Vice President Kamala Harris has proclaimed that American people of sincere faith do not need to abandon deeply held beliefs in order to support “abortion rights.”
It is a brazenly sacrilegious declaration that many Christian leaders are urging Harris to direly reconsider. According to Fox News, while speaking in Connecticut on Wednesday to a group of supporters for Democratic Rep. Jahana Hayes, Harris stated, “I say this, one does not have to abandon their faith or their beliefs to agree that the government should not be making that decision for her. It’s literally that basic.”
Harris’s latest comments dovetail with many similar statements she has made in recent months following the Supreme Court’s decision that put an end to Roe v. Wade. Speaking at Dulles International Airport in June, Harris insisted that “there’s nothing about the issue that will require anyone to abandon their faith”:
It is a blasphemy that imperils Harris just as it does the people of the United States, four faith leaders told Fox News. Dr. Bart Barber, pastor of First Baptist Church of Farmersville in East Texas and current president of the Southern Baptist Convention, said that it’s “sometimes difficult to know what politicians like Harris actually want Christians to do with their faith when it comes to politics.”
Barber intimated that Christians face intimidation regardless of their stance. “If we fail to apply the teachings of our faith to questions like immigration or Herschel Walker’s behavior or Donald Trump’s behavior in the way that she thinks we should, we wind up being scolded and encouraged to let our faith shape our moral and political decisions more aggressively,” Barber said.
“But when it comes to questions like abortion, she is willing to offer instruction about how we should divorce our faith from our moral and political decisions. I choose to let the teachings of Jesus instruct me about how to apply my faith.”
Barber then spoke of how as a Christian he is respectful of Harris and loves her as a neighbor, but he said his faith also demands “respect for the fellow human beings waiting for their chance to be born by opposing their slaughter in the abortionist’s chamber.”
Bishop Robert Barron, who leads the Diocese of Winona-Rochester in Minnesota and is founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries, described abortion as an “objective evil” that is to be opposed, and as the “willful destruction of human life” that must not be determined by a “consultative process.”
“If there is a ‘choice’ to be made, it seems to me, that fidelity to Christ would obligate a Christian to advocate for saving life, rather than destroying life,” Barron said.
“Perhaps the vice president was talking about a different faith than the one ‘that was once for all delivered to the saints,’ as Jude wrote,” said Brent Leatherwood, President for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.
“That faith speaks of the precious dignity bestowed upon each individual at conception, their immeasurable worth, and why it is necessary for the state to wield its authority to save defenseless lives. To characterize it otherwise is to be discussing a different faith altogether.”
Leatherwood continued: “Christians seek the well-being of our neighbors — both born and pre born — and, as a result, believe our laws should help people live and flourish. So the question isn’t about abandoning what we know to be right and true, but whether we will abide by it in all that we do, regardless of the consequences.”
Rev. Lawrence R. Rast Jr., president of Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and a former pastor, said that Harris’s remarks “trivialize the importance of one’s faith for making difficult decisions.”
“She does this by deflecting the issue to the question of whether the government can limit choices for individuals,” Rast elaborated. “Within the context of faith, however, this is not a question of government directive, but rather a question of biblical teaching and its implication for personal life choices.”
“The Scriptures clearly teach that life is sacred from conception until natural death. And thus one cannot reconcile the Christian faith with the willful killing of children,” Rast concluded.
Yet that is precisely what Harris, President Joe Biden, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and too many in America — politician and layman — are doing regarding the issue of abortion. They claim to be devout adherents to a faith, but fall short when it comes to their faith’s opposition to abortion.
Indeed, they not only ignore the proscriptions against abortion, they actively work in its favor. Fox News noted that Biden claims to be a faithful Catholic, but his support of “abortion rights” is unwavering. Incidentally, Biden made reference to his faith and abortion in a bewildering tweet made last week:
My dad used to say, “Joey, don’t compare me to the Almighty. Compare me to the alternative.”
And here’s the deal: Democrats want to codify Roe. Republicans want a national ban on abortion. The choice is clear.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 3, 2022
Christians are called to be a light in this darkened world. There is perhaps no greater shadow that fallen man casts upon the realm than the targeting an unborn child for destruction. Most mainstream Christian doctrine is very clear about how evil this is. And one would think that Biden would use the strength and weight of his position to defend the most helpless innocent. He could be that light against the dark.
But instead we see Biden and Harris and too many others ignoring what they are called to be spiritually. And now despite — or maybe because of — the Dobbs’ decision, they are determined to be the most pro-abortion government in American history.
This is not real leadership. This is not real humanitarianism. And this is not real Christianity.
Contrary to what the vice president believes about the matter, opposition to abortion is a fundamental component of Judeo-Christian morality. While the word “abortion” appears in no common translation, scripture leaves no doubt that the death of an unborn child is a grave travesty against the preciousness of human life. And then one ponders passages such as Psalms 139:13-16: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
How can one be in Christ and deny these things? How can one testify to be a good Christian and still vicariously defend the “right” to kill the unborn innocent within the mother?
It cannot be said that there is a higher morality that Americans are aspiring toward, when there have been 63 million people sacrificed upon the altar of convenience and money since 1973.
Abortion has become an unholy tenet in the faith of so-called “progressivism.” One to be protected and defended at all costs. And it has cost us, nothing less than our value of the human soul. It has shown us, and continues to show us, who the true faithful are in this nation, as well as who are not.
Neither Biden nor Harris nor anyone of their ideology is in any place to preach to any conscientious American about matters of faith. They are casting down the God that millions of Americans worship and in His place are putting up the god of government. They are elevating man and his appetites above the One who created man in the first place.
They had better look to the welfare of their own souls, before suggesting that anyone else look to theirs.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
