Wednesday, June 13, 2012

A Pro-Life Challenge

As an intern at my local newspaper, I was able to cover a pro-life rally at a city hall council meeting where I live. I won't go into what happened in the meeting, but I was struck by what I observed.

Throughout the meeting, several pro-life people were able to voice their beliefs and opinions, without interruption and hailed with applause. But when two abortion supporters rose to speak, the "pro-life" people in the audience booed them, cut them off, and shouted disrespectful remarks.

I know as Christians, we're fallen and imperfect, and sometimes, we're hypocrites. But when we are fighting so hard for something we believe in — in this case, against abortion — we cannot spew hate and then claim to follow Christ. It doesn't work that way, and it's totally counter-productive to what we're trying to accomplish here. The song goes, "They will know we are Christians by our love". I'm pretty sure Jesus wouldn't condone treating people of different opinions with such disrespect, and even hate.

I'm on the imperfect Christian lifeboat, and heck, I'll be the first to admit my imperfection. I can be a hypocrite too sometimes, we all can. But since I identify myself as pro-life, I take that belief into all areas. So here's a challenge, folks.

As a pro-life people, the term doesn't just mean that we are against abortion or euthanasia. It means we respect and value every life, even the ones that have different opinions from us. And treating them as people, with the respect they deserve as fellow brothers and sisters.

Second, we can't win any culture battle by fighting  against other people. As someone in the crowd said tonight, we have to let God fight our battles for us, and do our part — that is, pray, first and foremost, and secondly, to do it the right way. We cannot allow the emotional connection to the pro-life stance get in the way of gulping back the self-righteous part of us that shouts "THIS IS TRUTH" to the world, while condemning those who don't have the ears to hear it.

I know for a fact we won't win anything. Period. God will. We might not even live to see that day, but it's not for us to worry. What we need to do is be the best Christian we can be, while leaving God to change the hearts.

3 comments:

BG45 said...

I sighed at the pro-lifers shouting down and booing the pro-choice folks. It's sad.

I recently got to pray in front of a Planned Parenthood as part of the Phatmass Phamily Meetup. It was one of the most surreal experiences of my life; I assumed we'd be across the street. I was wrong, we were right there next to a line spray painted on the ground; if we crossed over that line with rosaries, we'd be arrested. Our group was quite different than the other protesters, who held signs if dismembered fetuses while we just prayed with our rosaries in hand.

Unknown said...

It is sad. And that behavior is what gives us a bad name. We MUST at all times act with love and charity, even if we are booed at, or worse.

What you guys did is eaactly what we should do: just pray the rosary.

BG45 said...

That's what I thought too; what you said and I agree with is exactly what Abby Johnson says in her book "Unplanned". All the graphic and angry protesters did when she managed a Planned Parenthood were to convince her of the rightness of abortion and how evil the anti-choicers were. But slowly the attitudes at the fence changed as those who believed in prayer as protest edged out those who were graphic about things; one nun who just prayed and cried freaked everyone in her clinic out and none of them could figure out why she made their consciences so uncomfortable.