Killing the Killer was a Blow to Pro-Lifers

By Uwe Siemon-Netto

The murder of abortionist Dr. George Tiller was a blow to American society in general, and to the pro-life movement in particular, for the following reasons:

1. This crime turned one of the worst perpetrators of mass infanticide into a presumed martyr for abortion “rights” just at a time when its supporters were slipping dramatically in public esteem. While Tiller’s killer has done away with a physician who by his own admission took the lives of 100 babies every week, this crime might result in an increase of abortions in months to come. Simple minds will now see abortionists as victims, and not the innocent human babies they slaughter, innocents like the 60,000 Tiller has butchered just before their births. This is a depressing thought for faithful Christians who peacefully pray and fast outside the Planned Parenthood slaughterhouses. In the long run, they stood a good chance of being victorious in the war against the culture of death. Let it be known that Tiller’s killer has become a soldier on the side of death in this conflict.
2. The United States is a democracy. In a free society, the voters are their nation’s sovereigns. They are empowered to fight evil, such as abortion, in the polling booths. This is their divine calling. On the other hand, nobody has a calling to kill other human beings except at the orders of duly instituted authorities, or in self-defense. In a civilized society only the government may instruct soldiers or policemen to use their firearms against human beings.
3. The United States is a nation of law. The law is a gift from God to protect us against anarchy and subsequent chaos, a state that prevailed before God created the universe. Tiller’s killer has committed an act of anarchy and therefore not only violated the Fifth Commandment but also rebelled against the divine order of creation. Those who secretly cheer his dastardly act must be made aware that they are participating in a revolt against the Creator.

But we can’t leave matters there. A man has taken the law in his hand because, like many of us, he believed that politics and the courts have warped The Law beyond recognition. Following the French Revolution, many Western democracies, including the United States, have turned against Natural Law, which God himself has written upon every human heart, and replaced it with man-made “positive law.” In this context it is well to remember Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s assessment that the French Revolution “was the laying bare of the emancipated man in his tremendous power and his most terrible perversity.” He was convinced that “the liberation of man as an absolute ideal leads only to man’s self-destruction.”

The abortion issue is a case in point. Natural law, the universal moral code, must surely tell us that sucking the brains out of a baby’s skull in his or her mother’s womb is wrong, regardless whether you are a Christian or not. Only “man in his most terrible perversity,” to cite Bonhoeffer, can conceive of such an act as a human right. To make this point, though, does not call for a killer’s gun. All that’s required is the voters’ soul-searching reflection about their duties as sovereigns of their own land.

 

 

Comments

[Jeff Holt]

Hello, Dr.

I respect that you didn't paint a hopeless picture for our great country. Yes, as you have written elsewhere, our country is in a very dangerous state and your words here correctly describe how the law is "beyond recognition." Thanks to our Heavenly Father that it doesn't have to stay that way.

Let us pray that each day we adhere to God's law to His greater glory. We can't change what Tiller's killer did but we can try him according to the law. Perhaps justice will be served and we should all pray that it is.

BTW, I don't think it's fair to call the U.S.A. a democracy. I think a better phrase is federal republic. I can, if required elaborate but I'm pretty sure I don't have to.

Love,
Jeff

[Norman Teigen]

I feel that you are not adding anything very intelligent to this discussion. i ask you to write about things for which you have some intellectual background. American Law is apparently beyond you and so, as a conservative Lutheran, I ask you to desist until you can better advise and inform your audience. You are not helping the cause and identity of conservative Lutheranism.

[Carol Geisler]

The LCMS Reporter online posted June 1 comments by Lutherans for Life which included this statement:

"We want to make the killing of children in the sanctity of the womb as unthinkable and deplorable as the killing of George Tiller in the sanctity of his church."

In his Cairo speech, President Obama spoke of women's rights and said, "Our daughters can contribute just as much to society as our sons, and our common prosperity will be advanced by allowing all humanity -- men and women -- to reach their full potential." Thousands of unborn children are never allowed a chance to reach their full potential.

[Richard]

I am an attorney--and so, am very familiar with American law. Dr. Siemon-Netto gets it exactly right. The murder of Dr. Tiller was totally unjustified--and is a blow to the pro-life cause. We should weep at the folly of a man.

[Dr. Albert Jabs]

President Obama, student of Abraham Lincoln, should establish a National Day of Repentance. We have national prayer meetings, but the real need of the Republic is to have Congress pass a National Day of Repentance. The murder of Dr. Tiller, and the 48 million abortions since Row (l973)are good reasons to support a National Day of Repentance.

Further, reflect on the near 5,000 deaths in Iraq, and the 20,000 wounded, which of necessity must include the Post Traumatic Disorders. Even more...the imperative of loving he enemy warrants the knowing how many of the "enemy" have died...1oo,000 or more.

President called himself a Christian. Yet, he could have invited Germans to the D-Day commemorations. Why not? Sixty six years after Normandy...it is more than past time to have all the participants...friend and foe...to be present and a service of thanksgiving and Reconciliation be sent up.

Those of us who have had the privilege of studying WW II and its various killing fields know that atrocities occurred on both sides...and that a full accounting should be inclusive even in the controversial Rhein Wiesen (Rhein Meadows starvation camps that some authors like Jim Bacques and Alfred de Zayas have documnted with considerable evidence and studies.

God, in His mercy, granted the Allies victory, thankfully, yet history has not always been candid in its assessments and review. Confession time is in order here, too.

The difference between Dr. Martin Luther and his understanding of history, was that "Wir sind sunder."...and the post modern historian fixation with a kind of cultural and historical relativism...so blindnesses go on.

Confession is not only wise before the church servide begins, but also in reflection on our wars and national story.

It is still good to get a strong grip on Sola Christus...in thinking about the past, the present or the future.

Dr. Albert E. Jabs
Lexington, SC

[Carl Vehse]

It is sad to see a comment on a Lutheran blog attempt to use Bacque's wild claims to equate the relatively American atrocities (which did occur) with well-documented German atrocities during WWII.

Novelist James Bacque's allegations of nearly one million deaths of German prisoners in the post-war Rheinwiesen camps made in his 1989 book, _Other Losses_ (the German edition was entitled, _Der geplante Tod_ [The planned death]) was thoroughly criticized and refuted by a group of U.S., Canadian, German, and Austrian scholars in a 1990 symposium, published in a book, _Eisenhower and the German POWs: Facts Against Falsehood_ (Guenter Bischof and Stephen E. Ambrose, ed., Baton Rouge: Louisiana University Press, 1992). Some of the information from _Eisenhower and the German POWs_ is presented on "Criticism of Other Losses". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Losses#Criticism_of_Other_Losses

The editors conclude, "_Other Losses_ is seriously -- nay, spectacularly -- flawed in its most fundamental aspects." Prof. Gordon R. Mork of Purdue University reviewed the symposium book and also concluded: "The detailed and well-documented criticisms of Bacque and his misue of evidence and argument lead one to the clearly justified conclusion that his book should not be accepted as a credible contribution to the literature."