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What if Flip Benham is Right?

 
News Flash

What if Flip Benham is Right?

By Danny Fontana
The Charlotte World

Recently Flip Benham and his group spent a week in Charlotte speaking out against abortion. Protests were held all over the city debating Benham’s methodology. Too strident, the critics suggested. But Warren Smith, publisher of this paper used the John the Baptist analogy and the need for Benham to have had a Jesus-like champion like John had. I must say I liked the analogy. However, I don’t think it had much effect on public opinion. Let’s not forget hat Jesus was crucified. In the end, to sinners, it didn’t matter what John or Jesus had to say. If it interfered with their lives and their pursuits of immoral pleasures, it didn’t hold much water.

Methodology aside, I wonder what it is that people disagree with on the abortion issue. Is the taking of an unborn fetus murder, and if it is, does that violate God’s Law? Most don’t have the stomach to answer that. Most will argue speciously. It’s not murder because the fetus isn’t alive. The logic would follow that the fetus is already dead then, and all that an abortionist is doing is shooting a bullet into the heart that isn’t beating anyway. Isn’t that the argument?

My curiosity cannot allow that conclusion. Abortion supporters would say that if the fetus were born at the point of abortion, it would not live. Does that not imply that it is alive then? All the other arguments have nothing to do with the murder issue. All the other arguments have to do with society’s comfort over the issue. The child will be poor. The child will be a drain to society. The child will be uneducated. The parents can’t afford to feed another mouth. In other words, if this child lives, somebody with be inconvenienced, and as a result, the child will not be happy or live a life free if stress with sufficient self-esteem. But what do any of these considerations have to do with killing somebody?

Christianity demands courage. It is difficult to tell a homosexual friend that his lifestyle is aberrant. It is difficult to hold a friend accountable for drinking too much. It is difficult to profess a belief in Jesus Christ to someone who holds Mohammed in like esteem. Christianity is Stephen rejoicing for being the first martyr. Cassie Bernall professing belief in God with a gun pointed at her face. It’s Flip Benham speaking truth into a microphone at Trade and Tyron. It’s not popular. It is Christianity.

So I applaud the effort. We can argue all day long about whether or not anyone had their perspective on abortion, homosexuality or Islam changed as a result. We can argue whether or not the mission has deleterious effect on the movement because of the methodology. In the final analysis, the debate is between flawed sinners, which makes the conclusion clumsy.

In radio, we say that it isn’t whether or not the audience loves you or hates you. What matters is whether or not the audience listens to you. Last week, Charlotte got an earful from Flip Benham. Whether you agree or disagree, for eight days, you listened. You may have been uncomfortable as a result of the dialogue. You may have attributed Benham’s conclusions to religious fanaticism. But let me end with this: To all of you made uncomfortable by Benham’s sermons, what if he’s right?

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[ Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ]