The following letter / message was originally given at Bethlehem Baptist Church of Minneapolis Minnesota by Pastor John Piper all the way back in January of 1993 to then President-elect Bill Clinton. The words and points brought up within the text is as valid today as ever...
Mr. President:
We (Christians) will honor you under the Mighty Hand of God, according to 1 Peter 5:6, and acknowledging that we ourselves, pro-life Christians, are sinners, and in need of mercy and forgiveness from God. We are not infallible. We are open to new light on this and every issue. We are not the final judge of you, or anybody. God is... We stand on level ground with you before the Cross, supplicants of mercy, and longing to be obedient to the King, Jesus. We honor you, by humbling ourselves WITH you, under God, as fallible sinners who need salvation and forgiveness.
We honor you, Mr. President, by acknowledging that you are a man created in the image of God and distinct from all the other beings on the face of the Earth. (James 3:9) You are not a mere animal, you have the glorious potential, like all humans, of being a child of God, if you are not already. And shining like the sun in the kingdom of our Father, forever and ever. And we honor you as an utterly unique human-being - created in the image and likeness of the Living God, with untold potential.
We will acknowledge you by realizing that government is God's institution and God's creation. He wills that there be leaders like presidents and governors. You are in power by Divine Appointment, and we honor that. Romans 13:4 says, "[you are] God's servant for [our] good" - and it grieves us that you are NOT going to stand up for the good of the unborn - the most weak, innocent, helpless group of Americans. Nevertheless, we have seen from Somalia, that bad government is better than no government. And that the absence of some laws to protect some citizens, is better than the absence of all laws, which give protection to nobody. And therefore, we honor your stabilizing role, and in this sense, we count you, Mr. President, a blessing from God.
We will honor you by submitting to the laws of the land and of the state. Where ever they do not conflict with our higher allegiance to Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords - (and President of Presidents).
We will submit...
-to laws that take away our right to choose to go 75 miles per hour...
-to laws that take away our right to choose to keep our lights OFF while our windshield wipers are ON...
-to laws that take away our right to choose to drive without a seatbelt...
-to laws that take away our right to choose to fish without a license...
-to laws that take away our right to choose to make loud noises in the middle of the night...
-to laws that take away our right to choose to keep our kids out of [public] schools...
-to laws that take away our right to choose to send them to school without [certain vaccinations]...
-to laws that take away our right to choose to use leaded gasoline...
-to laws that take away our right to choose not to pay taxes...
-to laws that take away our right to choose to smoke on the OTHER side of the restaurant...
...because we KNOW, Mr. President, that governments EXIST to take away the right to choose. We will submit to your laws... But Mr. President, according to 1 Peter 2:13, we do not submit for your sake... We submit for the Lord's sake. He created the government, He wills that it be stable and exist, and He wills that Christians be humble and submissive, not recalcitrant and stubborn. We will submit, not because you have power, but because our King Jesus says to go back in to this foreign and alien land, and submit where ever you can for My sake, and bring Me glory. Yet, our submission is in honor to you, because under God, and from God, you bear the authority to enforce these laws.
We will honor you by not withdrawing into little communes of disengaged isolation from American culture - though we admit we are tempted. But according to 1 Peter 2:15, we will honor you by trying to do as much good as we possibly can in America - for the cause of the unborn, for the cause of the unwanted born, and for the cause of women in distress. So that when we call upon you to join us in this, it will not be with hypocrisy. And it will not seem insolent to you that we have called upon you to join us in doing good to the unborn. The Bible says in [1 Peter 2:15], "it is the will of God, that by doing [good] you may silence the ignorance of foolish men." Mr. President, we want to honor you by joining you, in doing as much good as we can.
We will honor you by opposing your position as long as we can. With non-violence, instead of violence. With reasoning, instead of rocks. With rational passion, instead of screaming. With honorable speech, instead of obscenities. With forthright clarity of language, instead of dodging the tough realities and tough words. With evidence, instead of authority. With scientific portrayals of life, instead of authoritarian black-outs. We will honor you, by a relentless effort to put truth, and not mere emotion before you in the White House, as long as you are there.
We will honor you by expecting FROM you, straightforward answers to straightforward questions. We would not expect this from a hypocrite or a con-man or a chimp. We expect it from an honorable man.
For example, are you willing to explain why a babyÕs right not to be killed is less important than a womanÕs right not to be pregnant? Explain it to us Mr. President. Or, are you willing to explain why most cities have laws forbidding cruelty to animals, [while] you OPPOSE laws forbidding cruelty to human fetuses. Are they not AT LEAST animals??? Explain it to us... ...with forthright, open, public words... Or are you willing to explain why government is UNwilling to take away the so-called right to abortion on demand, even though it harms the unborn child - yet government is INCREASINGLY willing to take away the right to smoke, precisely because it harms innocent non-smokers, killing 30,000 of them a year, by cancer - and 40,000 a year by cardiac and other diseases. Isn't it remarkable that we are moving toward such remarkable control in removing the rights to choose in some areas - [yet] we will not TOUCH the right to choose, [which] kills...
If you say, Mr. President, "of course, everything hangs on the fetus being a human child or not." Are you willing to go before national television with [an aborted fetus] in your hand, and hold it up to the camera, in the Oval [Office], and explain to us why this is not a baby? Are you willing to unfold the legs so that we can see the exact length and hold it up and let the camera zoom in on the face and the eyes and the ears? Are you willing to even show it in the womb with the contemporary scientific truthful data we have about it's life, and the way it responds to being touched, and the way it responds to sound? And then explain to us why all of that is irrelevant to us, and this baby can have his head chopped off and squished, his legs pulled off, and that is not a problem?
Or worse, Mr. President, are you willing to [go] to Minneapolis and go to the hospital with [Pastor John Piper] where [a] baby is being held in the arms of it's mother after the miscarriage, look her in the eye and say, "This is not now, nor ever was it a child."?
Perhaps you have good answers for all of these, and we [Christians] will honor you by expecting you to defend your position forthrightly in the public eye. You have immense power as President of the United States. To wield it against the protection of the unborn, without giving a public accounting, we regard as a dishonorable thing to do, and therefore, we expect more.
And finally, Mr. President, we will honor you by trusting that the purpose of our sovereign and loving God, to defend the fatherless, and contend for the defenseless, and exalt the meek, will triumph through your presidency. And to that end, we are going to pray for you, day by day...
For more information on the TRUTH about Abortion and its effects on women, and the children involved in the process, visit: www.Abort73.com
