John Ensor - Answering the Call: Saving Innocent Lives One Woman at a Time

T he struggle over abortion is now moving into its second generation. Forty years ago, the pro-life movement consisted of a few Catholic voices crying out in the wilderness. Today, hundreds of thousands of Catholic, evangelical, Anglican, and charismatic Christians work side by side in the cause of life all over the world. Along the way, it has won over many others who do not share our Christian faith or worldview. We welcome this. Victory, after all, means that people of every faith or no faith come to understand the injustice of abortion in the same way we have come to see the injustice of slavery. But like the struggle against slavery, the first responders have been Christians motivated by their faith. Even today, it is the Christian faith, and the value of life it places on each individual, that serves as the supply line for the rapidly expanding pro-life movement.

For this reason, I welcome the opportunity to update and revise Answering the Call. A second generation must now arise and fill the ranks.

Out of the hard work and generosity of the first generation of the pro-life movement, hundreds of different organizations developed. Some are focused on your neighborhood or county. Others have a statewide, national, or even international mission.

Some pro-life organizations have an educational mission. Some equip students with a pro-life apologetic. Some are dedicated to exposing the violence of abortion itself. Others concentrate on educating the public about biological human development and showcase the beauty of unborn human life. Still others educate the public on the physical and psychological after-effects of abortion. Some are collecting and publishing affidavits from men and women who regret their abortions. Some address the spreading tentacles of utilitarian thinking as it reformulates into physician-assisted suicide, cloning, embryonic stem-cell research, and gendercide.

There are now pro-life organizations that are legislative and political in their mission. Some engage in the democratic process to get pro-life values represented at all levels of government. Some work with legislators to draft just laws and protections that lessen abortion, if not outlaw it altogether. Some work on case law and focus on the courts.

Legal abortion was justified in part as a private matter between a woman and her doctor. So pro-life medical associations have emerged. Some focus on doctors-in-training, helping them resist being forced to train in abortion procedures. Others link arms with pregnancy help medical clinics and serve as medical directors for their ultrasound services.

There are pro-life legal defense organizations. There are pro-life research organizations. There are pro-life clergy associations. There are networks of pro-life writers, bloggers, artists, and musicians. There are teens for life and motorcyclists for life and iPhone-users for life (well, maybe not, but you could start one and even design an app!). This book especially encourages direct, lifesaving intervention through your nearest pregnancy help center. But whatever you do in answering the call, do it with all your might and with faith toward God.

Finally, whether you identify with the first or second pro-life generation, think Wilberforce! Whether its ending the slave trade of his day, or ending the abortion trade today, it will take many of us working together with Wilberforce-like resolve:

Never, never will we desist till we... extinguish every trace of this bloody traffic, of which our posterity, looking back to the history of these enlightened times, will scarce believe that it has been suffered to exist so long a disgrace and dishonor to this country.

John Ensor

A few people in King Davids time provided such wise assessment of and bold leadership for their generation that it became their lasting testimony. They were the men of Issachar, and they were described as men who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do (1 Chron. 12:32). Recognizing the vital need for such people in every age, this book aims to help us think through and lead well on a matter of great importance: cherishing and defending innocent human life.

For the past twenty-three years, I have sought to understand and, in turn, help the Christian community understand the times in which we live, specifically at the intersection of biblical ethics and cultural conflict. I have been invited into countless pulpits to address the painful and sensitive issue of abortion. It has been my unwavering hope each time to fashion a powerful, even historic, life-affirming Christian response. I press on because I see no evidence that any other group of people is capable of taking up this burden. Throughout history, right to the present hour, it has been in large part only the Christian community that has cared enough about their neighbors, including the littlest and weakest ones among us, to oppose with courage and compassion the pagan rights of abortion, infanticide, exposure, and abandonment.

In the main, pastors and laypeople alike understand that cherishing and defending innocent human life is a moral mandate. It is the law of love. They understand that abortion is an act of violence that kills a baby and damages every mother and father.

As a moral, ethical, and biblical matter, the sanctity of human life is something we uphold as a matter of creed and intellect. But as pastors and Christian leaders, we are reticent about addressing abortion beyond a fleeting condemnation.

My hope in writing Answering the Call is to move us past this reticence. The apostle Paul expects our lives as the Church, the people of God, to be so boldly arresting, so surprisingly gracious, so wooingly fragrant, that we are the very aroma of life itself (2 Cor. 2:16). To be that kind of people, we need leaders like the men of Issachar.