A dark week for Britain

This has been a dark and desperate week for Britain. Two votes in the UK Parliament. Abortion has been decriminalised. Assisted suicide approved. Lives will be needlessly lost as a result.

All this is further evidence that we are a post-Christian country, and while Christianity is still ‘in the air we breathe’ that air is becoming more and more polluted.

It is an especially dark week for some of the weakest, frailest and most vulnerable in our society: for unborn babies; women experiencing a crisis pregnancy; people living with a disability or those with a terminal illness at risk from coercion or abuse.

So many of us have prayed that the outcome on assisted suicide and abortion would be the opposite of what has happened. I know many of you have written to your MP, urging them to vote to protect life.

Yet here we are. The biggest social changes in our country for generations. Just two votes. Two tragic outcomes. And, in the case of the abortion debate, it was all over in just 46 minutes.

How on earth are we to respond to such evil and wickedness?

The first thing to say is that we have freedom to cry out to God and to rage against the injustice of what has happened. The prophet Habakkuk is a good example of this.

During his day, he looked around and he saw injustice, moral perversion and immorality. And he simply could not understand why God did not intervene.

“How long, LORD, must I call for help, but you do not listen? Or cry out to you, ‘Violence’, but you do not save? Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrongdoing? Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife and conflict abounds. Therefore the law is paralysed, and justice never prevails. The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.” (Habakkuk 1:2-4)

Do you see how bold he is? He brings his frustration, righteous anger, and indignation to the Lord in prayer. I encourage you to do likewise.

It wasn’t just Habakkuk who prayed in this way. You can read the Psalmists doing a very similar thing. In Psalm 13:1, David says “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?”

Jesus too raged against the injustice of suffering and death outside the tomb of his friend Lazarus (John 11:33-35).

But there is a tension here, which I openly admit. I am urging you to take your grief and sadness to the Lord in prayer. But part of our frustration may well be with God himself: Why did he not answer? Why has he allowed these votes to happen?

Going back to Habakkuk, this is exactly his dilemma. In his second prayer, he says in Habakkuk 2:13, “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent when the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?”

Habakkuk knows what God is like and, therefore, he cannot fully understand God’s actions. It is exactly the same for us; we know God is good and the giver of life. Why then did he not intervene?

I know it is tempting to think that perhaps our prayers ‘did not work’ or to be confused why God did not listen and answer the way we longed for.

To quote from a well known hymn, “God moves in a mysterious way.” We must submit ourselves to His strange providence. I do not know exactly why God did not answer by stopping abortion from being decriminalised and assisted suicide being legalised.

But I do know that he is ‘too wise to make a mistake and too good to be unkind.’ He will have his good reasons and our prayers have not ‘failed’. Prayer is not simply a transactional tool where we say it works when God gives us what we want and it fails when His answer is different.

No, the prayers offered up on behalf of the sick, weak, frail and dying are never wasted! In fact, in light of these votes, prayers on behalf of the most vulnerable in our society are needed now more than ever.

So I encourage you to cry out to the Lord. Lament what has happened. It is right to feel sad, angry, anxious and frustrated. Bring it all to the Lord and lay it before Him.

We must also go one step further and combine fervent prayer with faithful, compassionate advocacy. At CARE, two verses close to our hearts are found in Proverbs 31:8-9, where we are told, “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.”

In other words, we must be a voice for the voiceless. In the context of the two votes in Parliament this week, this means advocating on behalf of unborn babies. Persuading people that not only does life begin at conception, but you are also a person from that same point—with the same legal rights as those outside the womb

We must also speak up for women too, going through a crisis pregnancy. Our advocacy may mean supporting crisis pregnancy groups like Options, training to provide support ourselves, or looking to foster or adopt if appropriate for you. Organisations like Safe Families and Home for Good are a great place to start.

What about the terminally ill? Those in hospices? I grieve for anyone in this situation because the suffering and pain can be so, so hard. We must advocate for increased funding for palliative care as a truly compassionate alternative to assisted suicide. Perhaps your church could give a financial gift to a local hospice because it is a place that gives dignity to the frail and dying?

We must also be alive and alert to the plans and schemes of supporters of assisted suicide. If you think they will stop now their Bill has passed the Commons, think again!

In every country where assisted suicide has been legalised, you see the same twisted trends. First, the numbers of those choosing assisted suicide go up each year. Second, the eligibility criteria is always expanded to include more and more people.

On abortion too, you should expect further efforts to make our laws ever more permissive. As things stand, medical professionals are still criminally liable if they offer or carry out an abortion post 24-weeks. But we known that pro-abortion campaign groups want abortion to be completely decriminalised. This week’s vote is just one more step towards that ultimate goal.

When those challenges come, we must be prepared to ‘speak for those who cannot speak for themselves’.

There is a powerful quote from the theologian Stanley Hauerwas: “I say in a hundred years, if Christians are known as a strange group of people who don’t kill their children and don’t kill the elderly, we will have done a great thing.”

Let's turn our prayers into advocacy which cultivates exactly the sort of reputation that Hauerwas talks about.

None of this is easy, however, and especially in an increasingly secular society. When there are desperate outcomes like we have seen this week, another serious temptation we face is cynicism.

All that lobbying. All that hope. All those emails and letters to our MP. So much faithful activity, and yet seemingly all for nothing.

But is that right? God is always working far more behind the scenes than we could possibly imagine. His plans are strange at times, yes, but only because we cannot always see the full picture.

Just because your MP voted the wrong way does not mean you should write them off completely. I encourage you to contact them again and explain why you are unhappy, but be gracious. If they voted the right way, contact them and say thank you. Colossians 4:1-2 says our conversations should always be gracious and ‘salty’. Maintaining the relationship may open up further opportunities in the future.

We need to also remember that our responsibility is to sow the seed of God’s word. The results are entirely in His hands. We are to be a faithful presence, dogmatically holding out the truth.

Maybe our cynicism presents in a different way. We don't think our efforts were wasted, but we question the wisdom of a more modest, gracious approach to advocacy. If only we’d been tougher! If only we’d been stronger! If only we’d taken more radical steps to persuade MPs!

All I will say in response is to point you to Jesus. He is our pattern and example. And in Him, we see truth and grace combined (John 1:14).

When the Lord responded a second time to Habakkuk, he did something intriguing. He pointed him towards the ultimate end point of his eternal plan. He tells the prophet that one day, “the earth will be filled with knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

Our ultimate hope does not rest in the MPs at Westminster. They will always let us down because none of them are perfect. For every good decision they make, there will always be five more that disappoint or anger us.

We labour now as faithful witnesses and stewards of God’s better story. We seek to persuade people and win them over. We obey the command to speak for those without a voice, and we remember our identity as salt and light (Matthew 5:13-16).

Our work is not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58) because we are serving King Jesus who one day will return. When he does, to quote from C.S. Lewis’ Narnia, “every wrong will be right.”

In fact, the evil ‘shadows’ of abortion and assisted suicide will flee away. In the new creation, there will be endless pleasures and joys for God’s redeemed people. Sickness and frailty will be forgotten.

It is this ultimate hope that is the finest and best safeguard against letting cynicism win.

Habakkuk got it. His prophecy ends with a marvellous prayer. In Habakkuk 3:2 we read: “Lord, I have heard of your fame. I stand in awe of your deeds, LORD. Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known. In wrath, remember mercy.”

Amen. Repeat them, Lord and show our nation again that you are God. In your wrath, we plead, remember mercy.