There’s been a lot of chatter in Christian circles again about what is known as a “heartbeat bill,” and the prattling continues because Republican Governor of Ohio, John Kasich, vetoed the legislation and then just a couple of days ago, the legislature failed to override it. Predictably, conservatives are out of sorts because they really wanted the bill to get passed. The question I want to raise is this: Should we support a heartbeat bill? I mean, after all, at least it’s something to stop the slaughter, right?

No. You shouldn’t support it. Heartbeat bills are immoral, unjust laws. And here’s why:

  1. Life begins at conception, not when there’s a heartbeat. Therefore,
  2. You’re still consigning babies to death on demand.
  3. You’re still not addressing the root idolatry of the humanist lust for autonomy. Therefore,
  4. You’re not actually teaching/preaching the gospel; which means,
  5. You’re not in line with biblical law, which tells us that which is righteous and that which is unrighteous.

COMMENTARY —

Point #1 — Why are we being a bunch of whiny hypocrites? We say in our literature that life begins at conception. We gather together at our pro-life banquets and say that life begins at conception. We teach and preach that life begins at conception. And then we support bills that say otherwise. What are we? Whiny hypocrites. That’s just what we are. Why in the world would we think it okay to say one thing and do another? And why is it that Christians are constantly finding themselves eating the breadcrumbs that fall off the humanist table? It’s our table! Listen (read?) carefully: Christianity is not a “take what you can get” religion—it’s a faith for all of life. Settling and compromising with the World is not the industry we are called to participate in. The world is ours, Jesus bought it. The dictionary is ours, Jesus invented it. Babies are his, stop the hypocrisy and actually try to protect them.

Point #2 — Are we really to believe that money-hungry abortion doctors are going to legitimately obey a law like this? Gee, how convenient, our ultrasound machine can’t find a heartbeat. Of course, most conservative Christians are gullible and want tRuMp to build a wall and they think Mexico might just pay for it. Can we stop already? Your heartbeat bill sentences children to death. It’s not righteous. Not even a little.

Point #3 — The Abortion Holocaust is the ugly fruit of a humanist culture bent on death (Proverbs 8:36). It’s one of the many ways our culture has been turned over to high-handed rebellion. And while this is a “code red” situation, we have to keep in mind that there’s a lot brewing underneath the abortion industry. We have the destruction of the family. We have churches with cowards in the pulpit. We have ostensibly Christian children being sent to Caesar. We have the myth of neutrality parading our streets. We also have Stoicism and Epicureanism waltzing through the town square. In short, we have autonomy on full display and the heartbeat bill doesn’t even touch any of it.

Point #4 — Which means–oh the nerve!–that Christians aren’t actually preaching the gospel. The gospel deals with all idols, not just your favorite ones. The gospel of the Kingdom, when properly administered, is a highly potent dose of comprehensive offensiveness. So no, we don’t need your truncated version. It doesn’t work. The limp-wristed gospel of the modern pietist church is actually a judgment–a covenantal sanction–that needs to be discarded ASAP.

Point #5 — This leads us to the final point, which is simply me telling you that Biblical law and the gospel are wonderful friends and do belong together. If we’re not dealing with idolatry, we’re not preaching the gospel. If we’re not preaching the gospel, we’re not actually preaching the law, which goes with the gospel. If we’re not doing either of those, then we’re stumbling around in the dark trying to tell the other humanists in the dark how to behave and where to walk. Thus the hypocrisy referred to above. If we don’t have God’s law at the center, with gospel fuel doused on it, we’re not going to be able to discern good from evil (Hebrews 5:14), and thus we’ll demonstrate to everyone watching that we’re immature and incompetent. No one really wants that.

Look, these elected politicians are cowards, but that says more about us than them. We’re cowards, first, and they simply reflect us–they’re made in our image. Heartbeat bills are dimwitted attempts at trying to put forth half-hearted (pun absolutely intended) solutions. It’s cowardly and the politician knows it. That and they want abortion anyway, despite what their Right to Life election rating tells you. We cannot, and must not deal in terms of cowardly re-treatism. Abortion must be abolished, not regulated and tolerated. Wake up, Church. Don’t support this nonsense. Don’t compromise. Fight.

Jesus is King.

No Neutrality.

No Exile.

No Surrender.