The REAL reason Evangelicals love fighting against abortion...

Let’s be honest about the Evangelicals’ real motivation for fighting against abortion, whether they themselves realize it or not (and to their credit, I don’t think most of them DO realize what really drives them):

It makes them feel morally superior. And that feels fucking AWESOME.

Once you convince yourself that everyone outside your in-group is in favor of “murdering babies”, then there is absolutely NOTHING you can do that will cause you to lose your sense of having the moral high ground.

How amazing is the feeling that you are a crusader for Truth, and Right, and The Way Things Should Be, and God Himself?

How amazing is the feeling that the Author of the Universe has a special plan that requires you personally to participate?

How amazing is it to know that the Standard of Right and Wrong is a person who hates almost everyone so much that he intends to slow-roast them for all eternity, but has decided to spare YOU personally because YOU made the choice to join his Army of Light? And he loves YOU so much that he endured unspeakable torture and death just so he could have the privilege of hanging out with YOU forever?

When you know that you are always on the right side because you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior, and that everyone else is on the wrong side because something something “murdering babies”… then you can feel morally superior to everyone else, no matter what you actually DO.

Even to actual babies and children.

You can vote for known child molesters and still not feel a qualm of uncertainty about whether you’ve made the right choice.

You can vote to take away food from hungry kids, drinkable water away from all kids (by rolling back environmental protections), medical treatment from sick kids, a safe place from refugee kids, life itself from kids who get killed by American drones in Afghanistan… and STILL be unshakably convinced of the unassailable righteousness of your position.

You can walk by the homeless person with kids and not give them a quarter because “they’ll just spend it on drugs anyway”, and still be smug in your knowledge that you care about saving children while the godless liberals who - *gasp* - don’t want to punish people for using drugs (but do want to spend some tax money on helping those kids and their parents)- are baby-murdering demons.

You can ignore the plight of the teenaged mom in your own congregation – not offer to babysit, or help with the bills, or help with getting a job or education so she can pay her own bills – and know that you already did everything required of you by guilting her into having a baby she didn’t want and can’t care for.

I KNOW you do these things, Evangelicals, because I USED TO BE YOU. I WATCHED YOU DO THEM. AND I DID THEM TOO.

Until I did some real soul-searching for once and realized that my actions, and failures to act, were not remotely consistent with the demands of the Jesus I claimed to follow.

If you want to take your first real steps on the path of righteousness (literally “right-wise-ness”, or “in the right direction", as “clockwise” is “in the direction of the clock”)… then stop attacking the motives and behavior of other people and start having an honest look at your own.

And when you don’t like what you see… do what you’re always telling other people to do. Repent. Turn around. Stop going the wrong way and start going the right way.

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