Latest / Finding God at Work / 10: Witness: Abortion

Transcript

10: Witness: Abortion · Finding God at Work

0:06
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, I'm Chris.
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This is Finding God at Work.
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Just a reminder that Finding God at Work
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isn't just a podcast, it's also an online
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course.
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Check it out at findinggodatwork.org.
0:30
Our current series is Take a Stand, Faithful
0:33
Political Witness at Work.
0:36
And in this final part of the series,
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we're looking at specific issues to kind of
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explore.
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Okay, when it gets to brass tacks, when
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it gets to the nuts and bolts of
0:44
a specific political conversation, how do we have
0:47
those conversations at work in a healthy way?
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So we're using specific issues as examples of
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that.
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So we looked at immigration, we're going to
0:54
look at food insecurity.
0:55
In this episode, we're going to look at
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abortion.
1:00
Now, I don't know about you, but whenever
1:01
I hear somebody speaking about abortion, maybe even
1:04
especially in the context of faith, my antenna
1:08
kind of go up, I get a little
1:09
bit anxious.
1:10
I'm like, what are they going to say?
1:12
How are they going to approach this?
1:13
Are they going to take an approach that's
1:15
in line with compassion, in line with integrity,
1:20
in line with the teaching of the Bible,
1:22
in line with the reality of what human
1:24
beings face when they're in really difficult decisions?
1:26
There can just be a lot of questions
1:28
that suddenly rise to the surface.
1:29
So I realize even hearing the word abortion
1:31
in this podcast episode, you might suddenly be
1:34
in that moment too, like, high alert, high
1:35
alert, what's going on?
1:37
And I want to just zoom out for
1:39
a little bit and remember those four ways
1:42
of being faithful we talked about, of being
1:44
prayerful, thoughtful, gentle, and courageous.
1:49
So let's start with being prayerful.
1:51
Let's welcome the Holy Spirit into this conversation.
1:54
It can't hurt for the Lord Jesus to
1:57
be present as we think about these very
2:00
difficult topics.
2:01
Let's welcome the presence of God, take a
2:04
deep breath, and then let's be thoughtful.
2:07
So that's where we're going to spend a
2:07
lot of our time in this episode is
2:08
just kind of talking about how we think
2:10
about abortion as disciples of Jesus.
2:13
And we also want to be gentle in
2:15
the way we have those conversations and we
2:16
want to be courageous.
2:17
We want to say what's right, even if
2:19
there's a social cost to saying what's right.
2:22
Also, just a heads up that this is
2:23
going to be a little bit longer, closer
2:25
to half an hour than 15 minutes.
2:27
And like we usually aim for with our
2:28
episodes, just felt like I needed the extra
2:30
time to talk about things with sufficient nuance,
2:33
which I'm sure you can appreciate given the
2:35
subject matter.
2:36
So thanks for your patience.
2:37
If you need to, if you normally listen
2:38
in a smaller chunk of time, you know,
2:40
think of this one as two episodes, break
2:42
it up if you need to.
2:43
So with those things in mind, we're going
2:45
to get back to abortion in a second.
2:48
I actually want to take a step back
2:49
and look at a different issue that can
2:51
kind of provide an analogy that's helpful for
2:53
us.
2:54
So the issue that I want to look
2:55
at is economic development on the west and
3:00
south side of Chicago.
3:01
That might sound like a strange place to
3:03
start a conversation, but let me give context
3:05
here.
3:06
There's a wonderful ministry that Katie and I
3:08
have been connected to for many years called
3:10
Together Chicago, and they do several different things.
3:12
They have several different branches, but the branch
3:14
of their ministry that we're most connected to
3:16
is their economic development ministry.
3:18
And what that ministry does is really remarkable.
3:21
They predominantly work on the west and south
3:23
side of Chicago, and they collaborate with local
3:26
churches.
3:26
And in the neighborhoods there, and these are
3:28
predominantly black neighborhoods.
3:29
And so the churches are also predominantly black
3:31
churches, and they're working with church leaders to
3:34
look at how can we create economic opportunities,
3:37
particularly for young men in these communities.
3:39
Now, for others too, but there are many
3:41
young men who in middle school and high
3:43
school, they're already being recruited into the, quote
3:47
unquote, alternate economy of gang activity, gang violence,
3:51
and all of the destructive and unjust experiences
3:55
and consequences that come with aligning yourself with
3:58
one of those gangs, one of those groups.
4:01
And so it's really key to think, how
4:02
can we present different opportunity for these young
4:05
men?
4:05
And so the way they do it, Together
4:07
Chicago's leaders include several people who have deep
4:10
business experience.
4:11
So for example, their co CEO, Mark, before
4:13
he was in the nonprofit setting, he used
4:15
to turn failed manufacturing businesses around.
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So there's a lot of manufacturing industry experience.
4:21
So what they do is they go into
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these communities and they stand up a manufacturing
4:25
business.
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So there's like manufacturing healthcare supplies or manufacturing
4:28
ingredients for the food industry, things like that.
4:31
So they're standing up a profitable business.
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They're finding the supply chain connections that they
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need in order to sell meaningful products that
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there's actually a demand for in the market.
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But the manufacturing is taking place in these
4:43
communities.
4:44
And so whereas before there weren't very many
4:46
jobs in these communities, historically decades ago, there
4:49
were, there were other industries like steel, they
4:51
were creating lots of jobs, but those went
4:52
away.
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Now they're creating new opportunity and they're partnering
4:55
with a local church to do a discipleship
4:57
program.
4:58
So now a young man sees, Oh, I
4:59
can get a job, a real job at
5:02
the manufacturing plant.
5:03
And I can go through this program in
5:05
this church with a leader who looks like
5:07
me, who knows my cultural setting and my
5:08
context and what I've been through in this
5:10
neighborhood.
5:11
And I can learn about what it means
5:12
to follow Jesus if I want to.
5:14
And what they found just standing up these
5:17
jobs, doing this discipleship program in local churches
5:18
is incredible change in these communities.
5:22
There's less gun violence.
5:24
There's less gang activity.
5:26
Guys who used to be in this alternate
5:28
economy are joining the legitimate economy and it's
5:32
changing their lives.
5:32
It's changing their families.
5:33
It's changing the social fabric of the community
5:36
and they're doing it in partnership with the
5:38
church.
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This is gospel ministry.
5:40
They're very explicit in those discipleship programs about
5:42
the gospel of Jesus Christ.
5:44
They're not packaging it in any fancy way.
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They're just saying, this is what it means.
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If you want to put your faith in
5:48
Jesus, if you want to follow Jesus, this
5:49
is what it means to live life in
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the kingdom of God.
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So this is incredible gospel ministry.
5:56
Katie and I are very passionate about our
5:57
connection with it.
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Really, really thankful that the co-CEO Mark,
6:01
who I mentioned, is actually on the advisory
6:02
committee for Mission Central.
6:04
So we also benefit from his business wisdom
6:06
and the way we do things here at
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Mission Central.
6:10
So what does this have to do with
6:11
the very fraught conversation about abortion?
6:15
Well, I want to point out that these
6:17
challenges that these communities were facing on the
6:20
west side and south side of Chicago, challenges
6:22
of lack of economic opportunity, challenges of gang
6:26
activity, challenges of gun violence, almost none of
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these issues primarily had to do with a
6:35
bad law or something being legal that should
6:37
be illegal or vice versa.
6:40
The law has never been on the side
6:41
of the gangs, but even though the law
6:44
has been such as it is, that's not
6:48
enough.
6:48
There were still all these problems in the
6:50
community, despite the law being good.
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So the law is not enough.
6:54
Even having good laws, just laws, is not
6:56
enough.
6:57
What's needed in addition to good laws, just
7:01
laws, is also some way to address the
7:04
root causes of injustice, the root causes of
7:09
violence, the root causes of the darkness that
7:13
comes over these communities where people feel trapped
7:15
into making decisions that they know are ultimately
7:18
destructive, some way to address the root causes,
7:22
and then not just addressing the root causes,
7:24
but also presenting a more compelling alternative.
7:29
So you see how together Chicago, in partnership
7:31
with these local black churches, did those two
7:33
things.
7:34
They looked at the root causes of injustice,
7:37
both the social dynamic of, oh, hey, there's
7:40
a lack of economic opportunity here.
7:42
But also the gospel dynamic.
7:44
People need to know about sin and repentance.
7:46
That's part of what leads to these decisions
7:48
too.
7:49
But then also the spiritual dynamic.
7:51
Sometimes there are spiritual forces that come into
7:54
these communities.
7:54
We would even, as Christians say, demonic forces
7:56
that come into these communities.
7:58
And that's true in every community, suburban, urban,
8:01
rural, white, black, in between.
8:03
Satan doesn't discriminate in terms of his desire
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to influence people's lives.
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So looking at things in that dynamic of
8:08
what are the principalities and powers that have
8:11
come over this community.
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One of the other wings of the Together
8:14
Chicago ministry is prayer.
8:16
And that prayer wing is presented as equally
8:18
important as their economic development wing.
8:21
Because we believe we're not fighting against flesh
8:22
and blood.
8:22
We're pushing back against the forces of evil
8:24
in our community.
8:25
So addressing all of these root causes together,
8:28
the social, the personal, personal accountability, the spiritual,
8:32
the reality of spiritual darkness, addressing those root
8:34
causes with the gospel of Jesus Christ, and
8:36
then presenting a more compelling alternative saying, hey,
8:39
here's a job.
8:40
Here's a manufacturing job.
8:42
Here's a discipleship program.
8:43
Here's a way of life that you can
8:45
step into.
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And so they're drawing people into this new
8:49
way of life led by leaders in those
8:51
communities, not from the outside, led from within
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the community itself.
8:55
And they're doing that not by the power
8:56
of legal condemnation, not by the power of
8:59
saying, you know, we judge you because of
9:01
what you've done, although there is personal accountability,
9:04
but by the power of invitation into a
9:07
new way of life.
9:09
So instead of legal condemnation, it's gospel invitation.
9:14
This is so beautiful.
9:16
Okay, now let's step back to the question
9:20
of abortion.
9:22
Often, even in Christian circles, when the topic
9:25
of abortion comes up, it becomes siloed.
9:28
It becomes limited to the important question of
9:31
should abortion be legal or not?
9:35
Should certain kinds of abortion be legal or
9:37
not?
9:39
And that's where a lot of the cultural
9:40
debate takes place as well, where we have
9:42
the so-called pro-choice movement and the
9:45
so-called pro-life movement, and they're always
9:47
antagonizing each other.
9:48
And what they're predominantly fighting about is the
9:51
law and disagreeing about what is just, what
9:53
should the law say?
9:55
That is a really important debate.
9:57
It's really important to get the law landed
9:58
in a way that's just.
10:00
I'm gonna come back to that in a
10:01
couple minutes.
10:02
But what I want to say is that
10:03
the law is not enough.
10:05
As important as it is to land just
10:07
law, it is also important to address the
10:11
root causes that lead people into injustice, into
10:16
violent decisions in the first place, and to
10:18
present a more compelling alternative.
10:22
And that work, that work of addressing the
10:24
root causes and presenting a more compelling alternative,
10:27
that's where the church is called to step
10:29
in, right?
10:30
Now, there's a place for discussion about public
10:32
policy and can the government be involved and
10:35
what social programs can help?
10:38
Absolutely.
10:38
And Christians of good faith can disagree about
10:40
that.
10:40
But what we can't disagree about is that
10:42
the church is called to be in that
10:43
place.
10:44
The church is called to be in that
10:46
place of addressing the root causes and of
10:48
inviting people, gospel invitation, into a more compelling
10:52
way of life, into a different opportunity.
10:57
Okay, so what does that look like?
10:59
Well, first, let's start with the law because
11:00
we are talking about faith and politics, and
11:03
the law is significant.
11:04
If the law says, hey, this is permitted,
11:07
it tends to happen more.
11:09
And if the law says, this is not
11:10
allowed, it does tend to happen less, right?
11:12
Now, it's not a one for one, obviously,
11:14
like we've been talking about, but the law
11:15
really does matter.
11:18
And as Christians, as disciples of Jesus, when
11:21
we think about abortion, we should be thinking
11:23
about everybody who's involved in that.
11:25
Every time there's an abortion, there's not just
11:28
one life involved.
11:30
There's a child's life involved, there's a mother's
11:33
life involved, there's a father's life involved, and
11:36
there's a community's life involved.
11:38
And we should care about that whole social
11:40
fabric that surrounds that moment.
11:43
Often on the so-called pro-choice side,
11:46
things are framed in terms of women's rights
11:49
and women's bodies.
11:52
And of course, this conversation is impossible to
11:54
have without reference to women's bodies.
11:56
And I'm very aware that I'm speaking as
11:58
a man, I've never had a woman's body.
12:01
I do not know what it's like to
12:02
face the possibility of, wow, suddenly I have
12:05
a pregnancy and now I have to make
12:08
certain really difficult choices because of what's happening
12:11
in my body.
12:11
I have never faced that.
12:13
I will never have to face that as
12:14
a man.
12:16
But I'm speaking here, drawing on a Christian
12:19
tradition that both women and men have spoken
12:20
into about how do we face that moment.
12:24
So on the one hand, sometimes there can
12:27
be a rhetoric that's like, oh, on the
12:29
political right, people are just trying to quote
12:31
unquote control women's bodies.
12:33
They don't have respect for women's bodily autonomy,
12:36
or they don't have respect for women's choices
12:38
to determine their own lives.
12:41
And one thing I want to say, and
12:42
this may be something that some of my
12:44
listeners haven't thought about very much, is that
12:46
those are actually really valid concerns.
12:49
The idea that a government would deny women
12:52
their rights while asserting control over their bodies,
12:56
including their reproductive health, that happens around the
12:59
world.
12:59
So for example, there's cases, it's horrendous to
13:02
think about, but there have been cases in
13:03
several nations in the world of forced sterilization,
13:06
whereas a kind of population control, the idea
13:14
that the government anywhere in the world might
13:18
get to a place where it's like, we
13:19
don't really care about women's rights or their
13:20
autonomy or their choices.
13:22
We're just going to assert control over their
13:23
bodies in order to make our agenda work
13:25
in terms of what we think should be
13:26
happening in terms of reproductive health.
13:30
That's a legitimate concern.
13:32
That's not just some boogeyman that the left
13:34
is imagining.
13:36
That's a really valid concern.
13:38
Women need to have a voice in this
13:41
conversation.
13:41
When a woman is pregnant, she needs to
13:44
be honored.
13:45
She needs to be the one who's thinking
13:48
about what does this mean for me, for
13:50
my body, for my family, for my life.
13:55
It's really important to not brush that over
13:57
and say, oh, no, no, no, that doesn't
13:59
matter.
14:00
Often, again, if we limit it to the
14:02
law, if we're just like, ah, we just
14:03
got to get the law right, we can
14:05
brush off other concerns.
14:06
And that's not, that doesn't reflect a gospel
14:09
way of thinking.
14:10
A gospel way of thinking is like, no,
14:11
no, we're going to take into account every
14:12
human being in this situation who's created in
14:15
the image of God.
14:17
Okay.
14:17
Now, on the flip side, and some of
14:20
my listeners, this might be hard to hear
14:22
or might be something you haven't thought about
14:23
before.
14:24
It is a really important question whether a
14:27
child in the womb is a child.
14:29
This is a really important question whether a
14:31
life in the womb is a life worth
14:34
defending.
14:36
And again, I understand sometimes that language has
14:39
been used on the political right in a
14:41
way that's maybe just trying to use the
14:43
moral force of that to establish some other
14:44
kind of agenda.
14:46
But the question still remains like that.
14:48
That's actually really significant.
14:49
And it gets to some of our most
14:51
basic moral intuitions.
14:53
Almost everyone agrees that infanticide is wrong, right?
14:57
We know that's a vulnerable child.
14:58
We can see the child.
14:59
Of course we should protect that child's life.
15:02
Well, it's not that big of a leap
15:03
to extend that to life within the womb
15:05
and say, wow, this life also deserves to
15:09
be protected.
15:11
Now we get into a point of mystery
15:13
here where it's like, well, hey, that life
15:15
develops over this gestation period of several months.
15:18
And it looks very different at certain points.
15:20
Sometimes it's at the very beginning, you know,
15:22
single cell, embryonic, and then develops.
15:24
And then it looks more and more like
15:25
what we think of as a baby as
15:26
time goes on.
15:27
So how should we think about that?
15:30
And sometimes Christians in an attempt to be
15:33
as faithful as possible in defending life, they
15:35
try and remove the mystery.
15:36
They try and say like, no, no, no,
15:37
here's all the technical scientific reasons why.
15:40
But when you read the Bible, we don't
15:42
get technical arguments, right?
15:44
We don't get a technical argument that says
15:45
here's exactly when human life begins and here's
15:47
how it works.
15:48
When we read the Bible, what we see
15:50
is the action of God in the womb.
15:53
And that changes our perspective.
15:56
So for example, we have John the Baptist
15:58
leaping for joy when he's still in his
16:00
mother's womb.
16:01
And when Jesus is still in his mother's
16:02
womb, when Mary comes to greet Elizabeth, the
16:05
Holy Spirit's clearly moving in the life of
16:07
a human being in that moment, when that
16:09
human being is still in the womb.
16:12
You have these poetic passages like David in
16:14
the Psalm saying, I was knit together in
16:16
my mother's womb, right?
16:18
Whatever God is knitting there, I think it's
16:20
worth protecting and preserving.
16:23
When we think about the action of God
16:25
in these ways, what it gives us is
16:28
not a kind of technical precision, but a
16:30
holy reverence.
16:32
We should be reverent around the mystery of
16:34
what happens in the womb.
16:36
We should be careful, even if something's true,
16:41
right?
16:41
Like maybe this life is in a different
16:43
technical category than another technical category.
16:47
Should we not reverence what's happening?
16:49
Should we not seek to protect it?
16:51
Should we not seek to honor what God
16:54
is doing in that moment?
16:56
And it's important to acknowledge that the Bible,
16:58
as such, does not speak to abortion specifically
17:02
in terms of saying abortion is wrong, spelling
17:05
it out in those exact words.
17:07
But I think that all of the other
17:08
teachings of the Bible about honoring human life,
17:10
when you put them together, it very clearly
17:12
comes to an ethic of, we will reverence
17:16
the life of the womb, we will protect
17:17
it.
17:18
And this emerged in an extremely early Christian
17:20
tradition as well.
17:21
So the Didache, which is one of the
17:23
earliest Christian texts outside of the New Testament,
17:25
actually was kind of one of the candidates
17:26
for being included in the New Testament, didn't
17:28
make the cut, but still wonderful early Christian
17:30
text, probably written at the beginning of the
17:32
second century or maybe even earlier.
17:34
It dispelled out this ethical commitment very clearly.
17:38
And this has essentially been the universal conviction
17:40
of the church throughout the past two millennia.
17:43
But it's articulated right here.
17:45
You shall not murder a child by abortion,
17:48
nor kill a child at birth.
17:52
Again, strong language, but very clear conviction about
17:56
protection of life.
17:58
Okay, so this leaves us in a difficult
18:00
place if we want to be people of
18:02
both compassion and conviction.
18:04
If we want to recognize, like, yes, women
18:07
have a voice, we don't want to have
18:08
just some sort of strange authoritarian government regime
18:10
forcing things on women.
18:12
We don't want to have just a black
18:13
and white legal solution that doesn't look at
18:15
holistic community, social realities.
18:18
And yet also, we want to take the
18:20
life of the unborn or sometimes called the
18:22
preborn seriously.
18:25
We want to believe these lives are also
18:26
worth protecting.
18:28
If you actually believe that both of these
18:30
things matter, unfortunately, you're a little bit of
18:34
a political outsider right now.
18:35
Right now in the United States, the political
18:38
right has kind of abandoned a, quote unquote,
18:40
pro-life position.
18:41
It wasn't even part of the Republican Party
18:43
platform in the most recent national election.
18:46
And yet also on the left where there's
18:48
often concern about social fabric and social dynamics
18:51
and social influences on things, there's also almost
18:54
uniformly a desire to keep it legal to
18:59
destroy life in the womb.
19:02
And so if you think that's unjust, as
19:04
I do, the political left isn't really a
19:06
good home for you either.
19:08
Okay, so what do we do about that?
19:10
What do you do about that practically speaking?
19:13
I want to talk about three practical things
19:15
we can do.
19:15
One is how we can vote, one is
19:17
how we can talk, and one is how
19:19
we can love.
19:21
Okay, so first, how can we vote?
19:23
Now, I know that this conversation is mostly
19:24
about how do we have these conversations in
19:26
the workplace.
19:27
But since we're talking about the issues, I'm
19:28
like, let's talk about voting.
19:29
Let's address that.
19:30
It's a, it's a reference point for the
19:32
conversations we're having in the workplace.
19:34
So if you're a citizen, if you have
19:36
the right and the privilege of voting, one
19:39
is I would encourage you to vote, to
19:40
exercise your franchise, right, to be involved in
19:43
the way that you can influence things.
19:45
We talked about that in an earlier episode.
19:48
But I would also encourage you to vote
19:50
thinking about how will this vote affect the
19:53
whole social fabric of my community.
19:56
Because neither the right nor the left really
19:59
has a robust, healthy approach to this issue
20:03
and to all of the related issues.
20:04
As far as I see it, I haven't
20:05
seen that be the standard party platform on
20:07
either side.
20:08
So instead of saying, oh, I'm going to
20:09
go with this party or I'm going to
20:10
go with that party, I think how will
20:12
my vote influence the social fabric of this
20:14
community?
20:15
And this can lead to counterintuitive decisions in
20:17
voting.
20:18
So for example, I live in the 14th
20:21
congressional district in our most recent federal election.
20:23
And I'm going to talk about specifics here
20:25
of how I voted, which I realize often
20:27
is weird, like often I would discourage pastors
20:29
from saying who they voted for because you
20:31
don't want to be seen as endorsing one
20:33
party or the other, et cetera.
20:34
But hey, I'm technically not a pastor and
20:36
it's just illustrating the idea.
20:38
So have mercy on me if you think
20:39
it's inappropriate for me to share who I
20:41
voted for.
20:42
So I live in the 14th congressional district,
20:44
currently represented by Democrat Lauren Underwood.
20:47
I deeply disagree with Lauren Underwood's attitude about
20:50
abortion.
20:51
She seeks to continue to enfranchise protections on
20:54
the destruction of human life in the womb.
20:57
I think that's terribly unjust.
21:00
Okay.
21:00
At the same time, in the most recent
21:02
election, her opposing candidate, Republican James Martin, even
21:07
though he on his website said he was
21:08
pro-life, the very top of his website
21:11
was cuts in federal spending.
21:13
That was his headline.
21:14
That was going to be his agenda, his
21:16
priority.
21:17
Now I think about the social fabric of
21:19
the community where I live, what my neighbors
21:22
are dealing with, what they're facing.
21:24
I work at a food bank.
21:25
We're going to talk more about food insecurity
21:26
in our next episode.
21:27
I know that when SNAP benefits are reduced,
21:32
right, that's a federal funding piece, right, that
21:34
people have a harder time feeding their kids,
21:37
feeding their families.
21:38
I know that that's true.
21:39
We'll talk more about that in the next
21:40
episode.
21:42
And so what will increase the number of
21:45
abortions in our community?
21:46
That's a question I'm asking.
21:48
Cutting federal funding for SNAP benefits might increase
21:52
the number of abortions in our community.
21:54
So even though James Martin was quote unquote
21:57
pro-life, looking at how his voting would
22:00
likely influence our community, I'm like, oh, I
22:03
feel like abortions might actually increase in our
22:05
community.
22:06
Because in terms of like the law, again,
22:09
very unlikely that James Martin or anyone else
22:11
would actually seek to pass legislation that would
22:14
outlaw abortion federally, that that doesn't seem to
22:16
be part of the party platform right now.
22:18
So instead, it's how all these related issues
22:20
touch on it, including food insecurity.
22:23
Lauren Underwood, on the other hand, I know
22:25
would protect SNAP funding as best she's able
22:27
to.
22:28
So ironically, even though I deeply disagree with
22:31
Lauren Underwood's ethic around life in the womb,
22:33
I voted for Lauren Underwood because I believe
22:36
there will be fewer abortions in the 14th
22:38
congressional district while she's enacting the policies that
22:41
she believes in regarding food insecurity and some
22:43
other related issues.
22:44
Okay, so that's that's just one example might
22:47
seem really counterintuitive.
22:48
But again, I was thinking through what's actually
22:50
going to affect the number of abortions that
22:52
are happening in our communities and why.
22:56
Now, that doesn't mean that I'm okay with
22:57
the law as it stands in the state
23:00
of Illinois.
23:00
It doesn't mean I'm okay with Lauren Underwood's
23:02
attitude about that.
23:03
But again, there's other things that James Martin
23:05
would have supported that I'm probably not okay
23:06
with either.
23:08
Okay, so that's just one example.
23:10
However you vote, I'm not saying vote left,
23:12
vote right, vote this party, that party, I'm
23:13
saying, think about how your vote influences the
23:16
whole social fabric of your community.
23:20
Okay, second, how do we talk when these
23:22
issues come up in the workplace?
23:25
Often people avoid the issue of abortion because
23:26
they know it's controversial.
23:28
And so it may not come up.
23:29
And I'm not saying that you should always
23:30
be bringing it up in the workplace.
23:32
I don't.
23:33
I often frankly want to avoid talking about
23:35
it because I know that people have very
23:37
strong feelings about it and can be on
23:38
very polar opposites, right?
23:40
I'm even anxious.
23:40
I'm like, wow, some of my co workers
23:41
who disagree with me are probably going to
23:43
listen to this podcast episode and maybe they'll
23:44
like me less, right?
23:45
There are social costs to speaking up about
23:47
this.
23:48
I want you to imagine, what would you
23:50
do if a colleague used like a racial
23:52
slur?
23:53
Would you step up and say like, hey,
23:55
that's not cool?
23:56
I bet a lot of us would.
23:57
We would not feel comfortable just like letting
23:59
that slide.
23:59
Why?
24:00
Because we know that there's kind of injustice
24:02
that's associated with that kind of language.
24:05
And that one way of pushing back against
24:06
that injustice is speaking up when that sort
24:08
of language is used.
24:10
Okay, so if somebody were to bring up
24:12
a conversation about abortion and were to say
24:15
something like, oh, you know, I can't believe
24:18
that people are violating a woman's right to
24:20
choose.
24:21
So say they use that phrasing, right?
24:23
Again, you want to say like, yeah, women
24:25
matter, their voice matters.
24:27
And yet at the same time, isn't there
24:29
implicitly in that kind of expression, a violation
24:32
of the rights of children in the womb?
24:37
Isn't that also worth pushing back against because
24:39
that's an injustice that is reinforced by that
24:43
kind of language?
24:44
I get it.
24:45
It's scary.
24:45
It's like how what would I even say
24:46
that would not sound like just being a
24:48
fuddy duddy, you know, arch conservative party pooper,
24:52
but you can figure this out.
24:54
So in the moment, it might be saying
24:55
like something like, hey, I appreciate that.
24:57
For me, I think life in the womb
25:00
really matters.
25:02
That could be a really vulnerable thing to
25:03
say.
25:04
If you say gently and courageously, you're pushing
25:07
back against that dehumanizing attitude that might be
25:10
present in the conversation.
25:12
So again, when a moment comes, remember our
25:16
four words.
25:17
We want to be prayerful, thoughtful, gentle, and
25:19
courageous and say something that fits all of
25:21
those descriptions as the Holy Spirit gives us
25:23
grace because that's how to talk.
25:25
Push back against language that reinforces dehumanization of
25:29
life in the womb.
25:31
And then finally, how to love.
25:33
Well, hopefully all of these things are motivated
25:35
by love, that we're voting motivated by love,
25:37
we're talking and listening, motivated by love.
25:39
But I want to circle back to that
25:40
idea of the whole thing.
25:42
It's not just about the law.
25:44
It's not just about what the government can
25:45
do.
25:46
There are certain things that require the power
25:48
of the gospel and the power of the
25:50
gospel community in the church to push back
25:52
the forces of evil in our communities.
25:54
And so when you think about how to
25:55
love, don't primarily think about how you vote.
25:58
Don't primarily think about the politics of abortion,
26:01
as important as those are.
26:02
Think about what can I do in my
26:04
community to love vulnerable families, to love people
26:09
for whom abortion might look like an attractive
26:11
option?
26:12
And that could take a variety of forms.
26:14
Maybe that is supporting things like your local
26:17
food bank, local food pantry that help make
26:19
it easier for people to provide for their
26:20
families.
26:21
Maybe it looks like volunteering at a crisis
26:22
pregnancy center, someplace that provides counseling and helps
26:25
people see these different options that exist when
26:28
they face a crisis pregnancy.
26:30
Maybe it looks like getting to know your
26:32
neighbor next door, inviting them over for dinner,
26:35
being present in their lives so that if
26:37
they're in a tough spot, they have somebody
26:39
who's in their corner.
26:40
That's the way we should be thinking.
26:42
How can we, in every opportunity, love our
26:45
neighbor as ourself in our communities?
26:47
That's the best gospel response to abortion, and
26:49
that's what will help us be faithful witnesses
26:51
at work and everywhere else in our communities.
26:57
Lord Jesus, thank you for your love.
27:00
Thank you for your faithfulness.
27:01
We do ask that you would make us
27:03
gentle and courageous, prayerful and thoughtful.
27:07
Show us how to have compassion and conviction.
27:11
Show us how to take a stand.
27:14
Do your work in us as we do
27:15
our work with you.
27:17
Amen.
27:21
Thanks for listening.
27:23
Finding God at Work is a production of
27:25
Mission Central, a ministry based in Aurora, Illinois,
27:28
dedicated to forming Christians for mission in everyday
27:30
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27:31
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27:33
listen to this episode to get 10 minutes
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27:45
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