Testimony of Life

Yesterday was a big day but by no means extraordinary. Strangely enough, what made the day so big was the conviction placed upon me and my soul that someone out in that cold, cruel world needs me, and I am somehow withholding myself. Strange, huh? I am, after all, the pastor of a church. I’m all about doing the Lord’s work, right? It’s what one might think, and yet I can easily see that there will never be a day in which the measure of my work can be compared to the misery that exists in this world. How can we ever do enough, especially when we can readily see the seemingly insurmountable tasks before us? Starvation abounds, and it is not restricted only to the physical shortage or lack of food.

Abortion is a big issue. I maintain there can be no “middle ground”, no compromise between abortion foes and abortion supporters in spite of the president’s naiveté (or downright arrogance) because the conflict is inherent to the nature of each: one cannot advocate for life while supporting the destruction of life, and one cannot advocate the death of one as a means of life for another. Life either is or it ain’t, but it cannot be anything less than what it is. We support the substance of life, or we do not. It really is that simple.

So it must necessarily be for the murder of “Tiller the Killer”, George Tiller, the late-term abortion provider operating out of Kansas. It is said throughout the media that Tiller is “one of the few” late term abortion providers in the nation, and he was shot and killed in church this Sunday past. I feel absolutely nothing toward this man though I have a particular disdain for his chosen profession, and I absolutely resent and reject the broad statement issued by his family that “the nation lost a woman’s health care provider”. The nation lost an abortionist, not a health care provider, but his family lost a dear loved one. This should matter to me, but it does not beyond that part of me that cannot imagine the horror of a loved one actually witnessing the murder of their beloved. Though Mrs. Tiller was not with her husband when he was shot, she was in church seated with the choir. Close enough.

That shooting was entirely too random to be so random since no one else was hit (a couple of fellow church-goers were allegedly threatened by the gunman for trying to intervene). It was reasonable to suspect that Tiller was the intended target (he was), and it is reasonable (though not fair) to assume the shooter was targeting Tiller because of his work as an abortionist (he was). Other abortionists have been shot at, threatened, hit, and killed by a fringe element consisting of substantially overzealous, if maladjusted, pro-lifers, some of whom have actually claimed to have been “instructed” to shot and/or kill these abortionists. The murder of this man was no more justified than the many murders by this very man’s hands.

It is strangely ironic that Tiller was in his Lutheran church when he was gunned down, but I am not sure how the Lutherans as a denomination feel about abortion. Not that it matters much because I do know of so-called “pro-choice” Catholics who number themselves among the “enlightened” who have decided that, yes, man does have this legitimate “choice” in determining who lives and who dies, regardless of the reason or lack of one. And killing unborn children is the easiest way because, as it is said, one cannot hear screaming from the womb. Regardless of noble intent, the inescapable fact is that a human life is being cruelly and painfully terminated. Any “religious” person who cannot see this unalterable fact is spiritually starved either through willful ignorance, arrogance, or neglect. And any church that attempts to water down the Word of the Lord as anything less than a celebration of the great gift of life surrenders its moral authority. This also includes the senseless murder of an abortionist.