No, you cannot claim to be a follower of Jesus Christ and also give the sign of the cross to babies being sucked out of the womb. Even if you're not the one having the baby sucked from your womb. If making the sign of the cross isn't your thing, then you cannot raise your hands in hallelujah, bow your head in prayer, and finish each sentence with "praise Jesus" if you think it's okay for someone to suck their baby from their womb.

Yesterday I made clear you cannot be pro-science and pro-abortion. Today I'm saying you can't be pro-Jesus and pro-abortion. Yet too many people think they can thread the morality needle and be both things at once. Like this pastor. He posted what some people think is a deeply philosophical, nuanced take (ahem, no) on Facebook last year, but due to recent happenings in Alabama and Georgia, the post has been recirculating as new.

Dave Barnhart is, pardon my french, a piece of shit.

If he's your pastor, I suggest you find another. He seems not to understand how the whole Christian thing is supposed to go. Nor does he appear to understand how the Bible works. I just don't remember the verse in scripture where it says to value only those people Jesus lists explicitly and forget the unborn human beings who'll be legally slaughtered some 2,000 years after His time on Earth. Maybe if during the time of Jesus's life on Earth, babies were being slaughtered, He would've said "Oh and also care for the unborn babies in addition to orphans, widows, prisoners, and mentally-challenged Democrats." But I'm not a theologian.

Before I make my larger point, let's run through Barnhart's first. Just because it's fun and it needs to be done. Numbered for your viewing ease:

1. Fighting abortion is not a zero sum game. Advocating for unborn babies in no way requires throwing orphans under the bus, ignoring widows, forgoing prisoners, or shunting the poor. Unless Barnhart is so narrow-minded he can only think of ministering to one group of people only. In which chase, what an asshole.
2. One could argue it was convenient for non-slave owning Northerners to advocate on behalf of slaves. So the “convenience” of advocacy has nothing to do with whether or not you should advocate for a persecuted class of people. I feel like Jesus would understand such a concept. Pity this pastor does not.
3. The unborn are the most inconvenient to advocate for since advocacy necessitates personal responsibility. Advocating for many other groups requires only virtue signaling and demanding government intervene on your behalf. Buck passing. If I demand better treatment for the poor, practically no one will demand I personally take in those poor people. Yet pro-lifers are constantly berated about what they've personally done for unborn babies. And many pro-lifers have done more than you'd know on behalf of unborn and born children. Personal note: I've offered to adopt babies many times before women walk into a clinic to suck out their kid. Trivia: It's hard to adopt a child that's dead.
4. To be consistently pro-life, you have to
   1. Be sexually responsible and
   2. if faced with an unplanned pregnancy, you have to care for that child.

Now, Jesus. Though there is no beatitude about "Blessed are those in the womb, for they shall not be sucked out of it by selfish, evil women and the doctors making a profit" methinks Jesus is still peeved about children being sucked out of the womb. Call me crazy, but Jesus seemed like rather a loving, life-supporting kind of guy. Not a hedonistic hate bucket who only had time for people He could see with His human eyes.

There's also that commandment about thou shalt not kill people. Last I checked, there wasn't an asterisk with a footnote reading "Unless it's your unborn child and it's just not the right time. In which case, go forth my child, to dilate and spread thy legs."

Jesus Christ taught us to love each other, to help the "least of these" Matthew 25:40. To me, the "least of these" are those people who are suffering the most, who maybe even the law and society says it's fine to let suffer. I can think of no group in modern times more deserving of a Christian's attention than unborn children. Who are being systemically slaughtered in the millions (every year) with the government's and society's blessing. To speak out against abortion is to be persecuted. But the Bible has some thoughts on persecution as well:

"Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 5:10.

Amen, amen I say to you, you cannot support, excuse, or ignore abortion and call yourself a Christian.

~ Written by Courtney Kirchoff