Agape Defiled
How the Church Has Failed 55 Million Orphans
Topics: Church Issues, Life Issues, Religion & Society
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There's
an elephant in the living room. Only it isn't an elephant, and it isn't
in the living room. It's a golden calf, and it's in our baptismal font
and our pulpit and our sanctuary and our Sunday School class and our
Bible study group and everywhere else we worship and serve God, because,
truth be told, it's in our hearts.To put it bluntly: We, the church of Jesus Christ, have an idol.
It's called ministry.
Ministry?
Yes, ministry: busying ourselves with the things of God. Granted, ministry seems very un-idol-like. But then, subtlety is the hallmark of seductive sins. It has been the devil's most effective stratagem since the beginning of time: Get the sin to seem no sin. Better, get it to seem like service to God. Better still, get it to be service to God. Sins don't get more subtle than that, nor does idolatry seem like idolatry when we're busy doing things God instructed us to do. It seems like true Christianity, like pure and undefiled religion.
But is it? Even ministry can be idolatry when it supplants what God most wants from us. What is the acid test of true Christianity, of pure and undefiled religion? What does it look like?
Pure and Undefiled Religion
We are not left guessing. In James 1:27, God tells us what “pure and undefiled religion” looks like: “Visit[ing] orphans and widows in their distress.” That's divine shorthand for serving “the least of these” with sacrificial agape love. Acts of compassion, exemplified by coming to the aid of suffering women and children, are the distinguishing marks of true Christianity.
The American church, by stunning contrast, has been characterized the past 40 years—ever since Roe v. Wade—by the deliberate and thoroughgoing neglect of 55 million orphans in exquisite distress. One has to wonder if the cold indifference shown by the church to these orphans could have been any more absolute had salvation itself depended on completely ignoring them.
Orphans?
Yes, orphans, in the truest sense. These little victims, before having their lives snuffed out in abortion, were emphatically orphans, for there are two ways a child becomes an orphan: One is to lose his parents; the other is for his parents to abandon him. It doesn't take a Solomon to see here the applicability of James 1:27.
Yet for four decades the church has fastidiously refused to muster aid on behalf of these little people and against one of the most barbaric and inhumane practices imaginable. Not only has the church opted not to visit these orphans in their distress, but by refusing to voice any significant public moral objection, the church has actually gone to the opposite extreme and given tacit sanction to their cruel mutilation and murder.
And this comports with James 1:27, how?
No one will answer that question because there is no answer. We are wholly without excuse. We have ignored not only the soundless cries of these abandoned orphans, but more ominously, the unequivocal declarations of our God and Father as well.
This raises the additional and perhaps more deeply soul-probing question: If pure and undefiled religion in God's sight is to visit orphans in their distress, then just what kind of religion has the church been practicing since 1973? What kind of religion is it whose defining characteristic is the refusal to visit tens of millions of orphans in their inconceivably great distress?
Defining Characteristic?
Yes, defining characteristic. A defining characteristic is the feature most notable and distinctive about a thing. A hundred years from now history will remember us not for our missions or evangelism or our ministry, much less for our fidelity to the Bible. It will remember us for our breathtakingly thorough disregard of orphans in their distress.
Abortion continues to flourish largely because of us. We could end abortion overnight—if we really wanted to. The present generation of Christians will no more be lauded for its service to Christ than would a perverted pastor who preached spellbinding sermons and won thousands of souls by day, but committed pedophilia against a four-year-old child by night.
We will not be remembered for the religious busyness we called ministry—in the final analysis, this amounts to so much window-dressing in the sight of God—but for refusal to give Christ the one thing He wants in evidence of true love for Him: that we would love our neighbor as ourselves.
The logic is inescapable: If pure and undefiled religion in the sight of God is to give compassionate, sacrificial, agape love to abandoned children, then American Christianity is grotesquely impure and defiled—like a river of life befouled by the corpses of too many children for even the angels to count.
* * *
Solomon: The Mother's Day Ruminations of an Abandoned SonCall me her son, but not my mother deemThe one who gave me life enough to tasteThe barest part of God's ecstatic dream,Then rid me from her womb with wicked haste.“Considered innocent till guilty proved”
So said the law she praised, yet gave me death
With no defense, who not so much as moved
A tiny fist or raised his voice in threat.
She thought it wisdom plotting my demise
And naming “Orphan,” by default, her son;
But she by murder made that son more wise;
For cenotaphs shall dub him “Solomon,”
Who, like the Sage, is sure a mother true
Would not consent to cut her child in two.
Image courtesy of Wikipedia.
Rolley Haggard is a feature writer for BreakPoint.
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Comments:
We did post it, Sharon. Unless you sent in another one that I didn't see?
P.S.
In my previous comment, I purposefully reciprocated in the tone that I
detected in this article. And I do understand why you did not post it.
and
since we are talking about the elephant in the room, how about the many
who are sacrificing their own children on the altar of ministry or
entertainment? When it comes to the issue of divorce within the church,
the silence is deafening. What of those 'orphaned' children? Please
don't misunderstand me, I'm in no way disagreeing with what you have
said, I'm simply adding to it. The breakdown of the family "continues to
flourish largely because of us." We laud speaker so and so who has had
multiple wives because he happens to espouse our cause. Not that I think
we should shun anyone but should we really praise him? Really? I think
that children brought up in homes where the father is engaged are far
less likely to participate in fornication, become pregnant, and (don't
kid yourself) in many, many, cases have an abortion.
"Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever."
"Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever."
Agape
I loved your commentary. Many heartfelt thanks!
I have worked for Right to Life for many years. Most protestant churches in our area will not participate in pro-life activities. Some will pray for us, and I am grateful for that...but we need boots on the ground and support, but none is forthcoming. Some say it is too Catholic...well that is because nearly everyone participating in witnessing to life are catholic. So I say, if you don't like the way we pray lets talk and you can have a whole hour, day, or week to witness out there all by yourselves.
I have worked for Right to Life for many years. Most protestant churches in our area will not participate in pro-life activities. Some will pray for us, and I am grateful for that...but we need boots on the ground and support, but none is forthcoming. Some say it is too Catholic...well that is because nearly everyone participating in witnessing to life are catholic. So I say, if you don't like the way we pray lets talk and you can have a whole hour, day, or week to witness out there all by yourselves.
Outside the walls of the Church
I
had been a over 30 years. I was a Sunday school teacher, Youth leader,
Singles ministry leader, Adult group leader and a helper at church
events. One day it occured to me that all of my Christian service had
been done within the four walls of my church. Didn't Jesus say something
about going into all the world?
I considered letting Breakpoint readers know what I am now doing, but I have decided not to. Instead if you have had the same experience of serving God only in the four walls of your church look around you for ways to get out side and make a difference for the Gospel in your community.
I considered letting Breakpoint readers know what I am now doing, but I have decided not to. Instead if you have had the same experience of serving God only in the four walls of your church look around you for ways to get out side and make a difference for the Gospel in your community.
Christians-in-name-only
I
am a Lutheran but I left the institution. I think their God's name is
Money as proved by following the law under a 501(C)3. John the Baptist
made Rev 2:10 the better goal, but they are worried about a measly tax
break. LOL
Selective Disregard
It's
exactly like the Priest and Levite who walked by the "half-dead" man in
the ditch. They were going to church; they had a license from
God--they thought--to make going to church a higher priority than
stopping to help a dying man. The Lord made it clear those people were
the enemies of God because they neither loved Him nor their neighbor.
http://www.aogusa.org is what comes next in the resistance.
Christians in name only
Jesus
further illustrated your point in Matthew 25:45, "Truly, I say to you,
as you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me."
The modern American church has "lost its salt," just as the German
church did during Nazism.
Truth like this is painful, and it should be.
Thank you, in the deepest sense, for refusing to be silent.