Sanctity of Human Life Sunday: Reflections

January 22, 2017November 25, 2017Kirk E. Miller

Our society worships the gods of sex, convenience, and freedom and makes human sacrifices on the altars of abortion. I know it’s controversial. But we need to call it what it is — murder. And deep down, I’m convinced we know exactly what we’re doing.

At the same time, none of this can be used to ignore for one moment the very real, tough, and distressing situations that many expectant mothers face — the sort of circumstances that prompt so many mothers to consider abortions in the first place. As much as we care for the life the baby, we should care about the welfare of the mother. And we should extend grace to those who have had abortions.

Finally, as evangelicals, we must work towards a more wholistic and consistent ethic of life. “Sanctity of life” should mean all life, certainly pre-born babies’ lives, but not *just* pre-born babies’ lives. Until we do so, our fervent cries on behalf of life will ring hollow with the reverberations of hypocrisy.

Ethics. Compassion. Consistency. #SOHLS

73-17 from Desiring God on Vimeo.

The Importance of Integrity vs. Compromise and Political Power-Plays

January 4, 2017November 25, 2017Kirk E. Miller

Integrity matters. If you want to serve as a testimony to Christian ethics, then you’re actually going to need to hold them, and that means holding them with consistency. Hypocrisy and double-standards will effectively serve to mute your witness.

It’s hard to cry out against a sin in one instance when, in another instance, you’ve excused, blown-off, or chosen to overlooked that sin.

What if the sort of “power” and influence Jesus intended for his followers wasn’t one of ends-justify-the-means ethical compromise and political power-plays, but witness to a “revolutionary”-like ethic like that of Mt 5-7, with all the integrity, lowliness, and self-sacrifice involved therein (5:13-16)?

Many advocate ethical compromise for the sake of “the greater good” (or “the lesser of two evils”). But what shall it profit the church if it gains a whole election but loses its witness? What if the church’s witness is the actual means of its impact?

RECOMMENDED: Can the Religious Right Be Saved? by Russell Moore

January 4, 2017November 26, 2017Kirk E. Miller

This was an excellent lecture. Russell Moore, as always, nails it.

Access the video here.

Access a full transcript of the lecture here.

Can the Religious Right Be Saved? Presented by Russell D. Moore from First Things on Vimeo.

A Final, Clarifying Remark About My Stance on Trump, Evangelicals, & the 2016 Election

November 13, 2016November 25, 2017Kirk E. Miller

Some evangelicals are saying, “The election is over. What’s done is done. There’s nothing we can do about it now. Besides, maybe he won’t be as bad as you thought. Let’s see what happens.”

If that’s you, I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood folks like myself from the very beginning.

Large swaths of evangelicals defended and/or excused Mr. Trump’s moral corruption and damaging rhetoric — his racism, misogyny, degradation of the handicap, dismissiveness of sexual assault, inciting hatred towards immigrants, prompting fear and callousness towards refugees, etc. Regardless of what type of president Mr. Trump turns out to be, that still happened. That can’t be undone.

You see, for some of us — at least as much as I can speak for myself — our outcry against evangelical support of Trump has never been centrally about the electoral contribution of your vote Tuesday, as if we had some political agenda that now becomes moot after the election (“What’s done is done”). Nor has it ever been about “providing a solution” to a dilemma we never claimed to be addressing in the first place — the nomination of two generally unlikeable candidates.

Our primary concern is and always has been the spiritual condition of evangelicalism, about the church’s witness, integrity, and faithfulness to truth. And that’s something that obviously transcends the election itself. The 2016 election didn’t create (and therefore conclude) the concerning state we now see; it merely exposed it.