A Letter from Fr. Andrew on Proposition 1

Dear Christ the King family,

I have been your rector for only a short time, so something you may not yet know about me is that I do not tend to bring politics into the pulpit. We serve Christ as our King, and that allegiance comes before every political opinion. I am writing now because what is before us is truly a matter of life and death. On Tuesday, November 3rd, Idaho will vote on Proposition 1, which would establish a right to abortion in state law. I am asking each of you who votes in Idaho to vote "No." My reasons come from Scripture, not any party.

The God of the Bible is the giver of life. He speaks the world into being and calls it good. He makes a covenant with Abraham and keeps that covenant through the gift of children, generation after generation. And in the fullness of time he came among us as we all do: conceived, carried in his mother's womb, and born. When Mary greeted Elizabeth, the unborn John leaped for joy at the presence of the unborn Christ. Life in the womb is holy ground, because God himself has been there.

Scripture is abundantly clear that this gift has a real enemy. In the garden, God promised that the woman's offspring would bruise the serpent's head, and the serpent has been hunting her children ever since. When God was about to deliver Israel from Egypt, Pharaoh ordered the Hebrew sons thrown into the Nile. The nations of Canaan gave their children to Molech, and to our shame so did Israel under her own kings; the psalmist says those children were sacrificed to demons (Ps. 106:37–38). When the Savior was born, Herod sent soldiers to Bethlehem to kill the child. In Revelation 12, St. John shows us what stood behind them all: “that ancient serpent,” now a dragon crouched before a woman in labor, waiting to devour her child. Jesus called the devil "a murderer from the beginning." From the first pages to the last, God is giving and saving lives and the enemy is taking them, and the smallest are always the first target.

St. Paul tells us that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. To be clear, our neighbors who see this differently are not our enemies, and neither is any woman who has faced a pregnancy in fear. The enemy preys on frightened mothers as well as on their children. But the Church has known from her earliest days where she must stand. The Didache, one of the oldest Christian writings outside the New Testament, instructs believers plainly that they are not to end a child's life by abortion. I am asking nothing of you that the Church has not always required.

With that said, some of you may carry this personally. I do not know your story, and I will not presume to judge it. I do know that the mercy of Jesus Christ reaches everything we have done and left undone. If this is part of your story, please know my door is open.

So I ask you to join me in voting "No" on Proposition 1. This vote is expected to be very close, and if you do not usually vote, I urge you to vote on this. But no matter the outcome, our work continues. On my first Sunday with you, we brought two children to the font, and you promised to do all in your power to support them in their life in Christ. The Church receives a child with water, with vows, and with a place at the Table. No law can do that. This work belongs to us, and reaches beyond our own children. We care for the widow and orphan, bear the burdens of the poor, and open our homes and tables so that no mother or father faces a pregnancy alone.

Whatever the count on November 3rd, Christ is King. Please join me in praying:

Almighty God, you created us in your own image: Grant us grace to contend fearlessly against evil and to make no peace with oppression; and help us to use our freedom rightly in the establishment of justice in our communities and among the nations, to the glory of your holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

In Christ,
Fr. Andrew

P.S. The last day to register to vote is Friday, October 23rd.