Once, again. We cannot point our fingers at anyone. We are allowing folks like *Brent Leatherwood Acting President Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission Southern Baptist Convention to keep their jobs representing us. They actually blocked a bill of abolition in Louisiana in the name of SBC.
Well of course. That ridiculous organization should be defunded and disavowed. We've already cut our Cooperative Program giving in half mostly because of it. And it's an open question as to whether we'll continue to give anything at all.
IVF was recommended to us more than 25 years ago. Morally it was an absolute no, because there were too many things that could go wrong, and a 25 percent birth rate was just not at all positive for us. Also, this is very hard on a marriage and can result then in the ending of a marriage as well as the hope of biological children. We were blessed with four adopted children. We believe that God gives life as He so chooses. We have to accept His will.
It is interesting that even in Section 27 of the South African Constitution, abortion is not covered, it just speaks about reproductive health and abortion has nothing to do with abortion! Thank you Dr Mohler!
The same states that restrict (or ban) abortion rights, are the same states that lead the nation in infant mortality and maternal mortality. What is our responsibility to that direct consequence of restricting abortion rights?
W.A. Criswell (SBC president 1968-1970): “I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate from its mother that it became an individual person and it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed.”
@@nerdyyouthpastor8368 You have documentation of that repentance? As far as I know, all of Protestantism (including Baptists) was pro-choice until the late 1970s when Jerry Falwell and Paul Weyrich decided to make it a political and religious issue (since segregation was not longer a viable political issue).
@@manager0175 It's in "Criswell: His Life & Times" by O.S. Hawkins. I can't speak to all Protestants, but the Southern Baptist Convention was at least largely pro-choice in the 1970s. We passed our first resolution on abortion in 1971. To our great shame it called for the legalization of abortion "under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother." Sadly our position did not change significantly until 1980, when we passed a resolution advocating "prohibiting abortion except to save the life of the mother."
I hold a pre-millennial, Tribulation position. My study of scripture finds no reference to anything looking like the United States during the Tribulation and Great Tribulation . Why? The only two reasons that I can come up with is that either the U.S. is totally destroyed between now and then or the U.S. sinks so low as to be of third-world importance. Either way the U.S. is sinking. When a ship is sinking life jackets are distributed to passengers and crew. The ship is not saved, but they are. Christians should be less concerned about changing the culture and more concerned with sharing the life saving message of salvation through Jesus Christ alone. When God quickens the soul, hearts are revived and minds are changed. Culture will follow.
I just posed a question to Mohler on his contact form. Here it is. I apologize for the length. I can't help it. I'm long-winded. My question for you, Dr. Mohler, is “What do you think life is, and why do you believe your concept of life is biblical?” You often speak of worldviews, so you know that we all have basic assumptions about the world, often unexamined ones. I'm asking you to examine yours. Two prominent concepts of life in the Hebrew Bible are 1) that life is blood (e.g. Gen 9:4 KJV), and 2) that life is breath (Gen. 2:7, 6:17). (The early embryo lacks both.) In the New Testament there is a great deal of talk about life and death, with great variation in meaning. For instance, Jesus says in John 12:24, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit". Today we understand that a seed is a plant embryo. It is alive and continues to live as it germinates. But the author of this verse saw the transition from one form (the seed) to another form (the plant) as the ending of one life (seed life) and the beginning of another (plant life). Three different words are sometimes translated as ‘life’ in the New Testament: bios, psyche and zoe. They have different emphases. Bios is more physical, zoe more spiritual or divine. In the next verse (John 12:25) Jesus says, “Anyone who loves their life (psyche) will lose it, while anyone who hates their life (psyche) in this world will keep it for eternal life (zoe).” So this, like the previous verse, is about a transition from one kind of life to another. Modern biology once flirted with a theory called ‘vitalism’, “the theory that the origin and phenomena of life are dependent on a force or principle distinct from purely chemical or physical forces.” But as the scientific understanding of life on a molecular level proceeded, this theory was discarded. Life is, instead, according to modern biology, a collection of physical processes, including the processing of genetic information, which is encoded in DNA molecules. There is no need to posit an extra-physical ordering principle to understand vital processes. These processes are basically the same, with variations, in all living things. There is nothing distinctive or special about “human life”. What makes humans what they are is not their ‘life”, but what it is that is alive - our human form, shaped to realize unique human capacities, capacities we recognize as constituting a person. That form is not present yet in the embryo - the seed. Information to construct that form is present, encoded in the chromosomes, but it has not yet been realized. We are not the information used to construct us, but what is constructed. The pro-life movement has put ‘life’ at the center of its concern. It only makes one distinction between kinds of life - human versus non-human. Human life, it says, is sacred. (As far as I know, this claim - not about people, but about life - occurs nowhere in the Bible.) The pro-life movement does not distinguish between different kinds of life during development, like the difference between the life of a seed (an embryo) and that of a plant, or between physical life (bios), mental life (psyche), and spiritual life (zoe). You often proclaim what sounds like a Bible verse but isn’t: “God says, ‘Let there be life!’” You conceive of life as beginning at this moment, “the moment of conception”, in an instant. What do you think happens at that moment? You must know that the egg is alive. It continues to be alive through the process of fertilization. If it died - if life processes inside it stopped - that would be the end. Only death would follow. So what happens in this miraculous moment when life begins, according to you? What is life? And why do you believe about it what you do? Nowhere in the Bible does God ever say “Let there be life”. He never makes a person in an instant. He knits them together over time. What he makes is the product of that process, emerging out of it, as a consequence. Where does this instantaneous moment of creation come from? Why do you believe in it? And what gives you the right to impose the moral consequences of this peculiar belief on the rest of us?
We just moved from Texas to South Dakota. First thing I realized, Gov Noem is not a true conservative and I can not determine if she is a Christian leader. Her actions speak to something different. Keep in mind, SD residents will vote on an abortion amendment in 2024. The amendment will allow the people to decide legalizing abortion before the end of the first trimester and allow the state to regulate abortion after the second trimester, except when necessary to preserve the life, physical or emotional health of the pregnant woman. This is in SD, one of the few “conservative” states in the nation. This along with legalizing cannabis will turn this entire state into CA.
This is the same way I feel about the vote at the SBC, on women pastors. The Bible is clear, women should not pastor a church, yet we continue needing a vote on it?... the Bible, word of God is always right, on every issue, ...life, death, ect.
If the designation of "personhood" is an arbitrary matter of law, then what could prevent a law from declaring blue eyed people (or blacks, or Jews, or Christians) "unpersons," if it was the majority opinion?
Perhaps the church needs to get back to square one - "when does life begin" is part of it, but not the whole part. Some people are perfectly comfortable killing another human being as long as is legal. An excellent question to ask a politician - IF life begins at conception, and IF an abortion is a homicide, is it still justifiable? But no reporter seems to have the guts to ask it. Now, you CAN say that you don't believe it is the termination of human life- but you could grant that as a possibility for the sake of argument and ask the follow-up question "if you were convinced that it WAS the termination of human life, would you still permit it as a matter of law?
Psalm 139:13 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
Once, again.
We cannot point our fingers at anyone.
We are allowing folks like
*Brent Leatherwood Acting President Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission Southern Baptist Convention
to keep their jobs representing us.
They actually blocked a bill of abolition in Louisiana in the name of SBC.
The full story:
"Apologia Studios"
Nov, 24th, 2023
Well of course. That ridiculous organization should be defunded and disavowed. We've already cut our Cooperative Program giving in half mostly because of it. And it's an open question as to whether we'll continue to give anything at all.
I'm glad some people know about this.
IVF was recommended to us more than 25 years ago. Morally it was an absolute no, because there were too many things that could go wrong, and a 25 percent birth rate was just not at all positive for us. Also, this is very hard on a marriage and can result then in the ending of a marriage as well as the hope of biological children. We were blessed with four adopted children. We believe that God gives life as He so chooses. We have to accept His will.
Thanks for great deciphering of all viewpoints in regards to abortion political mess.
Always good to be an informed voter.
No middĺe ground!
It is interesting that even in Section 27 of the South African Constitution, abortion is not covered, it just speaks about reproductive health and abortion has nothing to do with abortion! Thank you Dr Mohler!
The same states that restrict (or ban) abortion rights, are the same states that lead the nation in infant mortality and maternal mortality. What is our responsibility to that direct consequence of restricting abortion rights?
W.A. Criswell (SBC president 1968-1970): “I have always felt that it was only after a child was born and had a life separate
from its mother that it became an individual person and it has always, therefore, seemed to me that what is best for the mother and for the future should be allowed.”
He later repented of that position.
@@nerdyyouthpastor8368 You have documentation of that repentance? As far as I know, all of Protestantism (including Baptists) was pro-choice until the late 1970s when Jerry Falwell and Paul Weyrich decided to make it a political and religious issue (since segregation was not longer a viable political issue).
@@manager0175 It's in "Criswell: His Life & Times" by O.S. Hawkins. I can't speak to all Protestants, but the Southern Baptist Convention was at least largely pro-choice in the 1970s. We passed our first resolution on abortion in 1971. To our great shame it called for the legalization of abortion "under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother."
Sadly our position did not change significantly until 1980, when we passed a resolution advocating "prohibiting abortion except to save the life of the mother."
@@nerdyyouthpastor8368 Thank you for completing my understanding of those times. Greatly appreciated.
SBC was a political outfit from the beginning.
I hold a pre-millennial, Tribulation position. My study of scripture finds no reference to anything looking like the United States during the Tribulation and Great Tribulation . Why? The only two reasons that I can come up with is that either the U.S. is totally destroyed between now and then or the U.S. sinks so low as to be of third-world importance. Either way the U.S. is sinking. When a ship is sinking life jackets are distributed to passengers and crew. The ship is not saved, but they are. Christians should be less concerned about changing the culture and more concerned with sharing the life saving message of salvation through Jesus Christ alone. When God quickens the soul, hearts are revived and minds are changed. Culture will follow.
I just posed a question to Mohler on his contact form. Here it is. I apologize for the length. I can't help it. I'm long-winded.
My question for you, Dr. Mohler, is “What do you think life is, and why do you believe your concept of life is biblical?” You often speak of worldviews, so you know that we all have basic assumptions about the world, often unexamined ones. I'm asking you to examine yours.
Two prominent concepts of life in the Hebrew Bible are 1) that life is blood (e.g. Gen 9:4 KJV), and 2) that life is breath (Gen. 2:7, 6:17). (The early embryo lacks both.) In the New Testament there is a great deal of talk about life and death, with great variation in meaning.
For instance, Jesus says in John 12:24, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit". Today we understand that a seed is a plant embryo. It is alive and continues to live as it germinates. But the author of this verse saw the transition from one form (the seed) to another form (the plant) as the ending of one life (seed life) and the beginning of another (plant life).
Three different words are sometimes translated as ‘life’ in the New Testament: bios, psyche and zoe. They have different emphases. Bios is more physical, zoe more spiritual or divine. In the next verse (John 12:25) Jesus says, “Anyone who loves their life (psyche) will lose it, while anyone who hates their life (psyche) in this world will keep it for eternal life (zoe).” So this, like the previous verse, is about a transition from one kind of life to another.
Modern biology once flirted with a theory called ‘vitalism’, “the theory that the origin and phenomena of life are dependent on a force or principle distinct from purely chemical or physical forces.” But as the scientific understanding of life on a molecular level proceeded, this theory was discarded. Life is, instead, according to modern biology, a collection of physical processes, including the processing of genetic information, which is encoded in DNA molecules. There is no need to posit an extra-physical ordering principle to understand vital processes. These processes are basically the same, with variations, in all living things. There is nothing distinctive or special about “human life”. What makes humans what they are is not their ‘life”, but what it is that is alive - our human form, shaped to realize unique human capacities, capacities we recognize as constituting a person. That form is not present yet in the embryo - the seed. Information to construct that form is present, encoded in the chromosomes, but it has not yet been realized. We are not the information used to construct us, but what is constructed.
The pro-life movement has put ‘life’ at the center of its concern. It only makes one distinction between kinds of life - human versus non-human. Human life, it says, is sacred. (As far as I know, this claim - not about people, but about life - occurs nowhere in the Bible.) The pro-life movement does not distinguish between different kinds of life during development, like the difference between the life of a seed (an embryo) and that of a plant, or between physical life (bios), mental life (psyche), and spiritual life (zoe).
You often proclaim what sounds like a Bible verse but isn’t: “God says, ‘Let there be life!’” You conceive of life as beginning at this moment, “the moment of conception”, in an instant. What do you think happens at that moment? You must know that the egg is alive. It continues to be alive through the process of fertilization. If it died - if life processes inside it stopped - that would be the end. Only death would follow. So what happens in this miraculous moment when life begins, according to you? What is life? And why do you believe about it what you do?
Nowhere in the Bible does God ever say “Let there be life”. He never makes a person in an instant. He knits them together over time. What he makes is the product of that process, emerging out of it, as a consequence. Where does this instantaneous moment of creation come from? Why do you believe in it? And what gives you the right to impose the moral consequences of this peculiar belief on the rest of us?
We just moved from Texas to South Dakota. First thing I realized, Gov Noem is not a true conservative and I can not determine if she is a Christian leader. Her actions speak to something different. Keep in mind, SD residents will vote on an abortion amendment in 2024. The amendment will allow the people to decide legalizing abortion before the end of the first trimester and allow the state to regulate abortion after the second trimester, except when necessary to preserve the life, physical or emotional health of the pregnant woman. This is in SD, one of the few “conservative” states in the nation. This along with legalizing cannabis will turn this entire state into CA.
FIRST!!!!
This is the same way I feel about the vote at the SBC, on women pastors. The Bible is clear, women should not pastor a church, yet we continue needing a vote on it?... the Bible, word of God is always right, on every issue, ...life, death, ect.
Where in bible does it say women not pastor church?
@charborgmann954 where does is say that they can?
If the designation of "personhood" is an arbitrary matter of law, then what could prevent a law from declaring blue eyed people (or blacks, or Jews, or Christians) "unpersons," if it was the majority opinion?
I am astonished that you would declare anyone to be duplicitous given what I hear you saying on these talks.
Perhaps the church needs to get back to square one - "when does life begin" is part of it, but not the whole part. Some people are perfectly comfortable killing another human being as long as is legal.
An excellent question to ask a politician - IF life begins at conception, and IF an abortion is a homicide, is it still justifiable? But no reporter seems to have the guts to ask it. Now, you CAN say that you don't believe it is the termination of human life- but you could grant that as a possibility for the sake of argument and ask the follow-up question "if you were convinced that it WAS the termination of human life, would you still permit it as a matter of law?