In an insightful lecture on G.K. Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man, Dale Ahlquist writes:
If we study any civilization, we see that after progress, comes decay. Chesterton says men do not grow tired of evil, but of good. They become weary of joy. They stop worshipping God and start worshipping idols, their own bad imitations of God, and they become as wooden as the thing they worship. They start worshipping nature and become unnatural. They start worshipping sex and become perverted. Men start lusting after men and become unmanly.
Ahlquist then goes on to quote Chesterton: “The most ignorant of humanity know by the very look of earth that they have forgotten heaven.”
This sounds so appropriate in light of the most recent news from the culture of death. In Texas, Reproductive Freedom Congregations are popping up across the state. The group claims to be “creating a movement” that will change the “conversation” when it comes to the rights of women and aborting the innocent.
This effort comes in response to a Texas law that “could soon allow any person to sue those who help a woman get an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy.”
The actual law in question, Senate Bill 8, refers to the preborn baby as a child and finds that Texas has a compelling interest in protecting the health of the woman and the life of her child if the baby has a detectable heartbeat. But if in the determination of the treating doctor, the expectant mother presents for a medical emergency, the abortionist may still commit the abortion as long as proper notes are kept in the medical chart.
Such a law is evil but not surprising. The politically motivated wooden men and women involved in these deadly matters are those who have already decided that the baby is not created by God, nor is he God’s gift to his parents.
In keeping with the grisly nature of such laws, the Unitarian Universalist Association has published a Reproductive Justice Curriculum for Congregations. While using words such as “sacred sexuality” and “inherent worth and dignity,” the goal of this set of educational tips is clear: It is the expectant mother who holds all the cards, and it is her sexuality and her worth and dignity that lay the groundwork for the decision to kill the baby. When a group like this speaks or writes about human rights, it is by no means suggesting that the innocent baby has a single right, including the right to life.
In apparent agreement, the Dallas Morning News published this headline: “Texas Churches That Support Reproductive Rights Unite to ‘Take God Back’ from Religious Right” suggesting somehow that God is a commodity to be debated about or possessed! Never mind that He created the person who authored the wooden-man headline.
Then we see that the Baptist News reported that such congregations will “catch on.” And the article never once used the words mother or baby.
Okay, you might be thinking, that’s very sad, but that’s only in Texas. But is it?
The only reason these particular congregations are garnering headlines is because the Texas law is in the news, and the media detests any sort of law that might stop even one abortion. Who is to say how many states already have functioning reproductive justice congregations? Perhaps they are active in your state. After all, the devil goes where he will.
When we consider the wooden men and women who embrace and even lust after aborting the innocent, we should never forget these words of Christ in Matthew 7:15-20:
Beware of false prophets who come to you disguised as sheep, but underneath are ravenous wolves. You will be able to tell them by their fruits. Can people pick grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles? In the same way, a sound tree produces good fruit but a rotten tree bad fruit. A sound tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor a rotten tree bear good fruit. Any tree that does not produce good fruit is cut down and thrown on the fire. I repeat, you will be able to tell them by their fruits.
Wooden men are false prophets, and their bad fruit is death.
