The Republican Party, Midterm Election Abortion Outcomes, and Worldview Antithesis.

BITS AND PIECES

In the early 1980s, Francis Schaeffer astutely observed that Christians in the U.S. view society and government in terms of "bits and pieces, instead of totals." While not unusual for a professing Christian to express alarm at various examples of public vice (Schaeffer lists pornography, the public schools, breakdown of the family, and abortion), Schaeffer claims that we rarely see Christians viewing the moral decay around us as a totality.

Schaeffer develops this idea further, pointing out that Christians in this country ". . . have failed to see that all of this has come about due to a shift in worldview - that is, through a fundamental change in the overall way people think and view the world and life as a whole." In response to this shift, as he posits in his masterpiece The Christian Manifesto1, Schaeffer concludes that Christians must understand that the two opposite and clashing worldviews (Christian and humanist) stand in antithesis to each other, not just in terms of their content, but where their content inevitably leads.

Let us put some of the recent political devices and outcomes against the bar of this powerful cultural and political hermeneutic.

A consistently biblical Christian worldview starts with Christ at the center, and leads to freedom, justice, and equity, not just in personal salvation and individual piety, but in all areas of life. Christ died for the whole man, and His rule is comprehensive.

Conversely, a humanist worldview starts with man in the center and attempts to build absolutes from the shaky, relativistic foundation that he offers. The humanist anthropology is idolatrous, his eschatology depressing, his cosmology absurd, his liturgy violent, and his soteriology unjust. Here, one can't help but think of the Psalms and their contrast between the righteous and the wicked: "For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish." (Psalm 1:6)

THE ANTITHESIS

Christian, do you see the divide in our nation? Not between Republican and Democrat, but rather between those who submit to God's judgments, and those who want to be the judge themselves. Today, let’s examine a few recent examples where this has proven itself to be the case, and remind ourselves that, as Christians,  our duty is to obey God, not elephants or donkeys.

The left has made itself the judge by declaring, contrary to St Peter’s proclamation that Jesus is the “author of life” (Acts 3:15), that humanity itself has the authority and prerogative to set forth meaning and value apart from the personal Creator God as revealed in Scripture. The pro-life community can track with this.

Yet, when the Supreme Court in the Dobbs decision promulgates an attack on the image of God by asserting that while abortion isn’t a federally protected constitutional right, states still have the right to deny the image-bearers life, this is seen as a massive victory worthy of celebration? Instead of praising God for the lives that will be saved in spite of the decision, reassessing where the movement stands, and mourning for the lives that will be lost under the abhorrent judicial precedent now created, unfettered laud is delivered to the blood-stained hands of Republican-appointed judges who have now ruled that states have the right to deny preborn children life.

Justice Alito in his majority opinion stated, “On the question of abortion, the Constitution is therefore neither pro-life nor pro-choice. The Constitution is neutral and leaves the issue for the people and their elected representatives to resolve through the democratic process in the States or Congress—like the numerous other difficult questions of American social and economic policy that the Constitution does not address.”

If our wise friend Schaeffer were still alive, he would have a word or two for the pro-life movement’s favorite jurist. It  would probably be something like this: “For the LORD is our judge; the LORD is our lawgiver; the LORD is our king; he will save us.” (Isaiah 33:22)

In Dobbs, the Republican party has taken a play out of the abortion lobby’s book and put itself in the place of the living God. Pro-life Christians, for the most part, have simply gone along with it. This begs the question: what else will they go along with?

ELEPHANT CHRISTIANITY

The Republican party seems to have used formal Christianity for some time to garner influence and political sway, but what should our response be if the GOP finds that it is no longer culturally or civically advantageous to platform according to what professing believers hold to? Will the same group that was energized after the Dobbs decision simply be discarded when their votes are no longer significant enough? Already here in Indiana, and all over the country, we have seen cowardly Republicans try to insist that their view on abortion is "similar" (see, Alex Choi for Indiana State Senate, "... my [pro-abortion democrat] opponent and I have a similar position on the important issue of abortion…")2 to that of the bloodthirsty Democratic death-cult one. Or that, - according to them, - a “moderate” position on human abortion is well within the scope of their party. Can we really compromise with the killing of human offspring in ritualistic fashion?

Professing Christians will proudly champion “fiscal conservatism!” and sport elephant lapel pins. Yet, the same Republican party they pay homage to in the voting booth turns a blind eye to the tiny, precious preborn child having a sopher clamp tear her left arm off. Will the red party continue to chant "traditional values!" as three hundred of our neighbors' remains are hauled away down the road to be incinerated? Will we continue to see the uprising of the attempt to ban LGBTQ books from state-mandated education facilities, while we allow Planned Parenthood curricula endorsed by your friendly neighborhood Canaanite deity to flow freely in health class? Think of the hypocrisy of these new, Christless faces of supposed conservatism.

How long will it be until the Republican party jettisons further - not just in thought and deed as it has for decades, but in formal platform - the lives of our preborn neighbors to retain voting power? Certainly a subtle renewal and conservation of past values will be insufficient to stem the bloodshed. The saturated hue of the official Republican color will continue to increase because of the “moderate” slaughter of the innocents.

Moreover, it will be interesting to see how the pro-life movement shifts or fissures during this time of factional unpredictability. Students For Life president Kristan Hawkins continues to claim that the young generation alive today is the most pro-life generation since 1973, presumably in an attempt to create a self-fulfilling prophecy and actually usher in this reality. Students For Life has used this strategy often,: exaggerating the power of the young, restless, and pro-life. What will we see come out of this? We’re already familiar with the quasi-ecumenical, largely Roman-Catholic driven old guard of politically compromised figureheads, which have already begun fading away. Already, we are seeing this make way for a more lenient secular facade which grants increasingly high amounts of “neutrality” to establish influence and woo over the great-granddaughters of the feminist movement, baptized in the name of Margaret Sanger, heralding her abominable dogmas as infallible.

SUPPOSED “RED-WAVE”

Considering all of the loci of social concerns, be it inflation, mass immigration, unemployment, or our President's low approval rating, I truly did expect a "red-wave." But it was not so. In many places, despite these aforementioned concerns to the average self-consumed and greedy American, people still held abortion as a significant enough of idol to be willing to sacrifice their own affluence for it. Abortion was a KEY issue in the Pennsylvania senate race, despite Dr. Oz's attempt to be as milquetoast as possible about his own stance on the matter. GOP candidate after candidate, having seen the initial voter polling regarding Dobbs, have dropped the preborn off of their platforms and in doing so betrayed the lives of the most innocent among us. “Advocating for you doesn’t accumulate me enough votes any more, little child” rings the gong of both state-level and U.S. Republican races in purple districts all over the country.

America has, at least in this last midterm election and specifically in ballot initiatives, made it clear that she loves child sacrifice. It has continued to captivate her and hold her affections. And, as with the nature of sin itself (that is, knowing no limits) a demonically driven abortion "rights" lobby campaign certainly doesn’t seem to plan on stopping just short of the voter box. After all, all those who hate God love death (Proverbs 8:36). In regard to the ballot initiatives, the results from Michigan, Montana, and Kentucky should be a rude awakening for those sleepers who believe the average constituents of the Republican party proper have a correct view of the preborn.

Surely there will be ebbs and flows in these trends: certain events might give us a short, optimistic hope, and then later ones that suddenly quell that hope. Regardless, we need to be prepared to suffer for Christ.

CONCLUSION

While the scope of history is one of the glorious redemption of God's people, the discipling of all nations in time, and ultimately the establishing of justice in the civil sphere, there may not be a fantastic postmillennial hope for the Christian West. It seems right now we're watching Rome burn. As one dear friend mused after a long day of sidewalk counseling, perhaps the expansion of the Church of Christ in China will be used to footstool America and expose her abominations. Maybe an abolitionist libertarian caucus will rise up and force the Republicans to be more “conservative” to win purple districts. But we can know this: there is an antithesis. You will either serve the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; or the idols that He, through His vice-regent the Church militant, will smash.

Indeed, as Isaac Watts pens in his 1719 hymn:

“Jesus shall reign where'er the sun

does its successive journeys run,

his kingdom stretch from shore to shore,

till moons shall wax and wane no more.”

1This work is wholly applicable and timely as the worldview politics he describes have only become exacerbated since its publication. For a more robust look at the ideas touched on in this article, the book is highly recommended.

2A From a letter written to voters in his district.

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