Abortion is a Symptom

Diagnosis: Abortion is a symptom of a moral, cultural cancer killing society.

Underlying Cause: Modern Western society ate the fruit of a poisonous tree, believing that replacing God’s design with our own ideas would yield a secular utopia—greater wisdom and blessing apart from God (Gen 3:1-6). And now, in our flawed wisdom, we see death as a solution (Prov. 14:12)—abortion solves unplanned pregnancy, euthanasia solves the discomfort of aging parents, physician-assisted suicide solves the pain of protracted disease, disability, or depression. But like Adam and Eve, instead of inheriting blessing, we have reaped the whirlwind (Hosea 8:7). Medicine, once a friend of life and health, is a grim reaper.

How does the cancer of man’s wisdom metastasize?

One of the great curses of our age is the insistence that fathers are no different from mothers except for a few body parts.

This sameness of the sexes is reinforced by a toxic hyper-individualism that promotes careerism for women over marriage and family. That philosophical dynamic is commonly called feminism. It weakens civilized order in two ways. First, demographically, through plummeting marriage and fertility rates. Second, morally, by celebrating the displacement of men by women to mediate morality in the leadership of key human institutions–marriage, the church, business, and civil government.

More specifically, society abandoned the foundational biblical truths of, first, the purpose of mankind as created in the image of God, male and female, and second, the bedrock of civilized order, marriage. Instead of glorifying God as those made in His image, we have chosen to glorify ourselves (Rom. 1:21-25). This self-exaltation obscures the inherent dignity and value of every person. Self-exaltation robs society of the essential truth that men and women are distinct by divine design. Their complementary differences are diminished by the false philosophy of “equality” defined as sameness, the idea that men and women differ only superficially.

If we want our children and our children’s children to inherit a stable civil order, then we must return to God and recover what it means to be made in His image, male and female.

Prognosis: Scripture identifies the root of civilizational decline as a condition in which “justice and authority originate with themselves” (Hab. 1:7). If society insists on exchanging God’s design and decree to make itself the final moral authority, as Adam and Eve did, then no amount of careerism, political maneuvering, economic stimulus, or international trade deals will save us from the impending cannibalistic collapse, any more than a rotting tree can withstand a hurricane.

Treatment Goal: If, however, we want our children and our children’s children to inherit a stable civil order, then we must return to God and recover what it means to be made in His image, male and female. What would that look like?

Treatment Protocol: Men must recover a clear sense of godly masculinity. They must take up their moral role by carrying the banner of humanity’s purpose and living out the command to love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love their neighbor as themselves (Mark 12:29-21). Men must embody that biblical ethic as loving husbands (Eph.5:25), faithful churchmen, industrious businessmen, and honest civil servants, strengthened by a brotherhood of like-minded Christian men.

Women, likewise, must recover a clear sense of the unparalleled procreative power of femininity, submitting their lives to God in Christ and embracing the calling to bear and raise the next generation of image-bearers, aspiring first to be godly wives and mothers. Older women must commit themselves to helping younger women do the same (Titus 2:3-5).

Married couples must live out the truth that the family, not the individual, is the basic unit of civilized order by honoring and embracing the God-given roles of husband and wife, displaying the fullness of God’s image more clearly through their complementarity, reinforcing those roles in daily life within the family and the community (Eph. 5:21-33).

The church must buttress the family, resist the seductions of the culture, and submit unapologetically to the teaching of God’s Word regarding the nature and roles of men and women (Rom. 12:2; 2 Tim 3:16-17).

Once society begins to re-embrace what it means to be human under God, male and female, respect for the inherent worth of every person will begin to spread throughout every sector of society like green leaves in Spring forest—and the public square will begin to re-civilize. All because we have stepped out of the cave of lies through the door of the cross of Christ, into the light of the truth of the purpose of mankind (Col. 1:13-14)—to glorify God as made in His image.

In Christ,

Rev. Jim Harden, M.Div.
CompassCare CEO
EMC Frontline President

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