Picture of Benjamin L. Corey

Benjamin L. Corey

BLC is an author, speaker, scholar, and global traveler, who holds graduate degrees in Theology & Intercultural Studies from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and received his doctorate in Intercultural Studies from Fuller. He is the author of Undiluted: Rediscovering the Radical Message of Jesus, and Unafraid: Moving Beyond Fear-Based Faith.

Kids Locked In Cages Aren’t So Sure You’re Actually “Pro-Life”

My fellow Christians, I get it. You’ve long and proudly identified with being “pro-life.” The term is part of your DNA, both when it comes to your faith, and how you engage politically.

In some ways it could be said that politically, there’s never been anything more important to you than those “pro-life” values– they have been the primary factor deciding how you’ve cast your vote in every election that you can remember. In fact, if we’re being honest, one could even say that your political commitment to voting “pro-life” has even trumped a host of the core values of your own faith– at least, they used to be core values you believed until a few years ago.

Your commitment to being pro-life is even how you ended up on the Trump-train, and we all know it. This promise of a pro-life Supreme Court was so important to you that you shifted from viewing Donald Trump as someone so immoral that you’d place him under church discipline if he were a member of yours, to seeing him as the most pro-life and pro-Christian president we’ve ever had.

I get it– being pro-life is that important to you.

You believe that all life has sacred worth.

You believe that discarding a human life is an offense against the God who created them.

You believe that a society who collectively devalues a human life in one situation will ultimately begin to show a collective disregard for life far beyond that.

You believe that it is critical for Christians to speak up for those who have no voice.

I get it– you’re “pro-life”, and nothing could be more important to you.

But here’s the funny thing: kids locked in cages who have been forcibly & illegally separated from their parents, kids who have no mattresses to sleep on or soap to clean with, kids who have no one to tend to them– no one to give them hope or even explain why they were taken from their parents and locked in cages where lice & flu spread like wildfire, where thousands of children and adults have been sexually abused or raped, and where they live in fear of retaliation if they report what’s happening to them, won’t be easy to convince.

Let me help you out: kids who have been ripped out of their parent’s arms and locked in cages like that aren’t so sure you’re actually “pro-life.” Instead, they’re the most compelling jury who can tell us that you are not.

And I’m sure they would probably be rather baffled if you tried to explain your whole “pro-life” commitment to them.

I mean, how would you even be able to show them a sonogram image and explain why an unborn, pea-sized heart, represents a life so precious and valuable to God that you feel it must be stood up for and protected at all cost?

How would you be able to explain to them that your commitment to “protecting children” has been your highest professed political belief your entire adult life?

How would you explain the modern concept of what it means to be “pro-life” to a child who is locked in a cage, crying for their parents, and hasn’t had their diaper changed in God-knows-how-long?

I’m betting if you tried to explain this whole “pro-life” thing you believe in to them, they’d probably just sit in silence and bewilderment.

Sure, I can imagine they’d actually really resonate with your passion about how precious a child’s life is, about how they deserve to be cared for and protected, and how someone needs to speak up for their infinite worth and value– especially when no one else is.

But I tend to think they’d be far more curious how you’re able see the sacred value of a human life inside a tiny sonogram image, but not see it inside a little black or brown body.

No, my “pro-life” friends– kids locked cages wouldn’t be all that convinced you’re actually pro-life.

Because selling the Evangelical Soul in the name of voting “pro-life” is exactly how they ended up alone and locked inside them to begin with.

Picture of Benjamin L. Corey

Benjamin L. Corey

BLC is an author, speaker, scholar, and global traveler, who holds graduate degrees in Theology & Intercultural Studies from Gordon-Conwell, and earned his doctorate in Intercultural Studies from Fuller.

He is the author of Unafraid: Moving Beyond Fear-Based Faith, and Undiluted: Rediscovering the Radical Message of Jesus.

It's not the end of the world, but it's pretty #@&% close. Trump's America & Franklin Graham's Christianity must be resisted.

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25 Responses

  1. You failed to mention that those cages were built and used by former administrations, that the parents bear responsibility for risking the well-being of their children by bringing them to a hostile place, and also that Christian families by the thousands show their commitment to pro-life principles by adopting and fostering children and do so in the name of Jesus. You don’t want to be pigeon holed by one extreme example so don’t do it to others…I think Jesus said something about that.

  2. So, what happens now? I mean since the Antichrist has already appeared…what’s next? Are we prepared? I think not. The Democrats are floundering. Who’s coming to rescue us from this e
    vil?

  3. Back in the late 70’s when anti-abortion themes started bubbling up, like Francis Schaeffer and C. Evertt Koop’s book and films, I told my conservative friends who were all excited about it all that I didn’t think Evangelicals had much credibility on the issue of “pro-life” because of their abysmal reputation on human rights. They didn’t see the connection.

    1. Because there is no connection.
      Do an experiment for us. Tomorrow take the life of one child and lock another in your basement. Then call the police and see what they say about your two connected acts.

      1. There IS a connection. Why do you want a child born, but not a child fed/clothed/cared for? Killing a child in the womb, then locking another in my basement with no food/potable water, in their own filth, and then calling the cops would result in being arrested for neglect, child endangering, and kidnapping. Regardless, we are not beholden to only our Earthly laws, but the laws of GOD who created ALL children, of EVERY race, creed and color. I imagine HE is very upset with how HIS children are being (mis)treated at our border. Jesus weeps.

  4. To be fair, it’s perfectly possible to be against abortion *and* against locking kids in cages: it’s not as if it’s either / or.
    That being said, it’s odd how Trumpistas seem to spend a lot of effort defending their man over this sort of thing: it’s almost as if they are supporting him because of it, rather than despite it.

    1. People who voted for good (Trump) against evil (Clinton) do not look at the border crisis as his personal mess. It has a long history that pre-dates many Presidents.
      The rush to dennigrate Trump over every and any issue has to do with the insatiable hatred the people out of power have and thier unrequited bloodlust for power.

  5. I hear you that it’s sad for our government to feel they have no choice but to do what they are doing with the families and children at our southern border.
    but please – can you offer a solution ?
    are you advocating unrestricted and open borders ?
    please offer a viable solution.

    but

    1. How do you get from “don’t take children away from the adults caring for them, transport them all the way across the country and lock them up in insanitary conditions, with no proper beds, care or education” to “unrestricted and open borders”? You are going to have to explain why it is you are making the bizarre assertion this is somehow necessary before you can start bleating about “what’s the alternative?” How about just not doing it and providing humane and suitable accommodation instead?

      1. We do, we are and we have. Your concerns are based on insatiable hatred for our President masked as a crusader for good.

    2. Can we contain our carbon emissions, our tainted oceans and our religious colonization behind our completely closed and restricted borders?

      Where do those in Central America go to seek refuge from the food shortages and pursuant crime due to change in climate? Do they have ten years to wait for a welcomed immigration to the United States of America? Unless you’re Native American did your immigrating relatives have ten years to wait?

      ” Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” “

      God didn’t make a geographical portion of mankind in their image. They created all of mankind, as one entity, (God is one entity; Father, Son, the Spirit of truth, and all the children of God) in their image.

      Solutions, supported by God, are obvious to us, their children, when we love our mankind neighbor no more and/or less than we do ourselves, and we, students of the living Christ, love in empathy our enemy.

      If your life, as might, also, be each life of those you love as yourself, is threatened with certain suffering and death (socially, physically and/or spiritually) due to local conditions, do you meekly remain to die within your borders of birth … or would you dare to attempt to seek life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, for you and yours, elsewhere on this singularly secured earth that has been gifted to, filled by and subdued by the one body of mankind?

      “God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.””

      1. So glad to hear from you again my friend.
        My frist thought after reading your comment was to make sure the Central Americans know there is only 12 years left so why come here?

        1. … possibly, to make the best of those 12 years, for themselves and theirs? I’d prefer walking 2,000 miles for a slim chance of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for me and mine than doing nothing but watch those I love suffer and die all around me.

    3. There is a solution. If the people who were elected to serve us decided to solve the problem they could. Professional politicians have been exposed by President Trump for what they are: inept, corrupt, self-serving and Godless.

      1. When nothing that would “serve us” can be brought to the floor of the Senate, or have a chance to be signed by the President because the wrong party initiated the bill, where is your “solution”?

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