Bright Spot: What it means to be pro-life
I have good news! Every day we’re one day closer to the November elections being over.
Regardless of who you’re rooting for, there is usually an “election fatigue” that sets in, with all the bile, bashing, and battling among the candidates and their campaigns.
There are no shortages of lightning rod issues politicians rant and rave about. Abortion is one of them.
Our governing leaders aren’t the only ones duking it out on this one. It seems like my close friends and I agreed on 96% of serious stuff 10 years ago. Now we’re polar opposites on about 50% of it. What it means to be pro-life is included.
My Quaker (Friends Church) ancestors would roll over in their graves if we focused on a single issue like abortion as the barometer of what it means to be pro-life.
Our peaceful Quaker forefathers “fought” for life in every way. That’s why they would enter the military as medics, in combat, but would never carry a gun, like the hero of the true story “Hacksaw Ridge.”
In centuries past, many of my Friends forefathers would tirelessly work for prison reform, sometimes substituting themselves into the horrific jails of 17th century England rather than see fragile prisoners die without Christ.
Friends were all about fair treaties with the Native Americans who had many promises broken in the pacts they made with those of European descent. The Friends who negotiated treaties had such integrity with the Native Americans and Washington that the U.S. government used them as their key treaty negotiators for many years.Friends pioneered reform for the way the mentally ill were treated and housed, often in squalid conditions and in chains.
Quakers were key cogs in the Underground Railroad, the informal network that paved the way for slaves to escape the South into Canada. For this Quakers risked their freedom and lives since aiding fugitive slaves was illegal.
To be pro-life means to be life-giving in every way. We must do our best to live at peace with all men, from co-workers to classmates and everyone in between (Romans 12:18). We will “add value” to the lives of others. We will build up vs. tear down. Our conversations will be full of grace, just seasoned with a pinch of salt as both Jesus and Paul’s words were (John 1:14, 17; Colossians 4:6). Too often we reverse that recipe.
Pro-lifers get involved in the lives of women who have crisis pregnancies. There is no better way than donating time or money to a local pregnancy center. Pro-lifers adopt and foster children. They welcome refugees.
Being pro-life means you are the best partner, parent and person you can possibly be. You speak the truth, but always in love (Ephesians 4:15, 25). You breathe life into limping marriages. You offer solutions instead of cynicism, hope instead of hatred, lighting candles instead of cursing the darkness.
Nothing has ever meant more to me than hearing one of our grown children tell my wife and me: “You are life-giving to us.”
So just as Jesus came to give life more abundantly (John 10:10), so should we strive to be like Him (Luke 6:40; Romans 8:29), in all ways, not just on a single issue.
Rick Sams is pastor emeritus of Alliance Friends Church.
This article originally appeared on The Alliance Review: Pastor Rick Sams explains the key issue for pro-life movement
