Dear West Family

I am a slow thinker. It frustrates the people around me, but I like to look at things for a long time and from many different angles before I formulate solid (or even cohesive) opinions on them. It comes from my firm conviction of double brokenness, a conviction which I have held most of my adult life and which only strengthens in me with every passing year. This conviction believes that the way that I receive and process information is subject to a brokenness twice over, which demands that I slow down and admit that handicap before proceeding with bravado or bluster. The first brokenness is external, coming from a broken world which struggles to tell the truth without giving in to bias and the impure motives for power and control. The second brokenness is internal, in my own mind, which gets clouded by a myriad of desires and impulses for self-preservation, protection and promotion. That’s before we even get into the gap between Divine reality and human limitation, which is a topic for another day, to be sure. Thank God for revelation, and Spirit-empowered sanctification, without which we would have no knowledge at all.

This awareness of brokenness though slows my thinking and sometimes my response. I do acknowledge that this may at times appear like (or may even fully manifest as) passivity or slowness to respond when haste is required. I get it, but I have come to call this mode of slow thinking “living in the tension.” When I say tension, I don’t mean in the emotive sense (although it certainly does present as that at times) but rather in the physical sense of maintaining connection with two points without letting go of the strain that it requires to keep those anchors holding the line.

I love the way that Switchfoot described it in their 2003 masterpiece song, “I Dare You to Move.”

Welcome to resistance …

The tension is here

Between who you are and who you could be

Between how it is and how it should be

Man I miss 2003. Frosted tips, visible abs, Switchfoot songs. Simpler days. Their observation is that we are not yet who we could be, and the world is not yet as it should be, and so therefore … tension.

I tell you all of this though because my desire to hold tension has been tested this week with the release of the Supreme Court’s “Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health” decision. It is groundbreaking and society shaping for sure, but I wanted to take the time to read it in full in order to develop some helpful categories of thought so that I could process it faithfully as a follower of Jesus and maybe help others around me to process it as well. It appears that we don’t have time for that though. Within minutes of the news being released I had people reaching out to me for thoughts and comments and I fear that I satisfied none of them. 

One of my friends (who isn’t a believer and who knows what I do for a living) was furious at the ruling and asked me on a DM what I thought about it, but the way he asked it made it impossible for me to answer. He said “tell me you aren’t supportive of these crazies!! You cannot take away the bodily autonomy of women!” My response was a question as I genuinely wanted to test the tension of the logic. I asked, “What about the bodily autonomy of small and really vulnerable women?” He was like “Yeah!” and I was like, “I mean really small and vulnerable women. Small enough to fit inside a womb maybe even?” Apparently that tension was too much, and there is a size limit to bodily autonomy.

But then, on the other side, I received some messages from wonderful believers who wanted me to host a celebration service thanking God for the decision and praising Him for delivering America from evil. I do believe that the ruling is a common grace that will potentially save many lives! Thank God! But my questions of tension for this friend was, “Have you read the ruling? What do you think we should do next as a result? Are we confident that state legislators are moral agents who will do the right things to protect the unborn without being criminally punitive to vulnerable women?” Again, maybe too much tension.

So, I have spent this week reading the ruling, reading the ruling it overruled, reading my bible and asking God to help me to hold tension of what it looks like to be faithfully pro-life in America in a way that loves my neighbor, protects the vulnerable, and proclaims the Kingdom until His return. What follows is the grid of thoughts in tension that I am using to help me to live a pro-life life in a post Dobbs America. I submit these humbly and fully knowing that my thinking is most likely still subject to double cursedness, but it is the grid through which I am discipling my family and calling myself to action as a helpful Christian in this society. This the kind of pro-life person I want to be.

Convictionally pro-life

The Scriptures are clear that every single human being is made in the image and likeness of God and that this image and likeness is evident in the life of a child in the womb. (Gen 1:26-28; Jer 1:5; Ps 139:13-16) If we are called to be a people who advocate for the weak and the vulnerable, then our commitment must surely begin with the weakest and most vulnerable of God’s creatures, the baby in the womb. We can therefore celebrate the common grace of this ruling and the many lives it will protect.

Holistically pro-life

This dignity inducing image of God doesn’t expire with age or experience and so extends to every person on the planet. It extends to the mother of the child in the womb, to the immigrant, the homeless, the addicted, the poor, the rich, the elderly … to everyone. We must therefore work to ensure that this moment doesn’t get leveraged to remove essential healthcare and protections from image bearers, and we must commit to be a people who work tirelessly to bring about as much flourishing for people around us, especially those who are vulnerable in society.

Consistently pro-life

Our value for human life means that we want to protect it wherever we can. If we are (rightly) saying that bodily autonomy isn’t license to impact the life and flourishing of another human, then we must be careful to not jump back to the exact same defense when other issues of human flourishing arise. Like when we are finding ways to protect children in classrooms or societies in the midst of pandemics, then we as believers ought to be the first to place ourselves last in terms of our own autonomy in order that we might be able to provide flourishing for others. 

Helpfully pro-life

We don’t want to be like the hypocrites that Jesus corrected in Matthew 23:4 who placed heavy burdens on others shoulders and yet refused to help them carry anything. Now is the time for us as a people to do some of the work of helping burdened people carry heavy loads. Loads of fostering, adoption, healthcare funding, mother mentoring, community building. Loads we must carry, together. For ways to start doing this at West, you can begin here. 

Humbly pro-life 

We do see this ruling as a victory, and we also see that Christians should be those who celebrate victory differently from the world. Now is the time for us to really listen to the complex stories and to get to know the hurting image bearers who face what seem like impossible decisions, and to lean into those stories with grace, and love, and help, in humility. Oh how beautiful the church could be in this moment!

One last thing. The song this week is from Ben Rector. It is about getting older with one person, and it is wonderful and bizarre and brilliant. Enjoy.

Ben Rector - Steady Love (Official Video)

See you Sunday,
Ross