Hunter Baker, over at the conservative blog RedState, has posted an open letter to Pastor Rick Warren. In three days, Warren will be hostinga Presidential Candidate Forum at his 22,000 member Saddleback Valley Community Church, which will be focused on issues such as “poverty, HIV/AIDS, climate and human rights” and will avoid “partisan ‘gotcha’ questions that typically produce heat instead of light”. Baker’s open letter calls on the influential evangelical pastor to not ignore the most fundamental right of all, the right to life for the most innocent and helpless among us, which many speculate is being lumped in as a ‘gotcha’ issue simply because it is controversial and difficult. He says:
Some would respond to me, though I doubt you would, that I am emphasizing one issue unfairly. My answer is that this issue is basic. If the year were 1958, instead of 2008, do you think it would be right to host such a forum and ignore segregation, knowing one candidate was ardently in favor of the separation of the races? You and I both know that it would be wrong to gloss over a glaring breach of that kind. We both know many in the church were wrong in just that way. (It is a terrible irony of history that Mr. Obama now stands with those who favor the persistent removal of an entire class of human beings from legal protection through legal fiat. How I wish it were not so.)
My hope is that you will make no promise to leave the foundational issue of the sanctity of life untouched in this forum. If the lack of that promise means the forum may not take place, then I suggest it would be better to cancel it.
Baker is right on here and his analogy to segregation in the 1950s illustrates his point well. Just because an issue is contentious or “divisive” does not mean it is unworthy of our time and energy. The life issue should not simply be bypassed or ignored, as anti-life forces attempt to do by branding it a “wedge” issue… one would have to assume segregation and slavery were also “wedge” issues as they proved equally divisive and had major Christian movements dedicated to their cause.
Hopefully Pastor Warren takes the opportunity this Saturday to put this fundamental issue on the table rather than ignore it as advocates of the status quo (abortion on demand for virtually any reason at any stage of pregnancy) would like.
Some others interesting thoughts on the forum can be found here and here.
August 17, 2008 at 2:37 pm |
[...] Forum Update Last night was the Saddleback church forum, hosted by Pastor Rich Warren. As previously discussed here on this blog, many pro-family activists were concerned that the forum would neglect [...]