Unbelievably, our legislature and governor have now provided “immunity” for IVF clinics. On March 6th, 2024, they passed a new IVF law which provides “civil and criminal immunity for death or damage to an embryo to any individual or entity when providing or receiving services related to in vitro fertilization.” All truly pro-life Alabamians agree that human life begins at conception/fertilization. This means intentionally destroying embryos conceived through in vitro fertilization is murdering babies. To grant IVF clinics immunity to do this is to give them the license to kill.
What does “going to church” have to do with what happens to embryos in IVF clinics? If we understand the God of the Bible, we will grasp how the two are vitally connected.
God commands that we assemble to exalt His name in song, prayer, offering, the Word, and the Lord’s Supper. But God rebukes His people when they fastidiously perform acts of worship while neglecting to do anything about the oppression happening all around them.
In Amos 5:21-24, God says:
I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the peace offerings of your fattened animals, I will not look upon them. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
The Lord is not pleased with our assemblies when we ignore the cries of the oppressed. The evidence of true worship is the pursuit of justice for the weak.
Author Erwin Lutzer tells of a man who lived in Nazi Germany. This man said:
I lived in Germany during the Nazi Holocaust. I considered myself a Christian. We heard stories of what was happening to the Jews, but we tried to distance ourselves from it, because what could anyone do to stop it?
A railroad track ran behind our small church, and each Sunday morning we could hear the whistle in the distance and then the wheels coming over the tracks. We became disturbed when we heard the cries coming from the train as it passed by. We realized that it was carrying Jews like cattle in cars! Week after week the whistle would blow. We dreaded to hear the sound of those wheels because we knew that we would hear the cries of Jews en route to a death camp. Their screams tormented us.
We knew the time the train was coming, and when we heard the whistle blow we began singing hymns. By the time the train came past our church, we were singing at the top of our voices. If we heard the screams, we sang more loudly and soon we heard them no more. Years have passed… But I still hear that train whistle in my sleep. God forgive me; forgive all of us who called ourselves Christians yet did nothing to intervene.