Life Training Institute Podcast #25 - The Superbowl Commercial
In this episode, Rich, Scott, Jay, and Bob discuss the upcoming commercial produced by Focus on the Family that will air during the upcoming Superbowl. We respond to some of the criticism that CBS has received for selling the time to Focus on the Family. Is it possible that the emotional appeal of this commercial may obscure the true pro-life argument?
http://media.libsyn.com/media/serge13102/LTIPodcast25_-_Thesuperbowlad.mp3
Pro-abortionists have long characterized us as religious freaks without the capacity for reason and logic. That narrow view was fulfilled last year by the actions of one man who hardly represents us.
It took jurors in Kansas 37 minutes last Friday to convict Scott Roeder of murdering Dr. George Tiller.
The judge in the case shocked the nation when he initially agreed to consider allowing the defense to pursue a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter, since Roeder believes he righteously killed a “mass murderer under protection from the state.” After all, Tiller was ending the lives of the unborn — approximately 300 a year, and even through the third trimester.
Anyone familiar with LTI knows that we repudiate such heinous violence and reject anything that would work to undermine our cause. Extremists, like Roeder, are a minority, but they sometimes unfairly become the poster children for the pro-life movement.
Roeder is a man who once considered severing Tiller’s hands with a sword. He fantasized for years about ending the doctor’s career or life. The pro-life movement doesn’t want him to be elevated to the status of an idol. He needed God’s direction just as badly as Tiller did.
In fact, pro-life apologists have nothing in common with extremists like Mr. Roeder. Our purpose is to communicate the pro-life message in a God-honoring way. We take our cues from Jesus himself, who was irresistible and charismatic. He spoke truth, and some received that truth and allowed it to change the fabric of their lives. He changed the world with love.
February’s issue of GQ magazine featured an article “Savior vs. Savior” detailing the events leading up to that fateful day when Roeder’s and Tiller’s paths crossed.
The article starts off, “Both men believed they were doing right: Dr. George Tiller was one of the last men in America willing to provide late-term abortions. Scott Roeder was convinced that killing his kind was the duty of the righteous.”
It is human nature for us to justify our behavior and actions, especially if it’s something we believe in passionately. Both Roeder and Tiller clung desperately to their dogmatic beliefs until passion led them to forsake reason.
Roeder — a Messianic Jew — had been following the actions of Operation Rescue. But they weren’t doing enough. While they protested outside Tiller’s clinic, the doctor was ending lives inside.
There had been other attempts to stop Tiller’s practices in conservative Wichita, Kansas. There was a clinic bombing in 1986 and Tiller was shot in 1993 in both arms. That day he put a sign out front his clinic that read, “Women need abortions and I’m going to provide them.”
Tiller viewed what was taking place in response to his clinic as a war. He provided combat pay for employees and would generously reward them for their loyalty.
Roeder fed his hatred of Dr. Tiller for months, maybe years, prior to marching in the doctor’s place of worship — Reformation Lutheran Church — and shooting him once in the back of the head.
Roeder thought he was doing God’s work. Tiller said he was in the business of saving people. In the end, both men murdered for their own agendas. Instead of elevating themselves, both men needed a real Savior.
Pro-lifers will continue to fight the good fight, but we will do so with our words. We will put on the armor of God and battle the real enemy here. Somewhere along the way Roeder lost sight of one of the most basic and important of Christian principles — to hate the sin and love the sinner.
We are reminded this day what it is to be a human being. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. got it. He got that to be human goes further than skin color, further than any physical attribute. He got that injustices were taking place against fellow human beings, and stood on Truth to shed light on their wrongness. He worked with his resources — his God-given communication skills and his connections — to bring that injustice to light, disturbances beneath the water’s surface raised to ripple that surface for all to see. His words and actions turned the world on its head, a glimmer of the One from whom he took his cues.
To be human is so much more than the best human beings can “do.” It is more than easy smiles that lift spirits, the sparkle in the eyes of a laughing child. It is more than a face wet with tears dried by a warm, gentile breeze. It is more than a compassionate touch that soothes, or a lover’s embrace that shimmers and sizzles. It is more than the best moments shared between friends.
To be human surpasses mere physicality.
To be human is to bear the mark of your maker. In this case, every single human being who has ever come into existence has been branded — the seal of God placed upon their immaterial selves, irremovable, irreplaceable, impossibly awesome. Whether we human beings are aware of it or not, we have in our very making — the unfathomable depths of the “us” that we can’t see, and can only “know” — essences, reflections of who God is. We were created as beautiful reflections of Him for Him, always for Him.
But sin shattered the reflective surface, a stone hurled at the mirror. Now, when we “look at” one another we see fractured reproductions, marred masterpieces, hopelessly flawed canvases, the only hope of which is to be added to the stack that lies beneath the One who remained totally intact, the One whose flawless reflection covers those pieced back together with the glue of grace.
To be human is to have been created in the image of God. Everyone qualifies. No matter where they are, how tiny or large they may be. No matter if they’re missing some physical parts or functions — or developing them. No matter if they must be fed through a tube, be it natural or manufactured.
To be human is a right granted by God, not by man. After all, without Him, there would be no “man,” and certainly no “rights.” The qualifications usurp anything that can be defined in judicial chambers. “Humanity” is the term assigned and defined by human rationality, and where did that come from?
Sadly, as the celebration of human equality ensues, it remains that there is a struggle for exactly that still taking place. Sadly, there are countless who are unaware of the injustices happening, the devastating daily extermination of unborn human lives.
Sadly, until citizens and lawmakers understand the disastrous consequences of wrong ideas…
To be human is not enough.
