We will remember today, January 22. How we giggled with our 5 year old grandson who wanted to paint his 73 year old “Papa” with orange tiger spots. And today, we miss our 7 year old grandson and anticipate our granddaughter’s 10th (!) birthday.

Today, my wife had another “safe distance” pandemic visit with her 96 year old mother in a church subsidized extended care facility. Today, Atlanta lost “Hammerin” Hank Aaron, at age 86.

And today, we remember the 48th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. These juxtapositions warrant a new post from a Follower, Father, Papa, and a Pastor who is “womb-to-tomb” pro-life.

Governments, laws, and policies change. Moral law does not.

On the last Day, many will ask Jesus, “When did we see you?” So it is good when we, and our governments, do not overlook the poor, the foreigner, the immigrant, the homeless, the refugees, the corona-sick, or the incarcerated. But to be biblically “pro-life,” we must “see the unseen.” And 60+ million “unseen” precious unborn lives have been lost.

Abortion disproportionately takes children from parents-of-color. Henry Aaron was one of seven siblings, born in Alabama to parents who couldn’t afford baseball equipment. He practiced by hitting bottle caps with sticks. What if we had never known a Hank Aaron? It is easier (especially for a White Christian like me) to advocate for “unseen, unborn” babies than to pursue economic opportunities or to provide health care for “the seen, the born.”

Legislative or judicial actions seek to restrain legal abortion. But they mostly have not for the past 50 years. And China is a case study in failed government policies to regulate reproductive freedoms. A Chinese scholar once introduced me to his “secret son.” Abortion disproportionately takes away the lives of females, which has resulted in a demographic family crisis in the PRC.

Cultures once shamed, then transformed, into pro-life values by the cruciform lives of Christians are not likely to stop devaluing human life by constantinian legal protections. Today’s hostels, hospitals, and hospice care for the elderly are all grace-legacies of the hospitality of early Jesus followers.

In Hebrew, “to redeem” involves “kinship” and a “cost” (personal relationship plus real sacrifice). The early church “redeemed” Rome’s discarded, exposed, unwanted babies — by rescuing and adopting them into Christian families.

The Letter to Diognetus (late 1st / early 2nd century) attests: “They beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed.”

I pray our new national government will return to pro-life policies — for the unborn, for corona victims, for disabled, for immigrants.

Today, January 22, 2021, I delight in my grandchildren. I grieve lost lives. We care for our elderly through church-sponsored extended care. I especially honor Christian friends who have adopted poor, preemie, or disabled children — to give little ones “a hope and a future.”