Episode Transcript
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>> Rebeca (00:10):
I'm Rebeca Seitz and this is
Right to Life.
After the crazy ride of the last episode,
my hope was to find someone we could talk with who. Who
also considers themselves to be a Christian and pro
life, but maybe is a bit more versed in the
(00:32):
issue of this show, abortion and the
morality thereof. Earlier
this week, I turned on the documentary Bad
Faith via Amazon Prime.
Now, I have to admit, I rarely
watch the docs about how politics and
evangelicalism became so intertwined
because they remind me of my childhood and
(00:54):
adulthood through age 38. And
that doesn't always bring up particularly positive
memories. Leaving
evangelicalism is very
difficult when it's your entire
life and some of my wounds
are still scarring themselves over even
today, eight years later.
(01:16):
But I felt drawn to this film, so I watched
it and I'm glad I did.
It took an informational approach to the
subject and you can probably guess how
much I appreciate that. One of
the experts in the film is Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
Hartgrove, a Southern Baptist pastor based
in North Carolina. I reached out to
(01:39):
him, explained the journey that we're on with
this show, and I asked if he'd be willing
to talk with us from his perspective.
Well, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove thank you so much for coming on the Right
to Life show.
>> Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (01:54):
I'm glad to be with you. Thanks for having me.
>> Rebeca (01:56):
I really appreciate that you responded to me. When I saw you in the
Bad Faith documentary. I thought I would just love to be
able to speak to that person on this show about this issue. And
so I was very, very excited that you responded to me. I know
we're coming up on time to vote here. Some people
here in the state have already voted early
voted, but I, I felt like there was more
(02:16):
to say. And so I wanted to talk with you about this issue. But before
we get into that, if you can, just for those who aren't familiar
with your books and your background, could you let us know what is your
educational background and your publication background?
>> Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (02:29):
Well, I grew up in the Baptist Church in
North Carolina. My
education and formation is primarily
there. I was raised by people who taught me to love
the Bible and called me to be a preacher when I was
16 years old. So I've been doing that ever since.
I went to Eastern Baptist College
(02:51):
outside of Philadelphia where
my friend and mentor Tony Campolo
taught for over 50 years.
And then went to Duke Divinity School here in
my home state of North Carolina, a school
started by the Methodist, but friendly enough with the
Baptists to let me in.
I now teach at Yale Divinity School where
(03:13):
we started a center for public
theology and public policy just a
couple years ago.
>> Rebeca (03:20):
And you've written so much. I'm familiar with
Revolution of Values, Reconstructing the
Gospel, and then your Common Prayer, a liturgy
for radical. For ordinary radicals. That was cool.
>> Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (03:31):
Good to be praying with you.
>> Rebeca (03:32):
Yes. but I did not know until. Actually,
I was. I was prepping to talk to you today. I didn't know that
you were on the. What is it? The Third
Reconstruction book with Reverend Barber.
I didn't realize that you had been a part of that.
>> Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (03:47):
Well, Reverend William Barber
helped me find my way as a
young Baptist who had
been kind of recruited into a
political movement that was reaching out to people
of young people of faith when I was young.
And I recognized that that really wasn't
the fullness of what the Gospel had
(04:09):
to offer in terms of our faithful response
to public life. But I didn't know any
other way to be Christian outside of the kind of
narrow confines of what I had grown up in. So
Reverend Barbara introduced me to what he calls
moral fusion politics, or, you know, the
long history of people who have preached Jesus and
(04:30):
justice in America, from the abolitionist movement up
to the present. And, he had grown up in that tradition.
So we've been close friends and
colleagues since. And we. We write a lot
together. We wrote the Reconstruct the Third Reconstruction together.
We recently wrote a book called White Poverty Together.
And our, work closely at Repairers of the
Breach, which is an organization we started
(04:52):
really to. To address this
division that has been sown by people
who often use Christian faith, but who
are primarily, serving the
interests of a very small and
elite group of people in this country. So they've given them a lot
of money to create divisions that
they think help them and that were contending
(05:15):
with anybody. But anyway, that's their motivation.
>> Rebeca (05:19):
you said in there that you were being recruited to be a part
of, I think what has led to what we're all living in now, which is
a very divided nation. What is that?
What did that look like when you were a younger pastor, a young
man?
>> Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (05:31):
Well, a political operative named Paul Wyrick
was very active in the late 70s
and 80s in, using
what, he called traditional and biblical
values to try to
bring bring Whitesnake,
initially largely Whitesnake Southern Christians into a
(05:52):
coalition that would vote together.
And toward, that end, they developed a lot
of leadership development
programs and free literature
and I mean, things like this, podcasts and radio shows
and other things that, essentially created a
culture where people Came to
adopt their language about many issues.
(06:14):
And of course, in the beginning, it was all about
the language they used of being pro life.
So that really was the
initial issue that Weirich decided to
organize around in order to recruit people for
his political movement.
>> Rebeca (06:29):
Do you know why, he chose abortion as
the issue?
>> Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (06:34):
Yes. actually, Randall Ballmer, the
historian, I think, has written a good book about
just that question. It's a book called Bad Faith. It's where
they got the name for that movie that you mentioned. But,
he went back and, looked closely
as a historian at the conversations that
were happening in communities and the,
decisions that these political operatives made as they
(06:57):
were establishing this movement. And his
read, and I think he's right, is that the primary
reason the movement decided to focus
on abortion was because they
recognized it as, an issue that
they could use to appeal to people who
had actually been politicized by
(07:17):
race issues. By, in particular, by their
objection to the federal government cracking down
on churches that started
segregation academies in the South. So.
>> Rebeca (07:29):
So like Bob Jones University,
Liberty.
>> Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (07:32):
Yeah, well, those. Those are the kind of Big. Those are the Big
versions of it. But. But a lot of smaller
churches had in places. And
this is actually how Jerry Falwell got his start in Virginia.
So when the Brown decision passed,
1954 decision, in which the Supreme Court
said that separate but equal wasn't
equal, couldn't be equal, and so it wasn't
(07:54):
constitutional, they then
ordered schools to desegregate, as they said, with
all deliberate speed. Back then there was a Baptist preacher
named Clarence Jordan who said, nothing makes
Southerners matter than telling them they better hurry up.
>> Rebeca (08:09):
That is a true statement.
That is a true statement.
>> Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (08:14):
so there was really a backlash
against that decision by the court.
And in Virginia, where Jerry Falwell was
a Baptist preacher, that looked like
what they called. Well, they established
what they called state sovereignty commissions.
So it's kind of like states rights idea.
>> Rebeca (08:33):
Oh, my.
>> Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (08:34):
But then said that they would. Their movement was called massive
resistance. So they said, we will resist this
to the point of shutting down our public schools rather
than allow our children to go to
school. These are Whitesnake folks saying, rather than have Whitesnake children go to
school with black children. And well, of course they
did that. They did shut down the schools in Virginia for a short time.
(08:55):
And then people got kind of like during COVID people
got tired of having their kids at home and said
somewhere, and
the alternative in many cases was that churches
opened. So these. These would be grade schools in the
church. So this is actually the, the
foundation of many private Christian academies
(09:15):
in the south that are especially, that are connected to churches.
And those, those schools were then all Whitesnake
schools for the, you know, the Whitesnake children who went to them.
Well, the IRS came in and said, if you're
going to have non profit status granted by the federal
government, but then defy federal
government's order to desegregate schools,
(09:35):
then you'll lose your nonprofit status. And that was
what Weirich recognized was an
opportunity to organize Whitesnake Christians in
the south politically. But he knew by the 70s
that having an explicitly racist
movement wasn't going to be, you know,
politically acceptable. So he was looking for another issue to
organize people around. What Ballmer documents is
(09:57):
that he, he identified abortion as
that issue. And then he went to, people like
Falwell who had already been politicized by the
race issues and convinced him to get on board.
So Ballmer, you know, traces that it was
five years after the Roe decision
that Falwell preached his first sermon
(10:18):
against abortion. Which,
you know, if it was, if it was a strong moral issue, which is what
he always said it was after that issue, you have to ask, why'd you wait five
years?
>> Rebeca (10:27):
Right, right. Why were you not telling everybody?
Right. Because I think we can look at the decisions that are
coming down from the Supreme Court today. And as soon as a
decision comes down, preachers are preaching on it one way or
the other. And so the idea
that the Supreme Court would have handed down
Roe, the original Roe, and
(10:47):
preachers would have thought that it was
a, the major issue that it is today in
pulpits and not say anything for five years just
doesn't wash so well.
>> Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (10:58):
And it's because there was, there was no
Baptist tradition of
resisting abortion. I mean, abortion's not new,
right? And it wasn't like a new thing, a new
issue. When Roe came along, the politics,
you know, of course changed, but it wasn't, that people hadn't thought about
this before, but there was simply wasn't a Baptist tradition. There were
Baptists who were probably for and against it. There were, I mean, you can
(11:20):
read, you can read folks who said both beforehand, but there
was no, you know, Baptist tradition that that's,
you know, that taught, you know, that there's a particular
point when Life begins in the womb or that, you know, there's
any kind of, there's no, there are no traditions around the
things people talk about today, ensoulment or, you know,
when, you know, when a person is fully a person. I mean,
(11:40):
these are complex and I think, frankly,
unknowable things in many cases. But at any rate,
Baptists didn't have a tradition to really
tap into, so these folks had to create
one. And they create. I think the important point is that they
created it to serve a political end.
>> Rebeca (11:58):
So is that the point, or was there a
different point? That if you look back on it
now, we could look at
it and say, okay, that is the point
where that was the tipping point of.
Prior to that, our faith and our politics
were two different parts of our lives. And
(12:19):
at that point, they became. They started running at least
parallel, if not starting to weave themselves together to the point
that now, for many,
they're so intertwined, it feels as if you would blow
up your life to remove one from the other.
They're a single identity. Do you know what I
mean?
>> Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (12:38):
Yes, I know what you mean. I'm not sure that we can
break it down that simply. I think
the historical point that we're talking about
is when it became about abortion. But
I think any honest reading of Southern Baptist
churches in the 50s and 60s would have to say that,
yes, faith and politics were very closely connected and that it was all
(12:59):
about race. A lot of, Whitesnake Baptist churches
were organized around defending what they understood to
be their, you know, racial
hierarchy and understanding of how the world
works, which is not a proud history. But I
think, to be honest, is to say that that was there.
>> Rebeca (13:15):
So in the same way, what does it look like? I know what it looks like in
my own personal life when I started
separating, trying to find truth and
wisdom on issues separate from what I was being
taught within the Southern Baptist tradition. Ah. Because the
two were not in alignment in many ways, including in my
worldview on the abortion issue. And I started learning about, oh,
(13:36):
well, this is how it became what it became in the Southern
Baptist tradition. What does it look like
then for somebody who was like
me today? I, you know, I started separating
from my evangelical tradition in 2016. So
I'm eight years removed looking at it
in 2024. Because I'm sure you're seeing this every
(13:56):
day. I'm not here in my little media company.
How does someone even go about today if
they're every Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, sitting in
an evangelical pew, listening to this kind
of rhetoric of there's no way that you
can love Jesus and be pro
choice? How does that thought
(14:17):
process begin and move? What does that
life look like if you are of the
mind? I know a lot of people that are listening to the show, and I Know, because they're feeding it
back to me, are going, wait a minute, maybe I haven't gotten this right.
How do you keep your faith intact and
separate yourself from that political rhetoric?
>> Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (14:35):
Yeah, that's a great question, Small question.
>> Rebeca (14:37):
Tiny little question for you.
>> Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (14:38):
That's a great question, and it's one that a lot of people
are grappling with. Because I.
I guess what I want to say is that
the reason I don't think we can too
simply sort of draw historical
lines of a kind of before and after. For the same
reason, I don't think we can draw simple lines in
(14:59):
terms of places where, you know, these things
are clearly mixed and where they're
not. Because people often talk about
Whitesnake evangelicals as, you know, thinking this
or that. And it is true
that surveys consistently show
that a greater percentage of Whitesnake evangelicals would be
(15:19):
anti abortion than Whitesnake
mainline Protestants. It's not actually that much different
with Whitesnake Catholics. But nevertheless, like, that's,
like you can talk about it in terms of percentages,
but. But it's not the case that
this is a sort of universal thing in any church.
Right. And I think that's an important thing for people
(15:40):
to know that these are
not doctrinal commitments of the church.
This is a culture that churches,
have certainly participated in, and frankly,
that lots of people outside of churches have pushed
to build up and to create kind of norms around
within churches. But I don't think it's
(16:01):
true that everybody in churches agrees about these
things. And I think it's important for people inside of a
church where they feel like everyone
assumes that to be Christian is
necessarily to be anti abortion, even to be pro
life is to be anti abortion. I don't think that's. I mean,
that hasn't historically always been the case. I don't think it is now.
I just think that an incredible amount of money has been
(16:24):
invested in sort of norming
that narrative, particularly among Whitesnake Christians
in the South.
>> Rebeca (16:31):
So do you think with your. With your educational background
and your pastor, is there a
moral position where it
is the moral thing to allow abortion?
>> Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (16:45):
Sure. There are lots of moral traditions that
include the option of,
you know, a woman deciding with
her doctor's advice and, you know,
you know, with her family that. Yeah.
That an abortion is the best possible
option in that situation? We often get, you
(17:06):
know, kind of extreme cases. Right.
Where they'll say, well, there should be exceptions for rape and
incest. but I think people can imagine those situations.
But I mean, I just think
I'm a father, you know, if I've never
been pregnant myself, but
have certainly pastored a lot of people who've been pregnant. And
(17:28):
I just know enough from being
there with people at the beginning of
pregnancies, with people, you know, when they get all kinds of medical
news, being in the birthing room, that
these are very complicated
situations. Welcoming Life
into the world is not a simple thing is what I'm saying.
And I think there's quite a bit of mystery
(17:50):
in terms of Life is a gift. Absolutely. Every
Life is a gift. And I consider myself to be
pro life, but I don't think being pro life means
being anti abortion in every situation
because there are moments when, you
know, you have to make incredibly difficult decisions in terms
of what, what is it going to mean to
preserve the Life of this mother, to you know, to
(18:13):
preserve the Life of this family given, you know, the situation that
they're in. And that's And I just think
that women having
options, in terms of the, the reproductive
healthcare that they need at the moment
is, is the most important thing for
promoting Life. And I often when I'm talking to folks about
this because I, I respect people, you know,
(18:35):
especially Roman Catholics who understand
it as a, you know, a doctrinal
point in their church that Life
begins at conception. They're taught this, you know, that's.
I'm a Baptist. That's not exactly how I see it, but I understand that that's how
they see it. I respect people who say,
I would never want to
(18:56):
terminate a pregnancy and even that, you know,
I want to counsel other, you know, women in my faith tradition not
to do that. I can respect that, but also
say that, you know, we live in a pluralistic democracy
where people have different understandings. And
even if your goal in Life is
to reduce abortions,
(19:17):
I think it is important to note that
if you look over the Life of Roe
under Republican and Democratic
presidents that when Democrats were in office there tended
to be more access to health
care. And so the numbers of
abortions actually went down.
Under Democrat presidents for the last
(19:38):
several decades, whereas under Republicans it would go
up because the people who have
the hardest decisions to make were
having to make them with the least resources. So
I really do think it's often an issue of access to
healthcare, access to the basic necessities
of life and that people who are pro Life
and want to serve Life, which I think fundamentally not just the
(20:00):
Christian faith, but all moral traditions point us toward,
we are here to serve Life. I Think there are
ways to do that that don't mean
you need to be anti abortion.
>> Rebeca (20:12):
So let me ask you this question. I had
a woman who was talking to me about this issue. from having
listened to the show and raised in the same tradition I
was, she's struggling a little bit because it is
very, The stat that you just mentioned about there being
fewer abortions when there's a Democrat in the White House was the first
stat that I became aware of that I went, oh, well,
maybe I don't know what I think I know about this issue.
(20:34):
And that's what made me start digging into
what if my goal is to actually
protect and nurture Life? Let me set the political
rhetoric aside, let me set what I've
been taught or the talking points aside and really dig into this.
What can I actually do as an individual
with my behaviors and my choices that actually is going to
(20:54):
protect and nurture Life? Let's just set aside political parties
and all that stuff for a second and get to the root of it. And that
was that it was because of that stat. I was like, whoa, that doesn't
jive with what I thought I knew. But this
woman was talking to me, and I
felt for her because I remember the days
when I was first learning, and it's so jarring
(21:14):
to think it makes you question everything that you've ever thought that
you knew. And that is an incredibly difficult position to be
in because it feels like your world is crumbling because you
thought you had it all figured out and you knew how to be right and you knew how to be
wrong, and you knew how to please God and you knew how to upset God, and
now you realize maybe not. And she said to
me, her m main concern. I'm not going to get the quote
(21:35):
quite right, but her main concern was she
said, if I believe what I'm learning
by listening to right to Life, and I go in there
and I vote yes on this amendment which will
allow abortion to be accessible to women in the state
of Florida up to the point of fetal viability, which is around 22,
23 weeks, and I'm wrong,
I have to answer for that when I face God in the next
(21:58):
life. And what will I say to him? What am I going
to say to God? And I had answers for her, of
course, because I've had to wrestle with it myself. But as a pastor,
what's the pastoral answer to that?
>> Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (22:11):
Well, the first thing is that I think
you're asking a morally serious question.
So, it's. I wouldn't dismiss
it by any means. this is a morally serious question.
Life is precious. And you, know,
to have to grapple with
what we do to
cultivate and welcome Life and sustain
(22:34):
Life. I mean, yeah, these are fundamental moral
issues. I think it's possible even for people who,
for their own issues of conscience
and even in their own religious traditions who would not
support abortion, to support
a political system in which people
do have the freedom
(22:54):
to make the decisions that they believe are
right and to, take, political action and vote and
other things for issues that would sustain
Life. And I think we can, I mean, the
basic notion of a democracy is that we.
We believe that even though we don't all
have the same frameworks or understandings
(23:15):
of, you know, what is right in public
life, that we can, give
each person an equal voice and
argue it out in a way that we agree to live peaceably
together. That seems to me to be greatly
contested in the present moment, but
nevertheless is a tradition. Again,
as a Baptist, I, I respect and want to lean
(23:36):
into. I actually think, you know, freedom of conscience in the
Christian tradition had a lot to do with why we decided
to have a separation of church and
state and the pursuit of a kind of democracy,
where, you know, there's. There's an equal
opportunity to have your voice heard. But that, you know,
the majority will. Is going to
(23:57):
decide the direction of policy at
any given moment. that's, That's allowing a great deal of freedom to
people that you disagree with. But nevertheless, I think it's, the
greatest chance we have of living peaceably together.
>> Rebeca (24:09):
I've thought about that as well. Of. To me, at
the core of trying to
restrict, abortion or outlaw it altogether,
the core motivation at
play is someone saying,
I have made a decision about whether or not
abortion can ever be moral. I have decided that
(24:30):
every single time it is immoral, so it
should never be allowed conversation over.
That's it. We're making this the law. And while
we have plenty of laws that absolutely would abide
by that logic, this particular
issue, as you've alluded to several times of when does
Life begin? That's a question that
(24:51):
different people answer differently, depending on if they're answering from a
point of science or a point of any particular religious faith
or no particular religious faith. So
that hasn't been decided. When
should the Life in the womb
be able to be terminated and when should it not? When is it a loss and
when is it not? These are all questions still.
(25:11):
And so it strikes me that in.
>> Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (25:14):
Real quickly, since your listeners may
have heard a lot of the answers that have been
developed over the past 40 years on that,
I think it's worth just pointing out, in case you
haven't been exposed to others, that the much
longer biblical tradition, of course, is
that Life begins when you take your first breath.
(25:34):
Because the creation story is God
breathing Life into
Adam, the human being.
And so people who knew that story
and knew it as a kind of fundamental
imagination for what Life
means, where, we find meaning in Life in the
Jewish tradition, you know, that was always understood to be,
(25:56):
well, that's when life begins, which is why abortion
has had a place in Jewish
tradition for a long, long time. So anyway, when people talk about
traditional values, I think it's important to know that there's a long
tradition of reading the Bible that way.
>> Rebeca (26:09):
Okay, so I have one final question for you.
In keeping with this new tradition
that popped up in the 70s and 80s, late
70s, early 80s, about the moral Majority and all of that,
that and Paul Weirich's idea of
let's legislate, let's enact into
law our values from a Christian,
(26:30):
from an evangelical Christian perspective. That's what we're going to
make, the law. That's our goal.
Is that biblical to do that? Is that even
Christian to do that? Do we have a
responsibility to know our
values, base them in our religious tradition and
enact those traditions into law? Is that the
goal?
>> Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (26:53):
Is it Christian? Let's say this, if you know the history of the church,
there are Christians that have tried to do that at many
times in Christian history. I happen to be
descended from people who
became Baptists because the Puritans were trying to do
that in Massachusetts. Right. I mean that, that's why
Roger Williams, that's why Roger Williams started Rhode
(27:13):
island. Because Puritans had a certain
vision of what they thought, you know, a theocratic
order should be, and they imposed it on everyone in
Massachusetts. And Roger Williams and Ann
Hutchinson and others who under, who read the
Bible, believed in Jesus,
but interpreted it all very differently,
said, we believe in freedom of conscience. We believe
(27:36):
that people have a,
the freedom to choose how they want to
worship God and when and where. And actually they argued
for, well, that tradition, argued for
the religious liberty that's part of the First Amendment,
you know, to the Constitution. So there were very different ways
that, religion and public Life had been negotiated
(27:58):
when they all came together and decided to form
these United States. Part of the
discussion at the Constitutional Congress was,
what sort of public faith are we going to have? And
the agreement that the
United States would be a kind of,
religiously pluralistic setting
where there's a separation between church and
(28:20):
state, not to protect the state from the church, but rather
to protect the church from the state. And that's Roger
Williams whole image is of the
hedge, around an English garden was the image he
used. So that, you know, you don't put up the hedge
to sort of protect the wilderness you use. You put the hedge up
to protect the garden. Right. To keep the sort of
weeds and such from outside coming in.
(28:43):
The authenticity of faith was what he wanted to protect.
And so in order to do that, people
have a certain political freedom. Now,
again, I granted that other people interpret that
differently, but, for me, and in terms of how
I understand who we are as people and who
God created us to be, I think that that freedom is
(29:04):
actually an essential gift of what it means to be
human. I read the creation story
as God
giving humans the gift of life
and then giving us the gift of
freedom. Right. That we can
choose to live
(29:24):
the good Life that God offers us.
The Life that, you know, Jesus calls
eternal Life, the kind of Life that can go on forever. We have the
freedom to choose that, but God also gives us the freedom to
reject it. And that's, That's, you know, in the creation
story. That's the source of kind of all the
consternation and, you know, complex drama
(29:44):
that has brought us to where we are in the present.
It's all rooted in the. In the, in the fact
that people, are given the choice we didn't
have. We didn't have to do right. And we often
don't choose to do right. But, God thinks that freedom
is more important than forcing us to
sort of, you know, comply to some vision.
>> Rebeca (30:05):
So I think what you're telling me is that it's not very
godlike to not give people a choice.
>> Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (30:10):
Yeah, that's how I read the Bible.
>> Rebeca (30:11):
Yeah, I'm reminded.
>> Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (30:13):
And when, you know, and when I think about.
When I think about having to make a decision about
whether women have a choice
about what happens with their bodies,
it is a very moral decision for
me. And if I have to make that decision, you
know, in any political context, I think
(30:35):
choosing. Choosing to affirm
the choice that people have
to determine their
own, you know, bodily
future is, in line with what God offers to all of
us.
>> Rebeca (30:52):
You know, I told you before we, started recording, we were getting to
know each Other just a little bit. I said, I told you I used to read the
Bible all the way through every year. And a lot of
it, you know, I did hide in my heart that I might not sin against
thee. And so a lot of it comes to mind when I'm having these
conversations and I just keep hearing that
echo of that verse of choose you
this day whom you will serve. But as for me, in my house, we will serve the Lord,
(31:14):
which is in Joshua. And it's like that, that
presupposes that there was a choice to be made, that
there's always a choice to be made. We get to individually
make our choices. And so it's really interesting
to hear you talk about. Yeah, that's, that's our, that's our tradition, that's
our faith. That's the God we know is God's giving
us choice. So the idea of
(31:34):
placing ourselves in a position in others lives
where we feel like, no, I can take your choice
away. I mean that if, I guess if we had a God
who removed our choice, then that would make sense. But it doesn't seem
to align with the Scriptural God, the Southern Baptist
God, the Christian God, the God that we know who,
as you're saying, as you're explaining to us here, is saying, no,
(31:55):
I'm going to allow you to choose what
you are going to choose for you. I
think we have to extend that same courtesy to our fellow
human beings. Does that make sense?
>> Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (32:07):
It does make sense to me. And
again, as I read the biblical story,
the incredible thing about the story is
the way that grace works.
Even as humans make
choices that are less than
perfect.
Even in the stories we have, even the stories of our saints,
(32:29):
you know, the stories of the great, you know,
mothers and fathers of the tradition, they
don't always necessarily make the right choice.
But somehow
Hebrews can say that a
character like David was a person
after God's own heart. Even though if you know
(32:49):
David's story, I mean, the brother was all.
>> Rebeca (32:51):
Doesn't appear to be.
>> Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (32:51):
He made some bad, bad choices, right?
>> Rebeca (32:53):
It did, yeah.
>> Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (32:56):
I just think that at the heart of the story is that, sense
that God wants to
have a real relationship with us. God says,
look, you might mess up sometimes. I
want a real relationship with you. So I'm going to let you
choose and I'm going to be here and I'm going
to love you. That seems to me that's
the story of the Bible. Mm.
>> Rebeca (33:17):
Well, this is, we've been talking with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove Hartgrove. And thank
you so much for coming on right to life and sharing this with
us. I have wanted to find a pastor to come on and talk
with us about these things, and it is my utter delight to find a
Southern Baptist one to come on because of my own
tradition.
>> Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove (33:33):
So thank you for doing this. As I am a
pastor, let me just say I, you know, I have lots of
conversations about this issue, that
part of being a pastor is you promise not to say everything you hear.
So I'm not going to repeat all that.
But what I can say is that I know
that what you're talking to people about here on your
(33:53):
podcast is something that a lot of people are wrestling
with. And I appreciate you
creating a forum where people who can talk openly
about it are talking openly about it, because I know there are a lot of
people, probably your listeners,
who might not have a place where they can talk about this
and hear what others think. So thank you for cultivating
this space.
>> Rebeca (34:13):
Oh, thank you for that. That was kindness. Thank you.
Here in Florida, we are less than two weeks
from voting day. I'm unsure if
be able to get another episode to you before then,
(34:36):
but I think if we don't, time spent
with a Southern Baptist pastor is a fitting close to
this chapter of the conversation about abortion,
because that tradition is the root from whence I
came. It seems right and
good to have come full circle in this way,
doesn't it? Anytime I
chase wisdom, there's a point when
(34:58):
I need to assemble before me all that I've
learned and decide my reaction to
it, find the wisdom in
it, the thing that is going
to inform my steps moving
forward. In nine
episodes, we have heard from an
OBGYN. She told us that 95% of
(35:21):
abortions happen before the first 15 weeks anyway
and that states with restrictive abortion laws
now have double the maternal deaths
of those without restrictive laws.
We heard from an attorney. He told us that this
amendment does not remove the legal
requirements to get parental consent
(35:41):
for minors to have abortions,
that it restricts abortion up to the point of
fetal viability, and that both that
word and the words health care
provider are clearly defined
legal and medical terms, so nobody has
to guess about their meanings or interpretations.
(36:01):
We heard from a theologian who read to us
a doctrinal paper written by multiple
evangelical pastors in the 1960s that,
ah, affirmed the necessity of abortion access
for the lives of, women.
She also shared with us that God allows
66% of fertilized eggs
(36:22):
to naturally not result in a
live birth which sure begged the question in my mind
of whether God himself is pro Life
according to the modern day Life begins at
conception requirement.
We heard from a pastor who reminded us
that the God of both the Bible
(36:44):
and Christian tradition
gives choice and
that lets me know that God values humans
having choices regardless of whether
the options on the table are good or bad.
We heard from a woman named Sam
whose story let us know that without
(37:04):
abortion she would have died from
her pregnancy and
that death would not only have robbed her two
existing children and her husband of her and their lives,
but it also meant we would not
have the Life of her third child who was
born one year later.
(37:25):
We heard from another woman, Emily, whose
story let us know that there can be gut
wrenching complications when a woman is
pregnant with more than one child
and that by choosing abortion for one of
hers she was able to save the
Life of the other. And that's how we
(37:45):
have beautiful, sparkly 13 year old Harper
today.
I have said to you multiple times that this show
does not exist to tell you
how to vote. I have
not and I will not tell you
how to vote on Amendment 4.
(38:05):
I think that choice is up to you.
Your vote is yours.
My vote is mine.
We have chased wisdom here together.
We must now apply discernment toward the
information that we've uncovered and then
align that learning with our value,
(38:27):
nurture and protection of
Life. I have
completed that process. Now
my vote is a vote
for Life.
Which is why I will be
voting yes on Amendment
4.
>> Announcer (38:48):
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>> Singer (39:04):
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