What do you call a football coach who never punts? How about a military commander who won’t retreat? And a spiritual leader who ignores opportune timing? The answers, respectively: Defeated. Dead. Not-Jesus.
Jesus Christ surely sometimes ignored seemingly slim odds and boldly delivered despite severe adversity — the wind and waves come to mind, as do the feedings with limited loaves and just a couple/few fish. But He also sometimes retreated, bided time, methodically ordered His actions, and carefully picked His spots. Timing mattered (and matters) to Jesus. His disciples are to do likewise. (References at this email’s end.)
There’s a time to reap and a time to sow. If we attempt to do one or the other in the wrong season, the harvest won’t end well.
Timing matters.
When I first read HF 2256, I saw legislation that recognized unborn babies as actual babies. The bill also attempted to offer legal protection to the unborn, and if this were to be the law there would be near-zero abortions in Iowa. As such, it seemed like an easy no-brainer — I signed on our support.
Other authentic pro-lifers focused on the bill’s potential for strict criminal charges against women who abort babies — they stayed away.
Some others saw something with far too few supporters to ever actually pass. Plus, it could be a potential landmine for conservatives in an election year. Why set up friends for a fall? They also passed.
HF 2256 was all of the above. Each of the aforementioned groups focused on different aspects of the truth and thus emerged the brief mini-squabble between otherwise like-minded people.
Focus matters.
I’m unapologetically on board with pro-life logic — ditto for Steve Scheffler and the rest of the IFFC crew. An unborn baby is a baby and an innocent living PERSON beginning at fertilization. If she is NOT a person, then what is she? And if she is an innocent living person, then why does she NOT deserve adequate legal protection? A person owns the same right to life one day before birth as she does one day later.
I believe that.
We believe that.
IFFC pretty much exists for that and other similar truths.
So why did we rescind our support for HF 2256 and sign on in opposition? Given the undeniable and universally accepted fact that the bill had a near-zero chance of success, the decision was easy. We re-registered to save our pro-life allies from wasting even one more ounce of effort on this hopeless futility — the timing was wrong and the focus was too scattered. That nuanced position may not sit right with some — heck, we don’t even love it — but that was our best judgment in the moment. So help us, God.
Some don’t believe in tactical retreats. Some have thrown jabs at us on social media. We appreciate such energy, passion, and enthusiasm, so we joyfully offer our other cheek. We keep our eyes on the cross because Christians need to unite for LIFE — not backbite. The lives of tiny, innocent babies are being ripped apart, poisoned, and starved to death. As long as these guiltless souls hang in the balance, we’ll do the next right thing to the best of our ability.
IFFC’s position on LIFE?
No matter how small, fragile, weak, or vulnerable… every innocent human person is created equal and with a God-given inalienable right to life — that’s self-evident — we the people should govern accordingly.
Fair-minded folks can argue about HOW to best protect a person in various circumstances, and we can potentially experiment with different mechanisms for deterrence based on those various circumstances, but in the end, our goal must be to do what is reasonably necessary to protect the life of every innocent person who exists under our governance.
Please pray for us.
Please pray for everyone working to protect tiny innocent lives.
Please pray for babies. …
I will never give another dime to them. And I am a survivor of abortion, born in 1973. Either you believe in saving all babies or you believe in saving some of the babies.
It might be a good time to remember President John Quincy Adams the Hellhound of abolition. He was the only president to serve in congress after being president. He was relentless year after year introducing petitions against slavery so much so that he became known as the Hellhound of abolition. So persistent that his fellow congressmen instituted a gag rule against any more petitions. This still did not stop him. President Adams died in office at the capitol never in his earthy life seeing an end to slavery. I read no accounts of where he waited for the next election, better timing, a less pro-slavery congress. He understood slavery to be evil and he could do no less than work in every way afforded to him to bring attention to the evil and end it. Until the end of his earthly life, he did his duty to arrest the evil of slavery. The duty was his, the results belong to God.
In my view we have retreated plenty since 1973 and in some cases inadvertently taking on Pro-Choice policy positions. Do we really believe abortion is evil? If so, we should relentlessly pursue every lawful measure to protect life from conception to natural death.
How is a position of waiting and allowing the Killing of an innocent children for the next election, better timing any less of a Pro-Choice position than an expecting mother faced with uncertainty and in hardship deciding to have an abortion. See both of you faced hardships and both made a pro-Choice to allow abortion based on your hardship or circumstances at that moment. The only difference here is you cannot understand her position and want to morally justify your position and for us to reason you are morally correct. In the end both are Pro-Choice choice positions and allow for the killing of innocent life. Although she is only killing one life. Your Pro-choice position allows for the killing of many more.
History does not reflect favorably on the Leaders, people who waxed poetically about timing, elections, number of people in favor of slavery as to why waiting to end slavery until a more opportune time was necessary.
“Given the undeniable and universally accepted fact that the bill had a near-zero chance of success, the decision was easy.”
It failed because of people like you, who should have supported it, but instead came up with some kind of cope that Jesus would have waited to stop child sacrifice instead of just ending it now.
God does not compromise with evil. Repent of your sloth and turn towards Christ.