Culture & Christianity: The Allen Jackson Podcast - How the Church Should Reframe the Abortion Issue [Featuring Roland Warren]

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

What does it really mean to be pro-life? In our culture, abortion has been deemed a "political" issue when in reality it is a moral and biblical issue that we will be held accountable for. What can the Church do to move the abortion discussion from the podium to the pulpit? How should we address this now controversial issue with our families, lawmakers, and communities? Author and CEO of Care Net, Roland Warren will help us answer these questions and discern the next steps the Church needs to take so we can help every individual—father, mother, and child—pursue an abundant life in Jesus Christ.More Information:Care Net: https://care-net.org/pro-abundant-life/The Alternative to Abortion: Why We Must be Pro Abundant Life: https://store.care-net.org/the-alternative-to-abortion/__ It’s up to us to bring God’s truth back into our culture. It may feel like an impossible assignment, but there’s much we can do. Join Pastor Allen Jackson as he discusses today’s issues from a biblical perspective. Find thought-provoking insight from Pastor Allen and his guests, equipping you to lead with your faith in your home, your school, your community, and wherever God takes you. Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3JsyO6ysUVGOIV70xAjtcm?si=6805fe488cf64a6d Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/culture-christianity-the-allen-jackson-podcast/id1729435597

back in 73 saying this issue is about a woman and a question mark. It's about a woman and a question mark. And then they started defining the question mark. It's choice, a woman plus choice, or it's complicated or bodily autonomy, whatever it may be. And then on the pro-life side, we said, no, no, no, no, it's about the baby. We have to save the baby. Right? And we kind of saw that we've got to save the baby.

And then the pro-choice side started attacking us and saying, you don't care about women. You just care about saving babies. And then we said, no, no, no, no. We care about women and babies. So on our side, it's woman plus baby. On their side, it's woman plus question mark. Now, if you put a line through the middle of that, it's a woman's issue and we're arguing about whether the baby is a question mark or not.

But there's a problem with that paradigm. It goes all the way back to what I said to my girlfriend, fiancee, now wife, all those years ago. Who's not in that narrative? The guy. All right. Well, welcome to culture and Christianity. Our goal is to understand how to take our faith outside the walls of the church.

and actually live it out in the spheres of influence that God has given us. I think that's an assignment. I don't think that makes us in any way special Christ followers. I think that's the nature of the relationship we have. And we hope this podcast is helping to encourage you to do that and to contribute to that. I'm excited about our guest today. Roland Warren is with us. Welcome to Tennessee, sir.

Yes, yes. Thank you very much. I'm glad to be here and glad you have me on the show. I always start with a little bio they give me, so I don't mess it up. you're the president and CEO of CareNet. Yes. But part of why you're here is you have a new book, which I can show you. It's called the alternative to abortion.

I really like this title, why we must be pro-abundant life. So I'm assuming they can get this wherever they find books. Well, it's on Amazon. Yeah. Where else, right? I'm old enough to remember bookstores. I do. Those seem irrelevant to that.

That's right. I actually remember borders. Yeah. Tell you how old I am. So, yeah. You put the gray in your hair just to make yourself more relatable to the rest of us. I appreciate that. Let's start with the title, The Pro Abundant Life.

There's so many options to bringing your baby to term these days. And you've clearly staked your territory where you are. So talk to us a little about your book and why you wrote it. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I have been working with Karnett for 12 years now. And I came from, I was with an organization called National Fatherhood Initiative, which focused on him helping men be better dads. And before that, I was in the business world.

I worked for IBM, Goldman Sachs, Pepsi, until God called me to that. And so I came to the pro-life work, really, you know, not from the perspective of I was at Marches or my mother took me to pregnancy centers or any of that. So I was newer coming to this, but I came to it with a framework that was really informed by my own experience. Specifically, I grew up in a home without a dad. So I grew up in a father absent home. So that was part of the narrative of my life. And then I went to work for this, you know, fatherhood organization to kind of work on that issue. I tell people all the time that God. had me on the couch for 12 years, working through my father absence issues and all that kind of

stuff and give me a voice to be able to help others and reach others who had kind of similar dilemmas and encouraged men to step into that role. But also, when I was in college, I was an undergrad at Princeton, I got my girlfriend pregnant. And I'm still trying to figure how that happened. That's probably another talk. But anyway, so I was 20 years old. She was 19. I was a junior. She was a sophomore. We were dating, both Christians, obviously doing stuff we shouldn't have been doing. And the result of that was that we had an unplanned pregnancy. And I still remember the call. I got it over Christmas break.

And she called me and said, I think I'm pregnant. And that's all I remember hearing after that point. But anyway, when she came back to campus, she went to student health services to get a pregnancy test. And she went in to get the test. The nurse comes out, delivers the test. And without taking an extra gulp of a hair, says, you're pregnant. And says, well, now, of course, you're going to have an abortion. And my girlfriend, now my wife, for 42 years, there's the punchline, said,

well, I don't want to have an abortion. I mean, I want to get married. I want to have my baby. And the nurse says, well, how are you going to graduate from Princeton with a baby? And she persists and said, well, I want to get married. I want to have my baby. She said, well, what do you want to be when you graduate? What do you want to become a doctor?

And there's my gosh, graduate from Princeton with a baby. You know, become a doctor with a baby. Doesn't seem like it makes a lot of sense. Seems like the abortion decision is the right decision. And so, you know, I always kind of tease her that, you know, she came back to the dorm and we were sitting on the edge of the bed, which is where we should have spent all of our time, obviously. And she tells me this story. And in my 20-year-old way, you know, by the grace of God, I said,

no, no, no, we're going to move forward with a plan, and we're going to get married. And I'm going to be a husband to you and a father to the child growing inside of you, and that's what we did. So we got married. And that was our deal. And our parents pretty much cut us off. And she ended up graduating from Princeton, not with one baby, but with two.

Both of our sons were born at Princeton. Went on to become a doctor. She's been practicing 25, almost 30 years now. So I saw God's hand in all of that. So with that kind of backstory and narrative, I came to the life work. Can I interrupt just a minute? Yes. I think to me one of the most remarkable valuable parts of the book was your candor because you tell that story.

Yeah, I do. And a lot of times when Christians write a book, we kind of gloss it over and we tell about our heroic choices. And I thought your candor really brings an authenticity to the message that you're delivering. And the photos graduating with the baby in arms. Yeah, it's amazing. You know, and we weren't trying to make news. I mean, we were just trying to, you know, do what we felt God calls to do. Yeah, God called us to do.

And we did. We just, as a young couple, got married. And, you know, to that point, at the end of the book, there's a letter that my wife wrote to women who were in that situation that are facing pregnancy decisions. There was this young lady in Texas. I can't remember at school. But she kind of hijacked their graduation. I think she was valedictorian. and she was supposed to just sort of give the normal speech.

And she decided to make it as an ode to abortion and how you, as a woman, would never be able to accomplish your dreams or any of that stuff if abortion is not available to you. And so my wife, she's a Texan, wrote a letter to them. And it's in there as well that folks can look and pass on to others. But, you know, one of the things she says in that in that letter that's so important is that I've been where you've been, but you've never been where I've been. And that's really what you have to believe because God is the same way. he's been everywhere we're heading to.

And so we have to operate from that perspective. That's a wonderful point of view. And I interrupt you. Please, you were just about to get to the punchline. Well, no. So that was the story that I had and the narrative that I had that God walked me through this fatherhood issue, facing an unplanned pregnancy, the marriage decision, and all of that. And so when I came to this work, I looked at it through that lens.

I said, okay, so if, if I told me this all the time, I said, it's very simplistic. If a woman came to you and said she was facing an unplanned pregnancy, right? She's pregnant. And you can change everything except the fact that she's pregnant. What would you want to have happened? And this is I say to Christians all the time. What would you want to happen? Would you, okay, what, want to have the baby?

Okay, that's it. So she'll be a single mother. Well, well, I want more than that. I want the dad to be involved. Oh, do you want me to be a baby daddy? I mean, what do you want? You know, if you walk through there, you say, well, I really want to happen. As a Christian, you should want that couple to be united in a high-quality, low-conflict, godly marriage.

and you should want that child to be raised of in the fear and admonition of the Lord. That's the high idea what you'd solve for. And when I looked at what's happening in the pro-life movement, even in the Christian space, that's actually not what we're solving for in most cases. We're solving for a narrative that actually was constructed based on how the other side looks at the issue. And I feel like we kind of, it was almost like a pegboard. We put our pegs in the holes that they assigned to us. So on the pro-choice side, it's really sort of back in 73 saying this issue is about,

a woman and a question mark. It's about a woman and a question mark. And then they started defining the question mark. It's choice, a woman plus choice, or it's complicated, or vitality autonomy, whatever it may be. And then on the pro-life side, we say, well, no, no, no, it's about the baby. We have to save the baby. And we kind of saw the, we got to save the baby.

And then the pro-choice side started attacking us and saying, you don't care about women, you just care about saving babies. And then we said, no, no, no, we care about women and babies. So on our side, it's woman plus baby. On their side, it's woman plus question mark. Now, if you put a line through the middle of that, it's a woman's issue and we're arguing about whether the baby is a question mark or not. But there's a problem with that paradigm. It goes all the way back to what I said to my girlfriend, fiance, now wife, all those years ago. Who's not in that narrative?

The guy. Now, they don't need him. Because if there's an abortion, you know. But on our side, actually, we know that he's needed. He's needed. And so I started to look at the issue through that lens and that started leading me down this path of, wait a minute, there's got to be a different way of framing this issue that's biblically anchored and focused on what you see in the biblical narrative. And so that God led me to the birth of Christ. And you see, and this is a really interesting thing because when I looked at that story when I started this work in this ministry, I said, my gosh, here's Mary. she's facing an unplanned pregnancy from a human perspective. I mean, she has hopes and dreams and aspirations for her life that did not include a child at that time in that way. She has an inexplicable problem. Yes.

And I thought to myself, oh my gosh, my wife was a lot like Mary, different way that she got pregnant. But the reality after she got pregnant was exactly the same. I mean, how I tell my dad, her issue, same issue Mary had. What's Joseph going to say? What's wrong going to say? I mean, all these same thing, all this uncertainty swirling around. in Mary's head. And what does she do? She doesn't focus on the uncertainty of what she doesn't know. She focuses on the certainty of what she does. There's a life growing inside of her and it's not a life

worth sacrificing, but a life worth sacrificing for it. She says, let it be on to me, as you have said. And I felt like, okay, great, a lot of pro-life folks love that narrative, love that story, love that aspect, closer Bible, let's go. We've got to help the proverbial Mary's and save the proverbial Jesus's. But you got to keep reading. What did God do to make sure that Mary's unplanned pregnancy wasn't a crisis pregnancy? He's an name told her to Joseph. And Joseph had a plan because he's a man. Because you have a man without a plan, you ain't no kind of man.

Right? And what was his plan? His plan was to divorce her quietly, put her away quietly. Well, that's very similar to what we do here. Back then you couldn't put the baby away. So you put the woman and the baby away. That's a cultural version of an abortion. And the angel comes to that man, an angel, not a gnome or a smurf or some other entity, but an angel.

comes to Joseph and says, listen, you're a man with a plan, but I had a new plan for you, man, and is this, be a husband to her and a father to the child growing inside of her. And it's interesting in the biblical narrative, he doesn't delink those things, and there's an order to those things, right? And you know, obviously as a pastor,

order matters in Scripture. So in my humanity, I'm thinking, well, the first thing the angels should say was save the Christ child, protect the Christ child, protect the baby, sanctity of life. Now, first thing he does. He says, do not be a human. afraid to take Mary as your what, baby mama, no wife.

And so in that narrative, what you hear is actually two sanctities. And this is where I kind of, I'm challenging the narrative out there because actually what you see in the birth of Christ is two sanctities, not just the sanctity of life, but you see the sanctity of marriage and family as God designed it. And the first thing the angel does is affirm the sanctity of marriage as God designed it, before he even tells him who Jesus is. And I thought to myself, my gosh, is that what we're doing? And we've actually delinked the marriage issue from the life issue.

It's good. You see? So this is my experience, and I see it in the biblical narrative, and that's in the first chapter of the first book of the New Testament, God's designed for family. And it seems to me as Christians, that's what we should be called to. Here's an unplanned pregnancy from a humor perspective.

God gave us the playbook of what we should be doing it, what we should be solving for. I mean, clearly, scripture could have been written so that Jesus came into the world via a single mother. I mean, if anyone I was equipped to be fatherless in that context, Jesus was. But God didn't do that. Why? There's a high idea. There's a design. And so what he did was he found this perfect construct that accomplished his purpose to bring a savior in the world without violating this principle, this high idea.

So Jesus comes into the world that accomplishes his purpose without violating the principle. And with a father and mother, united in marriage, loving each other, loving their child and loving God. Oh, wait, that's the high idea. Is that what we're solving for? Is that what we're solving for? Are we solving for that? And then the second piece of that, which this is how you get to a pro-abundant life perspective, is that, again, you don't just want that child, you don't want that child to have life. You want that child to have abundant life.

Right? Because Jesus said, you know, why did he come? It's John 1010. I came that you might have life and then have that life abundantly, right? And so when you look at that verse in the Greek, there are two types of life that are reflected there. There's Bias, physical life. Right. And then there's Zoe, which is a unique type of spiritual life that only comes from a relationship with God. So essentially what Christ is saying there is, I came to link your Bias to my Zoe that you might be heartbeats that are heavenbound. And that's where you get the difference between being pro life and being pro abundantly. life. See, you can be an atheist and be pro-life because you're solving for the baby. Not a bad thing. Wonderful thing, right? But if you're pro-abundant life, you're solving for heartbeats that are heaven-bound. See, Jesus was pro-abundant life. How do you know that? He said he was. He said, I came that you might have life and have it abundantly. He never interact with someone and just dealt with the BIAS issue, if you will, without calling him into a Zoe relationship. And so as Christians who are supposed to be leading this movement, we should be doing the same thing. We can't be satisfied with her just having the baby, and for that baby just having physical life but not eternal life.

So the key piece for that for me is I started to think through and pray through all of this. This is God downloaded this narrative. And he firstly just gave me the word, pro-abundant life. I didn't even know what it was. And he started to unpack and I started to see it in the biblical narrative, the first chapter, the first book of the New Testament. The nativity narrative of Christ, the birth of Christ, which gives us the model of God's designed for family. And then the last chapter, the first book of the New Testament, which is the nativity,

is God's cult of discipleship. And we can talk more about that too, but I'll kind of stop there. No, no, no, this is really good. I think you're reminding us all of how we weaken our position and we allow our adversary to define the debate. Yeah. And clearly, we've been guilty of that far too often. And I love the notion of this higher ideal that we strive for,

which really is a message to the church, of re-implementing the family, nuclear family, biblical family, which is going to include discussions around gender roles. If the church were owning that lane as we should, it would change a lot of the narrative that's in the public square today. So I'm curious the response you're getting. I mean, even in the church, that's a heavy lift. Yes, it is. Tragically. Yeah, it is.

I think, you know, it can be challenging because. there's a paradigm that's been set up with this movement for years and years and years. And frankly, in a lot of ways, it's actually gotten worse. And, you know, this is kind of stuff that gets me in trouble, but I say it anyway. Right. Because I think one of the big mistakes that happened with the issue is that we actually gave the issue to the politics. I agree.

We outsourced the issue to the politics. I was talking to a woman who'd been in the movement for many, many years. She's now, like, in her late 70s. And I talked to her about that. She said, you know, in the 80s, I was part of the movement, part of the movement, part of the leadership and whatever. And she says, I look back in the 80s, we decided we were going to win this battle through political power. And so she said, I used to go into churches and I used to talk about this issue. And she always talked about it from kind of an Amago Day perspective.

Right. And when it became more politicized, she said, I stopped getting invited to churches. And I really think, you know, the way forward here, which is the way. forward has always been is that we need to exchange the podium for the pulpit. Because you think about a podium, right? Anybody can speak at a podium. A podium doesn't have any gravitatous in and of itself. That's why when the president comes and speaks, they bring a seal.

And they put the seal in front of the president. And then he has gravitas, right? It has some intrinsic message that goes with that symbol. There's only certain things that can happen that can be spoken from that podium with that seal. But once you remove the seal, anybody can run up there to say anything. But not so with a pulpit. See, a pool pit is anchored in John 1010, why Christ came. It's proclaiming the gospel, which is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

What's coming from the podium ain't the same yesterday to day. Like, it's not even the same even to be a Republican today as it was even two years ago or a Democrat. It doesn't even. Why? Because podiums change. Pulpits are not supposed to change. So if you let your movement be led by a podium, you've got to expect some change.

And that's exactly what we've seen. And the other thing, too, and this is where a big challenge is, I have to tell you all the time, I don't even know what the term pro-life means anymore. Really, it's lost its meaning. And the reason it's lost its meaning is because it was given to the politics. See, it's going to lose its meaning. See, if you have a political party,

each one of us have glasses here, and these cups, They look exactly the same, right? And this is a cup of water right now, but it can easily be a cup of tea, a couple of juice, a cup of anything. The only intrinsic here is the fact that it's a cup and it's physical. So if you put Republican and Democrat on each one of these cups,

every four years, you pour the what's in it out and pour in a new platform. So if you've taken your issue and you've mixed it in with the rest of the stuff in the cup and then they pour it out and you've got a new platform, and that's what happened this year. Got a new platform. So when I say, I'm not really sure it means even be

pro-life is because the term, the term, when you give it to the politics, politics is about compromise. It's not about a commitment to an intrinsic truth. It's a commitment to compromise. Like often, even when politicians have a conviction, it's all about compromising your conviction, right? Which is not what's supposed to happen. So in a lot of ways... The exercise of politics is compromised. By its very nature. So if you take something that's intrinsic like God's design for life, and you put it into a political narrative and think you're going to win with that and that it's going to look the same as it did when you put it in there.

By its very nature, it won't happen because you've put it into a construct, a paradigm that by its very nature is about changing. So why do I say this? Pro-life now has become, it's on a spectrum. So you say, okay, I'm pro-life. Okay, why are you pro-life? Well, I'm pro-life because of Amago Day. Right? I believe that these children are creating the image of God, right? And this is the intrinsic truth. Okay, got it. And so even in situations where the tough situations that we talk about were rape and all those things.

It doesn't matter because the circumstances of a child's conception and birth should not determine that child's humanity and worth. So whether you're conceived in love or love, you are still created in the image of God. It's intrinsic. It's unchanging. We have to deal. with those situations, but your humanity is not connected to the circumstance. Amen. Right? Yeah. Non-pro-life. Now, what about you?

Well, I'm pro-life too, but I'm for a 15-week ban. Oh, okay. Well, how many abortions happened before 15 weeks? 96.1, based on the latest CDC numbers. Oh, and by 15-week ban, plus the exceptions that we talk about. Oh, that's another, what, one or two percent? So wait a minute, your pro-life, yes, but you're okay with 98% of abortions. What about you?

Well, I'm for a 20-week ban. That's what paying 10? capable, like 20-week ban. Okay, that's, how many abortions happen after 20 weeks? One percent. Oh, so you're for 99% of abortions and you're pro-life. And this, and what are you?

And you, the Mago de guy is pro-life too. Really? And the crazy thing is we're, we are the ones that are that way. The other side is not that way. See, the other side, they say, we're pro-choice. And you said, why are you pro-choice? Well, we believe this issue is about a woman's bodily

autonomy. Okay. It's a non-negotiable. And you even saw that in the campaign, right, when Harris was asked the question, would you make an exception or would you someone for religious exceptions or something like that or con, she's, she said, when there's a, when you're talking on a fundamental right, you don't compromise. I was like, oh my goodness. So you go to her and say, well, when should we limit abortion? Never. Because a woman's bodily autonomy should never be violated. Now you go to our side and we're supposed to be the people that the Mago Debe built on the book. When should we allow abortions? Six weeks? Fifteen weeks? Twenty weeks? I've never, look, and I know this is challenging for some people to hear, but I really believe firmly.

Part of the reason why we have not had the success that we should have is I've never seen a movement, a movement that ever wins by compromising on his convictions. Agreed. So if we're going to let the politicians tell us what's possible, and that becomes our position as opposed to us telling them, this is what's right, that's what the other side did. They said, no, no, this is what we believe is right. They have not changed their position since 1969 when Naira was formed.

They have never, ever, ever negotiated on abortion. Never. Never. Never. Well, anyway, so. So many thoughts. And you make the case in your book beautifully, which I really recommend that,

because if you have trouble organizing your thoughts around this discussion, this is as good of a tool to help you shape that as I have had in my hand in a long time. But when I read it, I can't help. And you make the case, so it's not original. But, I mean, it's really the failure of the church, that this even exists in the political realm. Right.

I mean, you're, you have a, remarkable education and a tremendous amount of experience in the corporate world, very successfully. But the church was so inept, so feckless that you had to cross over from that environment to step into the nonprofit side to help the ineptitude of the church. And I'm grateful you did, but as someone who spent my life laboring in that field, it's unfortunate. They haven't called me to the corporate world to sort out their business plans. And I think the church has got a grapple with this. We lost our sense of moral authority. You know, the scripture thunders against sin. And my voice may be small, but if I stand in the authority of scripture, there's something

far more powerful than Allen or anything I'm doing. Dr. King knew that. We saw it in the civil rights movement, and when we got away from that, we'd revert back into racism. We put fancy labels on it, but that's what we do. And we've done that in the church. We got into this political realm, and we're no longer working for this biblical notion of family and male and female and what God implemented, and we lose ground. When the American people decided that the borders should be closed, amazingly, the politicians that now have power are closing the border. If the American public decided that abortion needed to stop, we would have a building full of politicians that thought it would think abortion should stop. This isn't a political issue. This is a church issue.

And I know you know that. I'm preaching to the choir, but Well, yeah, I couldn't agree more. And, you know, and for me, you know, your review for the church is probably, you know, you can sit, you can do that. My thing has been. I will do that. And you will do that. My thing is, because people know, I'm a churchman. Yeah.

You know, I really, I really feel very strongly that, look, and this isn't just me feeling this. The reality is God has, there's planning and there's no plan B. And, you know, my position has been on this. issue and one of the things God put in my heart as soon as I started was, see, I really believe strongly, this is a John the Baptist moment for the pro-life movement. And what I mean by that is we must decrease and the church must increase. And, you know, when John's disciples were coming to him and saying, look, everybody's going to Jesus to get baptized. We've got chairs and towels and, you know, what's up with that? And John's like, you know, like, don't get it twisted.

He must increase. I must decrease. I'm a para-church ministry. I'm a para-Jesus. He's Jesus. So the goal is for me to get you to Jesus, right? And so as Christians in the pro-life movement, right? And that's why I call it pro-abundant life perspective. Our goal should be not just to save them temperately, but to help them meet Christ eternally. That's what we're called to do. Otherwise, it just becomes social services, which is a good thing. they'll get me wrong. And I, you know, and I guess my position has been with pastors in particular, because I've talked to a lot of pastors on this issue. And my heart goes out to pastors in this way. The issue has been framed politically for so long that most people sitting in the pews view the issue through a political lens. They view it through a political lens. And so if you ask them, okay, are you pro-life? they say yes, and you say prove it, they'll tell you who they voted for. And don't get me wrong, there's a political component to this, right? And there's a material support component to this.

But it's not primarily either one of those things. It's primarily a discipleship issue. An illustration for me that really kind of cleared this up for me in my mind because people say, well, wait a minute, are you saying we should not engage in politics or not engaging in material support or whatever, whatever. Christ, he's just, I mean, it's amazing because he gave us all the narratives that we need in order to help us sort through this. Remember when Jesus was offered that coin, they said,

should we pay taxes? And he said, right on to Caesar, what does Caesar unto God? What is God? Well, what did Caesar care about? Political power and material wealth, the political and the material. Right? So I'm making a triangle with my hands here. So in one corner, this is political power.

In this corner, it's material wealth. And Christ is saying, there's a higher thing on this triangle. What is that? The things of God. Well, what are the things of God? And I'll get to that. It's really, if you think about as a Christian, we're called to these two bookends in the Christian

faith to live out the great commandment to fulfill the great commission. That's all Jesus did. He lived out the great commandment to fulfill the great commission, right? So that's the higher thing, because if you're living out the great commandment to fulfill the great commission, what will you do? You will help your brother and sister in need. Like 1st John 317 says, well, look, if your brother and sister is in need and you have no pity, then the love of God is not in you. In other words, you're not living out the great commandment to fulfill the great commission. And then on the political side, well, then you'll be engaged politically, appropriately. Why? Because as people, the book, were called to hold the government, what, accountable, to be just to be just

and merciful. And who are they the most unjust and unmerciful too? The most vulnerable. So you'll be engaged there. You will have to be. But here's the thing. You can be providing material support and not being making disciples. That's called social services. And you can be politically engaged advocacy without making disciples, right? So what happened with the movement, what happened with this issue, rather, is I think what happened was it got flipped. So that the higher thing became the lower thing and the lower thing became the higher thing. So we said, we're going to win this through material support and through political engagement.

Church, you guys can follow. Hope you can keep up. Good luck. So part of what I'm hopeful to do here is to help. No, no, no, the church must lead. Pastors must lead. And it's so connected to the politics. I mean, just look at the polls.

Here's the thing. You lose, if you lose, you lose the people, pews, you lose the polls. And if you lose the pastors, you lose the pews. The margin of difference in all of these referendums, all these states, even red states, right? Even in Florida, we celebrate and we're glad. It was 57.2%. Had they not raised it to 60%, the bar in Florida for 60% on another issue, several years ago, Florida would have abortion up until birth with no exceptions. And Christians voted for that in Florida. Insignificant numbers.

Insignificant numbers. So the margin of difference on all these referendums is actually people of the book. But there's this notion that lives very large in the hearts and minds of church folk, and that's that we shouldn't be political. And so there's a great reluctance to have these conversations within the context of our church communities, even if to Sunday school class for a small group. Yeah. Because somebody starts crying about the separation of church and state,

then you're being political. And in reality, you're not being political at all. Yeah. You're talking about biblical issues in our culture. Well, yeah. And I think, I mean, one of the ways that helps me sort through the politics is that everything that we do as Christians, we should be looking at through the lens of the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.

So even your voting is a reflection of the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. So why should you get out in Florida and vote against abortion up until birth because it's a political? No, no, because you're called to live out the Great Commandment to fulfill the Great Commission. See, the Great Commandment, and this was to me, this is the other piece here, and I walk through this in the books, I'll do it briefly here. There are two bookends to the Christian faith. It's living out the Great Commandment to fulfill the Great Commission. So the Great Commandment, it's lots of places in Scripture, but I love Luke 1027 where lawyer comes to Jesus and who's all up in the life issue.

abortionage, all lawyers, right? He says, what must I do to inherit the kingdom of God? Jesus, like, well, what's the book say? Well, he says, I love God with your heart, your soul, your strength, and your mind, and love your neighbor's yourself. And Jesus, like, thumbs up. You got it. Right? Now, here's the thing. When you look at that passage in the Greek, the word for love is agapeo, which is a sacrificial love. And the word for neighbor means near one or near fellow. Near one or near fellow. Now, we talk about nearness two ways. Proximity, I'm next to you, or relationship. I'm your of kin. The baby in the woman's womb is what? Her nearest near one. Why? Because it's her next of kin next to her in the most intimate way. And also for the guy who got her pregnant, because

his bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. So what does she call to do? To sacrificially love who, her near one. Now, the lawyer then, like, oh my gosh, I realized that Jesus, he just expanded the plane field here. And you know, like, when you get something from God, it's like, okay, I got to do this hard thing. How can I, like, what little, how little do I have to do to get in the heaven? You know, that moment? How long, you know, we struggle with these things. We're humans, right?

And so the lawyers having that moment, I think, and he's like, dang, he built this whole, he's got a big neighborhood. This is where Mr. Rogers and Big Bird meet, right? Because Mr. Rogers, he'd be like James Brown. Like, he, won't you be my neighbor? He'd yell at a little James Brown. He'd be big. Please, please, please, please, pull his cartigan in a, please, won't you be my neighbor?

And the culture is like Big Bird and his crew. They're walking around saying, who are the people in my neighborhood? Who are the people in my neighborhood? The baby in the woman saying, won't you be my neighbor? And the culture saying, who are the people in the neighborhood? And Jesus, understanding how confused this guy was, he said, well, let me just help you sort this out. And then he does what? He tells the story of the Good Samaritan.

And what's the story of the Good Samaritan? It is, what, a vulnerable person who cannot advocate for themselves. That kind of the rule. And church folk go to the other side. They, what do they do? They go far from the near one. In other words, they abort the near one. Because an abortion at its core is a rejection of vulnerable life in its most vulnerable moment. And the Samaritan goes near to the near one. Jesus tells the story and then says to the lawyer. So who was a neighbor to the man who fell? The lawyer says the one who showed him mercy. Well, the Hebrew word for mercy has the same root as the word for compassion and the word for womb. In other words, the one who put the man in the womb because a womb is supposed to be a place of mercy. The only voice that a baby in the womb has is a heartbeat. And I tell people all the time, the baby's heartbeat is saying, have mercy, have mercy, have mercy, have mercy.

And what does the mother say? I will what? I will agapeo you. Any woman who gives birth to a child is actually living out the great commandment. even if she's not a Christian. It's an intrinsic truth. Why? Because there are three loves in the Great Commandment.

Love God, love neighbor, love self. When she cares for and loves that image, that child in God's image, that's a reflection of love for God. And obviously, when she cares and loves for that child, it's an image of the love for that child as well. And also, frankly, it's a reflection of love for herself. Why? Because when you abort a child, when you kill one of God's image bearers, you create

antipathy between you and God. That's like jumping in the ring with Mike Tyson and his prime, and you can't box. Except it's worse than that. So when you don't abort, you're reflecting a love of God, a love of neighbor, and a love of self. This is why as a Christian, you cannot support abortion, because abortion is a violation of the Great Commandment. See, that doesn't, that narrative doesn't come from the podium. But in there a, yes, I agree with it, 100%. But it feels like to me the root goes beyond that. Those of us that sit in churches and wear the label Christian no longer submit to the authority of Scripture. So we can make all the arguments we want. Yeah. But if you're not yielded to the authority of Scripture, you're going to be driven by your own carnal, selfish,

edamic, earthly, whichever. And you're not going to submit. Right. You'll go find somebody with a Ph.D. or a platform or an influencer that gives you license to go be ungodly and off we sale. Or we think our circumstances, that's why I loved your story, because your circumstances were really uncomfortable. I mean, to tell family, to tell friends, it interrupt your education, your wife went home for a while before she came back and picked it back up. And I think we make all of our cases and then we think God will understand. We will never make an argument so compelling that God will support our sin. And yes, but the message to the church is we've got to use to the authority of God.

Yes. And I think part of the problem is, and this is the challenge, because I think you're absolutely right, you have to be willing to view this through the lens of the Great Commandment because what Satan always does is he, see, if you just have two of those loves, right, not three, they're a Trinity.

Love God, love neighbor, love self. It's a Trinity. So you say, well, if I love God, but I don't love my neighbor, well, that's a problem. Right? If I love my neighbor and I love myself, but I don't love God, well, that's a problem.

Right? And what abortion is essentially saying is I don't love God. I don't really love my neighbor, but I do love myself. And so what happens is it becomes idolatry. Right. So it absolutely is a Christian message. And my view is candidly, it's almost like the movie Matrix. I think for a lot of Christians, I think we have to unplug. We have to unplug. And what I mean by that is we have to be challenged to apply the great commandment to this issue. And I think because the political narrative has been. so pervasive, has been so all-inclusive, that's why I call it the Matrix. Like, you're plugged into the Matrix and you pull out, oh my gosh, we ain't wearing cool clothes, our glasses, they're not Raybans. And one dude, I remember he wanted to plug back in, right? But once you do, it's, oh, wait, hold it, hold it. So I really believe firmly that as we start to talk about this issue as a great commandment and frankly, a great commission issue, because abortion is also a violation of the Great Commission. Why? Because you're called to make disciples of who, your neighbors. And as a parent, who's your first discipleship community?

Well, the children God gives you. Killing your child is not an act of discipleship. So abortion is a violation of the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. And I really, this is why for me, pastors have to lead on this. Because that message doesn't come from the podium. That message only comes from the pulpit. And look, even in the political folks, I, you know, I understand that dynamic in this sense. every politician, I don't care how good or great you think they are,

but every politician faces Pilate's dilemma. You remember a story of Jesus with Pilate, right? Jesus comes, the Sanhedron. They bring Jesus. And Pilots, like, I find no fault with this guy. And of course, and you know that. Why? Because I'm sure Pilate had folks at Jesus at the sermon on the Mount,

hearing Jesus saying, ran onto Caesar, what is Caesar, onto God, what is God? It's like, okay, the people coming back and reporting to him. Like, is this guy a problem? Well, is he paying taxes? He's got a tax collector rolling with him. What? Matthew rolling with him? Not a problem. Because if Jesus was a problem, he'd have had him with Barabbas.

So that's when he brought him. He understood this was a moral issue that you're bringing to me, and I'm a political person. What did they do? They took the moral issue and they made it political by saying anybody who's a friend of this man is not a friend of Caesar. And all of a sudden, Pilate was like, ooh, I got to engage. What are they done with a life issue? And we assisted with this, taking a moral issue and making it a political. one, primarily, not in order, as I talk about the triangle. And what happens? Now it's all

pilot's decision. Because folks who don't value truth, right, who don't, they always want everything to be adjudicated by pilot. I really, I say this firmly. I feel like, you know, why did Jesus stand before pilot? Because he didn't have to do any of that. I think, well, it must have been, he was teaching us something, because he always was. And I thought, the three things I came up with. He's teaching us the dynamic and the limitations to politics. The problem with politicians who don't value truth and the power of the crowd. Three things. And I think we've kind of forgot that narrative. But let me tell you what Jesus didn't stand there for. He didn't expect Pilate to save him. He went like, I hope this guy will save me. I mean, I mean, you don't hear any of

that. No, he wasn't expecting Pilot to save him. So what happens there? Pilot negotiates. Almost does the same thing, six week ban, 15 weeks. He does the same thing with the crowd. I'll just whip him and let go. And he's, who should I release? Give us abortion unfettered with no restrictions. What about six week ban? Give us abortion unfettered with no restrict. What, 20?

And then what does pilot do? Where's my towel? Where's my dish? We've seen a little bit in the political process, haven't we? Because every politician faces Pilots dilemma. And Pilots dilemma is, will I give the people what will make them happy, even if I must sacrifice the vulnerable to do so? And there are very few politicians.

Very few politicians. It's a tough dilemma because I got to get elected. I'd push your analogy a little further. I think it's the leader's dilemma. You don't have to be a politician. You're right. What's the person of them, you know, we face that. And we, then we create our escape route.

Well, this is a business decision. I'm not allowed to allow my faith to inform that. We hear people say that. Personally, I'm against it. professional responsibilities demand that I affirm it. And we wash our hands. And I think we're going to be held accountable. We are.

And I think for me, while that may sound a bit like depressing, oh my gosh, what's the problem? I always tell people, and this is where Gaye encouraged me. I say, take yourself back to that moment and put yourself in the crowd. And you're yelling, Jesus, Jesus, everybody around you, selling, Barabbas, Barabbas, you're like, oh, my gosh, my gosh, I've got to change the crowd. where do I start? And on the corner of your eye, you see Bartimaeus, the blind beggar. And he's yelling. And you go, I'm going to get over here.

And Bart's yelling, Barabbas, Barabbas. And you're like, Bart, dude, what are you doing? He said, well, others were doing it. You know how he lived out the great commandment to fulfill the great commission in your life. You're right. You're right. You're right. yell with me. And he starts to yell Jesus.

And then you, is that the woman with the issue of blind? In other words, you're not trying to reach the whole crowd. You're trying to start within the crowd with the people who should know him. That's what Jesus did. He didn't start with the Samaritans and the Greeks. He started with the Jews, the people of the book. The abortion numbers in the church are pretty close to the abortion numbers in the culture. So my...

It's true. And so my thing is, well, instead of us trying to convince the entire culture around the life issue, that's why I wrote the book. where does judgment start? How's the God? This is the log in our eye versus the speck in the culture's eye. And if you don't believe that, then just look at the referendum votes. So my view, this is why pastor is much lead.

Because now you start stringing together congregations where people are starting to think about this issue through the Great Commandment and the Great Commission perspective, where you have a ministry response to this. You're preaching that and teaching that and helping people see this through that lens. And then not only that, you're helping them have a ministry response. of compassion, hope, and help, and discipleship for women and men facing pregnancy decisions. And you're supporting pregnancy centers, yes, but churches are having pregnancy centers in them, too. I mean, just all of this support.

I mean, the entire pregnancy center movement, if you think about it, there's only about 3,000 pregnancy centers, so at 350,000 churches, at least half of them are life-affirming. Imagine if the church was a place where a woman facing a pregnancy decision said, I could, my church has a ministry response to that. And that's part of the work that we do at Cairnet. We have a ministry called Making Life Disciples, which is designed to help churches build small teams. A lot of churches have small groups. Those small groups, what if they were trained so that they could offer compassion, hope, and help for folks facing pregnancy decisions. First, in the church so that someone in the church on Sunday is not in the abortion clinic on Monday. For a lot of churches, if you just think about this, I always, and this is something for folks to listen to this, ask yourself a question.

If a woman wakes up Sunday morning, like my wife, takes a pregnancy test, and the test is positive, and in her mind, the news is negative, who is she supposed to call in your church? Because here's the thing. I used to say there was nine days from the time that a woman confirmed her pregnancy until she scheduled her abortion. That was with surgical abortions. Now with the abortion pill, it's not nine days. It's nine inches. She needs to know immediately that her church is not going to try to treat her the way that the Pharisees and the group of men wanted to treat the woman called an adultery. because you can't stone the woman without stoning the baby. She has to know that her church, my church, all churches, are going to treat her the way Jesus did.

Neither do I condemn you, but go and sin no more. That we have a ministry response in our church. So these life decisions are getting the life support from the body of Christ. And this is why giving it to the politics is such a problem. Because when you give the issue to the politics, the solution is voting and marching. That's the toolkit. But when it's in the church, you're like, oh, no, this is a great commandment and a great commission issue.

I'm supposed to make a disciple so that woman facing that pregnancy decision. My first thought is not what kind of material support does she need or who I vote for so she can't have their abortion? Your first thought should be, she needs to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Is she a disciple of Jesus Christ? If she is a disciple, help her to apply that narrative, that discipleship narrative to the child growing inside of her as the Great Commandment of the Great Commission. And if she's not a disciple, then we need to help her do that. And by doing that, you will meet her physical needs and you will engage politically appropriately. But she needs someone coming alongside her to offer compassion, hope, and help.

And the other thing that the church will do, that the politics don't, is that you link this issue to marriage. 87% of the women that have abortions are unmarried. 87%. Now, I tell you all the time, how are you going to solve the abortion issue without solving the marriage issue? See, that was what happened for me and my wife. had one unplanned pregnancy. The second one, she tricked me. But I love both my boys. But we had one unplanned pregnancy. We got married. And then we became disciples who made disciples. If you aren't building marriage, then even if she has the baby, often what happens is what? She has one baby with

this guy, another baby with that guy. Before you know it, she's got three babies with three different guys. Now that may be pro-life, but that's not pro-abundant life. Right. You see, so that's why the church has to own this issue and has to lead on this issue, not the other way around. I agree. I want to do a Joe Rogan three-hour podcast on this topic because our time is coming. I agree entirely that to imagine this is a political issue is a complete abdication of our responsibility. But I guess at this point in my journey, I don't think of it as an institutional problem. I think most of the people that sit in churches on an irregular basis understand something about the sanctity of human life. I think it's the pressure of the crisis.

And it causes them to turn down the volume on right and wrong. And we think we can hide in the shadows. And I think really what is the predecessor to that? I mean, I like your high ideals and your process-solving models. We've been immoral and we've winked at it and nodded at it. and we've acted like fornication doesn't really count. God didn't mean it when he said the people doing that aren't going into the kingdom. And so now we have the fruit of our immorality and our ungodliness.

And, you know, if we've already made three mistakes, what's one more? Yeah. And I don't know that it's a knowledge issue. I think we've lost the fear of God. And I absolutely believe our expressions of compassion and mercy for the unchurch, the ungodly, are the point of the spear. God's people from Old and New Testaments and through church history have, in their best seasons, rescued children. Yes. And we have to do that again.

Yes. And I thank you for what you're doing. Well, and I tell you, it is a life changer. And I tell you this, because even if abortion is legal, it can be unthinkable. And if it's unthinkable by enough people, it will be illegal. Right. But we have to start with the people of the book. And once that happens, I just, and I'll just give you this last illustration on this point.

People used to ask me all the time when I was with Karen. I've been with Karen at 12 years. When is Roe going to be overturned? When is going to be overturned? I always would tell them. I said, Roe was overturned every day. I said, my wife overturned Roe v. Why?

Even though abortion was perfectly legal, it was unthinkable for her because of the gospel of Jesus Christ. See, but when you only view it through a political narrative, you think, well, if we don't get that law, we don't get that referendum. No, no, no. That's how they play on the pro-choice side. But on our side, we have the changing the heart piece so that something can be legal but unthinkable to the point people say, this is unthinkable. And frankly, it should be illegal. To think that it's going to be made illegal to people think it's unthinkable, it can happen, but generally does not. And that's a power we have through the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so, Pastor, you and other pastors, I love y'all.

I mean, you, you, we just want to, like, it's like, it's like the tour of France. We just want to, we just want to, right underneath, right, right, right in, right, right, right underneath, you guys, as you're biking away, we've got to tuck in underneath our pastors to lead this. And, and that's really for me, when that happens, oh my gosh, the gates of hell that abortion represents cannot stop the people of God when we're in the, when we're in the full armor with our pastors leading. Absolutely. legal is not the threshold. Yep. You know, being drunkard or immoral is not illegal, but you won't make the kingdom. Exactly.

That's right. God's not going to ask for your felony record. Well, this is helpful. I am so thankful for your efforts. I recommend the book if you weren't on the beginning of the podcast and you missed it. It's the alternative to abortion. It's a pathway to help you have a truly abundant life. Roland Warren, it is worth the time and effort to read it and share it with a

friend, you know, we didn't get to the peace. Every family, I am in the habit of saying has been touched directly or indirectly by abortion after 60 million of more than that of them. So this isn't a condemnation. If abortion has touched your life, you can be forgiven. It's not the unforgivable sin. It doesn't need to be buried. If we'll repent, we can be clean. And that's an equal part of the message for the church. But sloppy agape and allowing us to continue in our sin will bring the judgment of God. Culture and Christianity, we've got to get our faith outside the walls of the church and outside the boundaries of a Bible study, and we've got to live it out. If we will honor God, that's the best possible future for our

children and our grandchildren. It will bring God's blessings to them. And if we ignore the authority of Scripture, it will bring God's judgment. It doesn't matter what resources we leave them or what inheritance we leave them. If we don't leave them the blessings of God, we have robbed them of a future. I think culture and Christianity is worthwhile. Roland, thank you. for your time. Thank you. Thank you. For your hard work on behalf of the children. Thank you. Appreciate it. Hey, thanks for joining me today. Before you go, please like the podcast and leave a comment so more people can hear about this topic too. If you haven't yet, be sure to subscribe to Alan Jackson Ministries YouTube channel and follow the Culture and Christianity podcast on Spotify,

Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Together, let's learn how to lead with our faith and change our culture. I'll see you next time.