Choice
Where Should We Stand?
Before the Ignorant Tightass Brigade starts running around
saying Priest Is Pro-Abortion, let me clear my throat for a
couple of paragraphs. The party line I hear from many black
pastors is similar to that of the Obama campaign: I am,
personally, pro-life, but I do not believe in making that
decision, that choice, for others. I’m a lot less comfortable
with that description than I used to be, mainly because I feel
like it’s a cop-out. It’s a nifty fence-sitting position that
basically tells everybody what they want to hear. The biblical
model is, in fact, choice. God gives us all a choice: to accept
the truth of His love for us, or to reject it and go our own
way. I, personally, am pro-God. Pro-God’s love. I am against
anything that victimizes God’s people rather than edifies them,
that separates people from God rather than draws them to Him.
Abortion is one of those things that victimizes twice, that
makes victims of everyone involved and destroys human
potential—in both those who survive and those who do not—that it
is, in my opinion, one of the worst crimes imaginable. It is a
crime that begins its work before any doctor even enters the
room. The emotional pain that would drive a woman to this
decision has already wounded her. The selfishness that allows
many young girls to view abortion as a method of birth control
has already corrupted her. The waiting room full of women—with
precious few men—suggests this is a terrible, unthinkably tragic
decision where many women are simply on their own. No husband.
No boyfriend. No pastor.
Abortion is, ultimately, an unthinkably selfish act. Like the
Cain and Abel story, it is about covering up wrong. About trying
to un-do things we should not have done. With rare exception,
abortion is about evading the consequences of consensual acts
more often than it is about medical complications or forcible
victimization. Which isn’t to deny those exceptions, such as
rape and incest, exist, but that there are far more elective
abortions (93%) going on for selfish reasons. My guess is that
the vast majority of pregnancies, welcome or not, occur mainly
out of laziness. You’re all caught up in the heat of the moment,
and the act becomes a selfish one, where you can’t or won’t slam
on the brakes long enough to count the cost of what you're about
to do. I love him. He loves me. Women and girls, particularly,
roll the dice in this contraception area, which I find
absolutely baffling considering the fact men can’t get pregnant.
Sister: you’re the one who’ll face these consequences. It is the
rare man and even rarer boy who will stand up to his
responsibilities in this area. And, yet, women and girls
routinely, bafflingly, take these kinds of risks in the heat of
passion.
So, like Brother Cain, we are now more interested in hiding the
crime. The cover-up is completely about self. About hiding our
shame. From our friends, from our loved ones. From husbands.
From the pastor. From the church. Many women are trying to un-do
a terrible wrong. They want another chance. And, since the
people they are trying to hide their sin from are often part of
their support system, many of these women simply suffer alone.
Abortion is one of those things girls, in particular, think they
can prepare themselves for but they really can’t. And this is
perhaps the most heinous part of this business: how it destroys
two lives at the same time. Selfish, silly girls, some barely in
their teens, twirling their hair and popping bubble gum in the
waiting room while they giggle with their friends, waiting to
“get rid of it.” Many of these girls are our daughters. Many
sisters, within the sound of our voices Sunday mornings, have
daughters who’ve had abortions and the mothers don’t even know.
Every Sunday I see these silly girls coming to church dressed
like street walkers. Breasts spilling out of tight blouses,
pants so tight they leave nothing to the imagination. And, when
I challenge the parents about this I get the Ignorant Black
Woman Head Weave and snarling accusation.
But it is these girls sitting in the clinic waiting room. Most
of them are sitting there because their pastors suck at being
pastors. Their pastors cannot or are afraid to pastor their
mothers, their mothers—frequently but not universally single
moms—are scared to parent the daughter because they’re lonely
and feed on the daughter’s love and affection. So a lot of moms
turn into their daughters’ pals instead of being their mothers,
snapping at pastors who address the hooker outfits these little
pips wear to church and defending indefensible behavior. And,
often without these sisters even realizing it, the clinic
waiting room is where their daughters end up. Giggling. Texting
their friends. “Getting rid of it.”
Right-wing, Christian conservative parents are themselves
complicit in their daughters' thinking because, as I like to
point out here, it is the parents who pay for cable and
satellite TV, Internet connections which are frequently left
unmonitored, and cell phones. I don't advocate all Christians
turning back to the Amish ways, but the fact is you folks are
financing the very garbage that corrupts our youth, then getting
all up in arms when your kid considers the world's views more
credible than those of the bible. Even if you have certain
channels blocked, by paying for cable, any cable, you are
financing all of it—even the channels with the half-dressed
jiggly video gals and the obscene content. And these are the
values your kids are absorbing every single day, values you
cannot keep up with and cannot compete with because they're in
there—right into your child's bedroom—day and night. Cell phones
provide unmonitored and unrestricted direct access to your
child, including your child's values. It's easy to holler and
run around with signs and get all Linda Tripp on everybody. But,
the fact is, if you're not controlling the influences coming
into your own home, if you are financing the crap on TV that is
destroying our kids, your moral outrage is simple hypocrisy.
Going a step farther, I am quite sure many, many of the angry
moms running around with picket signs, angry dads threatening
violence and blowing up clinics—I'm quite sure many of those
people have daughters who have had abortions and they don't even
know it. There are, undoubtedly, people reading these words who
have daughters, who have granddaughters, who've had abortions
and you don't even know it. She's become moody and closed, she's
in the room with the door shut all the time (cable TV on
constantly, of course). Whispering into her cell phone.
Withdrawn. You think it's just adolescence. You think she's just
going through a phase. But it might be anything. Might be drug
addiction. Might be molestation. And, yes, Mom, it might very
well be she's struggling with guilt over an abortion. Too many
of our Mommies are simply clueless. Too many teens and young
adult girls and women have had multiple abortions. You want to
lower the abortion rate in this country? You want to protect
your daughter from this tragedy? It's simple: either cancel the
cable or demand your cable or satellite TV provider pro-rate
your bill so you are not only not seeing those channels but,
more importantly, not paying for those channels and not
financing the very lies destroying our future.
There are perhaps two points in a woman’s life she’s never quite
prepared for, no matter how much she thinks she is. One is
ending her virginity. The overwhelming majority of our girls end
their virginity involuntarily, as either a result of peer
pressure, fear of losing their clueless idiot boyfriend, or,
worse, rape or incest. A girl losing her virginity is a moment
she can never do over. It is a moment she will remember for the
rest of her life. And many, many girls endure that moment, take
that step, at the wrong time and for the wrong reason. The other
thing I’m quite sure a girl or woman cannot prepare themselves
for is aborting a pregnancy. Not the procedure itself, which can
be an emotionally scarring business of inducing labor and
evacuating fetal parts, but the ravages of self that result.
Many girls go into the clinic giggling, fewer emerge that way.
They may put on a brave front for their friends, but I am quite
certain that first night is a sleepless one. Alone with their
thoughts, the enormity of their decision crashes down on them.
And, with only their equally-clueless girlfriends to turn to,
this is weight she must now carry on her own. Can’t tell mom.
Can’t turn to pastor—whom she barely knows beyond a kind of
head-pat on Sunday mornings.
Many of our sisters have daughters suffering just like this.
Down the hall. Up the stairs. Just a few feet away, mom has no
clue what she’s going through because mom as learned to stay in
her lane. Mom is selfishly relying on her daughter for Mom’s own
emotional needs, and many, many times Mommy will sacrifice what
is best for their child out of fear of rejection and, therefore,
having to deal with their own loneliness. So, many moms will see
what they choose to see, respecting their kids’ “privacy” at the
expense of the child’s humanity. Mom knows something’s wrong.
She’s just writing it off to a schoolyard heartbreak or normal
teen angst.
Mom: she had an abortion. And she can’t tell you.
This is the crime the church should be up in arms about.
The holocaust, not only of the unborn, but of those who
survived. Those who went in one door giggling and texting, and
came out the other broken and wounded. Over times the wounds do
not heal, rather they calcify and harden, destroying enormous
potential. Ruining God’s plan for us. You wanna get mad about
something, get mad about that.
If I had my way, I’d certainly outlaw abortion. But I’d outlaw
ignorant tightasses first. Then I’d outlaw pastors who are just
selfish, lazy bastards who like being called “pastor.” For, it
is those two demographics that are, in many ways, the proximate
cause of a great number of these abortions. Banning would only
make abortion less-safe, as it would now go underground, into
back alleys and basements.
If I could outlaw something, I’d outlaw Lazy Pastors. I’d pass a
Lazy Pastor law that strips pastors of their pastorate when they
do not invest themselves in their flock. When they don’t know
Mommy and daughter enough to know, intuitively, when something’s
wrong. When they are so high and lifted up that these fatherless
daughters cannot trust them or turn to them. When the needs of
these husband-less mothers are not being seen to to the point
where these mommies are using their children as emotional
crutches. Pastors: this stuff happens before your very eyes.
This is the recipe for disaster, and this is where many of these
abortions get their start: lonely women, and children who have
pals instead of parents. Far too many of our pastors are simply
tone deaf. And, rather than do what Jesus actually asked us to
do—become involved with our brothers and sisters—we look to the
government to legislate behavior. Which is a cop-out and a lie.
It’s not what Jesus did. Its not what He asked us to do. He
asked us to be better pastors. Better fathers. Better mothers.
Mom: she had an abortion., or, she’s on her way to having one.
Get up. Take a risk. Get involved. Don’t worry about her getting
mad at you—that’s what teens are supposed to do, they’re
supposed to be little pains in the butt. Stop trying to be
popular. Stop tip-toeing around your own house. Get in her face.
Get in your son’s face.
|
The church is trying to fight this holocaust of the unborn by electing liars who use this critically important issue to sucker you into voting for them. If you’re really concerned about the crisis of abortion, the battleground is right there—right in front of you. In your church. In your community. In your home. The very two-facedness of |
the church on this issue is simply
staggering. First, you preach abstinence only, second you tell
kids nothing about birth control, third, you’re not involved in
their lives or in their parents’ lives. The effective work of
the church is one-to-one: in the lives of those we serve. That’s
the real battleground: recognizing and dealing with the
conditions that bring those girls to the clinic waiting room in
the first place. And that’s where far too many of us are asleep
at the switch. All this hollering and complaining, but the
underlying cause of abortion is us. Our failure as parents, as
teachers, as ministers, as pastors. But I've never seen the
placard STOP ABORTION: BE A BETTER PASTOR. In the African
American tradition, we tend to treat pastors like kings. They’re
not kings. They are servants. They are shepherds. Shepherds
cannot do their job without getting their hands dirty. If your
pastor is not accessible, is not involved in your family’s life,
in the lives of your children, he hardly deserve to be called a
pastor.
You really want to end abortion? Start there. Be a better
pastor. Be a better parent. Picketing, protesting, and voting
for lying bastards who are just using you is a cop-out, an
abdication of our true responsibility. As Christians, why not
try and do what Jesus asked us to do? Why not give that a shot
for once.
For, maybe if we all were doing our jobs better, there’d be no
need for abortions in the first place.
Christopher J. Priest
28 September 2008 (Pages 2-4)
14 April 2013 (Page 1)
editor@praisenet.org
TOP OF PAGE
