Three unprecedented events happened this week in Nashville.
If I included my first Uber ride I would say there were four unprecedented events that happened this week.
I’ll keep my thoughts upon the resolution to abolish abortion.
First, I’m not aware of a time in SBC life where the messengers told a committee, “We want our resolution that you declined back…” With a clear and resounding two-thirds vote the messengers put the rejected resolution to the table. One can respect that a committee has the right and privilege to not bring a resolution forward, amend a resolution, or even change a resolution completely. One can also respect that the messengers can overrule a committee. This is the beauty of “rules of order”. This is how we agree to govern ourselves.
Pastors from across the convention submitted a resolution to the Resolution Committee to urge Southern Baptists, with God’s help, to establish equal justice and protection for the preborn. It was to call for a prophetic voice to all children including those conceived in rape/incest. It was a voice missing in the national debate on abortion by calling for the immediate abolition of abortion without exception or compromise. It really was an amazing sight to see the messengers debate the issue within the agreed upon rules.
Second, after the resolution to abolish abortion was given to the messengers to debate and placed on the agenda for the second day a united effort on social media began to put the resolution into question to persuade messengers to not pass it because it would undue years of work by pro-life lobbyist and pro-life legislators. This is not necessarily “unprecedented” as much as it was shocking. One can expect for non-profit groups to scramble like that, one can expect Planned Parenthood to want to cast shade and shame upon the resolution. But for those God has established to be first a pillar and buttress of truth? For ethicists, seminary professors and religious liberty minded groups assisting the cause to advance the Gospel?
When one wants to silence the prophetic voice of the pulpit to the nation by suggesting this was reckless, out of order, or even undoing the 48 years of incremental regulation of a national sin is again what we would expect from the haters of God and those who want to keep telling us to sit down over there in the corner and keep your opinions to yourselves.
With or without pro-life lobbyist, with or without the Hyde amendment, with or without the Ethics and Religious Liberties Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention there is a global genicide with blood on the soil slain children. It would be the wrong motivation to do this because of the 112,000 preborn murdered every day around the world. It would be wrong to do so just because of the 3,000 murdered in our own homeland of America with permission of the complicit church. It would not be consistent of us, followers of God, for our motivation to even be for the 28 murdered in my home state of Idaho this week or even the 5 ripped from that most glorious human knitting factory in the universe, the womb in my hometown. We are to be motivated by the glory of God, alone.
It is right that the nation hears from a people like us. It is a loving act from a people who love God because we too have been rescued from the wrath of the Almighty God by the power of the blood of His only begotten son (the first part of that great commission.)
It is time for men of God to stand up and be heard.
Rise up o men of God. Don’t be shamed by this God hating culture because you don’t have a uterus. This nation must hear from a people who love God. Rise up today for the glory of God.
The final thought and observation I have on this may not be unprecedented but without a doubt a surprise. The secular media heard the messengers better than some professing believers. The headlines after the resolution passed reported that “Southern Baptists Pass Sweeping Measures Calling for Abolition of Abortion” (the Tennessean). The articles from social media and other prominent “evangelical” organizations began to speak out about how “foolish” the resolution was (Desiring God and others) and how reckless it was to do so.
It is my prayer that righteousness will begin to rain again upon the soil and that salvation will sprout across the land again. Not because academia has spoken, not because the lobbyist sent out another newsletter requesting money from the pew, but because lightning struck the pulpit in America again and the nation shook in the fear of God.
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