Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 728 ｜ Want to End Abortion？ Make Disciples

00:00:00.000 How can Christians end abortion and save lives, not just politically, but much more importantly,

00:00:07.480 spiritually? We are going to be talking to Roland Warren today in an incredible conversation. Truly,

00:00:14.880 every minute is better than the last. You're going to listen to this interview and be so

00:00:20.840 encouraged. You're going to be so fired up to go out and do something, and you're going to be

00:00:25.400 reminded that God is working in mighty, incredible ways through his church. Roland is the former

00:00:31.680 president of the National Fatherhood Initiative, and he became the president and CEO of CareNAT,

00:00:38.620 which is a large network of pregnancy centers in the United States back in 2012. He has written

00:00:44.840 books about fatherhood and about single motherhood, just an incredible advocate for life and bringer

00:00:51.880 of the gospel, which you will hear today. This is a great pre-Christmas episode to remind you

00:00:59.580 of the hope that we have in Christ and why we are celebrating his advent today. It all happened

00:01:06.420 because of a God-ordained unplanned pregnancy. This episode is brought to you by our friends

00:01:13.860 at Good Ranchers. As always, go to goodranchers.com. Use promo code Allie at checkout. That's

00:01:18.820 goodranchers.com. Code Allie. All right. Without further ado, here is our friend, Roland Warren.

00:01:33.500 Roland, thank you so much for joining us. For those who may not know, can you tell everyone who you

00:01:39.260 are and what you do? Oh, absolutely. It's a pleasure to be with you. My name is Roland Warren. I'm

00:01:44.720 president and CEO of Care Net. Okay. And tell us a little bit about Care Net. A lot of people

00:01:51.160 listening know exactly what it is, but for those who are unfamiliar. Yep. Well, Care Net's a ministry

00:01:56.540 started actually in 1975 by C. Everett Koop, Francis Schaefer, and Harold O.J. Brown, and really was

00:02:04.560 focused initially on sort of an advocacy approach to the life issue. So today we're a network of over

00:02:10.340 1,200 pregnancy centers across the country. And our goal really is to offer compassion, hope, help

00:02:15.620 to women and men faced with pregnancy decisions. So obviously in a post-Roe environment, the work

00:02:21.420 that we do is critically important and certainly much needed and obviously in the news quite a bit.

00:02:28.600 So it's been kind of an interesting Mr. Toe ride since Roe was overturned for sure.

00:02:34.700 Yeah. And I had the privilege of speaking at the Care Net conference this summer. That's where you and I

00:02:39.260 got to meet for the first time. And one of the things I was told before the conference was just

00:02:43.720 that the attendees really needed encouragement. Of course, we always need encouragement,

00:02:48.900 but just with the vitriol after the Dobbs decision was released, these attendees needed to be kind of

00:02:57.740 reinvigorated and reminded of the importance of what we do. Can you talk about what you found in

00:03:05.140 talking to pregnancy center staff and directors after the Dobbs decision? Is there fear? Is there

00:03:16.020 discouragement? What does that look like? Well, one of the things for sure, I mean,

00:03:20.880 the Dobbs decision and certainly the leak before the decision really generate a fair amount of violence

00:03:26.940 and vitriol against pregnancy centers and pro-life people in general and religious people in a lot of

00:03:31.920 ways. I think one of the things certainly that the decision around Roe really exposed is how committed

00:03:38.940 our culture is to abortion as a perspective. But candidly, I think probably one of the more

00:03:44.940 disappointing aspects is how many Christians actually, those who profess to be Christians,

00:03:50.060 consider themselves pro-choice. So we had a lot of folks on our staff, myself personally, who had

00:03:55.140 very, folks who were very close to them, who, you know, professed to be Christians, were very upset

00:04:00.420 about the Roe decision and really took it out on social media and personal gatherings and things of

00:04:06.560 that nature. And so that was one of the reasons why I really want to encourage you when you were coming

00:04:10.100 to speak to our audience that one of the things that they really need to hear is the need to press

00:04:16.100 on and to be encouraged. I mean, you know, somebody who's very close to you, obviously that kind of

00:04:21.160 wound, one hurts the most. I always tell folks, look, you know, Judas kissed Jesus before he

00:04:26.520 betrayed him. So that means something special when it's someone who's very close to you, who rejects

00:04:31.220 you in a way that obviously that Christ was rejected. And certainly folks who've been doing this work

00:04:35.780 have been feeling a lot of rejection as a result of their stand around this. Yeah, I think it's really

00:04:40.200 easy for Christians to use either their friends or the world as kind of a gauge for how they're doing,

00:04:47.920 how loving they're being, how righteous they're being. But really, that's not a good gauge. The

00:04:52.720 Word of God is, the life of Christ is. And so you make a really good point. But how do Christians

00:04:58.440 engage with these friends and family members who are showing so much hostility to them because of

00:05:06.920 this decision or the abortion issue in general? Yeah, you know, one of the things that God downloaded

00:05:11.900 into my brain as before the decision came out, but certainly really confirmed it once the decision

00:05:16.500 did come out, is that, you know, I don't spend time with Christians often trying to talk to them

00:05:21.480 about, you know, when life begins or those kinds of things. Those are important apologetic arguments.

00:05:26.580 But I think when you're talking to someone who's a Christian who professes to be pro-choice,

00:05:30.260 I think the thing that you need to talk to them about is the two great initiatives that all Christians

00:05:35.160 are encouraged to kind of live out in our daily lives and promote in the public square. And that's

00:05:40.920 really the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. The Great Commandment and the Great

00:05:44.900 Commission. Every decision that we make in life should correspond to that. So that should be the

00:05:50.560 lens that we look at an issue through, the Great Command and the Great Commission. So when you look

00:05:55.100 at the Great Command, I mean, it's in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, where Jesus talks about that,

00:05:59.220 in particular in Luke, where he's asked that question, what must I do to inherit the kingdom of

00:06:03.040 God, which every Christian should be concerned about? And he says basically, essentially, that all the

00:06:08.660 scripture is distilled out in loving God in your heart, your soul, your strength, and your mind,

00:06:15.320 and then love your neighbor as yourself. And so one of the things I tell folks to tell other

00:06:20.400 Christians is explain to me how a pro-choice decision supports loving of God and loving your

00:06:28.440 neighbor as yourself, particularly when you look at the fact that the word that's used for love in

00:06:33.100 that verse is agape, which is a sacrificial love that we're asked to love our neighbors with,

00:06:38.120 which is the same love that's used in John 3.16, where God so loved the world. It's agapeo in Greek,

00:06:44.120 that word. And then the other thing is, when you look at the word neighbor in the Greek,

00:06:47.900 it actually means near one, like a near fellow, right? So the neighbor of a woman who is facing

00:06:54.060 a pregnancy decision carrying a child, her nearest neighbor is the child growing inside of her.

00:06:59.700 The nearest neighbor for the guy who got her pregnant is the child growing inside of her.

00:07:04.500 So my view is that as a Christian, you should be able to look at the great commandment and say,

00:07:09.520 aha, this decision that I'm making actually supports the great command. And I think when you look at the

00:07:15.840 life issue through that lens, you can see that a pro-choice perspective doesn't really support the

00:07:21.500 great command, because when you're aborting God's image bearer, and when you're aborting your neighbor,

00:07:26.180 who you're supposed to be loving like yourself, it certainly doesn't support, you know, what Christ

00:07:31.120 said was one of the first of the great commandments that we have.

00:07:34.740 What do you say to those who say, okay, I got it, Roland. That's what I believe. I am personally

00:07:40.300 pro-life because of that. But who am I to try to push that on other people? I'm politically

00:07:46.180 pro-choice, but I'm personally pro-life. Is that possible?

00:07:50.960 Well, I don't think it is. I think that when you kind of split the hair that way,

00:07:54.280 it makes things very difficult. I mean, as a black man, for example, I mean, you just put

00:07:58.200 some other atrocity in there. Like, I don't personally hold slaves, but I don't think that

00:08:02.280 I should have the ability to tell others to hold slaves. I mean, those who were professed to be

00:08:06.280 pro-choice, particularly if they're kind of progressive folks in terms of their thinking

00:08:09.540 around this, would say that's abhorrent. I would never have that perspective, that I would allow an

00:08:15.020 injustice for someone else just because I'm not doing the injustice. Like Dr. King reminded us,

00:08:19.840 an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. So I think that kind of perspective

00:08:25.120 is really one that you don't want to have because it really doesn't, certainly doesn't lead to a

00:08:28.880 God-honoring perspective. And certainly what you find when you have that kind of perspective and

00:08:33.820 hold that worldview, the vulnerable are always the ones who are sacrificed for the powerful.

00:08:39.300 So whether it's slavery or whether it's human trafficking or what the other issue you are talking

00:08:43.960 about, if you have the perspective says, Hey, I would never use child labor to make my, you know,

00:08:49.360 in my business, but I'm perfectly fine with other people doing that for things that I buy. I think

00:08:54.020 that when you start to reconcile those things and look at the life issue through that lens,

00:08:57.840 I think you can see that people have a big issue with those kinds of that perspective.

00:09:02.040 But you might hear, we have so many problems. Uh, we're not doing enough to help women. And so

00:09:10.260 until then, I still need to allow women legally to have these abortions because of poverty, because

00:09:18.420 our welfare system is broken, because the foster care system is so corrupt, because that child might

00:09:25.040 not be wanted, they might be abused, they might go through really hard things. And so until all of

00:09:30.580 those things are fixed, how is it the most loving thing to do to be against abortion?

00:09:37.000 Yeah. I mean, again, you run into the exact same problem that if you use that logic in other areas

00:09:43.580 that you're not going to step into another area where there's an injustice until all injustices

00:09:47.620 are fixed, then you can see how many people are going to be harmed through that perspective. Now,

00:09:51.960 I say that acknowledging that there really does need to be more done there. I think one of the real

00:09:57.020 challenges that I've sort of laid out for, for, for pro-choice Christians is to really think about this

00:10:02.480 issue, excuse me, pro-life Christians rather, is to think about this issue, not from a pro-life

00:10:05.960 perspective, but from a pro-abundant life perspective, based on John 10, 10, where Christ

00:10:10.640 said, I came that you might have life and have that life abundantly. And when you, when you unpack

00:10:16.140 what he's talking about there, he's actually talking about not just physical life, but he's also talking

00:10:21.020 about spiritual life. So really what we should be doing is building an environment where folks have

00:10:25.340 the spiritual life and the physical life that God would want for them. And a key driver to that is

00:10:31.220 God's design for family. And, and I use that quite a bit to talk to folks and saying that if you really

00:10:36.100 want to solve the life issue, one of the very first things that we have to do is to focus on

00:10:40.380 not just the sanctity of life, but the sanctity of marriage and family as God designed. So that's how

00:10:45.440 you start to get upstream so that kids are not at risk for abortion to begin with. And, and the other

00:10:51.260 piece is obviously God's call to discipleship, which is at that, at the end of that, which, which means

00:10:55.720 that we're trying to help those folks who are making the life decisions, be connected to the

00:10:59.600 transforming power of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the body of Christ coming alongside them in

00:11:04.320 that way. So to me, it's, it's not, you know, it's not an adequate answer to say, well, there's a lot

00:11:09.580 of injustice in this area. So we're going to allow the sacrifice to continue the injustice until we

00:11:14.560 can solve the injustice that we're not comfortable with. To me, that just facilitates injustice. I think

00:11:19.360 the broader thing, certainly as a Christian, is that we have to look at this issue and say,

00:11:23.260 what are we doing to help build strong families and encouraging the culture to do that by supporting

00:11:28.620 God's design for family? And then what are we doing to collect the life issue to the church?

00:11:33.020 So we do look at the life issue, not through the lens solely of politics or material support,

00:11:38.120 but through the lens of discipleship, that the goal for us is to help folks who are facing pregnancy

00:11:42.940 decisions, become disciples for Jesus Christ. And that's a call that every Christian has.

00:11:47.840 And a lot of people will say, okay, fine, but the church isn't doing anything. They're just

00:11:54.440 pro-birth, and they just want women to force, to be forced to have these children, and then

00:12:02.520 they don't offer any help. But that's not true, is it? What are Christians already doing to help

00:12:08.180 families who are in crisis?

00:12:10.080 Yeah, I mean, again, that's sort of a red herring argument. Christians adopt more kids, do more

00:12:14.680 work to help the needy in every single category. Every study that's looked at giving finds that

00:12:20.420 Christians are right at the top of the list related to that. But I do think that there is an important

00:12:25.840 change that needs to happen in the body of Christ. And that really is to view the life issue through

00:12:31.160 the lens of discipleship. And what I mean by that is, see, every good work that a Christian should

00:12:37.720 lead to discipleship, water for the thirsty, food for the hungry, clothes for the naked, we instinctively

00:12:42.720 in the Christian body understand that the reason why we do the good works that we do is not just to do

00:12:48.200 the good works that we do. We do them for the same reason that Christ did them. He did them to what

00:12:52.380 end? To make disciples for Jesus Christ. And what has happened with the life issue in a large measure

00:12:57.120 because of how politicized it's gotten is that so many Christians view the life issue primarily

00:13:02.060 through the lens of politics. So if you're talking to a Christian, sometimes you say, well, are you pro-life?

00:13:06.380 And they say yes, and you say prove it, they'll tell you who they voted for. Again, that's an important

00:13:10.140 aspect of it. Or maybe they provided some material support, which is important. But we have to view the

00:13:15.140 issue through the lens of discipleship. The goal of Christianity is to do good works to one end

00:13:21.160 to make disciples for Jesus Christ. And when you think about the issue that way, it anchors it firmly

00:13:26.220 in the church as a proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So one of the things that we're doing

00:13:31.200 at Care Net is that we have a ministry kit called Making Life Disciples, which is designed specifically

00:13:37.060 to help Christians mobilize in the church to come alongside folks who are facing pregnancy decisions,

00:13:43.600 because life decisions need life support. And we have all these small groups in churches

00:13:48.760 that need to be mobilized to come alongside those who are facing pregnancy decisions to offer them

00:13:54.600 compassion, hope, help, and discipleship in order to break the intergenerational cycle of abortion.

00:14:00.740 So Christians have already been obviously been doing a lot, but really there's more that needs to be

00:14:05.220 done. And I think a key to that being done is looking at the issue, not through a political lens or

00:14:10.180 a material support lens primarily, but looking at through the lens of discipleship, which frames our

00:14:15.180 political engagement and our material support that we do, because that's how Christ did. Everybody that

00:14:20.180 he met a physical need, he met that need, whether it was a healing, water, healing, anything that he

00:14:26.380 did, he met them at their physical point of need, but then he called them into a discipleship

00:14:30.520 relationship because he didn't want to see the woman at the well, right? There twice. He didn't want

00:14:35.400 return clients, if you will. And that's a key thing that we want around the life issue as well.

00:14:50.400 I just want to read some ways that Karen Ad is accomplishing what you're talking about. There

00:14:54.660 can always be more that can be done. And I absolutely agree with you. The church needs to

00:15:00.520 engage more, but I do just want to applaud and thank God for so much of what Christians are doing.

00:15:06.720 Since 2008, Karen Ad has put our mission and vision into practice and saved more than 940,000

00:15:12.600 babies from abortion. This is from the website and shared the gospel with over 2 million parents

00:15:17.820 by supporting one of the largest networks of pregnancy centers in North America with 1,200 affiliates,

00:15:23.000 30,000 volunteers operating the pregnancy decision line, America's only real-time call center,

00:15:28.580 providing pregnancy decision coaching to parents considering abortion. Obviously,

00:15:33.160 there is the material support there, but there's also the counseling. There's the discipleship. I

00:15:39.180 have visited many pregnancy centers that go above and beyond even what their website lists that they do.

00:15:46.660 So yes, they offer the parenting classes. They offer the education resources and courses, and they

00:15:54.080 provide material support and counseling and pregnancy tests and ultrasounds and all of that.

00:15:58.580 But there is so much behind-the-scenes work that happens through the relationship and

00:16:03.260 discipleship building that you're talking about. They build a relationship with one girl who is in

00:16:10.280 an abusive relationship. While they may not advertise this on their website, they're helping her find

00:16:15.940 refuge. They're with someone who needs help through the legal immigration process. They're helping her with

00:16:23.680 that. They're connecting them to all different kinds of support. I mean, there is so much unseen and unsung work

00:16:32.360 at these pregnancy centers. And I just encourage a lot of the Christians who are tempted to say they're just pro-birth or

00:16:39.480 there's not enough work being done. Well, there could be work being done in your community right now. It could have been

00:16:46.740 been done actually for the past 30 years, and maybe you just didn't know about it. So I think first, before people are

00:16:52.420 tempted to complain and say, oh, well, you know, I'm just going to vote one way or the other and not really care about it, maybe plug in to the networks of help that are already there in your area. Because there is a lot, a lot of work being done for these women and their families.

00:17:08.920 Oh, absolutely. And a core part of what we do, again, I talked about the family formation standpoint.

00:17:15.500 Really, that's a central part of Cairnet's ministry model that, you know, we use the model of the birth of Christ, you know, that here's Mary facing an unplanned pregnancy from a human perspective, right?

00:17:25.980 And what did God do to make sure that Mary's unplanned pregnancy wasn't a crisis pregnancy? Well, he sent an angel to Joseph. And Joseph had a specific call to be a husband to Mary and to be a father to the child growing inside

00:17:37.540 of her. So family formation is a key part of Cairnet's pro-abundant life ministry model. And that's central. Why? Because we did a national survey of women who had had abortions and men who participated in abortions.

00:17:49.680 And we asked the women and the men, these post-abortive women and men, who was the most influential in the woman's decision to abort. And guess who it was? It was the guy who got her pregnant.

00:18:00.140 Not her best friend or girlfriend or Planned Parenthood or anybody. The most influential was the guy that got her pregnant.

00:18:05.860 So that's what I mean about getting upstream in terms of God's design for family. That's central to the life issue. And 86% of the women that have abortions are unmarried.

00:18:15.220 And that's why people in the church have the ability to come alongside folks. So if that guy's running from fatherhood because he never had a father, well, you maybe you've been a father for decades.

00:18:23.620 Will you mentor that guy or they're living together and their relationship is frayed? They've never seen what a godly marriage looks like.

00:18:29.680 Well, you're a married couple who's been married for years. You know, will you mentor this couple? She doesn't have a place to live. Well, you got an extra room.

00:18:35.840 She can't get to her prenatal visits. Well, you're retired. Will you drive her? I mean, these are all the kinds of practical ways that life decisions get the life support that they need.

00:18:45.700 So really, the network of pregnancy centers is an amazing, amazing network.

00:18:49.740 But the reality is there's only about 3,000 pregnancy centers in this country.

00:18:54.060 There's over 400,000 churches.

00:18:56.280 If just 1% of churches continues to do the kinds of things I'm talking about, you've got more points of compassion in the culture.

00:19:02.860 So that's why I really encourage folks in the pews, go to makinglifedisciples.com, get your small group trained so that you can contact a pregnancy center so they can connect you with someone who's facing a pregnancy decision so you can walk alongside them,

00:19:18.420 or so that someone in your church who is facing a pregnancy decision would never look at Planned Parenthood or some other abortion provider as a compassionate alternative to the church.

00:19:29.000 So there's really work that needs to be done, continues that needs to be done, and that's one of the key aspects of what Care Net's Pro Abundant ministry model is all about.

00:19:37.980 So that answers my question that I was going to ask is, how would someone, a Christian who's like, you know what, I don't really see my church doing a whole lot when it comes to this.

00:19:47.560 I think they're pro-life, but, you know, I don't really know if any action is being taken.

00:19:52.740 So makinglifedisciples.com is where you would encourage people to start?

00:19:59.280 Makinglifedisciples.com.

00:20:00.360 We partnered with Dr. Tony Evans.

00:20:02.140 Maybe some of your listeners are familiar with him.

00:20:04.440 We partnered with him to develop this ministry kit because what we realized was is that you can, even though you can't put a pregnancy center everywhere,

00:20:12.500 you can put a pregnancy care ministry within churches.

00:20:16.240 And also because we have a huge problem in the church with Christians having the abortion.

00:20:21.660 Guttmacher's data says 54% of the folks who have abortions profess to be either Catholic or Protestant.

00:20:27.540 And in our national survey, we found that four out of ten women and five out of ten men were attending church at least monthly at the time of their first abortion.

00:20:37.060 So we have an enormous challenge in the church in order to make sure that folks who are Christians who profess to know Christ never feel that the church is not a compassionate alternative to the abortion clinic.

00:20:50.300 And so you've got to have that ministry in the church that's there.

00:20:54.000 We have so many ministries in the church for all kinds of wonderful needs, whether it's celebrate recovery for addiction or grief care, all those things.

00:21:01.900 But the one issue that we have that is most the most time constrained in terms of a decision process, because a woman who faces a pregnancy decision has about nine days from the time that she confirms that decision to she actually schedules the abortion.

00:21:15.140 And it's really gotten condensed with the abortion pill.

00:21:17.940 Yeah, we don't have the most logical way.

00:21:20.980 Like, here's one thing I always tell folks.

00:21:23.120 I say, ask folks in your church, give them an index card and ask them.

00:21:27.800 I say, listen, if a woman's facing a pregnancy decision and it's not good news, who should she talk to in our church?

00:21:33.400 Write down who it should be.

00:21:34.860 And I can tell you, they will not all write down the same person.

00:21:38.060 Now, if you gave that card to a bunch of Planned Parenthood people, they'd give you 1-800 or whatever.

00:21:42.340 So that's an issue that the woman facing a pregnancy decision, even in our church, doesn't know exactly who she needs to talk to.

00:21:49.480 And that's what the Making Life Disciples ministry is all about.

00:21:51.980 So you have a ministry in your church to offer compassion, hope, help to someone who's facing a pregnancy decision.

00:21:58.480 Right.

00:21:58.700 So they know exactly where to go.

00:22:00.520 And I imagine it's not only because maybe these people who are considering abortion, who are sitting in the pews, don't see someone to connect to.

00:22:11.100 So it's not just necessarily the lack of action, but it could be also just the lack of boldness from the pulpit.

00:22:18.700 I do find that a lot of pastors won't say abortion outright or they won't say the word abortion.

00:22:24.880 They kind of dance around it like we care about life, which, of course, is great.

00:22:29.800 But I think because, as you said, a lot of us see abortion through a political lens primarily, they think that they're basically up there saying, well, you know, here I am, a representative of the Republican Party.

00:22:43.460 They don't want to be divisive or anything like that.

00:22:46.040 But this is a love your neighbor issue, right?

00:22:49.140 And people of all kinds, they need to hear the truth about the dignity of life inside the womb.

00:22:54.740 Well, absolutely.

00:22:55.860 That's why I started off talking about when you're talking to someone who's pro-choice and professes to be a Christian, that you talk to them about the great commandment.

00:23:03.860 Because it's about loving your neighbor and your neighbor is the near one.

00:23:08.380 And actually, in Luke, when Jesus gives that statement that these two loves, the loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself, which is actually three loves, right?

00:23:17.280 Then he tells the story of the good Samaritan, right?

00:23:20.260 And everybody kind of sort of knows that story as a vulnerable person.

00:23:23.480 And the Levi and the priest go to the other side.

00:23:25.980 In other words, they go far from the near one.

00:23:28.200 And then the Samaritan steps in and meets that need.

00:23:30.600 And then at the end of telling that story to the lawyer who asked him this question of who is my neighbor, then he says, which one showed mercy to the injured person?

00:23:40.760 And he's, excuse me, which one was a neighbor to that person?

00:23:44.820 And then the lawyer says, the one who showed mercy, right?

00:23:48.340 And then Jesus says, go and do likewise.

00:23:50.040 Well, this issue is a mercy issue.

00:23:53.040 It's exactly the same thing that's going on.

00:23:55.380 Because the child going inside the woman is a neighbor that she needs to love and everyone needs to love.

00:24:01.100 The guy who got her pregnant needs to love.

00:24:03.080 And the word mercy in Hebrew is that word rakim, which basically means it's the same word that you get the word compassion and mercy.

00:24:12.020 It's the same word that means womb.

00:24:14.200 And so the womb is supposed to be a place of mercy.

00:24:16.600 And we as keepers of the book should understand that we're supposed to help a woman be merciful.

00:24:22.980 And that's why that love that we're called to have in that verse, basically agape love, is sacrificial love.

00:24:30.260 So anyone who's a mom knows that when they carry the child inside of them, that was a sacrifice.

00:24:36.440 So I always think about it, the womb is a place of mercy.

00:24:39.480 And every time you hear the, you feel that heartbeat as a mother and you put your hand on the womb as the father and you feel that kick and that movement, that's the baby saying, have mercy, have mercy, have mercy.

00:24:50.920 And then the other piece, which is so key to this, is that the Great Commission essentially says to go and make disciples and teach them to obey all that I've taught you.

00:24:59.300 Well, what did Christ teach us?

00:25:00.820 It all can be distilled down into loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself.

00:25:05.300 So actually what you're supposed to be doing is making a disciple of the child growing inside of her.

00:25:10.340 And that's why I say, talking to Christians and saying, how does abortion support the Great Commandment where we're supposed to love our neighbor?

00:25:18.540 And how does it support the Great Commission where we're supposed to help our neighbor become a disciple?

00:25:24.040 And you know, as a parent, the first discipleship community is the children that God gives you.

00:25:29.080 So part of the reason why pastors struggle on this issue, in my view, is because it's being viewed through a political lens as opposed to being viewed through a ministry lens.

00:25:39.320 And that's why when I talk to pastors, the first thing I always say to them is that, look, are you looking at this issue through the lens of discipleship?

00:25:47.840 Are you looking at it through the lens of discipleship?

00:25:49.620 Are you seeing that woman who's facing a pregnancy decision is your first thought, I wonder if she's a disciple of Jesus Christ.

00:25:55.320 She needs to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

00:25:57.360 The child growing inside of her needs to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

00:26:00.240 The guy who got her pregnant needs to be a disciple of Jesus Christ.

00:26:03.060 When you start preaching about this issue through the lens of discipleship and the Great Commandment and linking those things together, then it takes the political narrative and puts it the same place that Christ did when he was given that coin, right?

00:26:15.540 He said, render unto Caesar what is Caesar, unto God what is God's.

00:26:18.860 And what did Caesar care about?

00:26:20.340 Political power and material wealth.

00:26:24.320 Well, Christ said there's a higher thing.

00:26:26.320 Well, what is that higher thing?

00:26:27.680 It's the law, loving God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and loving your neighbor as yourself.

00:26:33.780 And when you do that, you will be politically engaged because you're people of justice, right?

00:26:38.560 And you will be involved in material support because 1 John 3, 17 says what?

00:26:42.700 You cannot love your neighbor without meeting their material needs.

00:26:47.620 That's why framing it through this lens is so critically important for Christians that we view it rightly.

00:26:53.660 It is a discipleship issue that needs a political engagement and material support, and it's an issue that needs to be anchored in the Great Commandment and needs to fulfill the Great Commission.

00:27:05.040 Is that how you think about the life issue?

00:27:06.820 And I submit to you, as your folks who are listening to this, if you're not thinking about the life issue that way, I'm just going to boldly say it.

00:27:12.140 In my view, you're not anchoring it fully in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

00:27:16.220 And that's something that really needs to be done.

00:27:17.800 And when you do that, it motivates you to get involved in this issue in a very, very powerful way because it's connected to your faith.

00:27:25.180 Every time you help a woman who's facing a pregnancy decision, you're retelling the most amazing true story that's ever been told, which is the birth of Christ, where God used an unplanned pregnancy in Mary to an end that we might become disciples of Jesus Christ.

00:27:38.900 It is a discipleship issue, and when pastors start talking about that way, it mobilizes the church to go and make disciples and see that woman facing the pregnancy decision as a mission field to be met, not just a lever to be pushed on voting day.

00:27:53.100 Yes. And it shifts people's perspective about providing people's material resources from, well, I'm just going to allow the government to do that, to, no, I am going to voluntarily do that.

00:28:09.780 First Corinthians says that God loves a cheerful giver, that we are not supposed to give under compulsion, but we are supposed to be giving from a willing heart.

00:28:19.500 That doesn't mean that all government help is bad or should be demonized, but that doesn't count as Christian love and charity.

00:28:26.000 That doesn't count as cheerful giving. We have to pay taxes or else we will be put in jail.

00:28:31.460 So that's not the same thing as the charity and the love that Christians are called to.

00:28:35.940 So I think that is an important distinction when you shift, especially pastors shift away from thinking abortion is only or primarily a political issue to a material or a ministry issue.

00:28:46.760 It reminds us of our responsibility in it, too, and that is a game changer.

00:28:52.940 Well, absolutely. And the thing that works with Christian charity that doesn't work with government support is that Christian charity is transformative.

00:29:02.140 See, it's transformative, whereas government support is transactional.

00:29:06.500 So if you're a woman who's facing a pregnancy decision and you go into your local government support place, you've got two kids that you're struggling to support and now you're pregnant with a third, they'll give you whatever support they can give you.

00:29:17.700 But they're not going to ask you how you live it. They're not going to try to transform your life.

00:29:22.480 So they're not going to have that kind of conversation.

00:29:24.600 That only happens through the transforming institution that God has designed and the institution that communicates that is the local church.

00:29:34.440 I mean, one of the things I did with pastors at our most recent men's conference, and by the way, we're going to have another men's conference in Dallas, March 3rd and 4th, 2023.

00:29:43.960 So I encourage folks to come to our website, the men that come to our website and learn how to do that.

00:29:47.420 But we had a pastor's conference last year at Dr. Evans Church, and I had a group of pastors, about 90, and I asked them, I said, how many of you became pastors because you wanted to overturn Roe v. Wade?

00:29:56.380 Raise your hand. Nobody.

00:29:58.260 I said, how many became pastors because you wanted to end abortion in your lifetime?

00:30:02.060 Nobody raised their hand.

00:30:03.040 And again, this is a group of very committed pro-life pastors.

00:30:06.840 And then I asked the question, how many of you became pastors because you felt called to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and make disciples for Jesus Christ?

00:30:13.920 Every hand in the room went up.

00:30:15.260 And what that shows in that moment, and I've done this with pastors many times, that if pastors not viewing that issue primarily as a discipleship issue, it's outside the church, something we care about.

00:30:25.860 But it's not inside the church as the core work of the church, because we look at water for the thirsty, food for the hungry, clothes for the naked, homeless for the homeless as on ramps to discipleship.

00:30:36.440 But compassion for the pregnant, it goes someplace else.

00:30:40.500 And the other thing I always encourage folk is that even if you have pro-choice people in your church, when you start thinking about it through a ministry lens, it actually engages them.

00:30:51.640 And the reason I say that, if you're pro-choice, what you're supposed to believe is that there are two choices, abortion and birth, and you don't care which choice a woman makes as long as she has the right to make it.

00:31:01.820 Got it.

00:31:02.280 Understand that.

00:31:02.880 So you want to remove all the obstacles to abortion.

00:31:05.080 Got it.

00:31:05.740 Well, you also have just as much of an obligation to remove all the obstacles to birth.

00:31:10.700 So now that's the Venn diagram that connects a pro-choice person in the church and a pro-life person in the church.

00:31:16.620 Because if you're a pro-life person in the church, you're wanting to remove all the obstacles.

00:31:20.440 And if you're a pro-choice person, on the birth side of your worldview, you should be wanting to remove all the obstacles too.

00:31:26.440 That's where Making Life Disciples fits because it gets people working together to meet those needs, to remove those obstacles there.

00:31:35.000 And a pro-choice person is called to do that.

00:31:37.240 Now, the power of that is that as that pro-choice person begins to meet those needs, what happens to their pro-choice worldview?

00:31:45.540 It starts the life part of that worldview, which is living, begins to grow and grow and grow.

00:31:50.940 Anyone who was once pro-choice, who became pro-life, that's exactly what happened to them.

00:31:55.120 So when I talk to pro-life choice people, I don't try to convince them first to be pro-life.

00:32:00.820 First thing I try to do is convince them to be pro-choice and then remind them that they have a birth part, a living part of their worldview.

00:32:07.200 And what are you doing to support that?

00:32:08.820 And what you'll find with many, many pro-choice people, they only focus on the abortion side of their worldview, not the life side of their worldview.

00:32:15.740 And that's where the church has the ability through a ministry model to bring that together.

00:32:18.980 Yep. And ultimately, I mean, I know that this is only my audience, but I asked once, what made you go from pro-choice to pro-life?

00:32:27.760 And there were a few in there that said, you know, I saw what an abortion was or someone challenged me.

00:32:32.880 And those things are absolutely great and I think crucial because there are a lot of different pieces to someone's journey to becoming pro-life.

00:32:40.840 But I would say 98% was I became a Christian.

00:32:46.380 I became a Christian and it didn't happen immediately, but I started going to church.

00:32:50.940 I started engaging in ministry.

00:32:52.620 I started reading my Bible.

00:32:53.880 And eventually, as much as I wanted to hold on to that because I was a feminist or because that was just how I was raised or just a part of my persona, whatever it was, it just started slipping away.

00:33:05.760 I just saw that it was totally incongruent with this Jesus who I now love.

00:33:09.920 And so that is discipleship.

00:33:12.420 That's discipleship.

00:33:13.780 Ultimately, how people's minds are changed is because the transformative work of Christ.

00:33:20.660 Absolutely.

00:33:21.580 And that's why, again, like a broken record, the great commandment.

00:33:25.920 That's what Christ came to teach us and to do.

00:33:28.740 All the acts that he did all through Scripture and frankly, even from the Old Testament on, were all about showing us how to love God and how to love our neighbor as ourself.

00:33:38.360 And what you find in those three loves, what the abortion piece does, and when you're transformed by the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, you realize that abortion only focuses on one of the three loves, which is loving yourself.

00:33:49.760 Not loving God or loving your neighbor, but just self-love, which is idolatry of yourself.

00:33:55.800 And the Holy Spirit reveals that to you.

00:33:58.420 And when you realize that, you say, my gosh, I can't have a pro-choice worldview because it's in conflict with this call that we have of the great commandment.

00:34:07.240 And here's the thing that's really interesting about this.

00:34:10.340 Even folks on the other side know this.

00:34:12.720 Gavin Newsom has done this billboard campaign.

00:34:16.240 I don't know if you saw that.

00:34:18.060 He's putting billboards in states that are pro-life states.

00:34:22.160 And one of the things he's done on these billboards is actually use Scripture to try to frame abortion as loving your neighbor.

00:34:29.120 He actually has the scriptural verse on the billboard about loving your neighbor.

00:34:33.320 Of course, he deletes and doesn't include the part about loving God in there.

00:34:38.640 So it's just focused on loving your neighbor.

00:34:41.100 In other words, self-love in that context, which is idolatry.

00:34:45.600 And you can't separate those three loves.

00:34:47.680 Like you can't, if you love God without loving your neighbor, there's a rejection there.

00:34:51.160 If you try to love your neighbor without loving God, there's a problem there.

00:34:54.600 And if you love yourself without loving your neighbor and loving God, there's a problem there.

00:34:58.100 All of those three things, they're like the Trinity, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

00:35:02.140 They work together in unity to have transformed power.

00:35:06.620 The transforming power of the Holy Spirit uses those things in unity to transform your mind, to transform communities, to transform the church.

00:35:13.720 So, again, that's why it's central when you're talking to people who are pro-choice and profess to be Christians.

00:35:19.100 Focus them on the great commandment.

00:35:20.880 Focus them on the great commission.

00:35:22.520 Let the Holy Spirit work with them as they wrestle with those kinds of things.

00:35:26.540 And then I just believe the power of the Holy Spirit transforms lives.

00:35:29.260 And that's what you've seen in terms of the example that you gave.

00:35:32.140 You know, when you were talking about mercy, I love how you made that point.

00:35:45.780 I hadn't heard it, told it, or explained it that way before.

00:35:48.720 But I remember a couple months ago, Anne Hathaway, the actress, she was on The View.

00:35:56.140 And she said the exact opposite of what you said, which I can only think of Satan, you know, disguising himself as an angel of light, when she said abortion is an act of mercy.

00:36:04.400 But it's the exact opposite, which, again, goes back to the point that you keep making so well, is that really it has to be about heart transformation, because when you believe the opposite of what is true, that brutally killing a defenseless child could be merciful, you know that that's not primarily political.

00:36:24.760 She's not thinking politics.

00:36:26.080 That's not her problem.

00:36:27.360 Her problem isn't primarily her politics, although I'm sure her politics are bad, too.

00:36:32.040 Her problem is that she is deceived in her mind, in her heart.

00:36:36.540 There is a spiritual rot that is going on there.

00:36:39.640 Oh, absolutely.

00:36:41.520 I read the same thing.

00:36:42.480 And it's just such an amazing, you know, the blindness that you have there.

00:36:47.080 And that's why we know that the power comes from the transform of the Holy Spirit.

00:36:50.200 It's exactly that point.

00:36:51.440 And I read when I heard her say that and when I read that she said that, that was the thing that came to mind.

00:36:57.940 Isn't God amazing that the word compassion and mercy in Hebrew is the same word for womb?

00:37:07.020 It's the same root for womb.

00:37:08.880 It's that family.

00:37:10.240 It's the most.

00:37:10.900 Look, and here's the thing, which is so amazing for whether you're Anne Hathaway or whoever you are, right?

00:37:16.520 The most vulnerable place that anybody is, has ever been in their life, is in the womb.

00:37:22.880 That's the great equalizer for all humanity.

00:37:25.320 I don't care how powerful you become, rich, muscular, it doesn't matter.

00:37:30.100 We all shared a vulnerability in the womb.

00:37:33.700 And we all depended upon the mercy of someone in the womb.

00:37:39.140 And that's why I thought it was so powerful that Jesus' question, when he asked the lawyer there, who was the neighbor?

00:37:48.500 And the lawyer responded, the one who was merciful.

00:37:52.100 The one who was merciful.

00:37:53.660 In other words, anchoring it all the way back to the discussion of the womb.

00:37:58.080 So it's an absolute blindness and deception.

00:38:01.060 God has integrated all of this into Scripture, and it's the nature that we have as Christians to come to do that.

00:38:07.100 So what's going to transform her life is really the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ that's central to the life issue.

00:38:13.180 Not the political engagement and material support.

00:38:15.440 Central to all of this is the transforming power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is what we really need to be communicating in the public square.

00:38:21.380 Sure.

00:38:21.940 Yeah.

00:38:22.760 Last question.

00:38:23.780 And I know, you know, we could go another hour just talking about this, I'm sure.

00:38:27.720 But I just kind of quickly want to hear how you became pro-life, how long you've been passionate about this, and how you got started in the position that you're in now.

00:38:36.840 Yeah.

00:38:37.100 Very interesting question.

00:38:39.500 Well, I'll say it this way.

00:38:43.720 I didn't even know that I had this perspective early in my life, but I was faced with the decision early in my life.

00:38:54.280 When I was a 20-year-old college student, I went to Princeton undergrad, I got my girlfriend pregnant.

00:38:59.020 She was 19, I was 20, I was a junior, she was a sophomore.

00:39:02.520 And when she went to student health services at Princeton, the nurse did the pregnancy test and kind of came out and, without taking an extra gulp of air, said, now, of course, you're going to have an abortion.

00:39:13.480 And she said to my girlfriend, my wife of 40-plus years, well, you know, what year are you?

00:39:19.580 And she says, well, I'm a sophomore.

00:39:20.740 Well, of course, you're going to have an abortion.

00:39:22.060 And she says, no, I don't want to have an abortion.

00:39:23.960 I want to get married.

00:39:25.180 I want to have a baby.

00:39:26.660 And the nurse says, well, what do you want to do when you graduate?

00:39:28.580 I mean, how are you going to graduate from Princeton with a baby?

00:39:29.860 But what do you want to do when you graduate?

00:39:32.000 She says, I want to become a doctor.

00:39:33.760 And she's like, oh, my gosh, how are you going to become a doctor with a baby?

00:39:36.000 It doesn't seem like it makes a lot of sense.

00:39:37.880 The abortion decision seems to be the better choice.

00:39:41.400 Now, here's the thing.

00:39:42.320 She didn't ask her, you know, who got you pregnant?

00:39:46.380 Who's the guy?

00:39:47.100 Where's the guy?

00:39:47.700 Maybe he can come to support your choice and his child or any of that.

00:39:51.060 She was an older woman herself that could have provided some support.

00:39:53.900 But the abortion decision was on the table there.

00:39:56.140 And so she came back to the dorm room, and I imagine we were sitting on the edge of the bed,

00:40:00.700 which is obviously where we should have spent all our time.

00:40:03.640 And she told me that.

00:40:07.100 And in my 20-year-old way, I said, you know, we're going to move forward.

00:40:10.180 I'm going to be a husband to you and a father to the child growing inside of you.

00:40:13.720 And we got married, and she graduated from Princeton, became a doctor,

00:40:17.540 has been practicing medicine for 30 years.

00:40:19.680 The kid they wanted us to throw in a trash can went to Harvard, smarter than both of us.

00:40:23.280 And not because he went to Harvard, but just because he swatted with both of us.

00:40:26.860 So I saw that story played out in my own life.

00:40:32.760 And I hadn't connected it to the life issue or any of that.

00:40:36.140 And honestly, for many, many years, you know, we were Christians at the time that we got pregnant.

00:40:41.460 You know, it was one of those things that we weren't proud of.

00:40:43.320 We didn't really tell our story in the public square.

00:40:45.180 But I saw firsthand what I'm talking about, God's design for family and God's call to discipleship.

00:40:52.740 The reason why my wife was less likely to have an abortion, why?

00:40:56.840 Because she had a guy who said, I'll be a husband to you and a father to the child growing inside of you.

00:41:00.860 In other words, by the grace of God, he tapped into my inner Joseph and called me to come alongside her,

00:41:07.600 to be a husband to her and a father to the child growing inside of her,

00:41:10.560 so that our unplanned pregnancy would not be a crisis pregnancy.

00:41:14.800 And then, by the grace of God, he called us into a discipleship relationship with him.

00:41:20.200 In other words, to apply the discipleship, being disciples who make disciples, to frame all of that.

00:41:26.560 So in one generation, and I come from a single mother.

00:41:28.980 I'm all the statistics.

00:41:30.320 Single mother home.

00:41:31.220 My mother got pregnant when she was 16, 17, first time.

00:41:35.000 Father was gone by the time she was in her 20s.

00:41:37.920 Four kids under the age of eight as a single.

00:41:40.180 I have all the stats that you would see.

00:41:42.220 But I saw in one generation, by God's design for family and God's call to discipleship,

00:41:47.560 breaking that cycle just like that.

00:41:49.220 So both of my boys, both married.

00:41:51.100 I got grandkids.

00:41:52.080 None of them got kids out of wedlock, the whole deal.

00:41:54.200 Right.

00:41:54.480 One generation.

00:41:55.900 So I've lived the story.

00:41:59.660 I've lived it.

00:42:00.620 So even though I went to the business world first, and that was what I was doing,

00:42:03.540 and God called me to do this, that story of his plan and his design.

00:42:08.500 And that's why when I was reading through Matthew and looked at the story in the first

00:42:13.240 chapter, the first book of the New Testament, the birth of Christ, he downloaded into my

00:42:16.940 brain and said, that was what I called you to do.

00:42:19.440 That's what you need to be calling other men to do.

00:42:21.760 That's what you want.

00:42:23.240 You want God's design for family.

00:42:25.640 So we need to be engaging men as much as possible to help them step into the transformational

00:42:31.040 institution of husbandhood and fatherhood.

00:42:33.880 And we need to be tapping into those women and kind of inspire them to tap into their

00:42:38.480 inner Mary, that despite the unplanned pregnancy that they're facing, what they want to do

00:42:42.880 is, like Mary, say, let it be onto me, as you have said.

00:42:45.700 But then we need more than that.

00:42:47.080 We need to be connected to the church so that they can be disciples who make disciples first

00:42:51.420 of their children and then in the broader community.

00:42:53.640 That's how you break the cycle on the abortion issue.

00:42:56.600 That's the role of care at this ministry model in terms of what we do.

00:42:59.880 And I'm delighted to be a part of it.

00:43:01.560 And we framed all of what I just said to you as being not just pro-life, but pro-abundant

00:43:05.880 life based on John 10, 10, where Christ came, that you might have life and have it abundantly

00:43:10.140 from conception to natural death, have a pro-abundant life perspective.

00:43:14.980 And so that's what we do.

00:43:15.760 And that's why I do it.

00:43:16.920 Yes.

00:43:17.220 And amen.

00:43:17.960 Well, that was excellent.

00:43:18.880 Thank you so, so much for sharing your story and also a little bit of pro-life apologetics,

00:43:23.820 but more than anything, bringing it back to the gospel.

00:43:26.400 I just appreciate you and your ministry so much, and may God continue to multiply the

00:43:31.640 ministry and save lives as he changes hearts.

00:43:34.800 So thank you.

00:43:35.720 Thank you very much.

00:43:36.800 Merry Christmas.

00:43:37.340 Thank you.

00:43:38.040 Same to you.

00:43:38.860 Merry Christmas.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - December 21, 2022

Ep 728 ｜ Want to End Abortion？ Make Disciples ｜ Guest： Roland Warren

Episode Stats

Length

Words per Minute

Word Count

Sentence Count

Summary

Transcript