[In late 1983, I founded the New England Christian Action Council (NECAC) when I lived outside Boston, completing my M.Div. at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. The motto of the NECAC was “biblically committed to protecting the unborn” and my initial newsletters were entitled “Contrabortion,” written for grass-roots pro-life Christians. I started my engagement with the subject in a reactive posture, that is, defining and critiquing it. But being committed to the biblical foundations in Genesis 1-3, I grew consistently more proactive across the years. So here are the original unvarnished articles, as my thinking was at the time.]

Contrabortion, Vol. 1, No. 3, November/December 1984

The Strategy of the Sabbath

John C. Rankin

{Brief excerpt]: … we as God’s image-bearers are invested with creativity, and likewise we invest our creative energy with a goal of completion in mind. Prior to the intrusion of sin, God indicated through the Sabbath that humanity’s task to fill and subdue the earth had a completion point. This factor in human nature is universally recognized — no person is satisfied with unfinished work (or an unfinished life), no person is satisfied with the intention to abandon (or abort) the project before a sense of completion is achieved. We know that resting from sheer exhaustion is not joyful, but resting after the completion of a certain goal is joyful. The Sabbath, as the seventh day, serves as a reminder and celebration point for marking levels of creative achievement.

In spite of the Fall, the Sabbath still marks for us the reality that all human history is aiming at a conclusion point — Christ’s return that will abolish sin and make the new heavens and earth. Eternal life, or eternal Sabbath if you will. Here we learn the definition of hope. The hope we invest in our daily responsibilities does not vaporize in the face of death. And here is where two world views clash violently, with one result being the present abortion holocaust. The modern abortion mentality is firmly rooted in Darwinism where hope beyond death is dispensed with, since a personal God and an order to creation are dispensed with. Abortion is acceptable to the unbeliever because life has no sacredness, no goal or purpose beyond the temporal. Selfishness for the moment takes control. Pregnancy is viewed as an unwanted complication of “casual” sex — a stark contrast to the Christian world view which sees pregnancy as joy and hope with the freedom of marriage …

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