BY JOHN STOEHR DECEMBER 9, 2020
As you know, the Rev. Raphael Warnock is running to represent the state of Georgia in the US Senate against incumbent Republican Kelly Leoffler. This more than anything explains the extreme online reaction Tuesday to a short tweet by Warnock, declaring “I am a pro-choice pastor.” Erickson and his ghouls are trying to discredit his religion. They are trying to delegitimize his faith. And they are doing this because Warnock, as the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where Martin Luther King Jr. once preached, speaks with righteous authority. If you can take that away, you’ve taken away Warnock’s mightiest political asset.
One of the best political defenses comes from the Rev. Dave Barnhart, an ordained elder of the United Methodist Church who heads something called the house churches of Saint Junia in Birmingham, Ala. Some time ago he wrote the following, which has been widely shared by liberal Christians.
“The unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; they are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor; they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn.
He went on.
It’s almost as if, by being born, they have died. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus but actually dislike people who breathe. Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.
Read HERE.