Part 1 of blog: "Welcome Abby Johnson. Now be quiet." by Michael Hirsh

Dear Pro-life Warrior,

Michael Hirsh has written another hard hitting blog for ProLifeWarrior.com about superstar Abby Johnson. Here is part 1:

Welcome Abby Johnson. Now be quiet. by Michael Hirsh

Abby Johnson is a convert to the prolife cause. She, who once directed a Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas, has seen the error of her ways. She, who once was on the dole of the largest abortion provider on the planet, now spends her time preaching the prolife message. She has become the darling of talk shows, has her own little blog, and is making her mark on the speaking circuit. Indeed, she has become a big fish in a small pond.

As part of my daily prayers for the end of abortion generally and the conversion of those in the abortion industry in particular, I welcome Abby and others to the pond. But shallow as that pond may be, Abby is in way over her head. But I'm just a little fish. What do I know?

Now I'm anticipating accusatory cries that I am lacking charity. I certainly don't intend that transgression. But we live in an Idol culture that presumes that a celebrity speaks as an oracle of God by an ex officio authority conferred by virtue of their celebrity.

Abby is young and zealous, which is both refreshing and welcome. Apparently Abby lacks some gray-haired mentor who will encourage her in her faith and help direct her in her mission to right some of the wrongs she has rightly admitted. At the same time that mentor should charitably whisper in her ear, “Abby, shut up. You're going to embarrass yourself.”

Case in point: Recently, Abby took to her blog and expressed her “vehement” opposition to the death penalty. In one short piece she fails to understand several distinctions: between forgiveness and consequences; between feelings and facts; between temporal and eternal; and, between personal and jurisprudential.

First, Abby opines about a few sinners, including herself, who have been forgiven abundantly even more than is deserved. I don't want to be too picky here, but words mean things (at least they used to, but that was before Facebook), but no forgiveness is deserved. None. Nada. Zilch. If it is deserved, then grace and mercy are nothing more than a little artificially sweetened icing on the whole salvation cake.

In short, God doesn't owe us diddly. It is only by His unmerited favor, His Grace, His Mercy, that I draw my next breath.

Paul described himself as the chief of all sinners. Indeed, he persecuted men, women, and children under the color of law. Echoing Paul's words for myself, my daily confession includes, “I have greatly sinned, in my thoughts, in my words, what I have done, and what I have failed to do . . . .” But I don't deserve God's forgiveness. Any of it. At all. Which is why that prayer concludes with, “Lord have mercy. Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy.”

Second, Abby is very jurisprudentially confused. Jesus taught us that if we want to be forgiven, we better be forgiving. That is the personal. We should forgive for a variety of reasons, but among them is that we have been forgiven and we want to be forgiven.

Notwithstanding the current state of American Jurisprudence, the courtroom is not about feelings. It's about justice. Holy Scriptures are replete with directions, examples, and admonitions in both the Old and New Testaments with the demands of justice. Especially in cases of murder.

Abby articulates her own conversion – the reality and sincerity of which is not in question – and then seeks exoneration because of that conversion.

Ummm, Abby, that's not the way it works. Jailhouse conversions are so commonplace, they are largely ignored. Imagine this courtroom scene:

Yo, your honor, you should let me go because I did all the things I'm accused of, but I found Jesus and, like, He's my main dude now, so you can go ahead and cut me loose. We're cool. See you at the super-fun rock band church. Right?

When I filled out my law school applications a few decades ago, there was a question that asked why I wanted to go to law school. My answer was indelicately truthful and succinct: Abortion is going to be outlawed in my lifetime and we are going to have our own Nuremberg-like tribunals for those who participated. I want to be the prosecuting attorney...

Read more stories like this on ProLifeWarrior.com

Stay tuned for Part II of Hirsh's blog that I will send out tomorrow.