Granted, as a pastor and a psychologist, I am a fan of the Johnson Amendment.  I am also concerned about this push for some kind of moral competition and, at the same time, moral equivalence.

In other words, as a leader in a non-profit organization, I do not want to be responsible to integrate people’s political views into my leadership role, or support certain candidates or parties.  If you want to understand more, you can read my article I linked to above.

That being said, as a pastor (that word just means “shepherd”), I am responsible and obligated to speak to moral and Biblical issues.  There will be times when those issues have political consequences, and therefore should influence the way Christ-followers and Bible believers vote and otherwise engage in politics.

In the US political system especially, this is, for now, unavoidable.

We have two main candidates and several orbiting third, fourth- and fifth-party candidates. So there may only be one party with a certain view…

They have various personality disorders and flaws.  Typically, none of them appear to be particularly trustworthy people.  Each of them supports wiser action on some issues and more foolish, even delusional, direction on other issues.  

Many of these issues are important.  

If one of these issues are fundamentally Biblical or moral and only one party takes the moral or Biblical stance, then it will be unavoidably linked… but that is essentially coincidental for the Christian.  In time, I am working on an article reminding us all that we are strangers in this world – our citizenship is in the Kingdom of God.  All other political connections are ancillary.  

Therefore, I have no loyalty to any party.  I only have loyalty to obedience to the Biblical teaching.  If which party has the right stance changes, then I will change parties, not views.  This is the ONLY right understanding for a true Christ follower.  

Our loyalty must always be to our King over our party… or nation or any other temporal political identity.

Of course, as I said above though, some of these are very important issues.  

Children could be well-educated or poorly educated; some people could lose jobs or gain jobs; certain rights could be protected or ignored.  Trillions of dollars will be spent – much of it misspent.  The Central Government will become more intrusive – even more tyrannical, or not.

In some cases, these issues are life-and-death important.  Literally dozens to thousands of people could die depending on the outcome of the issues.   Health care and gun control and immigration are examples of policies that could result in swings of thousands of deaths either way.

These matter.  Anyone who says these don’t matter are wrong.  So how do we decide which topics are the most important?

Need a standard for voting decisions on various political issues?   Here are some common ones I hear:

The number of deaths on the line.

The amount of suffering, or quality of life on the line.

The moral imperative on the line.

The levels of barbarism exhibited in the decision.

The way it effects children… (“but what about the children?”)

Actually, I think those are pretty good measuring sticks for significance, in my mind.

What if there were an issue that didn’t involve thousands (like gun violence), even hundreds of thousands, like justice reform, or but represented more deaths than all other forms of death combined?

I consider there to be at least 5 main issues that will cause us to be considered barbaric in the future.

5.  Our failure to support and shepherd our soldiers.  We don’t do nearly enough to care for, employ, and retrain our warriors.  We are failing them, and they have risked all to protect us.  This is shameful.  Maybe conservatives have a slightly better attitude about this, but (it feels like) not much better performance.

4.  The Vestiges of racism.  How shameful that there is still anyone who embraces the belief that any ethnic group is fundamentally endemically superior or inferior to another.  That this was allowed and encouraged for generations and that there are any signs of it left is embarrassing and horrific.

3.  Our national debt.  We are approximately $26,600,000,000,000 in debt.  That is $213,000 per taxpayer.  It is growing exponentially.  We are strapping a deadly weight onto our posterity.  Eventually, they will have to pay for our addictions and self-absorptions.  Neither side of the aisle show any inclination to solve this issue.  Someday, this could result in thousands of deaths and millions in abject suffering at some point. There is a solution, but it wouldn’t be easy.

2.  Sex trafficking.  Both sides of the aisle show some inclination to engage this issue, but it is pretty pathetic.  This issue should be motivating drastic action, changes in laws, etc.  I fear that too many people in all areas of politics and culture are personally involved and are more motivated to conceal than reveal.

1.  From a pure number’s perspective, from a perspective of human suffering and from the moral imperative to protect innocent life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, the number one is a stand-alone in all of human history.

Let me explain:

According to the World Health Organization, in 2016, the total number of deaths on the whole planet was 56.9 million.  (https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death)

This is ALL causes of deaths worldwide combined.

In 2017, the total number of deaths in the United States was 2.8 million.

(https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm)

This is ALL causes of deaths in the United States combined.

However, neither the WHO nor the CDC report abortions in “deaths”.

By 2015, approximately 20% of sexually active women have used such “emergency contraception”.  That is going to easily top the 5.8 million users in 2006-2010.  Certainly, the 860,000 number should be in the millions if those numbers were included.… according to the State of emergency contraception in the U.S., 2018 report (link below), “Since 1995, ever-use of emergency contraception has increased among women age 15–44 from 0.8% in 1995 to 20.0% from 2011 to 2015”

  I think it is safe to say that aborted babies equal or surpass all other forms of death in the United States combined.

However, across the planet, the numbers are even more clear (even though the “emergency contraceptives still aren’t included)

(https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-united-states)

(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6123910/)

(https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db112.htm)

And in the years 2015-2019, the estimated annual number of abortions worldwide is 73 million per year, according to one research site; the WHO estimates it at 56 million per year from 2010-2014.

(https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-worldwide)

(https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/news/440KeyAbortionFactsFinal.pdf?ua=1)

In other words.  Worldwide and in the United States babies are being aborted at a rate equal to or higher than ALL OTHER FORMS OF DEATH combined.

What does it say about a species that aborts its own children faster than all other forms of death combined?  This boggles the mind, and it is why so few people are truly taking it seriously.  Of course there are other issues, but to compare these numbers of deaths to the Jewish Holocaust, for example (6-10 million deaths)… or the purges of Stalin (30+ million deaths) doesn’t do it justice.  Those numbers combined are overwhelmed in any ¾ of any year.

There is no sound biblical or moral argument to defend the destruction of innocent life like this.  Of course this is not the only issue that matters – I listed 4 others that I consider barbarism above…

BUT the fact that there are other issues doesn’t do anything to reduce this one!  This is a real issue.  There really are babies being killed for no morally acceptable reason by the millions!  The United States has among the most permissive abortion laws anywhere in the world.  Only 6 countries allow elective abortions after 20 weeks.  Canada, China, Netherlands, North Korea, Singapore and Vietnam (as of this report https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/10/09/is-the-united-states-one-of-seven-countries-that-allow-elective-abortions-after-20-weeks-of-pregnancy/)

All of the other nations of the world think that unborn children deserve at least SOME protection…but not us.  

Christians, please live, give, act and vote in such ways that will reverse this trend – people who will appoint judges, fight legal battles, offer help and support to post-abortive women, adopt and foster children, etc… who will stand up in this fight.

There is no moral equivalence. In my opinion, there is no need for moral competition either… There is no such thing as abortion after birth – as clever or dramatic a concept as that might be. Quality of life is not the same question as ending a life – it is still an issue, but to say any kind of “but what about ALL stages of life?” is the EXACT equivalent to responding to the phrase “Black Live Matter” with “All lives matter.” It is repugnant.

56 million lives a year must matter.

*****

Isaiah 44:24

Psalm 139:13-16

Jeremiah 1:5

*****

I am re-writing this section. I am not sure what is happening with WordPress or the Host or website, but a few minutes ago, I noticed that several blocks in this post had been covered and it seems that some were deleted – though that may have somehow been my error… including this section.

I intentionally have careful citations on this article. I am inventing nothing by my opinions of the reported data.

Here is one of my other, and personally extremely important, opinions: for me, there is a political conversation that I enter into merely in the political arena for a few weeks or even moments every few years. Otherwise, as a pastor and counselor, I am consistently seeking to come alongside the women and families who have been traumatized by their own abortions. I have worked with so many women and men – mothers and fathers – who have been a part of the abortion of their own children, and so many of them experience extraordinary levels of confusion, pain, regret, fear, anger and even guilt.

it is such a great and gratifying joy to remind them or introduce them to a God who adores them, wants them, loves them and forgives them… I see them learning to embrace being chosen, loved, cherished and adopted… and eager to rejoin their children someday in the experience of heavenly grace.

I want abortion, and these other signs of barbarism, ended. I will do my best to serve toward that end. I pray that our nation returns or grows past, whatever the issues are that allow us to be less barbaric.

Why Raising Taxes Lowers Government Income (over time) – Part I