Question and answers

 Courtesy of R. Albert Mohler-- his answer to the following question:  

"Would You Explain Why Many Evangelicals Were Confused About Abortion When Roe Was Handed Down? "

Finally, a question coming from Malachi, who in this context is a grand old man in his mid-40s, according to the email. He's looking at the fact that in the United States, before Roe v. Wade, and for that matter, in the years immediately following Roe v. Wade, it was clear that many Protestant Christians, many evangelical Christians hadn't thought through the abortion issue at all.

He's asking, "Why? What made the change?" Well, I think I can answer this pretty quickly. You're right, Roman Catholics, given Roman Catholic teaching and struggle with this issue, frankly, in other cultural contexts have prepared them to deal with this issue, when most evangelicals were unprepared.

Furthermore, the issue of abortion, as you're looking at the United States, before Roe v. Wade was really regionalized. And the very areas in which abortion was most hotly contested were the areas where you had the fewest evangelicals and the lowest evangelical proportion in the community. And so that's not an excuse, it's just to say that Roe v. Wade is hard for people, say, older than I am to understand this, but Roe v. Wade was a total shock to evangelical Christians in the United States, virtually no one saw that coming.

So Malachi, it turns out that was the wake-up call. There's no excuse for being unprepared, but that was basically where evangelical Christians were. And that showed up in some confusion, especially right after Roe v. Wade. And some evangelicals said some really regrettable things. And, yes, thankfully, most of them at least grew to regret what they had said. And working towards a consistent pro-life position took a bit of time.

But fast forward to about the year 1980, so 1973, Roe v Wade, 1980's presidential election, and least the good news is that within less than a decade, evangelicals had increasingly figured this out.

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