Mark Clark [00:00:00]:
Hey, welcome to the Mark Clark Podcast. Glad you were listening. This week kicks off a five week series of some of the most interesting stuff that I think I've preached on in years. It was a series where we asked the Internet what it wanted us to preach about and we let them vote on it. And so the series is called Anything Goes. And basically we set up the series by asking the Internet if you can ask anything about Christianity, God, the Bible, whatever, and you got to sit down with a pastor or someone who could speak to these issues and ask them.
Mark Clark [00:00:30]:
What would it be?
Mark Clark [00:00:31]:
Then we let the Internet vote and decide what the sermon series would be. And we organized it into the top five questions that people had, and they were very interesting. As you're gonna see over the next five weeks, we cover a whole bunch of topics. And the one we're talking about today is the question of why do Christians seem to be very conservative politically, especially around the questions of abortion and smoking weed? Yes, that's how specific these questions got on the intern. And then everyone voted for these. And this was in the top five of things that people wanted answers to. So we're gonna dive into that exact question today. What's the deal with the conservative position in regard to abortion and smoking weed? In regard to Christians? Is this a biblical thing? Is this just because, you know, Christians have all decided this for no reason? What is this and how does this all work? Does the Bible have anything to say about these two big issues? Very interesting stuff.
Mark Clark [00:01:31]:
Now remember, if you are listening to this, this is part of the Thrive Pod Network. This is a family of a bunch of podcasts that talk about awesome things. There's one called Change the Odds about marriage and relationships and family with Pastor Kevin Thompson. There's one with Leslie Johnston and Morgan May. True Talking. It's called Am I Doing this Right? And it's a whole bunch of cultural stuff, especially around young people and a lot of female audience, but a lot of male audience too.
Mark Clark [00:02:01]:
Talk about a lot of fun stuff.
Mark Clark [00:02:02]:
Those are two awesome podcasts on our network. So go on the Thrive Podcast Network and go figure those out and listen to those.
Mark Clark [00:02:09]:
All right, so as we jump into.
Mark Clark [00:02:10]:
This now, this is the first week of a five week series called Anything Goes. Let's get into it.
Mark Clark [00:02:15]:
Here's the thing about every question I'm gonna try to do my best to answer in this series. The first underlying assumption is that we are biblical and the Bible is our authority as Christians. We don't get to stare at the stars and come up with answers to questions just based out of a cultural zeitgeist or a cultural milieu or a cultural moment that would say, hey, this is what you should believe about this issue. And this is what you should believe about this. We don't have that freedom where we get to move around and just think up whatever we want and whatever happens to be the cool thing at the moment. We actually have the Bible. It's an authority. It defines these things for us, which is beautiful because it not only talks about God, but it talks about how to be human in the world.
Mark Clark [00:02:56]:
And so there's all kinds of implications, principles, ideas, theologies, philosophies in the Bible that we have to actually answer these questions. So that's the number one thing. As I answer these questions, I don't get to just think up answers. I actually have to go back to the Bible. And the Bible actually cast that Christian worldview for you as I answer these questions. Which is good because as I've said before, if you're new, you wouldn't have heard this. But as I've talked about before, the danger of taking your philosophy, your psychology, your worldview just from your cultural moment is that those cultural moments change and they evolve. And so the illustration I've used is think about the theology and philosophy and practice of your grandparents, right? When you look at your grandparents, if they're 90 years old, you're like, man, those people believe some crazy stuff.
Mark Clark [00:03:40]:
I remember when my grandma was alive, she would say random things. I'd be like, mom, Grandma, I can't even bring over my friend of another race to hang out with you right now. Cause you sound like you're crazy. All right, so that's now fast forward 50 years. That's you. All right, well, you believe in this moment, your great grandkids are gonna think is crazy. And so you have to be very careful. What are you going to make the authority in your life? What is going to be the filter and the paradigm and the thing that's going to define.
Mark Clark [00:04:07]:
And for a Christian, it's actually the Bible. And so we're gonna be talking about the Bible, which means some of the answers that I'm gonna give you are gonna be unpopular. But we're also gonna be dealing with modern views of these things as well and trying to interact the best we can with that. So the friend. This is gonna move forward today in three sections. The first one is the question of politics. And so this question infers or has embedded within it that Christians have to conservative view on abortion and weed. So let's first deal with the question of the politics, because politics is a very interesting thing.
Mark Clark [00:04:40]:
They tell you you're not supposed to talk about religion or politics of parties, but for me there's nothing more interesting. Everything else is boring. I don't want to talk about your car, I don't want to talk about your Apple watch. I don't really care what really matters in the world, politics and religion. Does God really exist? And how does it actually play out on earth among human beings? And so what we got to understand is not all Christians though are politically conservative. What we've got to understand is from a Christian vantage point, it all depends on the issue. And so there's not a monolithic Christian political view on things carte blanche. There is issues that people will take political views on, particularly depending on a theology or philosophy or principle in the Bible.
Mark Clark [00:05:24]:
And so some Christians take the issue of war. Some Christians would be what are called just war theorists that would say there becomes a point where actually not going to war, becoming a soldier, going and defending the weak is actually immoral. You have to go, you have to fight people, you have to kill people, you have to drop bombs, you have to grab machine guns, you got to grab tanks, you got to go do those kind of things. There's other versions of Christians, Anabaptists for instance, that would say, no, they're pacifists. They would say, it's never right to ever do violence to anybody else. Jesus taught, turn the other cheek. Love your neighbor, love your enemy, pray for those who persecute you. Romans 12 says the government can actually do justice, but we're not supposed to be part of the government, we're not supposed to be part of police, we're not supposed to be part of the army.
Mark Clark [00:06:07]:
And Christians debate those issues. But that's all an in house debate. So the first thing to understand for those of you asking this question, and maybe you're here, and this was your question, this was the one that you want to answer. You don't know Jesus yet. We're glad you're here. We hope that you're here for this whole series as we delve into these top questions that people who don't necessarily know Jesus are asking. And one of the first things you gotta understand is there's not one political Christian view, there's particular issues. And Christians take different views on different things.
Mark Clark [00:06:36]:
They might take a conservative or a liberal view on immigration, they might take a conservative or liberal view on economy. The economy. But they always try to embed those ideas. With Scripture and be informed by Scripture. Now, one writer has put it this way. God is not a Republican or a Democrat. And the best contribution of religion is precisely not to be ideologically predictable or loyally partisan, but to maintain the moral independence to critique both the left and the right. And if you look at the prophets, you look at Jeremiah, you look at Micah, you look at Amos, you look at Isaiah, all of these prophets are coming out of the woodwork and they're talking about conservative and liberal things and they're taking a stance toward culture that offers two things, prophetic critique, where it says, this is the way to use money, this is the way to.
Mark Clark [00:07:24]:
And in fact, one of the big political issues that the most thing through the prophets aren't to do with weed and abortion or whatever. It's actually poverty. That's most of the issue that the Old Testament prophets and Jesus have to do about is money and poverty. And they tie that into justice. The book of Micah says this, what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love, kindness and to walk humbly with your God? Realize that's what's on the prophet's mind politically. It's not, do you support Trump's this, do you hate Obama's that and Trudeau's that? That's not the issue. The question is, do you walk humbly with your God? Do you love kindness and do you function in a place of capacity, compassion and justice? That's the issue on the prophet's mind politically. And so we have to understand politics is an obsession in our culture.
Mark Clark [00:08:14]:
And what our culture believes is that politics is the answer to all questions, which is why if you turn on the 24 hour news cycle, they begin to say, politics, politics, politics. That's all that matters. As a Christian, we don't actually believe that. We don't believe politics is the ultimate answer. Because here's this Christian theology of total depravity, which basically says that humankind has an incapacity to solve their own problems, that they need the power of a transcendent God, they need the power of the Holy Spirit, and they need the work of the church, prophetically and in action and thought to actually accomplish the things that God wants to accomplish on the earth. But there is no just political solutions to these problems. And so the first thing we have to understand is that when we come to the question of weed and abortion and anything else we're going to talk about, these aren't political issues, they are biblical ones. And so because the Christian basically comes to terms with the fact that our job is not primarily to be political.
Mark Clark [00:09:12]:
I know. I watch some of your Facebook feeds and your Instagram feeds, and it seems like you're more political than you are theological. But one of the convictions of the Christian posture is you can't make it so that people can't see the beauty of Jesus Christ because they can't see him through your messed up politics. You don't want that. You want people to cherish the gospel more than your political views on things. And so one writer has put it this way with the notion of political correctness, which extends the logic of the modern proposition that we create our own meaning, purpose and values for ourselves. What if this is mistaken? However, what is freedom, dignity and justice? What if they are not social in origin and not simply values socially constructed, but part and parcel of a created moral order? And what if these things do not ultimately depend upon our political acumen and our ability to guarantee them? What if, on the contrary, political organization poses a threat to freedom, dignity and justice precisely because of the tendency of power to corrupt and to eclipse all other purposes? This is what the Christian is scared of. You make everything political and all of a sudden politics is the ultimate ruler.
Mark Clark [00:10:30]:
And. And then, because, of course, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts what absolutely? And so if you give all political power, power and authority, then it will make that the main issue rather than what the gospel and Christians actually care about, which is people meeting Jesus and reform coming socially in the world through people meeting Jesus, whether that's on the margins, like the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King Jr. And a Christian base for the idea that all people are created equal. And that was a marginal movement. It wasn't a. It became political, but it was. It started on the margins. Or you have William, William Wilberforce, who used political means in Britain to abolish slavery from a Christian perspective.
Mark Clark [00:11:13]:
And so people say, oh, Christians, they're so like, they're pro slavery. No, no, no. Christians were abolishing slavery all over the world based on the premise that we're going to talk about today, which is that humankind is all made in the image of God. And so that's the political issue. Now get to the two questions that the politics were supposed to define. Weed. First, take a big breath and blow out. All right, as an ex weed smoker, I took offense to this question, but we're gonna have to deal with it anyway.
Mark Clark [00:11:49]:
Why are Christians generally not for weed in our culture? Now, first thing to say is not all Christians, again, are monolithically against smoking weed. Amen. I know. Shut up. Don't say that. Right. What I mean is I read a article this week about a pastor in the States who founded Triple X Church. It was a, it was a church ministry to porn addicts and so on and the porn industry.
Mark Clark [00:12:17]:
And recently has started a website called ChristianCannabis.com. all right, so him and his wife love smoking weed and following Jesus. Now here's why most Christians would disagree and would say it's a sin to smoke weed, eat edibles with thc. All right, the cbd, that's a different question. I'll get to that in a second. That's like taking Advil. That's not what I'm talking about. Talk about THC and food confused things that are psychoactive in your brain that create a scenario where you are intoxicated in any definition of the term.
Mark Clark [00:12:53]:
So a few ways to deal with this question of we. The first is it's not really a question of legal versus illegal. Back in the day, of course, we could say, well, the reason you're not supposed to smoke weed as a Christian, as a follower of Jesus, as someone who's coming under the Bible as an authority, is because it's illegal. And so the government says don't speed, don't kill people, don't smoke weed. And so don't do that. But now, of course it's legal. So that doesn't work. We've got to actually get into a deeper and more nuanced answer.
Mark Clark [00:13:23]:
But the reality for a Christian is it's never been about what is legal or illegal for a Christian. That's not the main primary question. There's lots of things that are completely legal that the Bible says not to do. But we're not saying, hey, it's illegal, I want to do it, it's legal now I want to do it. Adultery is legal. Who wants, which guy in here wants to do adultery? Hey, that was a joke. Don't, don't answer that. Right.
Mark Clark [00:13:48]:
That was a trap. I said that. So it's the adultery is legal. Slavery was legal. All right, it was state run. Nazi Germany and the killing of Jews in the Holocaust was all legal. The state is not the authority for the Christian. And so what is legal and not legal is not so much the issue.
Mark Clark [00:14:09]:
Oftentimes what is legal in a society is not what is best. And so the concept of, well, it's legal now, we should do it has never worked for a Christian at all. The question is, is the Bible against it? And that answer is Unequivocally, yes. Now, some of you are disappointed and you're ready to leave. Just chill for a sec. All right? Ephesians chapter 5 is one of the things. Of course, it doesn't speak to weed in particular. The Bible doesn't really speak to weed.
Mark Clark [00:14:40]:
Of course. I was reading one author who says it totally does. It tells you you can do it. Genesis 1 says, you should eat all the plants of the earth. All right, shut up. That's not what it's about. All right, so Ephesians chapter five says this. And here's the principle that gets drawn out by this.
Mark Clark [00:14:56]:
Do not. Here's the command, do not get drunk with wine. Now, we're talking about a principle, because the Bible doesn't talk about weed. It says, do not get drunk with wine. Now, don't be like my buddy who I was golfing with one time, where we're golfing and the cart girl pulled up and she said, hey, you guys, wine. And she had a whole bunch of tequila. And he looked at me and he said, hey, the Bible says do not get drunk on wine. It doesn't say anything about tequila.
Mark Clark [00:15:21]:
All right? No, all right. That. That doesn't work. All right, we're talking about. Yes, it does specify wine, but we're talking about the principle of drunkenness. That for that is debauchery, but be filled with the spirit. So the principle of this, from a biblical vantage point is that we are supposed to be people who don't get intoxicated, who don't have our minds and brains psychoactively affected. And so one study I was reading, it's saying this.
Mark Clark [00:15:54]:
Alcohol produces a psychoactive effect. It affects brain function, perception, mood, consciousness, cognition, and behavior. Of course, we know that. I grew up with an alcoholic father. People get more angry. Their filters towards sexuality get taken down. There is a slowness of speech. They dance when in normal life they don't dance.
Mark Clark [00:16:17]:
All right, we know that people get affected when they drink a certain amount of alcohol where it tips over. Now, notice the. The command is not do not drink wine. We're going to get to that. It's do not get drunk with wine. That's the exhortation. And so what we got to understand is when you get high, there's really no way of obeying the command of the Bible not to be intoxicated and smoke weed. I used to smoke weed.
Mark Clark [00:16:46]:
I used to get high. I didn't smoke it because it made me smell nice. I didn't smoke it because it had a nice taste to it, believe me, it doesn't make the brownies taste better. You can't make brownies taste better, right? It just is sugar and whatever else you put weed in there, it tastes worse, but it's funner. And that's the driving. You gotta ask the question, the driving force, the motive behind why you're doing what you're doing. So people say, yeah, but what about alcohol? So stay on this point about intoxication. Here's some data.
Mark Clark [00:17:22]:
Alcohol, the unit of measure that is deemed a standard drink by society, is defined at the alcohol content of 12 ounces of 5% alcohol. So that's basically a bottle of beer, all right? That's considered one standard drink, or 5 ounces of 12% alcohol, which is a glass of wine, or an ounce and a half a shot of 40% alcohol, which would be hard liquor. The legally defined level of intoxication, typically for women, is after four drinks, and for men is five drinks, the average size. Man, you will be drunk after five drinks as defined by one beer, one glass of wine, one shot. For many of you, it will not take that long. And, you know, you got to know yourself. For marijuana, however, a much lower dosage is needed to induce a state of intoxication. Studies shows that intoxication occurs at the ingestion of less than 7 milligrams of THC.
Mark Clark [00:18:21]:
That's the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. That's approximately the equivalent to four puffs of a joint. Right now, no one's just taking one puff of a joint hanging out. You're saying, you smoke a joint, you smoke a joint, you get high, period. It depresses certain brain functions, emotions. And the point of it is you're trying to get to a mental state which the Bible's saying should be done with the filling of the spirit. You're trying to have more joy. You're trying to depress anxiety in your.
Mark Clark [00:18:54]:
Whatever you're trying to do. And the Bible's saying, don't look to alcohol, weed, or intoxicination to do that. You gotta look to a life being driven by walking in the spirit. First, Thessalonians, Paul says this. Let us be alert and sober. Now think about those two words, hang out with a pot smoker. Those are not the two words that come to mind when you're hanging out with people smoking pot. Alert and sober.
Mark Clark [00:19:22]:
The Bible is literally telling us. Now, I've met people who are like, yeah, you understand, when I do drugs, when I take psychoactive things, when I.
Mark Clark [00:19:31]:
When I.
Mark Clark [00:19:31]:
When I trip out, when I Smoke weed when I smoke hash, when I eat mushrooms. You understand? I connect to the thing behind the veil, man. It's a. It's a. It's a. It's a. It's a spiritual experience. It's the only way I can connect to God.
Mark Clark [00:19:43]:
There's people who are using that excuse to actually do these things. The guy who founded Triple X church, who founded ChristianCannabis.com he actually said these words in an interview. I have never lifted my hands in a worship service ever before in my life because I was raised Baptist, buddy, Easy.
Scott Johnston [00:20:04]:
Take it easy, all right?
Mark Clark [00:20:06]:
I've done that in my bathroom now, worshiping with marijuana by myself. Now, the logic is a little slippery because you got to understand that, that. That literally. He's using the same argument for why strippers get high before they go out and do what they do, why actors will drink themselves drunk before doing a sex scene. It's because, of course, you're removing your inhibitions. You're taking away the things that scare you. And in that moment, we've got to understand that's the opposite of spiritual liberty. That's the opposite of the kind of freedom that God is trying to bring into your life.
Mark Clark [00:20:47]:
It has nothing to do with holiness. And it's totally unrelated to worship. In fact, when Paul in Galatians chapter five is listing the difference between life in the flesh and life in the spirit, the word that is defined in your Bible as sorcery is actually the word pharmaket on, which is where we get pharmacy, which is because pagans would use drugs in order to connect themselves into the gods in the context of worship. Now think about this. They get intoxicated and they worship God, and they'd lift their hands because they didn't normally do that. And Paul uses it and says, this was life in the flesh, but now you have life in the spirit, and all of that stuff dies. That you don't need substances in order to connect to joy and meaning and depth and transcendent in your life because you have the Holy Spirit. That's the whole principle.
Mark Clark [00:21:36]:
That's the whole point, that that's what we need to be actually going after. And they say, no, but I connect to the transcendent. You don't even understand. No, it's a drug that's titillating your frontal cortex and making you feel something. It's not God. It's your brain. Do some research, understand? And so people say, yeah, but it's the same as alcohol. It's a different game than alcohol.
Mark Clark [00:21:56]:
In a couple ways. First off, we have somewhat of a biblical principle. You know the one that we follow, Jesus, he drank wine. He's. He's at a wedding party in John chapter two, and he turns water into wine. Literally. He doesn't. They don't say, hey, Jesus, hey, can you come turn, you know, this bush into a fatty spliff that we can all smoke? And he goes, yeah, let's get the party going.
Mark Clark [00:22:20]:
All right. That's not what happens at the Last Supper. Jesus takes a glass of wine and says, this is my body, this is my blood shed for you. Do this in remembrance of me. He doesn't roll up a split and start passing it around and go, do this in remembrance of me, bro. Blow me a super. That's not what happens. And so there's a biblical principle behind the glass of wine versus the smoking a joint and what it does to your system.
Mark Clark [00:22:47]:
Now, I'll take a cultural reference and a cultural point about this. My friend is a pilot at WestJet and I texted her this week and I asked her what the policy of WestJet was for weed versus alcohol. So for, for alcohol, it's a, it's a 12 to 24 hour period that you can't be drinking if you're gonna fly a WestJet plane. Weed. There is a no tolerance policy across the whole organization. You can't smoke weed at all. If you're a weed smoker, you can't be a pilot. Why? Ask the question why? There's something about this that is actually far more all encompassing and deteriorating in regard to intoxication.
Mark Clark [00:23:28]:
Now, if you're asking the medical question, and some of you are like, how is there this much information? There's more. Now if you're asking a medical question about this, medicine is different. I know friends who have used it going through chemotherapy. There's lots of medicine, of course, that makes you feel intoxicated that Christians aren't going to say not to use. Some realms of Christianity do, but not a biblical one. Because if you get surgery, for instance, if you're in World War II and you're out fighting, it's not as if the Bible would be against giving you morphine before you died. As if God's like, nah, don't give that guy morphine because he's going to feel intoxicated. That's not right.
Mark Clark [00:24:06]:
We're talking about little segments. You're taking chemotherapy, you need to eat. The nausea needs to go down because you're taking chemotherapy. All of those scenarios are different. Different for a Couple reasons. First, because most of them are CBD and don't include thc. But even if they didn't, it's for this particular time, for a particular purpose. You're not sitting around smoking fatties with your buddies all the time saying, boy, I'm glad I'm going through chemotherapy.
Mark Clark [00:24:29]:
That's not the reality. It's used as medicine to the point where people have said to me and proposed to me that I use it for my tics. So you guys know I have Tourette's syndrome. I'm up here, my body flips around, my head goes crazy. I sit in bed with my wife. Listen to how beautiful and sexy this is.
Scott Johnston [00:24:47]:
She crawls into bed at night, and.
Mark Clark [00:24:49]:
I crawl into bed, and I got.
Scott Johnston [00:24:50]:
My little iPad out. I'm sitting there, and I got my bowl of chips. Oh, yeah, it's gonna get hot. And then we're sitting there, and then.
Mark Clark [00:25:01]:
It'S dead quiet, and she's sleeping.
Scott Johnston [00:25:06]:
And then she hears.
Mark Clark [00:25:11]:
All right? That's what she's lived with for 20 years. All right? Me making random Tourette's noises, shaking the bed around. She's done, all right?
Scott Johnston [00:25:20]:
She's like, can you start smoking weed, please? All right? And stop this nonsense.
Mark Clark [00:25:23]:
All right, so there are some. There are some benefits to it, of course. Inflammation and different things that people have shown. But the question is, would I take it if it doesn't include thc? Yes, because it's probably a beautiful medicine that's probably less harmful to your system than a lot of the garbage and toxins that we actually put into our body. The question is the question of getting high. And then, of course, the question of how we actually produce the stuff and sell it. One doctor said this. One of the best drugs we have from malaria still today is a drug that was developed from a tree in Peru.
Mark Clark [00:25:59]:
We get the tree bark from this tree and isolate a compound from it and make the drug quinine. Quinine is used all over the world to fight malaria. That's the correct way of doing this. We don't go around prescribing tree bark to patients who have malaria. We prescribe the compound within the tree bark. It's the same thing with marijuana. We take the plant, isolate the compounds that have therapeutic value, study those, put them through the FDA approval process, and offer those to patients. So the reality is, we have got to understand that the main problem with weed, when it comes up in the question of following the Bible, following Christianity.
Scott Johnston [00:26:35]:
Is the question of intoxication.
Mark Clark [00:26:37]:
And the Bible clearly speaks against it.
Scott Johnston [00:26:39]:
And so we don't believe in it.
Mark Clark [00:26:40]:
Okay, now, second question is the question of abortion. Let me frame it for you. Abortion in Canada is legal at all stages of pregnancy and is governed and funded by the Canada health Act. Approximately 95,000 abortions are reported in Canada every year. And it's estimated that this number represents approximately 90% of all abortions performed in Canada. Canada is one of the few nations with no specific legal restrictions on abortion at all. So in certain countries, you can abort a baby up to 14 weeks. Austria, Cambodia, Germany, Spain.
Mark Clark [00:27:16]:
Some countries you can go to 18 weeks, like Sweden. Some countries, 24 weeks, like Singapore. There is no limit in only a handful of countries in the world. Canada, China, Vietnam, and North Korea. So Those are great. U.S. in North Korea. All right, good stuff.
Mark Clark [00:27:33]:
41% of abortions in Canada happen at nine to 12 weeks. The baby is the size of a lion. It has a heartbeat. It can feel pain. The nerves and the muscles begin to work together. The baby can make a fist. The external sex organs show if your baby is a boy or a girl. So as I present my two or three points within this question, you gotta understand that this is what a Christian believes and why they tend to be more what is classically called conservative on this issue, which is basically pro life, which is that we believe as Christians that life, that human beings are a person.
Mark Clark [00:28:10]:
So what I'm gonna unpack for you isn't about getting mad or feeling offended or storming out or anything like that. Just hear me out and understand that the question is asked. So I'm giving you the biblical answer. Three things. First, why do Christians believe this? Because it's a Bible issue. They believe that a human being is a person. It's a question of essence. In Genesis, chapter one, verse 27, it says this.
Mark Clark [00:28:32]:
So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created him. So what you got to understand is in that culture, Babylonian culture, Egyptian culture, they would say that poor people were not made in the image of God, but rich people were. The Bible comes along subversively and says, no, you got to understand, it's the same today in India. If you go through the caste system, people in India, they're not even made in the image of the gods that are poor. The Bible comes along, says every human being has value and is made in the image of God. It's a question of essence, the scale of essence.
Mark Clark [00:29:04]:
If you kill a bug, it's not the same thing as killing a cat, which I think we should all be encouraged to do. And it's not the same thing as killing a human being. If you squish a bug on your way here, nobody cares if you hit a cat. Probably most people don't care. And if you hit a human being, you've got to turn over to the side of the road and call someone, because there's an essence issue. The Bible says that God has made us in his image. We bear the imago dei, which is a vastly better answer to the question of values than atheistic, naturalistic philosophy says. Because, of course, it says we're simply animals.
Mark Clark [00:29:38]:
And so there's no core distinction between your essence or value. Problem with that is this. You. I guarantee some of you guys go by the National Geographic Channel and you're flipping by, and there's one thing that I cannot get away from, and it's the temptation when I flick to that channel, of watching that lion hunting down that antelope, and something lingers, because I want to watch that thing just eat his face. I just want to watch him claw. You know what?
Mark Clark [00:30:01]:
You're sick as well.
Mark Clark [00:30:02]:
And so we want him to claw them open and eat them, because that's what we want. Now here's the thing. When that ends up happening, the lion kills the antelope, no one on the National Geographic team calls the police. Doesn't happen. No one cares. Because that's nature. Animals are animals. But if I punched you in the face in the parking lot today, the police would be called, why? Because you are different than an animal.
Mark Clark [00:30:24]:
That's what the Bible fundamentally believes. It's a better answer to the reality of. Of who we are and by way of character, essence and value that atheistic philosophy gives us. Why do we have value? Because we have a soul. Genesis 1 told us we're a moral, spiritual component that is in us, that is different than the rest of creation. The question is, when does that happen? When do you get value? When do you get a soul? The Bible comes along, and this is why Christians believe this. They believe it happens at the moment of conception. I'm going to run through a few Bible passages for you.
Mark Clark [00:30:58]:
Psalm 139. For you formed my inward parts. You knitted me together in my mother's womb. So here we go. We have God knitting people together in the womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. We are made by God. Wonderful are you for your works.
Mark Clark [00:31:16]:
My soul knows it very well. Psalm 139, verse 15. My frame was not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance. Job, chapter 10. Your hands fashioned and made me. You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews. Job, chapter 31.
Mark Clark [00:31:39]:
Did not he who made me in the womb made me where in the womb make him? And did not us fashion us in the womb? Jeremiah, chapter one. Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you. In Luke, chapter one, Jesus is in Mary's stomach. She walks up to her cousin Elizabeth, and when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. There's a baby in there, and it leaps at something that's going on. And Elizabeth was filled. The Holy Spirit. The reality is this.
Mark Clark [00:32:14]:
The reason Christians believe that a abortion is wrong is because we believe that a human being exists in the womb at the moment of conception, because that's what the Bible says. Now, what does that mean? Well, it means a few things. Some of you might say, well, I don't believe in the Bible. I'm not persuaded by the Bible. There's a second reason Christians believe this, and it's because of logic. Christians believe in reason and they have compassion. And here's some data. At eight weeks, babies in the womb suck their thumb.
Mark Clark [00:32:48]:
They recoil from pricking, which means if you try to draw blood off the heel of an infant in the womb, it will pick up its leg and recoil from what you're trying to do. You have to understand that if a woman is on her way to an abortion clinic and she's driving along and questioning whether or not she's going to do this, and on her way there chooses not to do it and turns around to go home and a man is driving down the road texting her drunk and crashes into her, that he can be charged with involuntary manslaughter of the baby, even if she survives. In Switzerland, there's been this rule that's been created. They've started realizing that lobsters are actually feeling the pain when they boil them in water. And so they've made a law. Can't do lobsters anymore. You got to kill them first, then throw them because it's mean to boil them. This is a country that has late term abortions, which means you can kill a baby in the womb of its mother at the point where it could be sustained for life outside of the womb.
Mark Clark [00:33:51]:
So you got a situation where lobsters are sacred and Babies in the womb are not. And at that point, Christians believe humanity has gone dark. Now, some people would say, yeah, okay, fine, but it's the woman's body. You can't touch or talk about a woman's body if you're a man. And if your society, it's a woman's health issues, you can do what you want. Technically, though, that's not true. Science tells us it's in your body, but it is not your body at the moment of conception. A brand new, completely unique strand of DNA, science tells us, is birthed out of nowhere at conception.
Mark Clark [00:34:37]:
It's not your DNA, it's the baby's DNA. What we know is that by eight weeks, all the organs of the baby are working. The baby's heart is circulating its blood, not your blood. The baby's kidneys are flushing the baby's fluids out, not your kidneys. Another pushback people say is, well, what about the fact that people don't have any authority over me? It's my body. I'm a woman. There's a bit of a hard thing to swallow there, because on the one hand, I understand through patriarchal society, women and kids have got a bad rap and they've actually been abused and marginalized often. But there are all sorts of laws on the books that say a woman can't treat her body any way she wants.
Mark Clark [00:35:24]:
You can't prostitute yourself, for instance. Society has decided that for you, it's illegal. You can't drive drunk. You can't kill people. That's what society is. That's what laws are. They're created and they're projected on your body. Even though they're not you, it's society telling you.
Mark Clark [00:35:40]:
Now, here's what we got to understand. The Bible believes the baby in the womb is sacred in every way, whether it has down syndrome or a clubbed foot or whatever. We have a couple in our church, they were pregnant with twins just a few months ago. And the doctor said, look, one of them is growing wrong. You've gotta abort the one so the other one survives and cause the other. You can lose both of them. Or you could actually, as the mother, be killed. This is gonna kill you.
Mark Clark [00:36:07]:
And so they came in for prayer. There was anointing with oil. We prayed and prayed and prayed. And just a few months ago, they had two perfectly healthy baby boys, twins. That's people. It's beautiful. Doing their best to say this is sacred. Now, this is contrasted with where we are as a culture.
Mark Clark [00:36:28]:
All right, there's a British journalist named Antonio Sr. She wrote an article saying this. This was the title of the article. Yes, abortion is killing, but it's the lesser evil. Now, think about this logic. I take you through some logic for a second. What evil could be greater than taking a vulnerable human life? She says, we as women need to be able to impose our will on our biology. Yes, there are 200,000 babies killed every year in the UK but to defend women's rights, we must be willing to kill.
Mark Clark [00:37:03]:
It's kind of a haunting philosophy because it's been applied to every war, every Holocaust, every genocide, every ethnic cleansing that anyone has ever done. Of course, the ends justify the means. You can do anything you want if the end is what's right. Which is why when you listen to Louis CK Who I would not tell you to listen to as a comedian, I just watch it for cultural research. And he has this bit where he says, you know, I don't believe abortion's killing a baby. And then he says, no, you know what? Actually, it totally is killing a baby. It's 100% killing a baby. No joke.
Mark Clark [00:37:37]:
And then he says, but I believe women should be able to kill babies. And he's doing this satirical comedic critique of the logic. We all know from a scientific perspective what's actually happening when this. When this fetus inside of a womb is being killed at 12 weeks or 15 weeks. The philosophy is this. Our culture admits that life begins in the womb, whether it's horses or hummingbirds or humans. Any organism, a new individual, begins at conception. That's the science.
Mark Clark [00:38:14]:
And the funny thing is, is it's the biblical view that wants to cite science versus a secular view that wants to put the science aside and just talk about meaning and esoteric idea and metaphysical values. Very fascinating. How did we get here as a culture?
Scott Johnston [00:38:32]:
Couple points, and then I'll pray for us.
Mark Clark [00:38:34]:
One of the reasons is what's called personhood theory. Personhood theory says this. See Roe v. Wade. If you go back to 1973, when abortion became legal in America.
Scott Johnston [00:38:44]:
It was legal here in 1969. Here's the philosophy, here's the logic of the Supreme Court.
Mark Clark [00:38:49]:
Listen to this. It's very important. The baby in the womb is a.
Scott Johnston [00:38:52]:
Human, but it is not a person.
Mark Clark [00:38:58]:
That's the distinction. The baby. And so now we've got a new category of thing called the human non person. That's how you get there. Because as we talked about before, there's a lower level and a higher level of thinking, and the one level is facts, and the higher level thinking is values. And what we've done as a culture is we've said the level of facts and biology and science is one level, but the level of ethical values and metaphysical reality is another level. And this higher level is what's more important. And so in the Christian conversation, we want to say, no, no, no.
Mark Clark [00:39:31]:
The two are tied together. Values and ethical reality and personhood comes about driven by the biological reality. There was a presidential debate a couple years ago. I won't tell you who it is because it's distracting, because this isn't a political point, it's a theological one and a biblical one. And the candidate was asked, when do you believe life begins? And he says, I believe life begins at conception, and yet I support abortion fully. The follow up question was, how can that be? And he said these words. The preborn baby is not the form of life that is defined as personhood in the terms that we have judged it to be. In 2005, Terri Schiavo became a very famous case.
Mark Clark [00:40:14]:
She was a healthy woman. She had a heart attack. She went to a vegetative state. Her family wanted to keep her alive. Her husband wanted to pull all the cords and, and let her die. She was responding to efforts of communication. So there was this debate. The US Congress finally had to intervene.
Mark Clark [00:40:29]:
She was cut off from food and water and slowly died of starvation and dehydration. There was a television debate. Slowly after that. There was a bioethicist. And he was asked this question. Do you think Terry is a person? The bioethicist answered this. Listen to how haunting this is. No, I do not.
Mark Clark [00:40:47]:
I think having awareness is an essential criterion of personhood. Think about that. If we say awareness is necessary for personhood, where does that go? Think of the mentally disabled. Think of the old. Where do we go as a culture? Joseph Fletcher, who's a bioethicist, proposes 15 qualities to define personhood. He says this intelligence, self awareness, self control, a sense of time, concern for others, communication, curiosity. And if you don't have those things, he says, quote, you are mere biological life. A sense of time.
Mark Clark [00:41:30]:
Think about that. Peter Singer, who's the Social Darwinist, wrote an article years ago where he actually says, we need to kill the weakest in the litter so the stronger survive. And he said this, quote, technically, listen to this. A three year old is a gray case. What? Some of you might not even believe that's real. Go read Mark Oppenheimer's article, who lives and who dies. A three year old's a gray case because think about this Self control, a sense of time, concern for others. When's the last time you hung out with a toddler? They're ridiculous, they're stupid, they're selfish, they have no awareness of time.
Mark Clark [00:42:11]:
In fact, if awareness of time is part of the issue, I could kill some of my friends. A concern for others.
Scott Johnston [00:42:24]:
Lastly, is the human rights issue part of this? We believe this is a question of protecting the vulnerable. Matthew, chapter 25. Jesus says, the sheep and the goats get divided in the end by what did you do for the least of these? What is more vulnerable, honestly, than a.
Mark Clark [00:42:42]:
Baby in a womb?
Scott Johnston [00:42:44]:
I'm not saying you got to keep.
Mark Clark [00:42:45]:
It, put it up for adoption.
Scott Johnston [00:42:48]:
There's Christians who are doing all kinds of things around the world. There's actually boxes in Singapore, South Korea and parts of the United States where if you don't want your baby, you put your baby in there, it locks, and three minutes later ambulances come and they take the baby. There are solutions. The human rights issue, you know, part of what's heartbreaking about all this is there's a piece of it that's racist. Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood.
Mark Clark [00:43:12]:
Go look her up.
Scott Johnston [00:43:14]:
She was a self proclaimed racist, saw abortion as a systematic way to eliminate urban blacks.
Mark Clark [00:43:22]:
In fact, if you look at the data, I'm gonna tell you a fact right now that some of you aren't gonna actually believe.
Scott Johnston [00:43:26]:
And you can go look it up.
Mark Clark [00:43:28]:
Abortion is the number one cause of.
Scott Johnston [00:43:32]:
Death for blacks and Hispanics in America.
Mark Clark [00:43:36]:
What? You're like, no, I think he said that wrong. It can't be the number one cause of death for a people group. It is. More people in the black and Hispanic community, especially in urban centers and among the poor, are killed through abortion and die through abortion than die of natural death in old age. 64% of deaths in those two communities are through abortion.
Scott Johnston [00:44:07]:
That doesn't make it sound very progressive to me. And this is where the church needs to stand up and be a prophetic voice, offer prophetic critique and prophetic hope and say there's a different way to do this. How we treat the most vulnerable in our society is literally how Jesus is.
Mark Clark [00:44:25]:
Going to gauge sheep or goat.
Scott Johnston [00:44:30]:
And so Nancy Pearcey says this today, as the west sinks back into pre Christian practices of systematically killing the most vulnerable, the church must once again be ready to stand with courage and conviction and confront the underlying worldview of personhood theory with its dehumanizing impact, and then find practical ways to express the Bible's high view of human life. Now Let me just end with this. If you've ever had an abortion, Jesus loves and forgives and sets you up. The beautiful thing is the gospel not only teaches us how to live, it rescues us when we have failed to do so, when we have failed to live the way it explains. There is nothing but a compassion and grace filled God waiting for you who say, okay, this was a wrong thing I did. The other thing is I want to tell you and I want you to remember this, especially if you're a teenager and you're here. Listen, if you ever get pregnant, we love you. Don't abort a baby because you're afraid of the church's judgment of you.
Scott Johnston [00:45:49]:
We'd rather love you and embrace you. In the Old Testament, people got stoned to death for murder. The beautiful thing about the gospel is Jesus got murdered for you. And Father, I pray that as we humble ourselves under the reality of the beauty of what you've done in creating us, we would be so humbled and.
Mark Clark [00:46:13]:
In awe of that.
Scott Johnston [00:46:17]:
That we would know how to walk with people who disagree with us. And if there's people here who disagree, that they would find grace in understanding at least why we believe the things we do.
Mark Clark [00:46:28]:
You're a good God.
Scott Johnston [00:46:29]:
You're a compassionate God. You're a forgiving God who forgives a sinner like me and offers it to everyone who turns to you because of the cross and the resurrection. Thank you for your grace. In Jesus good name we pray.
Mark Clark [00:46:44]:
Amen.