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Foreign.
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Hello, and welcome to the Thinking Fellows Podcast. My name is Caleb Keith, and today I am joined by Scott Keith and Adam Francisco, and we're talking about a little bit of a somber topic today. Adam reminded us that it is the upcoming anniversary, although by the time you've listened to this episode, I think it will have passed. But it has been the anniversary of the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the United States. And so an opportunity to talk about abortion, probably one of the sort of greatest issues in the west today, one of the greatest public moral issues for Christians in the west today, and a battle we often lose. But the overturning of Roe v. Wade was in some ways sort of like, I think, a light at the end of the tunnel for people. But I'd like to, I don't know, look at the data, talk about the issue, get the two of you to discuss. I don't know. It's not really a dilemma for Christians because it is kind of very black and white. It's not like, is it moral or immoral? It's not the question. But there are a couple of difficult questions around abortion, like what can Christians do? How do you, as a church help people who have had abortions? How do we work to maybe not just combat it in the legal sense, but to reach people who feel like they need to get an abortion and give them hope or alternatives? So I think those are some of the questions for today. But, Adam, you're going to be speaking at a pro life event.
- [02:06]
A
Is that true? The March for Life?
- [02:08]
C
Yeah, the March for Life. But the Youth for Life conference that takes place before, during and after it. So it's not going to be millions of people. But just before we get too far down the road, Caleb, it's actually so January 22nd is the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. I'm not sure when the Dobbs decision, I mean, it was 2022.
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B
I'm not sure what I thought you meant. It was the Dobbs decision.
- [02:37]
C
No. The only reason why I know it's not like I put that date in my calendar or anything, but just because the March for Life is always around.
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B
That Dobbs was decided June 24, 2022.
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C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So not to overturn Roe v. Wade.
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B
But still, that's actually already four years ago.
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C
Yeah, but still, you know, the issue of, Well, just in case. So we've been teaching our little baby that we have. My kids have been to do certain quirky things. And one of the things is she puts her finger up and says, well, Actually, so just in case we have like an. Well, actually person who's going to fact check us. Yeah, that's true. We've just corrected.
- [03:22]
B
So, so let's, I want to talk about like the issue which is sort of the number just how far this problem goes, which is how many abortions still happen in the United States each year. Dobbs was not an end of abortion in the United States, despite what the media would have you believe that now our prisons are filled with women who are just trying to access their right.
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A
To health care or just trying to like, you know, do something about an endopic. Endopic pregnancy.
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B
Ectopic. Yeah, Pregnancy, ectopic brain.
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A
That's a difficult thing.
- [03:59]
B
Yeah, or some, something like that. Or who had a miscarriage and then were accused of an abortion or something like that. In the U.S. dobbs EDC data is still around 615,000 abortions a year to 600 in the United States, to 622,000. And that doesn't include our reporting. Adam and I were talking about the show. There are sources that try to include not just self reporting of doctor's offices, clinics, hospitals and things like that. And that number is usually well over a million. Right, Adam? Or a million to like 1.2 million.
- [04:41]
A
Oh, so say how would it even record the people who order the abortion pill online?
- [04:46]
C
Well, that's, yeah, that's. They said, you know, the CC CDC data, usually there's a contract a comparing and contrasting of that with the Guttmacher Institute and they're usually higher, but they are, it's not because they're like sensationalizing things and you know, like giving carrying water for conservatives or pro life people or something like that. They're, I mean, they have a long history of attachment to Planned Parenthood. So the, but the Guttmacher Institute, I think is typically regarded as the more accurate. They're much, you know, they got. I don't know how they do it, Scott, but I imagine like with the, the morning after, the so called morning after pill and those kinds of things, there are ways that they measure that to get a bit of a better assessment.
- [05:32]
A
I just want to, just for a moment before we get too deep into this focus on the. How we're accultured to speak about this. In other words, we use euphemisms all the time and we don't think about the implication of the euphemism. Right. So instead of calling it an abortion pill or a baby killing pill, we call it a morning after pill. Oh, had a wild Night, last night, I don't know what I did, but probably wasn't good. And I got pregnant or maybe I got pregnant. And so sometime, and it's not usually the morning after, sometime in the next several weeks or I don't know the specifics of it, but I know it doesn't have to be the morning after. I'm going to order up this pill, which I can now do completely anonymously online, and I'm going to end the life of a baby that's growing inside of me. It's not euphemistic. You know, it's not something that I think we should continue to speak of in a non literal way. Because literally what we're talking about is the ending of a baby's life, the killing of a baby.
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B
And.
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A
When we give it the terms that society gives it, we kind of just lean into the fact that it's not as big a deal as it is.
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B
Right. And the reason why society has to soften the blow. I think these numbers reveal. If you were on the news or you were watching the news and you had a million people in any other category killed every year, murdered every year, it would be 24 hour, 24 hour coverage. Somebody would be to blame. There would be riots in the street.
- [07:43]
A
Well, look at the coverage of what's going on in Gaza, you know, and it's just, it's sort of from people also that usually from people that completely support abortion. You know, you get the endless coverage of the awful things that are going on there and the killing of children there, which is, I mean it should be reported. It's horrible.
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B
So I guess this is the question. And I think, you know, knowing our listeners, I think everybody will agree, but I think it's probably good for us to just go out there. Is abortion murder? Why do we believe. Why do Christians seemingly, when you look at like polling data in the United States, why do Christians, specifically Protestants consider this murder?
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C
Because it ends a human life. That maybe its location is different than out of the womb, but it's still a human being. And it's, I would say, I don't, I mean, I know and this is very much a. Christians. Like this is like oftentimes a one issue thing for Christians when it comes to public political, legal space, I think. But it's also, you know, there are groups like, there's even like, I don't know what they'd call what they call like what the official title is, but there's like LGBT groups for life, there's secular pro life and Things like that. Because while this is very much a Christian concern and has been since, like, the earliest days of Christianity, you find already in the didache a reference to abortion and a proscription against it. It's also biologically, like, if you will, scientifically, it's human life. There's no way around it. I mean, that's why. I mean, I like what Scott said a bit earlier how. And it's interesting how easy it is to use these euphemisms because it just becomes part of the conversation. This is an ending of a human life.
- [09:51]
A
I say so. And it's not Adam's right that there are groups and people that are not Christian that have come to this conclusion too, based on science or based on personal experience. I listened to a podcaster who's not a Christian. He's a libertarian. But that doesn't mean you can be a Christian libertarian. He's not a Christian, comma, and he's a libertarian. The reason I point out he's a libertarian is libertarians have sort of historically been pro abortion just because of the quote unquote, liberties of the mother. But once he had children, you know, sort of had this light bulb go off that, wait a minute, if we're going to work on the same principles here, that the mother has every sort of right to her liberty, what about this child? And from there kind of worked backwards to the fact that he's completely anti abortion now and is not a Christian. I think he's dabbling with the idea of Christianity, but he is. He does not come to his position on abortion from Christianity. But I do think it's interesting. Christianity is the only system. I hate calling Christianity a system. The only belief.
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C
I was kind of surprised when you.
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A
Said that came out of your mouth. I caught myself. The only belief that assigns, I think that assigns enough value to human life to really make it a standard that this is wrong and that this ought to be fought against. Now, I think there are, even for your enemies, other beliefs that'll be upset if somebody within their own little belief system does this, but outside of it, this is a universal thing for Christians.
- [11:48]
B
Yeah, I think Christians are unique. And to try to start putting maybe some. Some like, positive things of Christians and not just like, you know, this is evil, this is wrong, we condemn it, which we absolutely do, but that Christians will fight against it, even for their enemies, and many other worldviews will participate in believing it's wrong, but for them. Or we can prevent our, you know, our group from having abortions, but for Christians, it's not enough to just convince our church members to not have abortions. It is. It's sort of. It's something we want to see for the whole world, not just for ourselves. I think that's important.
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C
Christians will pay for it. Historically, we've, like, from the get go. You find it already in the second century. Scott. Sorry, I'm dropping names and.
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A
No, I love it. Makes fun of you for it, too.
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C
Justin Martyr and his great apology, his defense of Christianity and Christians to the Roman emperor. So, like mid second century says, first of all because Christians were being accused of being cannibals because they ate the body and blood of Christ and people didn't know what that was a reference to. And Christians were meeting in secret and there's all this confusion. So Christians were accused of being murderers, too. And Justin. And there's another guy, Athenagoras of Athens, who are like, we're not murderers. In fact, we're the ones, as you all know, who are known for picking up children who have been exposed or who have left on the side of the road or left in a trash heap to take care of them. We bring them into our own households, we raise them, we feed them. So we actually go out of the way. Historically, Christians have always gone out of the way to. It's not just rhetoric, but actually do stuff about it. And Scott, you've talked about this before, how until everything got shifted away from charity to the state, Christians were the ones who took care of the unborn or the mother who had an unexpected quote, unquote, there's another euphemism, but a pregnancy that she didn't desire, or however you want to put it, Christians have always been the ones who have stepped in to take care of those people. Things like, I mean, having been a little bit exposed to this whole world of foster care and things like that, even though it's completely, well, not completely, mostly run by state agencies and they set the standards. The people you meet, even though you're forced to do LGBTQ training and all this other stuff, are typically Christians, the ones who are paying out of pocket, so to speak, and babysitting 247 for years just to take care of children who've been discarded. And I think of, I've been doing a little deep dive on Christianity.
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A
So the grossness of that before you, as a Christian, for the sake of Christian values, take on the responsibility of raising somebody else's child, that the state has to first indoctrinate you with its values. Oh, I'm sorry.
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C
Do you want to get me?
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B
It's just partially because the state. I mean, we don't get to do this very often. Partially because the state has decided that Christians are dangerous and that Christian values are dangerous. And they want you to know that before you engage in this. Even though Christians are probably the only people standing up most of the time to do something like foster. We've been marked as. Our values have been marked as dangerous by the state.
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A
I'll try to stay untriggered from now on.
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C
You've got my blood kind of boiling a little bit. Not you, but like just. I'm just gonna do it. Give me two minutes. So one of the things for. If you want to be a foster parent, you gotta go through training. And there's like the initial training everybody has to do, but then you gotta keep up your license. You gotta do all this other training and you can pick and choose. Like, I just read books and get credits for it. Right. But there is one training that is absolutely required of everybody. You have to do it. Can you guess what it is?
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A
Cpr. Nope.
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C
I mean, you got to do that earlier. I think we did that anyway. Lgbtqia, two Spirit plus training, where it's not just. It's not just like awareness that there are these kids who are struggling with these sorts of issues and their parents have turned them out or kicked them out of their home or things like that. It's like it's an indoctrination into a particular worldview that there's no that male and that male and female is just a construct and so on and so forth. Anyway, I should.
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A
What is two Spirit plus? Why did I ask? Why did I. Why did I ask?
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B
Adam went through the training. Can he please elaborate?
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C
I don't know. It's just sort of like this person who's kind of floats between.
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A
Between what? Two spirits?
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C
It's kind of like a non binary thing, but it comes from like allegedly the indigenous. The indigenous population.
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A
What does it say?
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C
I don't know. I don't know. Ask Justin Trudeau in Canada, the former Prime Minister. He's the one who liked to talk about it.
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A
Quite so. On that note, I think the corollary issue to this, we're not going to talk about it today, but Christians have also been the stalwart group that's always against euthanasia, by the way, on that same front, for the same reason. And this is also ostracize us. And I think the euthanasia thing is going to be the next thing that if Christians don't let it go, which they seem to be letting it go a little bit to me, will be a big point of ostracization.
- [17:48]
B
But, yeah, I agree. I feel more and more, and actually my wife showed me something this week that I think sort of proves it, is it used to be the big pushback you got was that it's not human life, right? So they would do anything to say it wasn't a human or a baby. Fetus, Clump of cells. That one would get thrown at us very. Yeah.
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A
What blastula.
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C
Oh, and spatula. I was like.
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B
And then that would shift, which is. You would see something like if somebody wanted, you know, if this was an intended pregnancy, you would have the same people calling it a baby, asking what the gender is asking about being interested, invested as little as six weeks into a pregnancy at the most undeveloped stages. That's a baby as long as mom wants it to be a baby. But if she doesn't, it's a fetus or a clump of cells or whatever you want to call whatever stage of decision.
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A
Ultimately, it's a decision if mom doesn't want it.
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B
And then you feel gaslit about this because, you know, I'm searching through one of my streaming services the other night, you know, run by a big evil corporation that funds abortions and all sorts of political action.
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A
Every time you're reminded of that, it just makes you want. What do you do? I just don't know what to do.
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B
I'm seeing a National Geographic documentary, and the title of this is in the Womb.
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A
Oh, of course, for animals. Animal babies. Of course, Animal mommies don't have a choice.
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B
Likewise, my wife showed me sort of a confrontational video where a guy is pretending to get signatures. I mean, it's a little facetious, It's a little in people's face, but he's pretending to get signatures for this. There's too many stray dogs on the street that are suffering. And so he's looking at cars in the neighborhood that have, like, you know, ASPCA stickers on them and stuff like that going to people's doors. And the sticker on. On one of these, I'm saying it's my favorite car on some sort of Subaru is a abortionist healthcare sticker right next to an Loves animals sticker.
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A
Right? And the guy goes to this cognitive dissonance.
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B
The guy goes to this lady's door and says, hey, I'm collecting signatures and donations for some animal care, animal health care. We're trying to get as many dogs off the street as possible. These animals are suffering unnecessarily. Would you please get money today to fund abortions for stray dogs? And she's. She's abhorred. What? She's disgusted. She's screaming at him, freaking out. How could you do that? That's evil. You can't kill those puppies. The whole thing.
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A
You gotta be kidding me.
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B
To which he then confronts her about the sticker about abortionist healthcare on the.
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A
Back of her car.
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B
Oh, she just screams at him and tells him she's not talking to him and all this stuff. And you go, that's not. You know, I get. It's a video on the Internet. Everything's not real. But that's not actually far from the truth. When you see things like National Geographic is going to run a special on women's healthcare rights and going to have animal babies in the womb. Documentaries. Right. This is not unusual in our culture. Animal lives in the womb are babies, especially endangered species. But a human baby is not a baby. I'm. What are our thoughts on why. Why are we.
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A
Why are we here with this? If you think about that, if any part of that's real, did anybody just get like this cold thing up their neck and get really nauseous? I don't even know what to do with that. How do you talk to that person reasonably and say, listen, this is not just the same thing. This is worse?
- [22:03]
C
I think what this all illustrates is that. There's certainly more, but at least two very different moral universes people live in my experience with, like people who are pro killing of unborn children. Do you like that, Scott, Instead of pro choice or something. But is. They will. I mean, I know somebody. I think I've mentioned it already or before on the air. I know somebody who's a religious. Well, is a Jewish person and goes to synagogue and on her car has a bumper sticker that says abortion bans are against my religion. Ponder that. So your religion is your religion about child sacrifice. What's going on there? What really it is, though, is that person's religion is a particular ideology. You could call it feminism or something like that, bodily autonomy or whatever. But basically when you. You can't really talk. I've tried. There's no conversation to be had because we inhabit two different moral universes and then throw in emotion and.
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A
No.
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C
No conversation. Right. But what. What little I've been able to ascertain and just sort of trying to talk very gently about it, is this particular person for them, the woman, the female the pregnant woman, because only women can get pregnant, just for the record, has the right to do just whatever the hell they want with their body and whatever is going on in their body. And when you push a little bit gently and say, well, okay, bodily autonomy is a thing. That thing within you, though, is a different body.
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A
Yeah.
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C
That has its own set of DNA, its own blood type and et cetera. It's a human being that is not fully developed, but it is a human being that is developing. It's just for a time is dependent upon the mother. And they won't even listen to or ponder the argument. The best. It's not. By best. I'm using air quotes. The best. Like the more. More I guess, philosophically sophisticated argument out there for. That justifies abortion. And this. It's. It's crap. Just for the record. But is. Is not really. Women have the right to do just whatever they want. That's pretty. That's pathetic. Absolutely. I'm just gonna. Pathetic. Okay. The argument that you see today is there will be an acknowledgment that that is a human being that is developing. Because that's what science. Science demonstrates that. No, there's no. I mean, you could try to falsify it. People are trying to falsify it and they just haven't been able to. But the argument is that while it's a human being, it is not yet a human person. And there's different routes they'll take.
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A
Yeah.
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C
The old route was think. I mean, this goes back to like Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill and what they call preference utilitarianism. A human being is actually not a person until it has preferences. Until it has a preference to live.
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A
Yeah. Preference sentience.
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C
Yeah. And it's like parents of unborn and even young children think. Like Peter Singer at Princeton. I think he's now retired. But he would argue. I don't know where he ended up towards the end of his life, but that even children out of the womb for a couple years aren't really persons because they don't have preferences. Their parents have preferences for them and direct them and so on. So the.
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A
Then why do they have legal protection?
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C
They. Well, so. Singer, Sanger, Singer. Sorry, I'm getting Margaret and Peter confused.
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A
Getting Singer.
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C
Singer argued that actually if we're to be really consistent. And here's where he's kind of actually helpful and. Right. If we're to be consistent. Children up to. I think he started at age 6 and he brought it down to 3. The only reason they have a Right to life is if their parents decide. Decide they have a right to live. Yeah. And. But he was consistent in his logic. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
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A
So when you said sacrifice, it's kind of funny. I'm trying to figure out. When I read this, it seems like it was more than a year, maybe even two ago. Pagan America by John Daniel Davidson. He argues that. I think we did a show on modern paganism and Mike Horton's book deal with this a little bit too.
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B
Yeah. Spiritual but not religious. He talks about lots of all of the rise in spirituality, but the decline in religiosity.
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A
So Davidson argues that we never did enter into a secular age. What we entered into was a modern version of paganism. And he specifically points out that one of the ways you can identify this is through the sacrificing of child to make sure that you're sort of just. I mean, I call it. I don't know what you call it. Like pagan life style can continue that you're sort of self worship and the worship of. Even think of what you're celebrating with abortion culture. You're celebrating the ability to do whatever sexually with your body that in the moment you feel like you should be able to do because your basest desires, your basest pagan desires are leading you there. Yeah.
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B
And that. That correlates with data. So the top reasons that people give for having them first is that 95% are unintended pregnancies out of wedlock. Okay. So not with a spouse. Not a pregnancy from sex with a spouse. But this just means out of wedlock entirely. But the top reason is simply I do not want a child. The next is finances. The other is instability with the sexual partner. And then the final set is interference with my opportunities at work or education.
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C
And I mean this is not me getting soft. Those are real things with a pregnancy. It's a big deal. Right. It changes your life forever. And that's no excuse for terminating the life of a human being. I think that. And maybe this is. We're like 30 minutes in, kind of.
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A
A. Yeah, I was.
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C
I think we need to kind of. We've been pretty grim and I'm actually. My stomach's a little. Maybe it's the four cups of coffee.
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A
But I'm unsettled as well.
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C
Yeah. I mean, What. So I think we all agree, probably most our listeners, if not all, would say this is the ending of a human life. It's what we call murder. What now? Or what then? What about those? Because among us. And it's hard to know Like, I mean, we. I don't. I'm pretty sure within my peer group, nobody's had an abortion. You know, like my, like, I'm pretty. I mean, I know Scott hasn't because he's a man, he can't get pregnant. But I'm pretty sure, like, Scott and his spouse, like all our friends. I mean, I. There might be one if it's extended out, but across the board, the rate of abortion is pretty high, especially if you focus on particular groups. It's sky high. I mean, I think in DeKalb, Illinois, there's a population. I'm not going to get into it, but the percentage of abortions in that population, women, is over 80%. I think it's something like 91%, my lord.
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B
So.
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C
Yeah, and concerning the Christian ethic, if you will, I mean, we certainly are concerned for the unborn and little ones. We're also, though, concerned about, in this case, those who have had an abortion, because while there's plenty of stuff your algorithm, or maybe it's the universe sends to you that's going to get you all your blood boiling because it's some woman celebrating her fourth abortion online or whatever, there is that kind of stuff. But there's also the other story of, of the. The young, the young woman who, who had an abortion years prior who's maybe sitting in a pew and has been quiet about it her whole life or, you know, the last 10 years or whatever. So what does the Christian say to that? How does the Christian. How does the gospel, or is the gospel, Obviously, this rhetorical question is the gospel not for them as well? So I don't know. Should we shift to that? Scott, we don't want to be.
- [31:29]
A
What do you say? You have to say Christ's death and resurrection is sufficient for even that. Even that was buried with him. And you have been risen to life, a new creature. The old is gone and the new is here. You stand now completely righteous in Christ Jesus, and you're literally a new creation. And that guilt has to be given unto Christ because he not only wants to take it, but has promised that he has taken it. And I think the distinction that should be made here is that those people that still have to hear the law regarding abortion and those who are in desperate need of the gospel because of abortion, and these are two distinct people groups at this point, to use the modern way of slicing people up into different groups, these are different people groups at this point, and it's not the same. And the preacher's task is to be able to identify. And this is a difficult task. Martin Luther called this. The most difficult task is to identify when the one still requires the proclamation of God's righteous law and when it is necessary to swoop in with the soothing and releasing and ultimately forgiving voice of the gospel.
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C
Yeah, I think the Christians involved are engaged in the pro life movement or pro life advocacy and so on and so forth. I think it's, and I, I like it all like you, have you heard of the abolitionist movement? These are pro, these are hardcore pro lifers who are, you know, they're, they're at the Planned Parenthood every morning.
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B
With.
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C
Placards and things but you know, doing their best to at least offer a woman who's maybe going into the clinic to rethink what she's doing. And, but they will advocate for like not just the outlawing of abortion state after state, but also the legal punishments for those who have participated in abortions and so on. So. But I think it's important that every single Christian involved in pro life stuff be as what they call like Lutheran. Pro life is gospel motivated voices for life. Meaning this isn't just law. I mean it is law. And law should be clear and should be very specific. Because if the gospel is to change, I mean for salvation, case closed, done, Jesus did it on the cross and rose from the dead for the salvation of all those who would believe. But for there to be like in this temporal life any sort of healing from the gospel, first it has to deal with the reality of what's going on before like real absolution, you know, not, not that it's contingent upon like a, some sort of heartily sorry for, you know, like an adverbial kind of repentance. But so one of the things that oftentimes gets missed or I guess maybe lost in pro life advocacy is like kind of what we've been doing for 30 minutes is like how awful. It is indeed very awful. But then the thing that's necessary is what Scott just spoke to that even so even as wicked as this thing is, there's at least 60 million kids who have been aborted since 73. Holocaust. You want to talk about?
- [35:30]
A
I'll tell you that I ran into a guy while I was in Sweden, not this past year, but the year before. And I was actually just kind of, I was just swimming, which is what I tend to do when I go over there. I'm just swimming, right? And I get out and there's this guy and he's from, he's camping too so. And he's kind of driving, like, from. I think it was from Hungary. But he's kind of doing what Joy and I are doing. He's sort of driving around and camping and hanging out. And so. And we just get to talking, and he's like, well, you're from America. And I go, yeah, yeah. And he's like. And all of a sudden, like, he goes, you know, you guys gave it to us. And I don't know, the history was his. I would suspect this isn't true. But, you know. And I said, gabe, what? And he goes, well, all this. All this thinking regarding abortion, which is the greatest holocaust in human history. And he said the same thing. It was over. Over 60 million children have been killed with abortion. And I'm like, that's the brother. Are you talking to the right American right now? Because I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna sit here and defend us on this one. Now, again, I don't know the history of this. I would suspect that there was. Would legalize abortion movements in Europe probably earlier than the United States, but I don't know that for sure. But it was an interesting conversation.
- [36:59]
B
I think there's an interesting sort of. Interesting is always the wrong word for this kind of thing, but there's a spiritual care aspect to this, where to bring it back to the beginning of the positive contribution of Christians towards this issue through the ages and not just today, as being willing to care for children who have been cast aside to provide alternatives is also then being ready and able to care for these mothers, mothers of unintended pregnancies, but also of the women who have had abortions who are probably, if we look at these stats, they're alone.
- [37:43]
A
Right?
- [37:44]
B
These are unwed women. These are people who are, in a lot of ways, pressured into a decision by being told everything is right by other people, all alone to deal with the consequences of this action, all alone. And one of the things we sort of confess that I think we can forget with sins like this is that the law is written on the hearts of all people. There can be suppression of it for sure. But to act like guilt and shame are not a part of that experience. They definitely are, especially in sort of the haunting hours of the night. And for the church to know that it's really the only place that can silence that, and that a lot of people continue to double down or to be an advocate for this kind of moral atrocity as a way of self justification, not just as sort of a legal mechanism, but in order to self justify their own actions. And the only way out of that loop is the forgiveness of sins, not just convincing of moral principles. And also, I think it takes Christians in the public sphere admitting some ways we have maybe contributed to this issue, by the way, which I think would be strange for us to say, like let's say Lutherans, confessional Lutherans have been a part of fighting against abortion in the public sphere, while at the same time, when you listen to the reasons that people give for having abortions, they are reasons or things that people in our churches, young people in our churches are taught to believe about their own lives all of the time. You shouldn't do X, Y and Z before you have enough financial security, right?
- [39:33]
A
Yeah. Don't let a way of your education and career.
- [39:36]
B
Don't let a family get in the way of your education and your career. You can do that after or after you're financially stable or once you're there. This anti family rhetoric, I.e.
- [39:47]
A
Somebody should write a book about it.
- [39:48]
B
Yeah, somebody should. That does exist in our churches. The anti family rhetoric that we sometimes see amongst our own children and young people that, that we are at fault of contributing towards, even if it's passively by just simply promoting things like financial stability, college, career before and not actively promoting family contribute to this since this is what the society believes is good and powerful. It's also I think, true that one of the reasons this problem is so persistent is because sex is very powerful. Like sex is extremely powerful in the public sphere. And Christians are again perceived as basically just being the anti sex group. I mean it's just which is interesting. I mean, of course we are in specific ways, but not just as a whole. Sex is not just sin, for instance. And so I think you also have to have a positive way of talking about, of sex with children, with young adults, with everybody too, to not just be like, hey, there's the fun secular sex people over there and we're the sexes dirty and evil people over here.
- [41:19]
A
Can I, can I elaborate on that a little bit? I've run into so many Christians that are unwilling to talk, married Christians, right. Faithful people that are unwilling to even sort of acknowledge to their children that they have sex. And I think there's something tragic about that because there's a reality here is that one your kids know you are. And if you don't ever sort of acknowledge it or rejoice, I'm going to sound a little gross, but rejoice in it at all. Around your kids. It seems like it's something shameful that you guys do that they're never supposed to know about. And then it's, you know, it becomes like this little forbidden fruit thing. And there's a curiosity level that I think grows out of control. I just. Listen, your children should know that sex within marriage is a wonderful blessing and is one of the really awesome parts about being married, right? That and you can even, I would even say, you can even say, listen, if you think sex is so great, get married. Because married people have more sex than anybody else. Like more and better and more fulfilling sex than anybody else. Like, why not say that to them as something to look forward to rather than sort of feed the myth that married people don't have sex a lot, they don't talk about it, it's not that good. They're not really happy with it. When single people, man, they think about sex all the time and they have sex all the time and as many people as they want and it's great and it's amazing and they try new things all the time and da da da da, all this stuff and wow, don't you want that other than this kind of weird, staunchy repressed sex life that your parents aren't having? I've never understood that whole sort of thing within Christianity. And then beyond that, I think the flip side of that is to say, listen, one of the reasons that God gave this as a blessing within marriage is because one, it's to protect you, right? It's to protect the, you can go deeper, it's to protect the family, the passing on of the faith, this is certainly true. But to protect you, it's risky outside of marriage. Like especially for the woman, it's risky outside of marriage.
- [43:40]
B
Hence these stats at the end of the day, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [43:44]
A
Even like playing around with sexual type activity is risky for unmarried young women who maybe don't want to yet have sex, but get kind of led into the fact that sex necessarily follows from risky sexual type activity, right? With somebody. I mean, how do you end up with an unwanted pregnancy? Like you either sort of disregard the natural occurrence of pregnancy and decide to have sex, or you sort of get led into it before you're ready. All of these things, I'm not saying they can all be fixed with good open conversations with your kids, but it couldn't hurt. Like it couldn't hurt to say, listen, I told my kids this all the time. Like is, when you have sex with somebody, whether you intend on marrying them or not, you are in a sense risking being connected to them for the rest of your life. Like if you have a child with somebody, whether you're married to that person or not, you are connected to that person for the rest of your life. Unless you're just a completely awful person and you're not going to have any connection with the child either. Right. But if you have sex with somebody and they get pregnant, married or not, and you want a connection to that child, whether you want to be connected to the person with whom you had sex for one night forever, you are. And this is something to think about. I know that we think that birth control is perfect and Caleb is convinced that calendars are magic and all this other stuff, but the reality is. The reality is that sex at the end of the day is intended for procreation and for creating little babies whom God loves and gives a soul and eventually, we hope, and puts his name on. And that this is the natural occurrence of having sex. And that connects you to two other lives. For the rest of your life. For the rest of your life, which is a beautiful thing. If you're doing that with somebody whom you have committed yourself to and have promised before God and before your family and before your loved ones and before your friends that you will be with until death. And it's certainly risky outside of that. I mean, these are just. I think within Christianity, some of. I could never give you a data point on how much of this. But some of this just has to do with the repression with which we sort of raise our children because we think it's impious to discuss it. It's not impious to discuss it. God gave it as a gift and a beautiful benefit.
- [46:34]
B
Very true. No, I thought. I think too, it's just there's a level of importance to these things. And it's not to say anything in the list is unimportant, that financial stability isn't important or that work and education aren't important. They're obviously parts of your vocations, the demands of your neighbor on you. But above those is actually marriage and family. Marriage and family is more important than financial stability. You can be married with a family and not perfectly financially stable. Will that bring all sorts of challenges in life? Absolutely. It is not a good reason not to get married.
- [47:13]
A
The same kids.
- [47:15]
B
Or to have kids. Yeah. Honestly.
- [47:17]
A
Or to be afraid of having kids within. Within the bounds of marriage.
- [47:21]
B
Yeah.
- [47:22]
A
Again, hey, on your marriage ideal, you'll push through together. That's what marriage is.
- [47:29]
B
Yeah. You know, in rich. For rich and for poor, you know, there's. There's like Actually, parts of these vows that say it's not about money for sure.
- [47:38]
A
It's part of it that says it's not about even being happy all the time, in sickness and in health.
- [47:44]
B
Yeah. And so I think adopting our actual language on this all the time, I mean, yeah, you will see and we do see marriages where, yeah, those vows are spoken, but that marriage was put off for the richer part of that denial in the vows. So I just think being consistent about that is actually a way that we can as Christians even then repent and confess a contribution to this great problem. Because I think that's to address. People say Christians are just hypocrites. You hate this sin, but your sins. No, we're sinners too. We have contributed to this. We've adopted the language of the world. We're inconsistent and we need the forgiveness of sins. And we have also been called to be the mouthpiece, the forgiveness of sins to the world and to those who have had abortions and to those considering abortions and to those who have gotten pregnant out of wedlock and to all of those affected by this sin. And for them there is a forgiveness of sins on account of Christ. So for all who come to believe and trust in his name, I think.
- [49:06]
A
That'S all absolutely true. And I think that there's more and more people need to give more and more thought to how we speak about marriage and children. It's probably not a more perfect time to plug my book, but.
- [49:21]
B
Yeah, you should plug your book. Plug your book.
- [49:24]
A
So available for pre order right now on both Amazon and the 1517 website is called Being Passing down the Faith through the Generations. The issues that we. Not necessarily specifically the issue of abortion, although there is an essay by Adam in there on this, but mostly about what Caleb's been bringing up, how we sort of talk about and teach our children regarding marriage, family, raising kids in the faith, that type of thing.
- [49:59]
B
Yeah, well, great. Yeah, I would definitely pre order it. I mean, you're going to hear us talk. We talk about this all the time. You're going to hear us talk about it more obviously this year because this book is coming out and it's important to talk about. But I just can't help but think when we do an episode like this, and I pulled up the research data, the fact that now these may still occur, even if these weren't the justifications, but the fact that the justifications line up so well with the language of success, the language of personal happiness through these other pursuits, I think it means that is One of the places where Christians have to be careful of not adopting that language. Also, you might not adopt the language of abortion, but you may have adopted the language of the world when it comes to marriage and children.
- [50:46]
A
Well, you probably. You likely have.
- [50:49]
B
Yeah. And so it's a good time to honor the way we speak.
- [50:53]
A
Yeah. It's almost impossible not to. One of the things I try to argue for in the book is that it's going to be impossible not, you're raising kids in the world to not talk about some of these sort of secular values all the time. One of the things I'm trying to argue for in the book is maybe add in the other ones, too. I'd love it if you prioritized, get married, have children, but, boy, if you talked about it at all, you'd be a step up on, you know, most people.
- [51:25]
C
You once referred to the. This issue of language adopting the language of the culture. Caleb, maybe. I don't know why I remember. It's one of those. One thing that you said that I thought was genius. Just kidding. Over 10 years, you know, we. We need. I think you said we need to audit our language, like, and take this, you know, I guess I mean, be a little more serious about this, a little more intentional.
- [51:52]
B
Yeah. Because it's just easy. It's just easy to do. And it's not like. And it's easy because it's not just like explicitly sinning. It's not like walking around swearing at your neighbor all day and hating people. It's like, it's just kind of passive. And it's just using terms that we actually think are good, too. Like, you do want financial stability for your children. Nobody's saying you don't want that. But there's a way in which that priority becomes an idol. And that priority contributes to a Western culture or a United States culture around marriage and family, which is abortive and whether we like it or not. So if you want to be consistent, you have to also hear yourself when that's happening as well. And if we want to be consistent, we can say that we repent of that. We repent for that. When we do that, we receive the forgiveness of sins for that. And we extend that forgiveness to those who have been drawn up, who have committed these sins, who have committed murder. We offer to them the forgiveness of sins through the preach word, just as we receive it. So I think that's. I don't know that's a good place to end. There are links in the show notes to the pre order for my dad's book. And if you want to subscribe to this show, you can do so in a couple of different ways. You can do it in your favorite podcasting apps. So if you're listening, like on the 1517 website right now, you can actually go open an app on your phone, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and you can subscribe to the thinking fellows there. There are other podcasting platforms that we are on as well, a little smaller. So if you have one of those smaller apps that you like to use, you can do that there as well. And then, As I mentioned, YouTube, we have a video version of this show available on YouTube. So you can go watch that if that's how you like to view podcasts. With that, we will catch you next time. Bye.