The abolitionist movement as defined by the tenets of abolition that you will find at AbolishHumanAbortion.com is a movement of Christians who are looking at the abortion holocaust from a counter-culture perspective when compared with the mainstream pro-life movement and the mainstream church organizations in America. The movement is made up of followers of Christ who simply see abortion as a “love your God” and “love your neighbor” issue. They see abortion as the destruction of an image bearer of God (all human beings are made in the image of God, Genesis 9), and the shedding of innocent blood which God hates. When abolitionists look at Scripture regarding abortion, they then seek to treat this horrible injustice in the way God prescribes or worded more correctly in the way God desires and commands.
That “abolitionism in a nutshell” introduction above does not say that abolitionists are perfect in their orthodoxy or orthopraxy. As an abolitionist myself, I always say that I could be wrong about some things. And if I am, for the one who sees my error, to please be patient and loving to correct me. Correct me with proper handling of Scripture and with a coherent argument. And be patient if I don’t get it right away. As abolitionist, I know that I also can improve in my actions. I don’t always speak with the right words. I don’t always show humility or patience. I can be selfish and prideful. And I am a work in progress as God sanctifies me and transforms me internally so the external is right.
It is also important to note that myself as an abolitionist part of the abolitionist movement, that I not use the excuse of “I am a work in progress” to excuse the sin of not being loving when I speak the truth. If I am truly driven by a heart of malice and not the Holy Spirit, then I need to repent of that. And I do not know any abolitionists who would disagree.
I will say that there are some abolitionists who I do not like their style or delivery always. Some abolitionists I feel are too aggressive or speak in a way that may be hard for someone to understand. I try and do my best to lead in a way that I think is better. But to speak plainly to this matter, I could be wrong. Jesus turned over tables and used a whip sometimes. Jesus shouted insults at the religious leaders calling them “brood of vipers” and “white-washed tombs”. There are clearly times for harsh words and blunt challenges. Maybe when I am on the other side of this life I will then see that I was wrong and that the majority of the abolitionist movement was speaking too softly and with not enough urgency or outrage. Is that possible? Of course it is possible and perhaps even likely.
With the facts above in mind, namely abolitionism is an ideology or worldview that is submissive to God’s word and is derived from God’s word as best as Christian-abolitionists can see, and that the orthopraxy that comes from this worldview is not always executed perfectly but from what I see mostly done well, I want to address the serious sin of slander by Christian men who are leaders in the American church organizations. Many of these men are street preachers, evangelists, writers, bloggers, and men of good reputation otherwise. And I think that is what makes this slander even more dangerous and damaging.
I use the word “slander” to mean either intentional slander or unintentional slander. Maybe the latter is simply a person who is in the category of mistaken rather than guilty of the sin of slander. But for many of these, in fact it seems to me most of them, it is intentional. I say that because of the extraordinary efforts that abolitionists make to set the record straight with these men and their extraordinary efforts to ignore the abolitionists. There is almost a commitment on the part of these Christian leaders to selectively latch on to or ignore information that is consistent with a narrative that paints the abolitionists as heretical. To speak plainly again, I feel like I am being really naive if I am to continue to go contrary to the evidence at hand and say that they are mistaken and not intentionally slanderous. But regardless of whether or not the slander is intentional, I want to make some effort to counter the misinformation and lies that these Christian men are saying about the abolitionist movement that they usually call “AHA” or “the AHA”.
Please watch this video, and the take-away first should be that we all need to be careful about the stories we hear and the posts we read as to whether they are the whole story or not. The Proverbs say that one side of a story sounds very convincing until you hear the other side. Let’s heed that proverb and look carefully at what is true. Let’s realize that many of the Christian leaders that we think (either intentionally or not) can do no wrong can indeed do wrong or be seriously mistaken.
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