I am struggling with how I would answer if asked about whether I want a law against social issues such as abortion. As an LCMS member, I am anti-abortion, but wonder if I have the right to demand by law that others do as I do.
What are you thoughts on the legalization of Christian beliefs on social issues?
I will allow history itself to answer your question:
courtesy of Wikipedia by Pastor
Martin Niemöller
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
"When Pastor Niemöller was put in a concentration camp we wrote the year 1937; when the concentration camp was opened we wrote the year 1933, and the people who were put in the camps then were
Communists. Who cared about them? We knew it, it was printed in the newspapers.
Who raised their voice, maybe the Confessing Church? We thought: Communists, those opponents of religion, those enemies of Christians - "should I be my brother's keeper?"
Then they got rid of the
sick, the so-called incurables. - I remember a conversation I had with a person who claimed to be a Christian. He said: Perhaps it's right, these incurably sick people just cost the state money, they are just a burden to themselves and to others. Isn't it best for all concerned if they are taken out of the middle [of society]? -- Only then did the church as such take note. Then we started talking, until our voices were again silenced in public. Can we say, we aren't guilty/responsible? The persecution of the
Jews, the way we treated the
occupied countries, or the things in Greece, in Poland, in Czechoslovakia or in Holland, that were written in the newspapers
I believe, we Confessing-Church-Christians have every reason to say: mea culpa, mea culpa! We can talk ourselves out of it with the excuse that it would have cost me my head if I had spoken out."
"There were no minutes or copy of what I said, and it may be that I formulated it differently. But the idea was anyhow: The
communists, we still let that happen calmly; and the
trade unions, we also let that happen; and we even let the
Social Democrats happen. All of that was not our affair. The Church did not concern itself with politics at all at that time, and it shouldn't have anything do with them either. In the Confessing Church we didn't want to represent any political resistance
per se, but we wanted to determine for the Church that that was not right, and that it should not become right in the Church, that's why already in '33, when we created the pastors' emergency federation (
Pfarrernotbund), we put as the 4th point in the founding charter: If an offensive is made against ministers and they are simply ousted as ministers, because they are of
Jewish lineage (Judenstämmlinge) or something like that, then we can only say as a Church: No. And that was then the 4th point in the obligation, and that was probably the first contra-anti-antisemitic pronouncement coming from the Protestant Church."
So, your question boils down actually to, "should the law restrain evil or not? What then is evil?"
So for whom do you draw the line in murder? What exactly
is murder? The answer to all of these questions weren't even in doubt previous to the twentieth century. It was after WWI that these questions began to be asked, quietly... privately... carefully, as the public still wouldn't accept abortion, euthanasia, or eugenics. After the twenties, these things began to be spoken of openly, pressed by people like Margaret Sanger and Adolf Hitler. Clearly and simply put abortion is a form of infanticide. The Lord has always looked rather severely upon societies who practiced infanticide. In fact, he has a habit of utterly destroying them.
Let's get this straight; abortion isn't a social issue. It's infanticide and by definition murder. Sanity alone demands that Murder should be prohibited by law. Any form of it. The Lord demands this unequivocally and his punishment is quite severe to societies who choose to disobey him.
