In a time of
deepening trouble, division, lies, unfaithfulness, power grabs—that may become
worse, the Church of Jesus Christ, her people, are called not only to love one another
but to also lift up each other in prayer and thankfulness—they are also called
to uphold righteousness and truth. Love “does not rejoice in unrighteousness,
but rejoices with the truth (I Cor. 13:6).
I am reading
Megan Basham’s new book, Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders traded
the Truth for a Leftist Agenda. My intention was to write a review of it,
but after seeing how complex that would be for me, with a great deal of
research, I have decided to write several posts on it. This first one will be
on chapter 3. “Hijacking the Pro-Life Movement.” I will return to the earlier
chapters in future posts.
In her usual
method, Basham begins with a tale of someone she admires, and the lady is
certainly admirable in her work for the Lord. But then she goes on to contrast
that person with others she defames. And while we read the personal stories of
those she admires we read few personal details about those Basham attacks.
Basham
chooses Karen Swallow Prior as the first pro-life person she feels sold out to
the leftist agenda—and yes, Prior is very pro-life. Prior, who is a professor
and author, has spent a good deal of time as a member of the pro-life movement.
In a New York Times column, after Roe was defeated, Prior wrote:
“Roe stripped from the prenatal child the
right to continue to live and grow, safe and free from intentional harm. If you
believe, as I do, that abortion unjustly ends the life of a being that is fully
human, a life that exists independently of the will of the mother, is
self-organizing and unique, developing yet complete in itself, then you will
understand Roe not as a ruling that liberates but as one that dehumanizes,
first the fetus, then the rest of us.” Opinion | The End of Roe, From a
Pro-Lifer’s Perspective - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
She also
wrote this:
I joined the movement decades ago. My friends and co-laborers
in the movement across the political spectrum have over the years established
and worked in pregnancy help centers. We have opened our rooms and homes to
women who needed them. We have educated them about prevention, alternatives,
resources, employment, schooling and empowerment. We have offered help at
doctors’ offices and abortion clinics. We have held baby showers, attended
weddings, kindergarten graduations and legislative sessions. We have cried with
those who regretted their choices, and we have cried with those who didn’t (but
cried anyway). We have marched and protested.
Basham did
not include any of these quotes in her book, instead she found some quotes that
made it seem like Prior was more interested in the “pro-abortion narrative.”
Basham quoted
this: “Legalized elective abortion was the consolation prize given to women in
1973 for the centuries of inequality and oppression that stemmed from their sin
of not being men.”
And then Basham
skipped almost a page of Prior’s writing to put this: “it does take a village
to become who we are. Thankfully, America’s romance with radical autonomy and
rugged individualism is cooling. Roe gave our nation some of the most
liberal abortion laws in the industrialized world and
a high rate of abortion compared with that of many other industrialized
countries, in no small part because of our individualist cultural and economic
ethos.”
Basham skipped
further to put this: “We can do better than asking women (and men) to choose
between their children and themselves.”
Basham quoted
only these paragraphs so she could write this:
Prior’s framing –that pregnancy forces women to ‘choose between
their children and themselves’—sounded disconcertingly close to the
pro-abortion narrative that babies are a fundamental obstacle to female
fulfillment. It legitimized the erroneous and self-focused worldview that career
achievement and material wealth provide women more satisfaction than starting a
family.
But no. Not
only is it not “framing’ it doesn’t sound like that. Basham can attempt to get
by with her insinuation because she has left out Prior’s amazing words about
life for the unborn baby and her work within the pro-life community.
Basham
complains that Prior states that Christians need to now step up and add to the
work of helping those who are in need and pregnant, which includes government
programs. Pulling Beth Moore, the excellent Bible teacher for women, and her
discussion with Prior about the needs for Christian helps, into her complaint,
Basham writes as though they know nothing about the many pro-life Centers in
the United States, and this is perhaps why she did not quote Prior’s words
about working in Pregnancy Centers.
Basham has
made or tried to make Prior seem to be a radical feminist. She is not and it is
all lies.
Basham then
mentions Mika Edmondson, a pastor who sometimes writes for the Gospel Coalition.
In fact Southern Baptist Professor Albert Mohler praises Edmondson for an
article he wrote for the Gospel Coalition, Is
Black Lives Matter the New Civil Rights Movement? Mohler’s article is on
the Coalition’s site also, Ugly
Stain, Beautiful Hope: My Response to Mika Edmondson.
Edmondson is
a black pastor in the Presbyterian Church of America, a conservative Reformed
church, and he fervently advocates for social justice. I believe this might
have created a problem for Basham. She quotes from his X (Twitter)feed. She
writes “…Mika Edmondson sounded downright apologetic [writing after the end of
Roe] suggesting like Prior, that outlawing abortion would only be morally legitimate
if accompanied by an expanded welfare state.” (First one needs to say that is
not at all what Prior said.)
This is what
Basham quoted from Edmondson:
Now that roe is overturned, I pray that we will provide the access
to healthcare childcare, living wages, education and job opportunities that
well support the lives people in desperate situations.
I have to
add that Basham likened that to Lincoln with the Emancipation Proclamation promising
the freed slaves a mandatory minimum wage and scholarship program. The historical truth is they were offered something
they wanted badly although it was soon taken away from them. For a very
interesting story about this read, The
Truth Behind ’40 Acres and a Mule’, written by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Basham added
other tweets that Edmondson made that sounded too socially left to her. But she
did not use these quotes, perhaps she could not understand them:
For many, the constant news coverage, countless articles, and
heated debates about Roe v. Wade dredges up the painful memories of some of the
very worst moments of their lives. May the Lord comfort you with his grace and
healing during this hard season.
And:
National discussions about
abortion often press us to choose whose rights to speak up for: the rights of
vulnerable unborn babies *OR* the rights of vulnerable mothers. But Christ
calls us beyond this false dichotomy. In Christ’s grace, nobody’s rights &
dignity are expendable.
Next Basham
goes after Dr. Russell Moore new editor of Christianity Today and her
biggest complaint is that he did not write anything about the ending of Roe for
many weeks, and that he refused to call President Trump a pro-life president but
mentioned that one of the judges that concurred with the decision was appointed
by Bush. Moore is pro-life, that is not
in doubt. This pro-life chapter is very political.
The final person I will write about, but not the last
Basham wrote about in this chapter, is Pastor Tim Keller. His views about
abortion includes the understanding that there are several ways abortion could
be at least lessened in the United States.
Basham quotes his tweet:
Here are two Biblical MORAL norms: 1) It is a sin to worship
idols or any God other than the true God & 2) do not murder. If you ask
evangelicals if we should be forbidden by law to worship any other God than the
God of the Bible—they’d say ‘no.’
We allow that terrible sin to be
legal. But if you ask them if Americans should be forbidden by law to abort a
baby, they'd say ‘yes.’ Now why make the first sin legal and NEVER talk about
it and the second sin illegal and a main moral/political talking point?
The Bible tells us that idolatry, abortion, and ignoring the
the poor are all grievous sins. But it doesn’t tell us exactly HOW we are to
apply these norms to a pluralistic democracy. … I know abortion is a sin, but the
Bible doesn’t tell me the best political policy to decrease or end abortion in
this country, nor which political or legal policies are most effective to that
end.
While Basham
does leave out some of the first part of the tweet which doesn’t matter. Keller
is simply making a point that the Bible does tell us what is sin, but doesn’t
always tell us how to solve them when they become political problems. But
Basham does leave out the last part of the tweet which matters because she is
angry that Keller is not promoting Trump as president. In that last part he
writes:
The current political parties will say that their policy most
aligns morally with the Bible, but we are allowed to debate that and so our
churches should not have disunity over debatable political differences! It is
also why I have never publicly or privately told Christians who they should
vote for. I have also never told anyone they should vote Democrat or
Republican. Depending on the policy we can find more or less alignment with
Biblical morals. I believe all Christians should be active in politics, but it
is unwise to identify Christianity with any particular party.
This is the
bigger problem with at least this chapter on abortion. Basham has two goals, to
make it seem like the people she is writing about have leftist leanings and that
those in the Church should be voting for Trump. Basham doesn’t seem to realize
that much of what she sees as woke or leftist is simply a desire to follow the
beatitudes of Jesus and all of the moral teachings found in the New Testament.
All of these Christians she is aiming at, are faithful followers of Jesus and
committed to Him because of His great gift of salvation.
