This speech was given by Megan Basham at the 2024 SBC Event: SBC at a Crossroads, hosted by Founders Ministries and the Center for Baptist Leadership.

So I’d like you all to imagine for a moment. You’ve just started a new job and on your first day your supervisor tells you that at 2 pm every afternoon the entire company pauses to “carve out time for their spirits. To “connect with their divine source.” And to “honor the sacred world.”

As a Christian, this New Age jargon sets off alarm bells in your mind. But you decide to keep your reservations to yourself. (You don’t want to look like a fundamentalist!) Then your boss leads you to an all-white room he calls a “communal space” where he rings a “sacred meditation bell” three times.

A “spiritual engagement coordinator” steps forward, lights incense and invites you, along with the rest of the staff, to sit in the lotus position and close your eyes. He then tells you that he is going to lead you through a 20-minute “sacred pause” designed to deepen your relationship with yourself. He tells you this “sacred” meditation with yourself (he really likes the word sacred) is being done to the benefit of all beings everywhere.

This little eastern mysticism scenario is not imaginary. This is the daily practice of The Fetzer Institute, a leftwing foundation who says its mission is to “build the spiritual foundation” of our world.

If it weren’t clear enough that Fetzer’s method for building that spiritual foundation is nothing like the Bible’s, another way it does so is by giving money to groups like the National LGBTQ Task Force. 

Who else does it give money to? The ERLC.

In 2018, Fetzer gave the ERLC more than $346,000 to “collaborate” on research that would identify the “rhetorical framing” evangelicals use when it comes to democracy. That is, how we talk about politics. And it was then to share the insights from that political research with the ERLC’s national conference and with “churches under the Southern Baptist Convention.”

The following year, in 2019, Fetzer gave the ERLC another $200,000 to, among other things, conduct seminars on “how American evangelicals might contribute to healing political divides.”

In other words, Fetzer bought access to Southern Baptist conferences and churches through the ERLC in the form of an explicitly political project. And the ERLC earned its pay.

The research Fetzer bankrolled has been disseminated and promoted in ERLC material and at ERLC events. In one such document, the ERLC recommends we learn how to engage in civil political discourse from a fellow recipient of Fetzer funds–Cherie Harder, President of Trinity Forum and a prominent Never Trump voice.

At a February 2024 conference for a Never Trump Political Action Committee, she called the former President a “frankly evil and nihilistic leader.” She has never used such rhetoric to describe Biden, the most pro-abortion, pro-perversion, and anti-family president this nation has ever known.

Yet this is who the ERLC (and Fetzer) hold out as our model for civil, Christian discourse.

When we look at Fetzer’s political stances like its “unequivocal support of the LGBTQ community,” it’s clear that when they say they want evangelicals to “heal our political divides” what they mean is that they want Christians to soften their public positions on issues like marriage and sexuality.

According to Fetzer, Christians who are confident in our convictions harm democracy. Nor is Fetzer the only leftwing foundation that has managed to tie some purse-strings tothe ERLC.

The Democracy Fund was founded by Buddhist billionaire Pierre Omidyar. You might recognize him as the man who gave the world Ebay. His foundation gives grants to groups like Red Canary Song, which describes itself as a “grassroots collective of Asian & migrant sex workers.”

When Roe v Wade was overturned, the Democracy Fund put out a statement. It said the Dobbs decision proved “how vulnerable our political system is to perversion by leaders who are not committed to protecting and strengthening our democracy.”

Let me say that again—according to the Democracy Fund, protecting and strengthening our democracy means protecting and strengthening abortion.

In 2018, when the Democracy Fund was looking for evangelical leaders to help foster more “constructive politics” in the U.S., it, too, turned to the ERLC.The purpose of the $100,000 grant it gave them was to pursue “long-term action” against America’s alleged white supremacy problem.

The ERLC took it for granted that the Southern Baptists it is supposed to represent would agree that one of America’s most pressing problems is white supremacy.

It’s worth noting that independent journalist Glenn Greenwald, a liberal, was once a beneficiary of Omidyar himself. Omidyar bankrolled his left-leaning news outlet, The

Intercept. But Greenwald was forced to quit the company he co-founded when it wouldn’t let him publish stories critical of Joe Biden. Greenwald said this of Omidyar: “Liberal billionaires will only fund groups that advance liberal causes.”

So what cause did Omidyar want to advance through the ERLC?

Another liberal billionaire who has taken an interest in the ERLC–Mark Zuckerberg. In 2020, the Facebook founder spent over $400 million dollars turning out the vote in heavily Democratic areas in swing states. According to reporting in the New York Post, he did this by “funding a targeted, private takeover of government election operations through…nonprofit organizations.”

That same year, his foundation also gave the ERLC a $90,000 grant for an unspecified criminal justice reform project. How was the money used? We don’t know. The SBC lacks financial transparency and the ERLC has not disclosed this information. And the ERLC staffer who procured the grant left a short time later to join the Biden Campaign.

I didn’t set out to write a book about the SBC. And despite the rumors, I did not write a book about the SBC. But the SBC does loom large in my new book. And that’s because the SBC looms large in the minds of the people I did set out to write about—the powerful progressive influences in the church. And I’m not just talking about the ministry leaders bringing in racial hiring quotas, female pastors, and pronoun hospitality.

I’m talking about leftwing billionaires and organizations who, in their long march through the institutions, have now set their sights on the Church. And too many leaders within the church are proving only too happy to help them.

When we see the secular foundations the ERLC is partnering with—those who work to see abortion, legal prostitution, every sort of LGBT perversion protected and promoted in our law, Southern Baptists should echo 2 Corinthians 6:14 and ask—what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? What fellowship has light with darkness?”

The ERLC was created to represent the interests of Southern Baptists to the secular political world. Instead, it is now taking money to represent the interests of the secular political world to Southern Baptists. Which must prompt us to wonder, just who does it see as its mission field?

Know this, it is not a coincidence that these leftwing influencers decided to work with the ERLC. They have been specifically strategizing about how to co-opt Southern Baptists for years.

Yes, they are talking about the SBC and its entities by name. And not just the ERLC.

In 2015, the George Soros- and Bill Gates-funded think tank, New America, released a report on efforts to pass climate change legislation.

The report noted that the strategy of the environmentalists was to recruit “elite evangelicals” who would then use their influence to give spiritual legitimacy to specific climate change policies. Their hope was that this advocacy for fossil fuel legislation would “trickle down” to ordinary Christians in the pews.

That is, the climate change activists wanted to use evangelical leaders in trusted organizations who know the lingo to persuasively sell a message to what would otherwise be an unreceptive audience. New America explained that the object is to “collect strange bedfellows” and “sort of sneakily break down” the faith coalition from the inside and “give cover to Republican members of Congress to support climate action.”

“Because” they wrote, “even just neutralizing the Southern Baptist Convention” could “disrupt the solid Republican opposition to measures like cap and trade.”

In the nine years since that report, the climate change activists have had significant success in convincing SBC institutions to take up their cause.

Southeastern Seminary, for example, has been particularly active in promoting climate change alarmism to its students.

Just one example of many, in 2022, it welcomed Jonathan Moo, Environmental Studiesprofessor, to give a guest lecture titled, “How to love our neighbor in the midst of the climate crisis.”

In it, Moo claimed that environmental activism is a necessary part of being “faithful to the Gospel.” He said the United States bears the lion’s share of guilt because of how “rich and prosperous” our use of fossil fuels has made us. And he told the students Americans are especially obligated to “sacrifice” by adopting emission-restricting policies.

The kinds of policies that are making everything from gas to groceries more expensive, not just for us, but also for those neighbors we’re supposed to be loving.

If Moo adding new environmental requirements to the Gospel weren’t shocking enough, he also suggested the students purchase indulgences for climate sins like traveling by airplane. In particular, he suggested they buy carbon credits from the environmentalist group A Rocha. On whose board Moo just so happens to sit.

Now A Rocha probably isn’t a familiar name to most of you. So I’ll tell you a little bit about it. Though it brands itself as a Christian ministry, it gets much of its funding from secular groups like the Annenberg Foundation, which also funds the National Abortion Rights Action League, Planned Parenthood, and the Center for Reproductive Rights.

As with many other major secular foundations, Annenberg’s interest in environmentalism is married to a desire to reduce the population through abortion.

And A Rocha’s leadership isn’t especially bothered by that goal. Its executive director, Ben Lowe, ran for Congress as a Democrat, assuring voters that despite claiming to be personally pro-life he would not support overturning Roe v. Wade. In other words, he took the same position Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi have.

Then there are A Rocha’s strange hymns and prayers that sound more like Marxist Gaia worship (or something you’d hear at the Fetzer institute) than anything recognizably biblical.

Among the sins A Rocha calls humanity to repent from in its recommended prayers are “ecological violence” and humanity “act[ing] like parasites.” It suggests praying for the “courage to speak out against increased nuclear capability” and lamenting America’s “exploitive economic system.”

Listen to part of this prayer it published for distribution to churches and ask yourself whether you could imagine your congregation praying this together on a Sunday morning. It’s titled “Woe to the Unholy Trinity.”

…We have acted as cheerleaders and chaplains to the unholy trinity…

And so we name the unholy beast.

We renounce it.

We repent of it.

Unrestrained Capitalism,

Consumerism,

Individualism . . .

This unholy trinity

That oppresses the poor,

Ransacks the Earth.

One has to wonder what average Southern Baptists would have thought had they known their “unholy” capitalist tithes, which help support Southeastern Seminary, were going to pay the lecture fees of a representative from A Rocha. Who then used that invite to do a bit of capitalist carbon trading himself.

While researching the multiple guest lectures and conferences Southeastern has dedicated to the subject of climate change, I never found a single speaker who challenged the progressive position that it is an existential crisis. Yet there is legitimate evidence for skepticism about this claim. And reputable evangelical organizations whose members include NASA climate scientists would be only too happy to explain to an audience of seminary students just what that evidence is.

Yet for some reason, Southeastern Seminary students have never heard from those NASA climate scientists.

Is the degree to which humans are impacting the climate an issue on which Christians of good faith can disagree? Of course. The problem is demanding consensus on the subject by abusing and manipulating scripture. The problem is an SBC seminary, whose ostensible mission is educating students on the full breadth of Christian thought, promoting only one view. And it just so happens to be the view that aligns with nearly every major corporation, A-list Hollywood, the United Nations, the World Economic Forum, and the most powerful progressive foundations on the planet.

Then it seems less like debating debatable issues and more like turning our temples over to the environmentalist moneychangers.

But alarming as it is that these powerful secular left institutions have managed to harness the SBC for their purposes, it is even more disturbing that some of our leaders are covering their tracks for them.

Perhaps some of you will remember in 2020 when Baptist Press published an explainer claiming that “not a penny” of Soros money has ever gone to the Evangelical Immigration Table (EIT), which is a side project of the secular progressive group, the National Immigration Forum. The EIT is not, as you might suppose from the name, a group that preaches the gospel to or provides for the material needs of immigrants. No, it is a political coalition that includes the ERLC, JD Greear, Kevin Ezell, and Danny Akin, to name just a few of the SBC leaders involved. Through lobbying legislators and distributing material to churches and ministries it promotes amnesty policies for illegal immigrants.

In 2016, the internal board books for Soros’ foundation, Open Society, leaked. They revealed that it had given $200,000 to a program the EIT was a part of, known as Bibles, Badges, and Business. The report also noted future plans to divide an additional million between that program and another initiative because, Open Society said, “evangelical support [has been] highly influential in engaging conservative lawmakers.”

The 2016 Soros board book also said this:

“In the course of our work, we were able to generate engagement by some conservative voices such as evangelical Christians and Southern Baptists through grantee National Immigration Forum.”

Which, again, is the umbrella organization over the Evangelical Immigration Table.

As ERLC trustee Jon Whitehead, a Harvard trained attorney by the way, told me after he reviewed these documents, “Southern Baptists were shamelessly hung out for sale by these leaders. In exchange for subsidized meetings with their EIT friends, they looked the other way as their churches and pews were exploited. They even used Baptist Press to mislead people, claiming ‘not a penny’ of Soros money went toward EIT. It looks more like tens of millions of pennies!”

If we give Baptist Press the benefit of the doubt, they were negligently mistaken. The only other alternative is that they were lying.

And Soros’ Open Society is only one of the hard left NGOs that has supported the EIT. The Ford, Rockefeller, and Tides foundations–all groups that also support abortion, the LGBT agenda, and a host of other anti-biblical goals—have contributed over a million dollars to the EIT’s project to mobilize evangelical support for open borders policies.

The secular left powerbrokers see American Christians as a captive audience. Maybe the last captive audience they have not conquered. Their desire is to have SBC churches and ministries for their political projects, and we have leaders who are more than willing to give them that access.

As the largest Protestant association in the United States, the Southern Baptist Convention is uniquely positioned to influence the U.S. toward godliness. In an era in which almost the whole of our mainstream culture has been engulfed by confusion and darkness, we should stand out all the more for our willingness to cut against the cultural grain.

Instead, so many of our SBC leaders warn that to look different from our neighbors—by, say, rejecting feminist demands to open the pastorate to women—will damage our witness. (As if God didn’t know what would be “damaging” to His Church when He laid down his proscription against women pastors.)

According to the latest religion statistics, just over 5 percent of U.S. adults are Southern Baptists. That’s nearly 13 million Americans. Coincidentally, that’s almost the exact same number of American adults who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.

Through their tremendous commitment to their cause, they have transformed America from the steps of the White House to the smallest local library. No corner of this country has not been touched by their influence.

Why can’t we say the same?

Can you imagine the transformation we might see in this nation if the whole of the SBC had the same courage of its convictions that the LGBT movement has?

If Southern Baptists uniformly demanded that their pastors, professors, seminary administrators, and national leaders stayed passionately focused on the cause of Christ and His Word, rather than taking up the preoccupations of billionaires, businesses, and lawmakers, it would be enough to see a new Reformation in the American Church.

We have a choice, we will either fulfill our commission to be salt and light, which starts with choosing biblical distinctiveness and holding our leaders accountable for what they do in our name. Or we will continue diluting our mission with the world’s priorities until we disappear into the crowd entirely.

Order Megan’s book: Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda

There are two words to define at the outset of today’s post. The first is monergism, and the other is synergism. Both of these words contain the Greek word “ergon” which means “work.” The prefix syn means “with”, and the prefix monomeans “alone.”
In Christian theology, the word “Synergism” means that the new birth (regeneration) results from the work of both God and man together. It essentially teaches that being born again is God’s work with man. God does His part; man does his part, and voila! – regeneration.
Monergism, on the other hand, says that the new birth is entirely God’s work alone. Regeneration, rather than being God laboring “with” man, is God’s work in man. Every person is in such a dead and depraved condition that he or she is unable and unwilling to bring about the new birth. God does this of His own will by the Word of truth according to His great mercy (cf. James 1:18, 1 Peter 1:3).
As D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones preached, “[Y]ou do not become a Christian as the result of human activity, not even human endeavor at its best and highest…Becoming a Christian is all of God.”[1]
In today’s post, I’d like to give you 3 practical arguments for why you should hold to monergism as opposed to being a synergist. You should believe that regeneration is God’s work alone apart from any assistance from the sinner. Here’s why:

The Bible is Trustworthy

I had to begin here. You should hold to monergism because it’s what the Bible teaches. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter so much what Calvin or Spurgeon or anyone else believed in comparison to what the Bible teaches.
Titus 3:5 teaches us that we did not save ourselves. We did not make ourselves savable. Rather, God saved us without our assistance.
We must not let our particular soteriological tradition or personal experience, or heroes of the faith cloud our understanding of what the Scriptures teach. The Bible is sufficient to teach us how salvation works. It is also authoritative; therefore we are obligated to trust its precious truth! “It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh is no help at all” (John 6:63).
As J.C. Ryle preached, “if the Bible be indeed true and our only guide to heaven, and this I trust you are call ready to allow, it surely must be the duty of every wise and thinking man to lay to heart each doctrine which it contains, and while he adds nothing to it, to be careful that he takes nothing from it.”[2]
The Bible is our source for all sound doctrine. Everything we believe must be held up to the scrutiny of God’s Word. Everything we believe must flow from this Book for it is truth. It is in the truth we must stand, and it is by the truth that we are sanctified (John 17:17). The Bible is worthy of our time and study.
If the Bible never presses you, never makes you uncomfortable, never leads you to question yourself, never challenges you, never changes your mind, actions, and heart, never humbles you, never convicts you…I’m not sure which translation you’re using but switch now. Of course, the problem is not the “translation,” is it? It’s operator error.
To follow Jesus is to follow His Word. It is to desire to understand and know and grow in sound doctrine. And so rightly grasping the doctrine of monergism is practical because to not understand it is to misunderstand a core truth of the Bible.
The Bible is our source for all sound doctrine. Everything we believe must be held up to the scrutiny of God’s Word.
Yes, you can be a Christian and be confused on this doctrine. But why would you want to be confused or mistaken? Doesn’t being a Christian make you want to know His word rightly?
Psalm 111:2 says, “Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them.” Oh, how great a work of God is the new birth! So, may we continue to study to remove any unbiblical notions of this precious work from our minds.

The Holy Spirit is Truly God

Now, I do not mean to imply that those who do not hold to monergism are not trinitarians! But I do want to press us to understand that all sound doctrine is interconnected. Monergism is a consistent way of magnifying and glorying in the divinity of the Holy Spirit.
Herman Bavinck writes,
The Christian church…has consistently – and all the more vigorously as it gained more insight into the personality and deity of the Holy Spirit – assumed a special divine activity in regeneration. Just as, to the extent it became more firmly persuaded of the necessity of internal grace, it confessed all the more decisively and joyfully the personality and deity of the Holy Spirit.[3]
Now, certainly synergists can identify “a special divine activity in regeneration.” But only monergism understands this divine activity as wholly sovereign and all of grace, thus attributing to the Holy Spirit His due glory for bringing about the new birth.
To suppose the Holy Spirit needs our help in the new birth separates how He works from that of the Father and the Son. For example, the Father did not need our help in electing us for salvation. The Son did not need our help in dying on the cross for our sins. Why then would the 3rd Person of the Trinity need our help in regeneration? Is He lesser than the Father or Son? Of course not!
John Flavel rightly wrote,
[T]he Father hath elected, and the Son hath redeemed; but until the Spirit (who is the last cause) hath wrought his part also, we cannot be saved. For he comes in the Father’s and in the Son’s name and authority, to put the last hand to the work of our salvation, by bringing all the fruits of election and redemption home to our souls in this work of effectual vocation.[4]
Now, understand my point here. I am not saying that someone who thinks regeneration is a work of God and man together is out and out denying the Trinity. Synergism is not a heresy.[5] But I am saying that if you think regeneration is a work of God and a work of man together, you are being inconsistent in your understanding of the Trinity.
In the whole scope of salvation, in the entire trinitarian work of salvation, the Father doesn’t need your help. The Son doesn’t need your help. But the Holy Spirit does need your help? To say He does besmirches His glory.
May it never be so, beloved. The wind blows where it wishes. The Spirit moves as He will. He is sovereign. He is holy. He is in control. He is deserving of our worship.
Jonathan Edwards helpfully writes that “Those who are in a state of salvation are to attribute it to sovereign grace alone, and to give all the praise to him, who maketh them differ from others.”[6] He goes on to write how we ought to exalt God the Father and God the Son. But he does not forget the Holy Spirit! Edwards reminds Christians that they ought to also,
[E]xalt God the Holy Ghost, who of sovereign grace has called them out of darkness into marvellous [sic] light; who has by his own immediate and free operation, led them into an understanding of the evil and danger of sin, and brought them off from their own righteousness, and opened their eyes to discover the glory of God, and the wonderful riches of God in Jesus Christ, and has sanctified them, and made them new creatures.[7]

It makes You a Better Evangelist

There is a certain faulty line of reasoning that says if God is completely sovereign in salvation, choosing whom He will and regenerating whom He will, then evangelism is unnecessary. This is an example of fallen men using fallen logic to reject the plain teaching of the Scriptures. The sovereignty of God in salvation in no way negates the responsibility of believers to proclaim the gospel nor does it lessen the responsibility of sinners to repent of their sins and believe the gospel. As Will Metzger notes, “[W]e should not consider these two doctrines of sovereignty and responsibility as enemies but rather see them the way the Bible does–as friends!”[8]
Adhering to monergism actually makes us better evangelists. How so? Because it reminds us not that God “might” save, but that He will save His people from their sins (cf. Matthew 1:21). It confirms that evangelism will ultimately prove fruitful in the long run.
It also helps us to not rely on gimmicks or emotionalism in order to see people savingly converted to Christ. Rather, we rely on the power of the truth of the gospel proclaimed. God causes us to be born again by the word of truth according to the power of the gospel (cf. James 1:18).
But how do we “close the deal” with sinners then? If we believe in this biblical doctrine of regeneration and trust the monergistic power of God, what do we do to see sinners savingly converted to Christ? Am I saying we just do nothing? Of course not!
W.B. Sprague rightly lectured, “[If] the doctrine of divine influence be preached in such a way as to authorize the inference that man has nothing to do in respect to his salvation, but wait to be operated upon like a mere machine…there is little probability that [people] will be converted.”[9]
What did we see Paul tell the Philippian Jailer? Believe! (Acts 16:31). He did not say, “Wait to see if you will be regenerated!” Instead, he gave him the imperative, Believe. It was the Jailer’s duty to believe on Christ.
Revelation 22:17 declares, “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.” All men, women, boys, and girls are invited (and commanded) to come to Christ in saving faith.
The sovereignty of God in salvation in no way negates the responsibility of believers to proclaim the gospel nor does it lessen the responsibility of sinners to repent of their sins and believe the gospel.
And this proclamation we are to publish to the uttermost parts of the earth. Trust, dear soul. Come to Christ! Repent of your sins and believe the gospel. We must preach the gospel and issue this summons to respond to all sinners regardless of our assessment of their situation. All we need to know is they are sinners. We have been commanded to share the gospel with them, and monergism reminds us that God is willing to use the proclamation of His gospel to actually and really and truly save many.
Both in Scripture and history we see the circumstances surrounding conversion happen in a variety of ways. Charles Spurgeon heard a sermon from a layperson in the midst of a wintry storm. George Whitefield read a book by Henry Scougal. John Newton recalled Scripture he had memorized as a child. The Philippian Jailer was on the brink of committing suicide.
But all of these stories, in fact every conversion story, are tied to the gospel’s proclamation and a willful response of faith. That volitional response of faith is an inevitable reaction to the Spirit’s effectual calling and sovereign gifting. But we don’t have control over that. It is not our business to power the wind but to preach the Word. It is our duty to “implore [sinners] on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God” (2 Corinthians 5:20).
We know a sinner will not make one step toward God in his own power, for the flesh is no help at all (cf. John 6:63). But God…(Eph. 2:4). Salvation truly is of the Lord! (cf. Jonah 2:9). Monergism, then, gives us all the confidence in God and His Work, and thus motivates us to be better evangelists.
There are more reasons to hold to monergism. Regenerate church membership and understand the proper mode and subjects of baptism come to mind. But the three above reasons are enough to consider for today. I hope you’ll think through them and affirm the wonderful biblical truth of monergistic regeneration.

[1] D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Born of God: Sermons from John, Chapter One (Carlisle, PA Banner of Truth Trust, 2011), 233.
[2] J. C. Ryle, The Christian Race and Other Sermons (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1900), 15–16.
[3] Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 4 (Grand Rapids, MI Baker Academic, 2006), 78.
[4] John Flavel, The Whole Works of the Reverend John Flavel, vol. 2, (London, England: W. Baynes and Son, 1820), 20.
[5] It should be noted, however, that synergism is a dangerous trajectory and an inconsistent position within Christian orthodoxy.
[6] Jonathan Edwards, The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 2 (Banner of Truth Trust, 1974), 854.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Tell the Truth, 109.
[9] William B. Sprague, Lectures on Revivals of Religion, (London, England Banner of Truth Trust, 1959), 84.

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More than a decade ago I stood in a square in old Boston listening to a very passionate guide talk about July 18, 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was read from the balcony of the Old State House there for the first time. One of my historical heroes, First Lady to be Abigail Adams, stood in the crowd that had gathered to hear the declaration read that day. She, an intelligent and thoughtful patriot, understood as much or more than anyone else in the square the significance of the moment.
As I listened to our guide and felt the momentary shadow of the importance of that moment years ago I briefly wondered what it would be like to experience such a day myself. To feel the weight of joy at the hand of God acting through the work of men for the good of a nation and to know the sober reality of the task now ahead. I did not really think I would see such a day in my lifetime.
But then yesterday, June 24, 2022, arrived and I sat awash with emotions at the news of the Supreme Court’s overthrow of Roe v Wade, declaring that the wicked decision which granted national legality to the murder of unborn children nearly 50 years ago was, in fact, not Constitutional after all.
The joy is weighty, overwhelming, deep. It erupted yesterday in happy tears in the middle of shopping and singing psalms at the top of my lungs while running errands. It exploded in thrown together plans for ice cream sundae celebrations with friends last night and the kind of bellylaughing that overflows from an abundance of joy. It was a good day. A feast day. A day that I will happily still be talking about when my hair is grey and my hearing is going. June 24 is a day that deserves the celebration and remembrance of generations to come.
This is a time for praise and thanksgiving to God who has used the work of men to bring about good for a nation who does not deserve His favor and grace. He has given us mercy once again and acted to stay the hand of those who wickedly participated in legalized murder, often gleefully. Mere hours after the decision abortion mills in Texas, Missouri, Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, South Dakota, and Wisconsin had halted their activities and closed their doors. There are children who were scheduled for death yesterday who are still alive today. Praise the Lord! Praise, oh servants of the Lord! Praise the name of the Lord!
This is a time for praise and thanksgiving to God who has used the work of men to bring about good for a nation who does not deserve His favor and grace.
It is also a time for solemnity. For repentance for the national sin of abortion that has been allowed to stain our land for so long. For mourning over the 60+ million lives that have been snuffed out in the womb, little image bearers whose slaughter should take our breath away and drive us to our knees. For recognition that the work of complete abolition is ongoing and that the struggle will be fierce and, likely, bloody before it is done. But this is a good work, a work that honors God, and a work from which His children must not flinch. Our God is a God of life and calls us to courage in the face of all adversity. The words of Proverbs are instructive to us as we look to the days ahead.
“If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small. Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, ‘Behold, we did not know this,’ does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?” (Proverbs 24:10-12)
And it is a good time to remember that we are not the first to have stood in the weight of joy and solemnity, in the day of great matters and in the face of hardships in the struggle to come. John Adams wrote to Abigail on July 3rd, after the Continental Congress had finalized the draft of the Declaration, with this same mix of joy and resolve that all who love the cause of life should feel today.
“I am apt to believe that it [the date of the adoption of the Declaration] will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.
Our God is a God of life and calls us to courage in the face of all adversity.
“You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. — I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. — Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.”
May God give us this same spirit of rejoicing as we celebrate the overthrow of Roe now and in coming generations, and equal courage and conviction to give our toil, blood, and treasure in a cause that is more than worth all the means, the rescue of those being taken away to death and the full abolition of abortion in every State in this Nation of ours.

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