Check our own hearts God.

Two weeks have passed since the historic election of the first African American to the office of President of the United States of America. As a kid who remembers forced integration and curfews during the infamous Detroit riots, I have to admit that I didn’t think I would witness this in my lifetime. Personally, a part of me is proud of my country. I hope that an African American President can bring healing to the American soul…a soul that still suffers from our past sins...a soul that needs to step away from the rhetoric that inflames black and white bigotry and racism. God please heal us.

As I have thought about the issue of slavery over the last week, I can’t help drawing a parallel between that great human tragedy in our nation’s history and the great human tragedy of abortion today. Sure, you’ve heard that before but the slant I want to look at today is something I haven’t heard before. Slavery is based in a concept that elevates a group of people and their philosophies above another group or groups of people to the extent that the superior group imposes its will on the subordinate group(s). To the extreme, the philosophy of superiority takes command over the lives of the subordinate group, even to the point of death.

Today, the “group” of people who believe their philosophies to be superior are those who contend that it is the right of a woman to decide whether she will terminate the life of her unborn child without regard for the right of the unborn child to live. Additionally, even the right of the father must be subordinate to the philosophy of this superior group. So, two groups of people, fathers and unborn children, are now subject to the imposed philosophies of the superior group. In other words, the unborn child is in effect the slave of the mother and subject to her will, even to the point of death.

In the past, the slave owner had ultimate control over the life and the death of his property. If that property was an inconvenience or posed and economic burden to the slave owner, he was free to get rid of his property or even have it put to death. Haven’t we learned that no one person or one group of people have the right to impose their will unto death over any other group of people. And haven’t we learned that a primary purpose of government is to make sure it never happens? If what I have just touched on is true, then aborting children with the governments blessing is morally equivalent to slave owners imposing their will on another group of people (slaves) with the government’s blessing.

How can this country ever be healed of the ravages of slavery when we continue to operate with the same heart today? Only a great move of God in the lives of his children will bring about the healing the soul of this nation needs. We must give up our selfish superiority and the thought that our philosophy can be imposed on anyone. Only a willing participant can set themselves aside and regard all others as greater than himself.