Before I retired, I moved the celebration of The Holy Innocents to Sanctity of Life Sunday. If you look at the history of the celebration on December 28, it was originally celebrated after St. Stephen and St. John, to tamp down the over celebrating that accompanied Christmas. As much as I am loath to tinker with the historic Church Year, I think moving it from December 28 to around January 22 is not only apropos but called for. Our society has devolved, deturpated, decayed, to the point where it is open-season on the most helpless.
Yet, how few pastors preach about this? Abortion is not one more sin to be listed with others. Abortion is not a choice between to two evils. Abortion is one of two marks, the acceptance of homosexuality is the other, that a culture, a society, a nation, a people is ripe for judgment. Chesterton put it is this way: while noble pagans teach their children to sacrifice to idols; ignoble ones sacrifice their children to the idols. This was the distinction between Rome and Carthage, and why Cato was right. Carthage must be destroyed, and why abortion must be preached about today.
Those who will not preach about this are not even rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic. Those doing that at least recognize the looming iceberg. Those who remain silent in the face of such an overwhelming evil are town criers calling “all is well” when it is anything but.
The Confessional Lutheran pastor I sit at the feet of does mark and preach on the tragedy of abortion. He began his sermon last year saying that it was the most difficult of the year to write. I remember thinking that when in office. Bar none it was the hardest to write and for 35 years I wish I could stop, but I couldn’t. To me that would be ceding to those crying, “Peace, peace” when there was none.
For this reason, I am adding notes that I thought pertained to the issue of abortion in books I’ve read from 2002 to 2020. I added to these the notes I took from Marvin Olasky’s latest book on abortion The Story of Abortion that just came out. This and his 1992 Abortion Rights are the best books I’ve read on the subject. The notes can be found at this link. I offer them in hopes of encouraging more pastors to speak out and up.
