Who Is To Blame?
Domestic Terrorism and the Anti-Abortion Lunatics Who Encourage It.

Whatever your personal views on abortion, know this: the murder of Dr. George Tiller in the sanctuary of the Reformation Church in Wichita, Kansas this past Sunday by Scott Roeder was nothing short of an act of domestic terror. No building was brought down, or jet hijacked, or car bomb detonated. And yet, the forces that brought about this hideous act of violence within the supposed safe confines of a church sanctuary are as diabolical as the actions of those who brought about the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11. For in the final analysis, Scott Roeder was merely a pawn used by those to achieve their ends by any means necessary.

And who is to blame? All of us, that’s who. Like so many other conscientious Christians, I have written many times about the inability or unwillingness of the Church to call out the Pharisees within its ranks, to no avail. The result has been a myopic, almost single-minded movement that has taken root and come to represent what to many unbelievers is the predominant voice in Christianity. A voice which is neither predominant, nor representative of the Body of Christ.

Sick, twisted individuals like Randall Terry, who founded “Operation Rescue” in 1987, and who basically ran out on his first wife, have gone out of their way to rile up their minions to fever pitch and helped set in motion the events which culminated in Tiller’s murder. He and his ilk are as guilty as the lunatic who pulled the trigger. But all of us are culpable as well. Our silence and, yes, indifference allowed the rage against Tiller and other doctors like him to build to fever pitch, until there was no place for it to go.

When these hate-filled organizations encourage acts of violence against doctors just because they perform a procedure that is offensive to them, where is the indignation from the true believers? Did Jesus kill or encourage the killing of those who sinned? Of course not. Just the opposite. Christ loved the sinners of his time, and was more often than not seen with them. It was the proud and righteous - the religious elders – that he shunned.

2,000 years later it is still no different. Witness the statement that Terry issued immediately after the shooting. “George Tiller was a mass murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God. I am more concerned that the Obama Administration will use Tiller's killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions. Abortion is still murder. And we still must call abortion by its proper name; murder. Those men and women who slaughter the unborn are murderers according to the Law of God. We must continue to expose them in our communities and peacefully protest them at their offices and homes, and yes, even their churches.”

Where is the humility or the mercy of Christ? There is not even a miniscule of regret for his own role in inciting the very act. The word “peacefully” is comical in its context. No one who has ever had to contend with such venom would ever mistake such actions for those of peace-minded and God-loving folk. Such individuals are psychotic, nothing more, nothing less; as psychotic as the hijackers who flew those planes into the Twin Towers almost eight years ago. Worse, for the Islamic extremists who felt compelled to hate us enough to go to such lengths to kill us did not know any better. Theirs was an ideology and a philosophy that blinded them to the truth that all men are children of God. Christians, it is said, are supposed to know better. Our bible commands us to love one another, even those who do things that we consider sinful. We are to hate the sin, not the sinner.

And as long as we allow those who hate and condemn to death the sinner without reproach, and in the process allow them to define our faith for us in the eyes of the world, we will forever have the stain of innocent blood on our hands. Now is the time for all of us to speak out against this insanity; to rise up in righteous rage, like Christ did when he discovered his father’s temple was being misused. You needn’t have approved of what George Tiller did for a living to be outraged by his murder. That people who do not call themselves Christian get that is the irony or ironies; that many of our flock sadly do not is the shame of our faith.