Recently a good Christian man in the Portland area killed his pregnant wife and four (including the Unborn) children. There were no signs of the kind of thing that usually accompanies such a terrible act – or were there?

Many a Christian has noted that it is obvious that one of the main reasons why there is so much violence in our society is because we have accepted the shedding of the innocent blood of our children in abortion. We are amazed that the society around us is utterly blind to the connection.

Maybe it is the blood in their eyes.

This connection between the legalizing of innocent blood leading to more innocent bloodshed is not new. God warned Israel, “Since you did not hate bloodshed, bloodshed will pursue you.” (Ezekiel 35: 6) Could it be that we are blind to a connection of our own?

I have long been frustrated by the apathy of the Church on abortion. Sure, we all say we’re against it, but what do we do? Virtually nothing.

The question is: Why?

I believe it has to do with the Church’s own participation in shedding innocent blood. As astonishing as this may sound to you, it is true. The internal polls in the abortion industry shows that about one in five aborting women is a self-described “evangelical Christian.” You may argue that the abortionists have a vested interest in inflating such numbers, but the famous George Barna polls show the same thing.

It is hard to imagine that all of these aborting evangelical women managed to hide this from their husbands, fathers, pastors, etc. Yet this is only the beginning.

Evangelicals use the Pill and the Intrauterine Device (IUD) for birth control at the same rate as nonbelievers. The problem is that these two methods are abortifacient. All the forms of the Pill and IUD act, at least sometimes, to abort a conceived child.

When attempts are made to show this to Christians – pastors, married couples – the first response is denial. We – much like our worldly counterparts – cannot seem to envision a world where we could not be in control of our own childbearing “choices.” We so much want to hold on to that control, that we are willing to risk murdering our children.

Could it be the blood in our eyes?

What is the source of all this denial? Why is it so hard to see the child in the womb as truly and fully human? Why is it so hard for us to “hate bloodshed” so much that we will not only stand up publicly for the Unborn but surrender our “choices” to God?

The first thing that the Serpent said to Eve was, “Hath God said?” He tempted Eve to question both the Word and the goodness of God. This is what has happened here in the Church.

God says children are a blessing – an inheritance from the Lord. We have decided that children are a burden and not a blessing.

Look at the blessings in just a single verse, Deuteronomy 28:11: “And the LORD shall make thee plenteous in goods, in the fruit of thy body, and in the fruit of thy cattle, and in the fruit of thy ground, in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers to give thee.” (KJV)

I don’t know even one Christian who would have difficulty receiving the following from that list:

1. Plenteous in goods,
2. Plenteous in the fruit of thy cattle,
3. Plenteous in the fruit of thy ground, and
4. Plenteous in land.

Yet when God seeks to bless us with the one out of the list called our “heritage” (Psalms 127:3), we balk.

So, like Esau, we despise our inheritance. (Genesis 25:34) We will sell it for a better house or car, or maybe for a “better education” for the other child we already have. Either way, we sell our inheritance for what we think is better – what will bring temporal satisfaction.

It seemed so important to Esau to eat the lentil soup. He needed nourishment, right? Look at what he lost.

All of our plans are so important, too, aren’t they? We have killed our children for our plans.

Small wonder we are willing to risk the death of our children. Small wonder we cannot see (or actually sympathize with) the murder of countless Unborn innocents.

Just as we did not see immediate society-wide implications of violence after abortion was legalized, so we do not yet see Church-wide bloodshed.

We don’t see the kind of thing that happened in Portland on a regular basis. It is irrelevant whether they were using birth control. The universal acceptance within the Church of sacrificing our children to our own ideas of what our future should look like is sufficient to leave us thinking we can dispense with them.

Are we willing to see the connection? Or will we be content to have blood in our eyes?