David: Pro life, pro choice. How many times have you heard those words in the news these past weeks?

Karen: You asking me? And how many times in the last week or two have you spoken those words? I’m including our listeners in this as well. Pro life or pro choice?

David: With all the times those expressions have been used lately, have you heard anything new regarding the two positions?

Karen: Or have you said anything that’s new about being pro life or pro choice?

David: Is there anything new to be said?

Karen: Well you think there is and after a long conversation with you, I think there is too. So stick around here.

Intro: Welcome to the Before We Go Podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his wife, noted author Karen Mains. Here’s David at Karen Mains.

David: Karen, list is blurted out right at the start. We believe that God is pro life and pro choice.

Karen: Wow, okay that puts it right up there. That’s a theological positioning, not a political positioning, but this is where we’re starting. We’re looking at the nature of God. Pro life and pro choice, he’s both and that belief that he’s both has a lot of ramifications most of us don’t think about.

David: One of the obvious characteristics of God in scripture is that he is life. It’s one of his primary attributes. In fact, scripture begins with creation and God breathing into man the breath of life.

Karen: So we’re going to conduct what we call a scripture survey right now. We’re not going to get all of the scriptures with this reference.

David: Good. You’re going to the Psalms, okay?

Karen: So there’s a lot. For instance, in Psalm 369, the Psalmist David writes, for with you is the fountain of life.

David: Okay, I’m going to go to the prophets. This is Isaiah chapter 42 verse 5. This is what the Lord says, he who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people and life to those who walk in it.

Karen: Lovely, isn’t it? The apostle John.

David: We’re getting a New Testament when you say John.

Karen: It’s a New Testament right here exactly, who writes often about God being life. And here his words are in the opening chapter of his gospel. This is so lovely. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. And then he goes on in John 6, quotes Jesus saying, I am the bread of life. A short while later, he amplifies that statement with these words. I tell you the truth. He who believes in me, again, this is Jesus, he who believes in me has everlasting life. John in 11:25, as Jesus saying to Martha, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even though he dies. What extraordinary words. I mean, how do you process that? John 14:6, I’m going through John. I am the way and the truth and the life.

David: If I pick up with what you used there, John from the gospel, here’s John in his epistles chapter 1 verses 1 and 2, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at, and our hands have touched. This we proclaim concerning the word of life. The life appeared. We have seen it and we testify to it. We proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and has appeared to us. So again, that repeats over and over again. First John 5:11-12. And this is the testimony God has given us eternal life. And this life is in his son. He who has the son has life. He who does not have the son of God does not have life.

Karen: You just need time to process this and think about what all these scriptures are saying. I mean, they’re profound, I don’t think we really plumb the depth of them the way we should. So what do these verses, all these verses, what do they say to us?

David: I would say, Karen, they say you cannot separate Jesus and life. It’s like they are fused together.

Karen: So if someone is pro-life.

David: Well, I think if somebody is pro-life, it’s a great slogan. It certainly implies that pro-lifers have tapped into a key aspect of who God is and what he wants.

Karen: So can we do the same thing with the concept of pro-choice, not the political concept of pro-choice, but the phrase pro-choice?

David: Yeah, I think we can. From the beginning of the time, God has granted human beings the freedom of making their own choices that is integral to scripture.

Karen: Now people make good choices and they also make bad choices, that it’s characteristic of God to grant people that option. So let’s go back to Genesis and the Garden of Eden since this is the first dramatic incident of God doing that.

David: Well, if you go into scripture, what does it say in the very beginning? God gives Adam and Eve in the garden a choice. He doesn’t say you have to do this. He says there are consequences, but I’m granting you the choice. So choice is characteristic of God all through the scripture.

Karen: The choice was you can enjoy this whole paradise, but there’s one restriction.

David: Yeah.

Karen: And you’re not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They took our fruit.

David: Yeah, but when they do, death is introduced, but they have a choice. Here’s Moses in Deuteronomy 30 verses 19 and 20. Moses is 120 years old at the time. He’s going to be replaced by Joshua. You know I’m 84, I think 120. That’s really getting old. Moses says, this day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curses. Now choose life so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God. Listen to his voice and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But what he’s saying is make the right choice, but it’s your choice.

Karen: Joshua 24. Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods, your forefathers worship beyond the river and in Egypt and serve the Lord. But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve. Whether the gods, your forefathers serve beyond the river or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. That’s an interesting choice, isn’t it? I mean he’s told them what he thinks they should do, but he says if you’re going to choose, then go ahead and choose. But my example to use, I’m going to choose the Lord.

David: If we go to the prophets again, one of the strange prophets is Jonah.

Karen: This is an interesting pro-choice story.

David: Well God gives Jonah a choice whether he will be obedient to him or not, but he goes a long way to cornering much more so than he does in our lives or in most people’s lives. But Jonah, I want you to go to Nineveh.

Karen: He wants him to take a prophetic word of judgment to the sinful people of Nineveh and Jonah doesn’t like those Ninevites. He doesn’t like God’s idea and he certainly doesn’t want to preach a sermon of judgment on them.

David: Yeah, but God’s not done with Jonah. Jonah is going to run away. I don’t like your choice.

Karen: Gets on a shove, great storms come up. He knows he’s the problem.

David: He’s got lots and lots of fallen Jonah.

Karen: He tells the sailors to… throw me overboard. And they do throw him overboard in the storm that was taking down the sailing vessel stops. And then what happens? We should ask our grandchildren, I bet they know this story. Yeah, they know. What happened then grandpa?

David: Let’s try, God say, let’s try three days in the belly of the fish.

This is what you’re talking about as far as being free choice. Okay.

David: Jonah is very unusual. You know, well the truth is that Jonah preaches. Finally he submits to what God wants and there’s a huge revival.

Karen: Well the people were ready for that, which is what God knew, but Jonah didn’t know that.

David: Jonah is still mad as a man as hops.

Karen: He is. Even after this extraordinary repentance and turning their face away from their evil, he’s still mad at God.

David: Yeah, he did. I didn’t want to do it. I knew you were going to be gracious to these people. I knew you wouldn’t rain down fire like I hoped.

Karen: But he did have a choice. I wouldn’t put this exactly in the free will category.

David: Oh, he got cornered.  That was a dead end. Let’s try this one. But he’s unusual. And most of the time it is this incredible choice. In fact, you get to the New Testament, Karen, and the Son of God. Jesus, our wonderful Savior, he doesn’t go chasing after people. He says you have a choice, and then he kind of leaves them to do as they want with that choice. That passage about the rich, young ruler.

Karen: Yeah, that’s an interesting one, isn’t it? This rich, young ruler comes to Jesus. I think his question is, what do I do to inherit eternal life? And this is an interesting phrase for him to ask because he is the sign of great wealth. His family has great wealth. And Jesus says to him, sell all your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. And I think that answer was to this young, wealthy man because his inheritance was his focus. That was his God.

David: Jesus doesn’t say, pray this prayer after me.

Karen: Yeah. You have a choice. And the young man, the young, wealthy man, chooses not to follow him.

David: He walks away.

Karen: He cannot give up that earthly God.

David: Yeah, and Jesus doesn’t chase after him. You know, let’s negotiate this again. But you give little time to understand the truth of my… He just, he’s sad. The man walks away and it’s too bad.

Karen: The next example is the one of Judas, one of the twelve disciples. This is a really interesting story because Judas does have a choice here. And yet the horrific choice he makes, God uses to work out his plan of redemption. And of course, we know the story of Judas who… We don’t know if he was trying to activate something, bringing down the kingdom or something that he’d been preaching. We don’t know what his motives were in this. But he sold Jesus to the Jewish authorities.

David: Yeah, after three years of following him.

Karen: Three years of following him, seeing the miracles for 30 pieces of silver.

David: Yeah, Jesus was gracious to him right up to the very end. But he allowed him this choice. So choice is very much a part of who God is. There’s no question about that.

Karen: And the story ends badly for Judas because he realizes that he’s given them into the hands of the authority.

David: Well, if somebody, Karen, is pro-choice, I would say again, it’s a great slogan because it represents that pro-choice people have tapped into who God is and how he relates to his world. So there can be both that a person says, pro-choice is a biblical thing, not the way it’s come out politically.

Karen: Not in the political dialogue, necessarily.

David: But it’s how God relates to us. He is pro us making the choice. He’s not going to force his will. He is pro life. And my personal feeling is that we can be both of these. I like it to understand both of them because there is truth on both sides.

Karen: This is a little sticky wicked, but I think your purpose of taking us down this path is going to get to the point where we say we need to listen to one another, not just lob these. And then this is in the environment we’re living in today and the political consequences of that environment.

David: And we need to be careful to listen, to see where God is in all of this. And I’m not saying that God is on either side politically. Karen, I just want to insert here that we are very privileged people. We have traveled the world over. We’ve been in over 50 countries. We’ve seen the underbelly of the world.

Karen: And as a journalist, the door is open to me to write about the poverty of the world. So I dragged through more refugee camps than I can count.

David: You were gone for a month. I had the kids and you were going into what were some of the…

Karen: Well, Southeast Asia, that whole area of the world, starting with Hong Kong. And then, you know, it was immigrant refugees, war torn area refugees. And, you know, I have had the experience of having someone offer me their baby several times.

David: You say that so casually.

Karen: If I were a mother and loved my child, I knew what kind of future was ahead of them. You know, this was not an act of desperation. It was an act of love. You, a Western woman, can take care of my child better than I can take care of my child.

David: I’m wanting to have people understand that we are pro-choice and pro-life, but we’re giving just a little bit of background. One of the books, Karen, that I read, you actually gave it to me. It was a book by Melinda Gates. And I don’t remember the title, but it had the lift in it.

Karen: Moment of Lift.

David: Moment of Lift. That’s what it was.

Karen: When the plane is taking off, the moment of lift.

David: The air comes under those wings. All of a sudden, you realize you’re flying because you can feel it. And she’s saying, what will that moment of lift be for people in terms of the world if we really help them? We have incredible resources, but we don’t want to throw it away. We want to say what will really lift people. And Melinda Gates is interesting. They didn’t sit in a room somewhere in a nice hotel and try to figure out what they would do for the people.

Karen: She talks about conferences among the moneyed in England, and then you send gobs of money all over the world. And what she began to do, which is so important, I mean, it’s so important. I think that’s what we’re trying to get to in this pro-life pro-choice dialogue that is heated today. She began to listen to the women in those countries who were impoverished.

David: She saw what we saw but even more so.

Karen: Oh yes, she spent hours with them. Hours and days. Because of the foundation, I mean they grant millions and billions of dollars probably to these institutions around the world.

David: They have a little bit more money than we do.

Karen: Yeah, true. But in her book, in that book you mentioned, she was totally transformed by listening. By going into these little villages and listening to women. Of course, they have genital mutilation. And these young girls are often just ruined for life. They bleed. It’s hard to stop the bleeding. Their ability to procreate is ruined. They can’t have children. I mean, it’s just horrific stories. So she began to listen by the hour of country after country. And she makes a point of this, is you don’t just send your money from England or wherever it is. You go and you listen to what the people, you decide what they want. And with women, she decided they needed to have help understanding the whole family planning issue. Using birth control to prevent or spaceout births or to keep themselves from getting pregnant.

David: You have to put her into a world of understanding that these women don’t know enough as to how to stop having babies.

Karen: Many of us don’t even know what menstrual periods are about. So the more she learned and listened about the struggles of poor women in Africa and Asia, including the discrimination and abuse they faced from husbands who, for example, beat their wives for using birth control, the stronger her voice became. She has this extraordinary story of a woman who had gone through their health systems. I mean, they send people to live in villages for four to five to six years because there’s a training program that goes on. Having gone through all of these training programs, the baby was born at a health center, was breast feeding. You know, they’d all been trained because a lot of places they don’t even know how to do that sometimes. And this woman asked Melinda if she wanted her baby because the thought of raising it in this culture. Let me make one other point about what she learned, what Melinda learned.

David: Let me just make a point about us. We had four children, right? And there was a certain point where we said we need to stop having children.

Karen: To be responsible, be responsible to our calling into the children that we do.

David: But we had so many resources to be able to make an intelligent decision. Many, many people in the world don’t have the resources we have. So if you just think about this from an American perspective,

Karen: Middle class American perspective.

David: You can very quickly label someone like a Melinda Gates and say, well, is she pro-choice or pro-life? Well, she’s obviously pro-choice. You know, well, those are unfortunate categorizations.

Karen: Well, they would say she is. I would say she’s pro-life and pro-choice.

David: I agree. I agree with what you said.

Karen: Let me just say what she learned because this comes out in all the literature and I’ve worked on international development boards that when you empower the women in any impoverished country, you raise the entire level of the entire country. This is from village to community to entire nations. Their national total amount of money is raised often by as much as 40%. So I worked on a board where the women’s cycle of life was developed, that was taken out to all the trainers, most of whom were internationals across the world.

David: These are Christian people who do this teaching to help people understand.

Karen: Everything that is needed to understand about the women’s whole cycle of life from birth on to death. The men didn’t even know these things in those villages and they were so taken with what their wives were learning, what the women were learning, that they begged for a men’s cycle of life and that eventually became compressed into a family cycle of life. This thing has gone all over the world, all over the world. And it does exactly what Melinda Gates was doing. It started with a deep listening process. The teaching tools were developed in community with those people who they were listening to, trialed in those communities that just had the most extraordinary impact as well around the world that is a very faith-based, overtly Christian organization that has given this away and it’s extraordinary thing. I got to be a part of that.

David: We’re sounding more and more like we are pro-choice and the answer to that is yes we are and we are also pro-life. Very pro-life. Yeah, we feel strongly about that but what I do feel most strongly is that the sides don’t listen to each other and I don’t think that people have to be forced to be one or the other and now in terms of what’s happening in our country obviously because of the Supreme Court and the vacancy created by the death of Ruth Ginsburg, what people are doing is they’re not listening to each other and they’re saying you have to be on our side. If somehow we could say both sides.

Karen: Tell me where you’re coming from. Tell me why you’re there.

David: Yeah and then we listen to say is that a godly thing? Yeah. Is it good to give people wise choices? If we can hear each other. You know it’s almost like the end of the world is coming now because of a Supreme Court appointment. I don’t like it when people demonize the other side if we could just listen and be grateful and try to say where is God in all this.

Karen: I think that a lot of people in some of our circles who land adamantly on the pro-choice side haven’t dealt with the little 12-year-old who’s been incested by a father or a father figure, a grandfather very frequently. And we talked with the pediatrician and wonderful christian man who worked in those lower income levels and the stories that you hear totally shift your compassion. You may not shift your stand but it will shift your compassion. You’ll all of a sudden have a feeling for why this is important to some income groups and why we need to be open to hearing where people are coming from and we fortunately if it had been in those places we worked 10 years in our city. And our thinking coming from Protestant evangelical suburban christianity mostly white was shifted in ways that we couldn’t even measure and it just informed our understanding on where the pro-choice side came from.

David: What was I remember that conversation with the pediatrician? What was he saying?

Karen: Well he said you have to take a totally different viewpoint. I mean he was basically saying that when you have patient after patient of young girls coming in.

David: Young girl meaning how old?

Karen: Well from whenever they can conceive which

David: 12 or 13.

Karen: Yeah.

David: And they conceive because of…

Karen: Well it can be some older person you know takes them on and says this is the way I love you so much. I mean it’s a seduction process.

David: I think the person he was referring to because we knew the young woman it was her father.

Karen: I’ve done a book on child sexual abuse. Grandfathers, uncle, family members are more dangerous than the dangerous stranger.

David: It’s a different world than the one in which we had been raised.

Karen: Yeah absolutely.

David: And you begin to say this is a bigger problem than I was aware of.

Karen: So we need to listen to those people who are coming from I don’t want to say this just as lower income but we don’t most of us are not exposed to that dialogue enough nor do we seek to be nor do we question the ones who have had that experience in their background substantively enough to make them pro-choice and pro-life.

David: Yeah I am in a position where I say it’s very hard to remove the passion from what is going on. I say okay just help me please understand here’s where I’m confused so on so. I remember those actually were in the city 11 years so you knocked off a year there. So we were there and it was so helpful and then Karen to be able to travel overseas and you realized that the problems in our country America. There’s nothing compared to the problems of so many places in the world and I like that Melinda Gates when she went to these places didn’t say let me tell you how to solve this. No she’s telling me about your world.

Karen: She was a little angry about all the men in positions of ecclesiastical authority who are making decisions over women’s lives without any.

David: She’s Roman Catholic.

Karen: Yeah I mean she comes to very strongly how they really shouldn’t be the ones making decisions on contraception. I have one other little story on awakening. We had a woman from poverty who came to our church, Circle Church, in Chicago who I remember her name I can see her face and she had two or three children but wasn’t married. The social system at that time and I’m ashamed I don’t know what it is right now would give her age dependent children according to each child. If she married she would lose the age dependent children.

David: I had to encourage her to get married because these were two new Christians.

Karen: Right and you had there was a gentleman. They were in a relationship with each other and you encouraged them to get married.

David: Yeah I thought that would be good but she was terrified. She would lose all of that income and they still were very she didn’t work and couldn’t because of the kids and he had a very low paying job. So what do you do with that? You know that was the real life dilemma that she was in and it just for us changed our concept and understanding of how tenuous even government aid is for many of these people. We don’t really understand the system.

David: I don’t know what people are feeling as they are listening to us.

Karen: Maybe a little angry. I hope so.

David: No I don’t hope so at all. I don’t hope so.

Karen: When I get angry start to think clearly.

David: I try to put into a sentence what it is we’re saying and this is not biblical.

Karen: Not anti. This is a David Mains summary.

David: And the summary is my frustration. Christians who see God as pro-choice and pro-life are frustrated when forced to choose one side or the other. Can I say it again? Christians who see God as pro-choice and pro-life are frustrated when forced to choose one side or the other. And I want to be able to say I hear you and that’s very good and I hear you and that’s very good but let’s talk to one another and love.

Karen: So we would love to invite our listeners into this dialogue and we do that by having them email us or they can pick up the phone and say I want to hash this out with you. You know make it clearer. We have a variety of means we want to stay in touch with our listeners. So this is a topic that I don’t think has a neat conclusion. You’ve left us with paradox. You’ve left us with mystery. You’ve left us in the middle of tensions that we seem to be pulling apart from one another.

David: Okay that’s all wrong. I think I have left people with hope.

Karen: Okay.

David: That’s what I want to do because I don’t think we have to believe that because of what’s going on one side or the other the whole country is going to fall apart. Okay it’s now we’ve stepped over a line and never recover again. I don’t believe all of that. I understand that if we keep lobbing verbal grenades at one another it could be a very difficult day but I think we have to say let us listen to one another. Let us say I want to carefully hear what you’re saying and then when asked to explain a position don’t say it in a way that makes the other person feel you know like they’re the dumbest individual in the whole. Let us learn from one another and let us say we can move along. We can live with this especially we can if we are church people you know because God honors choice. He doesn’t corner people and then just beat them until they submit. He says you have a choice. He also honors life and these are very important things. What do you think? You think we’re going to get a lot of negative response?

Karen: I think people want to be a part of this kind of conversation. So I hope that we get a lot of good response.

David: I hope so too. Anyway let’s stop for now. Dean?

Outgo: David and Karen, you certainly have given our listeners some things to think about. It’s important to emphasize as you both did several times during this podcast that in talking about God being both pro-life and pro-choice you are not speaking about a political position. It may also prove helpful to our listeners to know that both of you believe that a human’s life begins at conception and that abortion is the taking of a human life. Dear listeners we very much look forward to hearing from you regarding your thoughts and reactions to this particular podcast. And if you would like to write to us please send us an email at the following address hosts@beforewego.show. That’s all lowercase letters hosts@beforewego.show. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast please remember to rate, review and share on whatever platform you listen. This podcast is copyright 2020 by Mainstay Ministries, Post Office Box 30, Wheaton, Illinois 60187.