5.Versluys'.us

“Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”

The global AIDS crisis has created millions of orphans. Poverty worldwide has added its own millions. Photographs of starving and sick children are displayed prominently in Christian magazines, urging the godly man and woman to give. Give of their time, their resources, their hearts.

Christians should not ignore the pleas for help. We are called to respond to the needs of orphans and widows, those who are in distress.

However, the Christian church must not pick and choose which orphans to help based upon the popularity of the cause. While 300,000 children die annually from AIDS, 40 million children have died in the past year alone due to abortion. But the worldwide church remains silent, for the most part. It is popular and trendy to jump on the AIDS bandwagon, and everyone wants to stop genocide in Darfur. But what about the genocide here on American soil?

Americans Christians have enough money and influence to move mountains. We donate millions of dollars to outreaches across the world, and spend thousands of hours serving the poor in our hometowns. Why aren’t we treating abortion in America with the same sense of urgency as poverty or AIDS, especially when we have the ability to see a change?

It’s not enough to build a crisis pregnancy center or offer post-abortion counseling to women. Those are simply band-aids on a gaping wound.

The AIDS crisis is urgent. As we write, people are dying. We should be coming to their aid. We should keep the photographs of hurting children in the open to remind our nation’s leaders that millions of people need us.

The abortion crisis is also urgent. Millions of children die each year, and their parents hurt too. We should also be coming to their aid. But whether deliberately or not, the orphans of abortion are passed by in favor of the orphans we can see. Their pain and their need is largely ignored by the Church.

When compared simply by numbers, the abortion crisis in America and worldwide is deserving of the same level of attention as AIDS or poverty. Who are we as Christians to decide the children killed by abortion deserve less help than the children in Africa?

As Christians, our first goal when we vote for a president or any other elected official should be to glorify Christ and further His kingdom as best we can through our vote. Our concern over property taxes and the right to bear arms should pale in comparison to our godly concern for the orphans and widows of the world.

A presidential candidate’s position on abortion should be a deciding factor for Christian voters. We are required of our God to care for the needy, and to ignore the issue of abortion when we vote is to ignore our Christian faith.