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September/October, 1997 Volume XII Number 8
LETTERS
Convicted of sin
We have been active in the prolife area since 1980. About 1985-1986 the Lord confronted us about our attitude toward children and our use of a "barrier" contraceptive. We turned the number of children we should have totally over to the Lord then. We were not using the "pill" but a "barrier method," so it was contraception. Thus, the Lord convicted us of our "attitude of control" in this area and "His Sovereignty." You are "right on target" about this sin! Press on to the work of our high calling.
John and Denise Holland
Renton, WA
Human Genome Project
I read your article on cloning. I think, just as with the Human Genome Project, pro-lifers are a bit behind. We should be objecting to any type of cloning in my opinion, especially animal cloning which merely serves to give scientists the technical knowledge to start cloning humans. The cost/benefit of cloning animals does not weigh out. How do we really benefit from cloning animals? Bigger steaks and leaner pork chops? Do we really have to have this? I have not heard much on this end.
Your article made me think of another point. Focus on the Family has often promoted Dr. Francis Collins as a heroic Christian. (He leads the Human Genome project and was at least a co-[discoverer] of the gene for cystic fibrosis.) Has anyone asked the question: Are we better off or worse since finding the gene for cystic fibrosis? I think that at the moment we are worse off. I think geneticists would agree that the majority of women who find out that they are carrying a baby with the cystic fibrosis gene choose to abort the baby. So the question is: Is the discovery of genes in an environment in which they are almost certainly going to be used to kill unborn children really a "heroic Christian" effort? Should we first introduce legislation that says that any baby which is found to have -- gene, once the gene is discovered, is protected by federal law and that is may not be selectively aborted? Is the current Human Genome Project, given our current climate, a tool in the hands of "search and destroy" geneticists, which currently includes the dominant medical view?
Chris Kahlenborn, M.D.
Pittsburgh, PA
Leaders failing
The rescue movement collapsed because most of the pro-life leaders and most of the followers stayed in their abortifacient churches and parishes or denominations. Do we think abortifacient churches and parishes or denominations are any different than Old Testament synagogues that sacrificed to both Jehovah and Baal. For instance, one nationally prominent pro-life leader I know attends a pro-death parish so he can get up five minutes later. Will the pro-life leaders tell their followers to either leave those abortifacient churches and parishes or leave the pro-life movement?
Chet Kilgore
Dousman, WI
Need professional staff
What really hit me this month was the article by Dr. Roberge on "The future of abortion." What really gets me is that he is right on. As a retired nurse and mother with four kids in college, how can we expect to understand and battle for life if we do not know issues of biology, medicine, or technology.
When I called one major pro-life group recently, they had no professional on staff who could understand and discuss intelligently issues of reproduction, medicine, and pharmacology (like the abortifacient effects of birth control pills!). Hey, you know who's not getting my donation dollars any more.
Karen Oakes
Stockbridge, MA
Roberge prophetic
As a pro-life activist and devout Catholic, I was very interested (and shocked) in the article by Lawrence Roberge ("The Future of Abortion") in the February 1997 issue.
What really stunned me is that his words were almost prophetic. He really helped to explain why we are falling apart at the seams within the pro-life movement. Also, Mr. Roberge clarifies the Satanic contraceptive movement and how we are all being deceived by it. I agree we are overdue to discuss contraception as a true act of abortion. Also, I think it is time we expose pro-contraceptive pro-life groups. Catholics and all other Christians must clearly see the reality of "murder" in a pill form.
Anne Marie Della-Croce
Worchester, MA
Abortifacient "pill"
I am 16. I went to health department to go on birth control pills, and they only told me that the pills made my body think it was pregnant so I wouldn't release any eggs. Then I read your pamphlet "Understanding 'Birth Control'" and was very upset when I read that abortions can occur 2%-10% of the time on the pills, and 40%-60% of the time with pills containing no estrogen. I asked the people to explain exactly how the pill worked [and] they said the same thing as before. Then I told my regular doctor what I read. He said the same thing as the people at the health department and told me you were wrong. He is Christian and pro-life. How do I know who's right? How did anyone come up with the statistics on how often pills cause abortions?
My pills were Triphasil-28 Tablets. Are these the kind that don't contain estrogen?
Name withheld
Gulliver, MI
Editor's note: Appropriate educational information was sent thanks to the support of those who donate to Advocates for Life Ministries.
Truth divides
I just received the July Life Advocate today, and found in the "letters" section, that, once again, the truth divides (referring to a letter from Diana Fabresk). No, don't get rid of Michael Bray; he's a modern day prophet, as I believe you all are at Advocates. You may offend some of the "kinder and gentler" folk of the pro-life movement, but you're doing what very few precious others are doing, contending for God's law against the wicked (Proverbs 28:4). Yes, the truth must be sprinkled with love, but sometimes, that love must be "tough" and the truth can't always be "pleasant." If extraordinary evils call for extraordinary measures to be taken against them, then likewise, extraordinary evils (or lies, falsehoods) call for extraordinary truths to be given in return. Keep up the good work.
Kerry Donaghue
Oregon City, OR
Hungary
A friend from Hungary wrote to tell me of a project a group has started there. As I understand it, they placed an incubator in front of a hospital and they check it regularly. Already at least one infant has been abandoned there.
Midge Elam
Flatonia, TX
Growing quiver
The enclosed picture is long overdue! I now have 16 blessed grandchildren from my four sons and their wonderful wives. Three of them, David, Tom and Joe met their wives because of their involvement with Operation Rescue!!
Sara Washburn
Charlotte, NC
Tired of the question
We have just had our fourth child, Jasmine, on Father's Day. We brought her to a photography studio to get her picture taken recently. After saying "hello" the photographer's next words were ones I've heard so often, "So how many more do you plan on having?" I became so angry that I didn't even answer her question. She looked so bewildered. That question is the perfect opportunity to witness to people about the Bible's view of children but I find myself getting so angry at people's attitudes I end up not witnessing.
I have however witnessed to friends and relatives about this subject. I have given out your articles about birth control and family planning on several occasions. I'm finding that these people wind up having babies soon after.
Would you please send me a collection of all your past birth control/family planning articles?
Kasia Coe
Fulton, NY
Not all media bad
In response to Arthur Brew's exhortation to boycott the print media (July, 1997 Life Advocate), I am canceling my subscription to your magazine.
Just kidding! We don't have a real subscription, because we don't have the money, but you kindly keep sending the magazine anyway.
Seriously, however, the media include those of us who write and publish for the Lord. Some of the print media stink. Some are pretty good. Some, including a few secular publications, are good and even courageous. The media aren't the enemy. We're media too!
Stephen Dunham
Fredericksburg, VA
On Romans 13
In our passion and zeal to lift up the rights of the pre-born we pro-life activists must be extremely cautious not to throw reason out the window using arguments founded on faulty logic and ill-conceived emotionalistic reasonings. The preponderance of evidence supports the pro-life view, and those of us in the battlefield needn't stoop to any second-rate lines of reasoning to underpin our position. We have truth and the God of the universe is on our side whether our antagonists realize it or not!
Having stated my position I would like to draw attention, in this respect, to the July/August 1997 L.A. article entitled Do I submit to tyranny? The Bible says "No!" by John Winter. Mr. Winter's position in this piece is that, though the Apostle Paul in Romans 13 urges us to submit to civil government and that it is ordained of God this passage of Scripture in no way implies that Christians are under obligation to submit to tyrannical forms of government such as Stalinistic type regimes where history documents the fact the millions were systematically starved to death for political purposes. To underscore and supposedly validate his point Mr. Winter substitutes the name "Stalin" for the words "governing authorities," "authority," "rulers," and the like throughout the Romans 13 passage in an effort to show that Paul could not have meant for us to yield to tyranny.
Make no bones about it, I am not pro-government! I think the government as it exists today needs to be sunk, like the Titanic, in the deepest ocean and replaced. But Mr. Winter's line of reasoning does not hold water and does not do credit to our pro-life position. Let me explain. One of the most fundamental rules of biblical interpretation mandates that before we carte blanche apply a Scriptural passage to our day and age we must first ascertain the author's original intent. This means understanding who the author was, what was in his mind when he wrote it, who the audience was, and the societal and religious context in which it was written. The exegetical maxim that "a text without a context is a pretext" applies here. Mr. Winter would do well to remember this sage axiom.
Mr. Winter, let us look at the facts. Paul wrote Romans about 56 A.D. Nero was the Emperor of Rome. According to John Foxe's Foxe's Christian Martyrs of the World, Will Durant's The Story of Civilization - Part 3: Caesar and Christ, and The Encyclopedia Britannica (11th edition), Nero persecuted so many Christians that the Church believed for a time that he might actually be the Antichrist. He was viewed as a literal "monster of wickedness." According to Foxe, Nero initiated "The first persecution" of the Church. He says , "His rage against the Christians was so fierce that Eusebius records, 'a man might then see cities full of men's bodies, the old lying together with the young and the dead bodies of women cast out naked, without reverence of that sex, in the open streets.'" Peter was crucified during this time and let us not forget that same emperor later beheaded Paul in Rome. Durant says that Nero put Christians to death "with exquisite cruelty." He says, "Some were covered with skins of wild beasts, and left to be devoured by dogs, others were nailed to crosses; numbers of them burned alive; many, covered with inflammable matter, were set on fire to serve as torches during the night . . . " I doubt Joseph Stalin was any worse than Nero. In fact, it got so bad that the Roman Senate declared Nero a "public enemy" and sent soldiers to track him down and kill him.
This was the governing authority to which Paul made reference in Romans 13 and later trusted his very life to appeal. Yes, I do believe there is a time and place for Christians to take a stand against tyrannical governments for godly reasons and that the Bible justifies so doing on numerous occasions. But on just as many occasions the people of God submitted to those governments as long as the purposes of God were not hindered. At what point one stands against the government is a matter of personal conscience, and that choice should not be made out of emotionalism or the isogetic interpretation of Scriptures (i.e. reading one's own meaning into Scripture based on one's own preconceived ideas), but upon reason and truth birthed out of a solid understanding of the Bible, and out of a prayer and Bible-based intimate relationship with God Almighty, so that one knows the heart of God and knows when and how to act accordingly.
Nathan Lawrence
Wilsonville, OR
Copyright © 1997 Advocates for Life Ministries
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