we only need to ask, are the unborn human? And we know, as we’ve talked about on this show many times, from the science of embryology, they are indeed just that. Human parents produce human offspring. Living things do not undergo a substantial change of nature in the process of their development. Rather, they develop according to what they already are. So we don’t see embryos starting off as non-human and then suddenly morphing into being human. at a later stage of the pregnancy or sometime after birth. They remain what they are through all their stages of development. That’s the science of biology known as the science of embryology. All right, from that, we know then that the unborn are indeed human, which makes this very simple. The same commands that say we need to respect the intrinsic dignity of human beings because they bear the image of God Right. because they bear the image of God, we must not shed innocent blood. Those scriptures apply to the unborn like they do you and I, like they do to everybody for that matter. So that’s the teaching of Scripture, and that too must be conveyed. Now, the pushback that this parishioner got from the leadership of their church went something like this. Well, We have read where Tim Keller, a well-known pastor who recently went to be with the Lord, who, by the way, wrote some really good books. I often commend his book, The Reason for God, excellent book defending the Christian worldview. a great apologetics tool. I think he sounds very similar to C.S. Lewis in the way he defends the Christian faith. I give him a big salute for that. But Keller said this, that even though he believes abortion is a justice issue. And even though he believes it is wrong, he doesn’t preach on it. Rather, he wants his parishioners to organically come to see that it’s wrong. So his view is that as people hang around the church, and they hear the gospel as they hear the Bible taught, they will on their own come to a belief that abortion is something God does not approve of. And that will happen organically from preaching the scripture without calling out a specific sin, which he calls moralism. And his comment is this. He says, I had a woman who came to my church. She was an ACLU lawyer. And she told me about a year after attending church, if I had come to church that first Sunday— and seen any pro-life literature, I would have left at that moment and never come back. And Keller uses that example to point to the need to just preach gospel, just preach Bible, not call any specific sins into attention. Now, again, we can applaud his commitment to the gospel, and I don’t doubt for a a solid gospel. People came to faith in Jesus because they encountered him, and for that we should be happy. But I want to ask this question. Is clerical silence in the face of child sacrifice an acceptable means of evangelism? Let me change the scenario a bit. Suppose that this woman, who, by the way, eventually came to Pastor Keller 3 or 4 years later— in a conversation and said, you know, do you think there’s something wrong with abortion? She said, I’m beginning to think that maybe there is. And he said, yeah, you’re right, there is. Now, at that point, he leveled with her. not until she had kind of begun to come around to the idea that it was wrong on her own. But that’s a risky ploy here. Let’s change it a bit. Suppose that, God forbid, rape were legal and culturally accepted in this country. In fact, There were clinics that men could go to where they could pay a fee and they could rape women for an hour of time and get the pleasure they desired at the expense of these women. And let’s say again, that was culturally accepted and legal to do in this country. Would someone like Tim Keller take the same approach to rape that he takes with abortion. Suppose a guy came to him and said, you know, I’ve been coming here for about a year, But if you had ever said anything negative about rape, I would have left and never come back. And suppose during that time he went on to use the availability of women at these clinics and it harmed many of them. and caused wounds to these women by engaging in rape because he never heard anything from the pulpit. Would Tim Keller be willing to accept that as a price to be paid for the sake of not turning this guy off from church? Well, I think we’re appalled by that. That’s horrible. This is the same kind of logic, though, that he’s using with abortion. What if that same woman that came to his church had heard that that, hey, I’m pregnant. I got to deal with this and say she had an abortion during that time. that she was attending Keller’s church but had not heard anything about abortion. and say she has that abortion and later comes to him and says, you know, I eventually figured out that that’s wrong. Would Tim Keller be willing to accept the price of that child’s life for the sake of not turning off that woman? Now, there’s a couple of things here that I think we can address. The first is this. gospel and a biblical worldview is going to offend this culture. And you can see it. I mean, just look at the Olympics. The the way the opening show went down, whether you believe that was sacrilege in that it was a direct assault on the Last Supper or not is irrelevant. What is clear is the debauchery that they were putting forward was a slap in the face to Christians who hold to a biblical view of sexual ethics. That much is clear and that is beyond dispute. Why does the culture respond that way? And here’s the answer. It’s not because Christians are mean. It’s not because we’re not nice enough. It’s that the world hates what God stands for. By the way, why are we so surprised with this? Jesus told us, the world hated me, it’s going to hate you. If you reflect a Christ likeness in your worldview, I promise you the world will hate you. And I want to promise you something else. If you’re not catching flack for what you believe, Something’s wrong in the way you’re either living or conveying your worldview. People should be angry at you. Of course, we aren’t advocating that pro-life Christians go around and start a unduly offending people. There are ways to be good ambassadors, as my friend Greg Kokel points out. And that’s something we must do. However, The message of the cross, the message conveyed in a biblical worldview, is going to unsettle people who are committed to living a way that results in death. This is Paul’s point in Ephesians 2. He says, you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once lived.” That’s an interesting sentence. On one hand, he says you’re dead. On the other hand, he said you lived in these sins. Yeah, when people are living in deeply ingrained habitual sin, and they come to love it and it’s their source of life to them, they’re going to get very angry at people who call those things out. No surprise there. That shouldn’t shock us. So we need to be careful that we don’t accept a gospel that Jesus never preached and never asked us to preach. The second thing I would point out is this. I actually think that Tim Keller is wrong here. I think that had he preached on abortion in a way that was persuasive, gospel-centered and led people to the truth, but also pointed to the remedy for the sin of abortion found in the gospel, he could have actually won on the issue. He’s presenting a false choice. You don’t need to choose between, well, I speak plainly about abortion or turn people off. There’s a third alternative. speak persuasively and winsomely, tell the truth, point people to the gospel, and you win on the issue. We have seen this over and over and over again. I mentioned in a previous podcast at a very large church in Minneapolis I spoke at last January. A man came to church for the first time, a non-believer, he walked in, pro-abortion, and he walked out telling one of the staffers that not only had he reconsidered the Christian faith, he was now pro-life. And he had to seek out a staffer to tell him that. Well, I preach very plainly. plainly on abortion. I didn’t pull any punches. I wasn’t rude. I wasn’t obnoxious. But I did preach plainly on it. And instead of turning this guy away, it drew him to look at Christianity a little deeper. Think about people like Hadley Arcus, the former secular Jew who’s written some of the best devastating critiques of moral relativism in the philosophical literature that’s out there. By the way, his book first Things and his book the abortion and the right to choose. Excuse me. I’ll think of the other title in a moment. Forgive me. I’m having a a brain freeze right now. I need more coffee. But he has written on the ethics of abortion the fact of moral truth being real and knowable, something we can connect with, These are guys who eventually accepted the Christian worldview, and here’s what drew them to it. Hadley Arcus, Bernard Nathanson is another one that I’m thinking of. What drew them to Christian theism was Christians laying out a case for the pro-life view. And they began to think, you know, These Christians, if they can present a clear case on abortion, I wonder what else they’re thinking about that maybe I need to look at. And these are things I think pastors forget. So what I would say to you, especially those of you that are in positions of spiritual leadership in states like Florida, Arizona, Nevada, Missouri, where we have abortion referendums coming up on the ballot this fall. You’re not doing anybody a favor by being silent about this. You have another option. present a compelling pro-life case, make it reasonable, make it clear and to the point, season it with grace, point people to the scripture who have been wounded by abortion, and you can be both faithful to your calling as a shepherd and point people to Jesus in the midst of speaking some very difficult and hard truths. It’s not an either-or. Let’s not fall for a false dichotomy here. Let’s do both. Let’s proclaim biblical truth and let’s point people to the Savior who can fix their sin problem. That’s our job as pro-life Christians. I hope you’ll join me in doing it. Thanks for joining us today. I want to again thank our prime sponsor, Life Training Institute, and invite you to do one more thing. We have a course online called the Case for Life Course. The textbook for that case is this, the second edition of the Case for Life. which you can also get at our website at scottklusendorf.com or at caseforlife.com. But here’s the thing, the course is ten weeks and it equips you to make a case for the pro-life view even with hardened skeptics. So I would encourage you to get that course, sign up for it. It’s a self-paced course. You can go at your own leisurely pace to master the material. And I promise you, you take that course, you won’t make the mistake that Tim Keller made. Let’s be smart and gracious ambassadors for Christ.