March for Life 2019

The March for Life was yesterday. It's always a fun event to go to. This year wasn't too cold, which also was nice. It was also a "Life Conference" year, which meant more-then-the-usual-number-of-Lutherans were taking part. I didn't know as many folks as usual (or maybe just didn't see them), but I do have a couple of pictures . . .

Some friends from New Jersey.

One of our newest Athanasians with her daughter.

Daughter Peasant (in the glasses) and another young Athanasian.

Walk-Run-Ride for Life Is Back!

I am again registered as a participant for the annual Walk-Run-Ride for Life to raise funds for our local Pregnancy Center - the Assist Pregnancy Center. Please sponsor me! I've set my goal really high this year to see if I can raise more. This Center does excellent work and is worth our support as they help mothers and fathers keep and care for their babies. Here's the link to my fundraising page - and if you'd like to join our team and help raise funds, you can do so through this link as well. Thanks!

Click here to sponsor me!

An Open Letter to Barack Obama

An Open Letter to President Barack Obama from Lutherans For Life In your speech on January 5, you tearfully recalled the children killed at Sandy Hook Elementary. You said, “Every time I think about those kids it gets me mad.” We are glad it makes you mad. It should make us all mad. Murder is horrible. The murder of children, however, touches the very depths of our souls. We have a favor to ask you. The next time you think of those children and it makes you mad, we ask that you take just a minute to try to understand people like us a little better. Please know that we are not radical right-wing extremists. But, it is a matter of fact that since Sandy Hook approximately three million children in this country have lost their lives through abortion. Every time we think about those kids it gets us mad. Millions like us feel the same way. We do not blow up abortion facilities or shoot abortionists. But like you, we feel compelled to do something. Political fears seem to hold Congress hostage on the issue so we do what we can in legal protests, marches, political action, and, most importantly, by reaching out to women in crisis pregnancies and offering them real compassion and help. You correctly noted how gun violence strips its victims of their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Every day, 2,800 innocent and defenseless children are stripped of those same rights as abortion violently rips them from their mothers’ wombs. Mr. President, we hope against hope that your views on abortion change, though we suspect they are very deeply imbued. But we do ask that you use your deep-felt anger over the children of Sandy Hook and other victims of gun violence to strive to have some empathy for ordinary people like us who have the same deep-felt anger over the tragedy of abortion.

Ethical Dilemma?

World Magazine this week has an article provocatively titled: Life after death: Where vaccines saving millions of lives are derived from the tissue of aborted babies, is it ethical to use them? Here's the link to the online article.

This is an issue that I knew absolutely nothing about until it was brought to my attention about a year ago. I tried to find out more information online, but sometimes good information is hard to find! And this, it seems to me, is an important matter to think about, and one that may crop up more and more in the future. Can a Christian, in good conscience, use such vaccines?

I imagine most people are like me and never realize what goes into the making of a vaccine and where they come from. This article does a good job in laying out the history is a pretty short space. I appreciated that. It also laid out the case that such vaccines can also be manufactured by using animal cell lines - the cell lines of aborted babies are not essential. And this, the article concludes, is the direction we should be going. I concur.

Where I was disappointed was in the answer to the question posed in the title: Is is ethical to use them? Actually, I was disappointed that there really wasn't an answer given or any thought process presented to think through the issue. What was cited were opinions put out by the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life, and the Christian Medical and Dental Associations (CMDA), whose conclusion were (1.) that "we should not risk the lives of our children [now] in order to avoid a remote connection that is tangentially related to an evil act" (Baptists); (2.) it is "permissible . . . to use such vaccines "on a temporary basis" if no animal-based alternatives [are] available" (Vatican); and (3.) since the manufacturing of such vaccines does not require ongoing abortions, it's permissible for Christian to use them until alternatives are available" (CMDA).

It's nice to have such opinions to salve the consciences of Christians who may be struck by guilt at having received themselves or had these vaccines given to their children. However, two problems exist here: What was the reasoning used to come to such conclusions? The Baptist answer seems to be pragmatic, the Vatican answer practical, and the CMDA's utilitarian. I would like to know more, especially to think through such problems - and related ones - that will certainly arise in the future, as medical technology grows and becomes able to do many more things. I wish the article would have provided some of that instead of just conclusions, though I understand their space was probably greatly limited. The other problem that exists is a really practical one: how many doctors or nurses are going to know where their vaccines come from and how they were manufactured? I would guess very, very few. So what is a Christian to do in that case?

Part of the problem of being a pastor in the 21st century is trying to stay current on so many ethical issues facing us in our world today. There simply isn't enough time or energy to read up on everything - or even to know about all the dilemmas out there. Which makes it all the more important to know that we live under grace. That we live in the forgiveness earned by Jesus on the cross for us, and that is true for sins of ignorance, sins of weakness, sins committed as the lesser of two evils - all sins. My eternal life does not depend on my doing everything right, but because Jesus did everything right, and then died for my sins and gave me His perfection. That's not a free pass to sin or not care about such matters, but it is the salve this pastor's conscience needs! And it's true for you too.

Protest Pictures

Here are a couple pictures from the protest at Planned un-Parenthood today. I was told there were over a thousand folks that  came! By the end, we lined the street all around the block, surrounding the building - pretty impressive. I hope there will be some reports about how the protest in other cities went. A few folks from my church were able to come also. 

This was the crowd already there when I arrived.

Later. You can see the people now extending all the way down to the end of the block.

Two of my newly confirmed came! Good sign!

And they got a free shirt too.

Come to the Protest Tomorrow!

Come to the protest in front of Planned Parenthood the baby death camp and organ supply depot tomorrow. You need to do this. Don't have time? Neither do I. I am leaving for vacation and have about a thousand things to do before that, not to mention getting ready for Sunday. But if not now, when? The videos have exposed an evil that cannot be denied. Come. Your presence and voice is needed. This has to stop. Now. Come. Really.

9:00-11:00 am
303 S Maple Street Suite 300
Falls Church, VA  22046

Here is a link to the Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/events/864586836963653/