The old Chinese curse says, “May you live in interesting times.” And here we are.
Some conservatives who are not worried think that Obama will simply be a Carter rerun — an unknown who made a great first impression, but who grew quickly wearisome at an accelerating pace. Some conservatives who are panicked think that Obama will cancel the next round of elections, and then where will we be? If forced to choose between these two, I would inclined toward the former — but I also don’t think that the life of civilizations is really understood by policy wonks or election-statistics-geeks. The issue is not this good bill or that bad one; the issue is whether we will serve the God of the Bible or not.
There are two cultures contending here. One desires to be fruitful and the other desires to be fruitless. As Lady Wisdom declares, “But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death” (Prov. 8:36). And this is not surprising: “For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens” (Ps. 96:5, ESV). What else could a worthless idol lead to but death?
The reason abortion and sodomy are so important to the so-called progressives is simply this. Life is fruitful. Death is fruitless, and idolatry brings nothing but death. Some idolatry (as on the secular right) promises life. Like Jezebel and her priesty boys, they promised lush fertility. They promised a green Israel, but the God of Israel gave them a brown and crispy one.
But other forms of idolatry, such as ours, embraces the death wish more openly — and this is why there is such hostility to children, and the righteous hetero activity that leads to children. C.S. Lewis quotes an old song about Herod in his magnificent book, The Abolition of Man. “And so he sent the word to slay, and slew the little childer.” There is nothing whatever that is accidental about this being one of the central issues of our day. Satan has always hated the Child, and anything, like children, that remind him of the Child.
But the laws they pass, and the laws they seek to approve, are not the central point. The central point is not Roe, but rather what Roe makes possible — the actual shedding of blood. Abortion is one of the sacraments of the secular state, and sodomy is another. What matters there is not the perverse ceremony at city hall, but what that makes possible — sodomy ratified, approved, and consummated.
And this is why we must answer their blood, not with answers from a book, but with blood. There is no response to blood but blood, which in our case must refer to the blood of Jesus Christ, shed on the cross for the remission of sins. This is why worship is central. This is the place where we must preach the gospel, which if it is faithful preaching, will be preaching of the Blood. This is why ministers must lift up the cup of the new testament before the people of God, inviting them to drink of it, and they must do so knowing that this is the true and ultimate challenge to the idols. There is no answer to blood, but the Blood.