LISTENING TO THE DEVIL
The central ethical dilemma for eighteenth-century, transatlantic British society was that of running the slave-trade and of owning slaves. It was only resolved when British Evangelicals came to rightly realize that they had to fight in the political realm for the right of persons of African descent to be recognized as full human beings. And in so doing, they used the democratic processes of their day to take on those powers that supported the slave trade and slavery, which John Wesley rightly depicted as “that execrable sum of all villainies.” [The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley A.M, ed. Nehemiah Curnock (London: The Epworth Press, 1914), 5:445-446].
There are few today who would dispute the rightness of that moral struggle. But central to a number of critical ethical issues of our day is the very same question: what does it mean to be human? The resolution of the ethical dilemmas surrounding, for example, abortion and genetic engineering cannot be found unless this question is answered. It strikes me that just as our eighteenth-century Evangelical forebears’ activism against the slave trade and slavery was rooted in their conviction of the utter sinfulness of the slave trade, so today the clarity regarding the vileness of abortion must issue in action.
Now, the truth about the perverse thinking of those who would defend abortion can be seen in various statements of an abortionist by the name of William F. Harrison of Fayetteville, Arkansas. For the full report of the horrific candour of his views, see Al Mohler’s “The Perverse Logic of Abortion,” today’s entry on his website www.AlbertMohler.com. For instance, something of the perverse stance of this man can be seen in the Reproductive Freedom Task Force newsletter, where Harrison claimed to have heard “a still, small voice asking, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ to which I was at last compelled to reply, ‘Here am I, send me’.” Harrison is parodying of course the call of Isaiah the Prophet in Isaiah 6.
Let me suggest without mincing any words that the still small voice that Harrison has been heeding is not from the Glorious One that called Isaiah and Who is the awesome Maker of all life in the womb, but from his wicked adversary, a murderer from the beginning!
There are few today who would dispute the rightness of that moral struggle. But central to a number of critical ethical issues of our day is the very same question: what does it mean to be human? The resolution of the ethical dilemmas surrounding, for example, abortion and genetic engineering cannot be found unless this question is answered. It strikes me that just as our eighteenth-century Evangelical forebears’ activism against the slave trade and slavery was rooted in their conviction of the utter sinfulness of the slave trade, so today the clarity regarding the vileness of abortion must issue in action.
Now, the truth about the perverse thinking of those who would defend abortion can be seen in various statements of an abortionist by the name of William F. Harrison of Fayetteville, Arkansas. For the full report of the horrific candour of his views, see Al Mohler’s “The Perverse Logic of Abortion,” today’s entry on his website www.AlbertMohler.com. For instance, something of the perverse stance of this man can be seen in the Reproductive Freedom Task Force newsletter, where Harrison claimed to have heard “a still, small voice asking, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?’ to which I was at last compelled to reply, ‘Here am I, send me’.” Harrison is parodying of course the call of Isaiah the Prophet in Isaiah 6.
Let me suggest without mincing any words that the still small voice that Harrison has been heeding is not from the Glorious One that called Isaiah and Who is the awesome Maker of all life in the womb, but from his wicked adversary, a murderer from the beginning!
