John Stott – Witkowski Blog

Over the last few months, Vice President Kamala Harris has radically reshaped the political conversation around abortion, sliding into the pulpit of orthodoxy. Throughout the course of her campaign, Vice President Harris has boldly asserted that, “One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree: The government, and certainly Donald Trump, should not be telling a woman what to do with her body.” Notice, she does not appeal to the authority of other religious leaders, saying as, “Pastor so and so said.” Nor does she claim that her understanding of faith is compatible with abortion, inviting other religious people to join her. Rather, she presents herself as a religious authority. In other words, her language does not convey that she hopes conservative evangelicals will find a church that aligns with her party’s platform. Rather, she is telling them and all people of faith what should be true of every church or place of worship. Namely, no Christian or religious person should object to a woman getting an abortion because to quote the Vice President “that decision does not require anyone to abandon their faith or their beliefs.” To disagree with her is no longer to disagree with a political party or ones’ government but with the God of the universe.

My Main Concern is Not

My main concern today is not to debate the morality of abortion which is firmly fixed in my mind nor the need for Christians to oppose the practice. Abortion is murder. I lament that liberals and even a growing number of conservatives long to normalize this brutal culture of death, using duplicitous language of “healthcare.” Without reservation, I believe Christians should advocate for life across the political spectrum. Tax rates, housing prices, and issues pertaining to the quality of one’s life count for nothing if one is not alive to pay taxes or buy homes.

Neither a conservative, evangelical pastor’s opposition to nor a Democratic Presidential Candidate’s support of abortion is noteworthy.

My Main Concern

But what is and what I object to is Vice President Harris’ defense of abortion with an appeal to a governmental defined religious orthodoxy. I oppose not only to the content of her orthodoxy, but her very use of orthodoxy. In other words, I do not wish to replace the Vice President’s political forays into theological orthodoxy with those of a candidate more closely aligned with my theological convictions. For example, I acknowledge that most non-evangelicals who identify as some form of “Christian” disagree with the pro-life position. Though I hope to win those churches back to the apostolic faith of Jesus, I also believe that the government has no authority to tell those affiliated with the Sparkle Creed or any other religious creed what is or is not an acceptable tenant of their faith.

Faith Still Belongs

I am also not advocating that those with religious opinions should retreat from the public square or deny that their faiths have a shaping influence on their actions. Without question, one’s faith and worldview will have a profound effect on one’s personal and public ethic. I long for pro-life politicians to unapologetically live out their religious convictions in the public square through the creation of laws that promote life, understanding that those of liberal faiths can do the same with their convictions. I do not object to the enforcement of a public ethic (though I long for that ethic to reflect God’s righteous standards), but with proscribing that all people should conform their faith to that ethic.

The Separation of Church and State

By invoking the language of orthodoxy, Vice-President Harris is straining the bounds of the separation of church and state. To borrow the language of the hour, she is toying with the idea of establishing a leftist “Christian” or perhaps more accurately stated leftist “Religious Nationalism.”

When Thomas Jefferson coined the phrase “a wall of eternal separation” to describe the relationship between the state and the church in 1802, he had in mind the very overreach committed by the Harris Campaign. He wrote, “religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his god…the legitimate powers of government reach action only and not opinions.” The state and those running the state have the right to enforce laws that reflect the ethic that flows from their religious views but possess no religious authority to bind the consciences of its citizens to the particular religious views of those in power. Politicians are not prophets.

The Biblical View

While ideas of religious freedom have a foundation in American political history and theory, they also have a biblical foundation. Except when coerced by the state, the church does not look to the state for instruction on what is or is not orthodox. Rather, the church claims a God given right to determine its own doctrine in accordance with Scripture and then to share those doctrines with both its surrounding culture and the state. “Your word is a Lamp unto my feet and light to my path (Ps 119:105).”

When it comes to religion, the state should not inform the pastor of God’s will. The pastor should inform the state. To quote the British theologian John Stott, the church should function as the “nation’s conscience.” Operating in this vein, Nathan rebuked King David for his sexual sin and murder. Elijah condemned Ahab for his unjust grab of land. Isaiah scolded Hezekiah for his foolish foreign policy. Jesus rebuked Pilate for assuming divine authority. And Paul pleaded with Felix to embrace Jesus as his savior.

In other words, the church should share God’s principles with those in power. It should praise leaders when they repeal unjust laws that condemn shoplifters to life sentences. Conversely, the church should call those who pass a bill that legalizes infanticide to repentance. As Lloyd-Jones notes, “The church is here to show that according to biblical teaching, the general consensus of opinion is not the basis on which you arrive at moral decisions, either with regard to homosexuality, or with regard to divorce, or abortion, or birth control, or any one of these questions.” The state should not preach to the church. The church should preach to the state, reminding those in power to “Serve the Lord with fear (Ps. 2:11).”

For the sake of the United States and its faith community, I encourage Vice President Harris to abandon her usurpation of the pulpit, and to sit once again in the pew.

The Woowh, Woowh, Woowh of our first child’s heartbeat was by far one of the most glorious sounds to ever reach my ears. Only moments before the tech found my sons’ heart, my wife and I had been sitting nervously in the Doctor’s office afraid that we might be on our way to becoming America’s next goofiest couple. After all, who misreads a pregnancy test? But when we saw our son’s little jellybean shape appear on the ultrasound screen accompanied by a strong heart beat our faces burst into uncontrollable smiles. We were having a baby!

The Nature Of Unredeemed Hearts

Just as the recognition of our son’s little heartbeat moved us quickly from insaneville to the corner of happy and reasonable, understanding a child’s spiritual state at conception is foundational to all that follows. Before we can discuss salvation or the beauties of baptism with our grade schoolers, we have to understand what our little wiggle worms need to be saved from. Is a child graced with a morally neutral heart, needing spiritual guidance; or is our little gal given a mostly maladjusted heart that she can overcome with gifted spiritual actions; or did our cute guy inherit a desperately corrupt heart from which he cannot escape apart from the work Christ through the Holy Spirit? According to the Bible, only the last phrase accurately describes the hearts of those who process the glorious social freedom to run about in diapers. “The Bible teaches that children are not good by nature; they are not a ‘blank slate’…they are genetically predisposed to be bad because every child is born with original sin and a rebellious nature” (Fitzpatrick, Newheiser, & Hendrickson, p. 29). Let’s see how this plays out in Romans 5.

Babies Are Sinners

According to Romans 5:12, every human being enters the world infected by sin. Way back in Genesis 2, Adam was chosen by God to represent humanity. He was blessed with the ability to have a perfect relationship with God. But enticed by the snake, Adam irrationally chose to depart from God’s love. And the moment the fruit hit his lips, Adam radically altered the nature of humanity. He now had a selfishness, prideful, and generally sinful nature. Consequently, all of Adam’s descendants including the sweet baby cooing on her mommy’s quilt have the vile stain of sin on their hearts (Ps. 58:3). As Wayne Grudem notes, “Even before birth children have a guilty standing before God (p. 499)”. We know that this weighty statement is true because all people suffer from sin’s greatest side effect, death. As Paul writes in the next chapter, “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23a). Sinners die.

Why Some Say Babies Are Neutral

Now some object to the above statements. They question how babies and infants can be charged with sin if they did not willfully commit an act or recognize what they were doing when they did. For example, the miscarried child never cheated on its spouse or even stole a cookie. And the infant blessed with a short life span never realized that that slapping mommy at bath time violated the fifth commandment. Consequently, some Christians claim that babies are naturally innocent and become sinners with age and action.

Babies Receive Judgment

These proponents are correct to a degree. The Bible teaches that babies and fully grown adults are only held responsible for their actions. But these arguments do not overcome the harsh, practical reality of original sin. Babies die. My son’s heart stopped beating at 2:49 pm on July 16, 2013 only seventeen weeks after our initial visit. The Bible clearly states that my son did not die for my sins or for the sins of my wife (Ez. 18:19-20). He died nestled softly in my arms because he was born with corrupt nature. The apostle Paul noted in Romans 5 that “death reigned…even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam.” My son did not willfully sin as Adam did by defying the words of God. But his life was still ruled by sin. The lifeless tombstone that sits above my baby’s body is proof positive that his nature was corrupt and in need of a redeemer. Just as his father Adam, my precious son died.

All Babies Go To Heaven

Yet, I have hope. Even though my son was born a sinner like his dad (Psalm 51), we serve a God who conquered death through the cross! “The free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23b). “Look at yourself in Adam; though you had done nothing you were declared a sinner. Look at yourself in Christ; and see that you have done nothing, you are declared righteous” (Stott, p. 157). This is the gracious hope of every believer: Jesus freely saves! And, our heavenly father greatly delights in bestowing the gift of salvation upon little boys who only grow to be a lovable twelve inches long! All throughout scripture, we find evidence of God saving innocents, those who lack the mental faculties to worship their creator. In Job 3:11-19, we learn that by God’s grace innocents escape the suffering of this world and inherit the glories of heaven. In the New Testament, Jesus reaffirmed the presence of children in heaven, making little ones the centerpiece of several analogies (Mark 9:33-37, Mat. 19:14). As John MacArthur writes, “If children are not readily and fully received into the kingdom of heaven, the analogy to spiritual conversion would be a poor one” (MacArthur, p. 59). And, David famously comforts all parents with jellybean size holes in their hearts proclaiming, “I shall go to him” (2 Sam 12:23). “We cannot say that babies die and go to heaven because they are ‘sinless.’ Rather, babies go to heaven because God is gracious” (p. 72). As the above scripture passages make clear, God saves babies. He has redeemed my son and all innocent children from the curse of Adam by his free gift of salvation. And this same free gift of salvation is available to all who call upon the name of Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. As Grudem writes, God saves babies and all other people, “entirely on the basis of Christ’s redemptive work and regeneration by the Holy Spirit within them” (Grudem, p. 300).

Age Of Accountability

Before we go on, let’s quickly address the age of accountability. I believe the age of accountability to be as elastic as a pair of maternity pants. I’ve known seven-year-olds that legitimately understand salvation and choose to reject or accept it. I’ve seen five-year-olds that don’t. And, I’ve been blessed to minister to forty-year-olds who may never have the SalvationSeries_BaptismClassforParents_Session1 mental capacity to repent and accept Jesus as Savior. I think John MacArthur summaries the position well writing, “All children who die before they reach a state of moral awareness and culpability in which they understand their own sin and corruption – so that their sins are deliberate – are graciously saved eternally by God through the work of Jesus Christ” (MacArthur, p. 89).

Treat Your Children As Sinners

How do we respond to the news that our children enter the world with evil hearts (Gen 8:21)? We respond by calling our children to repent of their sins and to believe in the gospel. We can do so without fearing that we will somehow bump our children off the corner of spiritual neutrality into fire of damnation. As noted earlier, children are born sinners. As J.D. Geear writes, “You didn’t start to sin because you hung around the wrong crowd; you were the wrong crowd” (p.29) They already stand in condemnation and in need of a savior. All of us are ultimately children of Adam. Just ask any parent harboring a member of the terrible two’s gang. They will happily affirm their child’s capacity to sin. Exposing children to truth does not change their initial status before God. Preaching the gospel to our children is a blessing and kindness (Rom. 10:15). All children even the ‘innocents,’ come to salvation through the word of God (I believe babies encounter the risen word of Christ). The best and most loving thing we can do for little sinners is to expose them to the word of God, prayerfully asking the Holy Spirit replace our baby’s heart of stone with a heart of flesh.