Pro-Life Apologetics Youth Camp June 22-23 [Scott]

The video from the 2011 camp is below, featuring Lila Rose and yours truly.

Topics include:

1. Pro-Life 101: Making a Case for Life on Hostile Turf
2. Pro-Life 201: Advanced Pro-Life Apologetics
3. Pro-Life 301: Speech and Debate Training

Dates: June 22-23 (Fort Wayne, IN)
Details soon here.

Bad Reason #2 for not Showing Abortion Pictures: Post-Abortion Guilt [Scott]

Here's the claim: "Graphic pictures lay a guilt trip on post-abortion men and women."

Short answer: The remedy for post-abortion guilt is not avoidance. It’s forgiveness. When set within the context of the Christian gospel, the pictures can be used to bring healing to those in denial over sin.

You can watch how I introduce a short abortion film to high school students here.

Before showing a short abortion clip, I tell those listening that I’m not there to condemn. But I don’t stop there. I tell them why I’m not there to condemn. Here's what I said at a pregnancy center banquet last week near Orlando:

The reason I’m not here to lay a guilt trip on anyone is because I’m a firm believer in the gospel of Jesus Christ. That gospel, men and women, puts everyone of us in this room on the same footing before the bar of God’s justice. The gospel tells of a good and holy God who created humans to worship and enjoy him forever. But we rebelled against our creator, set ourselves up as God, and God who had every right to destroy the race for its rebellion against Him, did something remarkable. He sent Jesus, the sinless one, the second member of the Godhead, to bear in full His righteous wrath against sin.

Now, we don’t like that word “wrath” because it reminds us of an angry parent or vengeful authority figure. But God’s wrath is not an uncontrolled explosion of rage; it’s his settled hatred of sin. And if God is holy and just, he can’t sweep sin under the rug. He must punish it. And he did punish it, by crushing His Son on a cross for your sin and mine. As the prophet Isaiah tells us in chapter 53: “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by his wounds we are healed.” That’s right, God the Father crushed His Son so self-centered sinners like me can be completely forgiven.

You know what I call that? I call that incredibly good news for those who’ve sinned on abortion. Listen, if that’s you—whether you’re a man who encouraged a young woman to abort or a woman who chose that option because you thought you had no other way out—you don’t need an excuse. You need an exchange, Christ’s righteousness for your sinfulness. For those who trust in Jesus alone for salvation, God gives them that righteousness. The Scriptures speak of it in 2 Corinthians 5: 21—“God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in Him, we might become the righteousness of God.”

But the news gets even better. For those who trust Jesus, God the Father not only forgives their sins; He adopts them into His own family as dearly loved children. Wow. So if that’s you, don’t try to make up for your bad stuff by doing good stuff. Your good deeds will never atone for your bad ones. Neither will mine. Trust only in the Son. Those who do are no longer condemned but have passed from death to life (John 5:24)

Paul puts it this way: “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in transgressions, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 2: 4-5)

Did you catch that? God is “rich” in mercy. He has “great” love for those broken and sinful people that He saves through His Son. With that good news in mind, let’s take a minute to roll this brief clip. Again, if you wish not watch, feel free to look away…

What’s the result? After almost every presentation—whether a banquet, church service, or chapel—post-abortion men and women thank me for the gracious way I presented my pro-life case. Yes, the pictures are painful to see. But used properly, they set the stage for the good news of the gospel, which alone heals us from our sin. In short, the video does the hard work for me so that I can use my words to soothe and bring hope.

Again, please take few minutes to watch how I introduce the short abortion film. You’ll also see how I use it to point listeners to the gospel of grace: http://vimeo.com/25061075.

Bad Excuse for not Showing Abortion Pics [Scott]

From a parent upset that I planned to show a short abortion clip as part of my talk at his kid's high school:

“We certainly wouldn’t show images of a dead teen ejected from a vehicle crash to prove you shouldn’t drink and drive, or display a hanging person to teach against suicide; so then why show this?”

Me:

Well, we actually do show images like that, especially in the first case you mention. Consider this poster from the state of Texas, aimed specifically at students who might be tempted to drink and drive. Is this poster nothing but a “shock approach” or does it save lives?

True, graphic abortion images must be used properly (see how I carefully introduce them), meaning we should not spring them on unsuspecting audiences. When I use the short film “This is Abortion,” I tell students exactly what is in the clip and invite them to look away if they so desire. Nearly everyone watches and almost no one complains. I have found this to be true in diverse settings such as debates, banquets, schools, churches, etc. With Christian audiences, I introduce my remarks by stating Christ is eager to forgive the sin of abortion and that my purpose is not to condemn, but to clarify and equip. I use the sin of abortion to set the stage for a gospel presentation, one that offers sinners hope.

Hadley Arkes on the Problem of Personhood Language [Scott]

Speaking of a previous personhood campaign, Arkes writes:

The pro-lifers in Colorado have brought forth, for the ballot this November, a Personhood Amendment to their constitution: “the term ‘person’ shall apply to every human being from the beginning of the biological development of that human being.” The proposition is certainly correct and defensible. And yet it has the form and tenor of an assertion. Cast in that way, it promises to trigger the perversity and relativism of judges who have absorbed liberal slogans: They begin with the premise that the beginning of human life is an inscrutably religious question; that it hinges on matters of belief, not truths. They know that people are brazen enough to contend that they don’t know when human life begins – even with a pregnancy test – and so the amendment simply looks like an exercise of brute force: One faction has simply imposed its “opinion” on the community with the force of law.

I would prefer another approach. We could begin with the old-fashioned mode of a preamble, which sets forth the premises in the bill. And the trick is to set down premises that even judges would be embarrassed to dismiss, because even they could not contest their truth. The preamble could begin then by citing passages from the textbooks on embryology – e.g., “The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote.” [Langman, Jan. Medical Embryology. 3rd edition]

And then:

“Nowhere in the chain of development does the offspring undergo a shift in species. It is human, and nothing less than human, from its first moments. Taller, heavier people are not more human than shorter, lighter people. No alteration in human standing can come with these changes in growth – or decline. Therefore, the ground of justification for the taking of this human life in the womb must be reconciled with the grounds that are required for the taking of any other human life in the laws of this state.”

Something in that vein – the legislative language may be sharpened and perfected. A commission could be authorized to hear cases and pass on the “justifications” that are offered. In all strictness, the legislation would still leave intact the right to order an abortion under certain circumstances – with the justifications yet to be tested. But at the same time, it implicitly calls into question many kinds of abortions now readily performed. Since there is no license to kill the children around us afflicted with Down syndrome or spina bifida, there would no longer be such a ready license to dispose of children in the womb with these afflictions.

This is not to say that judges, with more craft than shame, may not find a way to tie up these kind of law. But why not make them strain their wit to do it? And why not work, on our side, by seeking to plant in the law the truths that even the judges cannot dissolve.

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