January, 2025: What a month for pro-lifers!

The President signs 9 executive orders, with the result that pro-life advocates are pardoned, pro-abortion NGO’s are defunded, and the personhood of the unborn—from the moment of conception—is affirmed. Massive rallies (panned by the MSM) are held around the country; and in Washington D.C. the President, Vice President, Speaker Johnson, Senate leader Thune, and Governor Dauntless (Ron DeSantis) all declare their commitment to the sanctity and protection of human life. Key candidates for the new cabinet affirm the same, a new poll shows that Americans want major restrictions on abortion, and a new report from Texas shows that pro-life laws in the red states are working as intended. Echoing their President, pro-lifers exclaim, “So much winning!” And they rejoice.

But they are not surprised. That’s because their faith leads them to expect just such things. Please permit a retired pastor and long-time pro-life activist to shed some light on that faith, which many pro-lifers believe is the driving force behind all true spiritual progress in our nation, the West, and the world.

The Fox and the Hedgehog

Famously—if rather cryptically—the Greek poet Archilocus wrote, “The fox knows many little things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” He meant, I think, that the proud and clever fox knows many little ways to take the hedgehog’s life, whereas the humble hedgehog knows only one big way to preserve it: He must hide himself in his home.

And so it is with pro-lifers. Yes, cunning anti-life forces know many little ways to impose their regime of for-profit death and destruction upon the ignorant, fearful, selfish, and unsuspecting (as, for example, when they recently enticed voters in seven bluish states to approve extreme abortion ballot initiatives).  But pro-lifers, most of whom are Christians, eschew every such tactic, knowing that there is only one big way to prevail: They must hide themselves in their spiritual home: the living God.

When they do, they come to know three other big things, all contained in the one, and all tending to their wisdom, resilience, effectiveness, and joy.

First, pro-lifers know that God is the Author of universal history, which is therefore best understood as a cosmic play, drama, or epic story: His Story.

The set for His Story is the universe: the heavens, the earth, the seas, and all that is in them. The characters are the triune God, the holy angels, the evil angels, and beloved mankind, the sole creature fashioned in His own image and likeness. The four-fold plot of His Story is the creation, probation, fall, and progressive redemption of man and nature, the latter being accomplished through the Person and Work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The drama in His Story is found in this: Due to the fall of man, the world is now the scene of a great spiritual war between the Kingdom of God and the Domain of Darkness; between good and evil, truth and lies, beauty and ugliness, and life and death (John 10:10). As in Eden, so throughout His Story: God is testing each human character. In love, He invites—indeed, commands—all to believe His Word, obey His voice, and fight on the side of goodness, truth, beauty, and life. As they mull the test, He is looking on, to see how each one will decide. Happily, millions of pro-lifers have decided to fight for life on the side of God.

Secondly, pro-lifers know that His Story unfolds according to this spiritual principle: Where sin abounds, grace will abound much more (Romans 5:20).

They observe this pattern everywhere.

They see it first in the Bible. For decades, apostate Israel is enslaved by tyrannical Egypt; suddenly, God intervenes, a penitent family is delivered, and a new nation is born. Later, in the days of the kings, idolatry, sexual immorality, and child sacrifice abound; suddenly, God intervenes, a righteous ruler appears, idols are smashed, children are spared, and a humbled nation rejoices. Later still, a foolish, selfish, and easily manipulated populace cries out for the death of their Messiah. Never in world history does sin so egregiously abound. Yet never in world history does grace so marvelously super-abound, as when his heavenly Father suddenly intervenes to raise Him from the dead.

They also see this principle operating in secular history. For example, they see it in the triumphs of the British and American Abolitionist Movements, the American Civil Rights Movement, the Polish Solidarity Movement, and, most recently, the MAGA Movement. Accordingly, they know to brace themselves for the long haul. They understand that with respect to the battles, they will win some and lose some, at times even unto loud lamentation (Matthew 2:1-18). But they also understand that along the way, many will be succored, rescued, convicted, converted, and won to the cause of life. Very importantly, they also know that with respect to the war itself, they (or rather, He) will surely win.

Finally, pro-lifers know that they cannot win this war unless they use the weapons approved and supplied by the divine Author himself. 

Here again they take their cues from Bible history. Moses and Aaron stand alone before the tyrant Pharaoh, his priestly sycophants, and his mighty army; yet armed with just a single staff, they defeat them all. The giant Goliath, wielding a spear the size of a weaver’s beam, falls face down, stricken to death by a single smooth stone from young David’s sling. And fulfilling the mystical meaning of all such happenings, the Lord Jesus Christ—suspended all solitary upon a Roman cross—propitiates God’s wrath, satisfies His, justice and eternally defeats the world, the flesh, and the devil in behalf of all who look in faith to His Son.

The Weapons of Their Warfare

Therefore, in our own day of testing and battle, pro-lifers take up these three God-ordained weapons of spiritual warfare.

First, they pray. They well recall the words of Christ, who said of the salvation of the wise, the powerful, and the rich, “With man it is impossible. But not with God. With God, all things are possible” (Mark 10:27). Therefore, above all else, they petition Him for what is humanly impossible: that blind eyes may see, and hardened hearts may be softened. Happily, it appears that He is hearing their prayers, and that He has been all along.

Secondly, they speak the truth in love. Knowing that the Spirit of God uses the Word of God to bring change, they repeatedly proclaim—in public— the same fundamental truths: There is a God, and we are not Him. He fashions all human beings in His own image and likeness: the reason for their inexpressibly great value. They come into being at the moment of conception (as did the child Jesus, when, by the Spirit, the eternal Son was united with a human spirit and body). From conception on, they have a God-given right to life, a right which civil government has a mandate to protect. We must not commit murder; those who do stand under His wrath and in danger of His judgment; those who repent of their murders and trust in Christ will stand beneath His love, receive His forgiveness, and rejoice in the gift of eternal life.

Where in these United States can I now go to purchase a slave? Nowhere; and it would be to my ruin if I tried. Why? Because the abolitionists kept speaking in love until slavery became unthinkable. Pro-lifers will do the same until it becomes unthinkable to destroy a child in the womb, poison or mutilate an adolescent body, or euthanize the aged, the infirm, or the depressed.

Finally, they also do the truth in love. Observing that Christ not only spoke of love, but also showed it in all He did and endured, pro-lifers are determined to imitate Him. Therefore, with little or no government funding, they now man over 3,000 pregnancy resource centers, serve over 2 million clients annually, offer hundreds of millions of dollars of free goods and services to women facing crisis pregnancies, and provide God’s truth, love, forgiveness, healing, and hope to all who will receive them. Like his grace, the examples abound.

Prayer, truth, sacrificial service. Such spiritual weapons, despised by the world, are mighty through God for the pulling down of strongholds. One day soon—whether within His Story, or at its end— they will win the war for human life (2 Corinthians 10:1-6).

This is why you always find joy in the burrows of pro-life hedgehogs. View the highlights of the 2025 March for Life and see for yourself. To borrow a (empty) boast from their opponents, pro-lifers know that they really are on the right side of His Story. Accordingly, they eagerly wait for V-Day, trusting that they will hear these blessed words from the living God himself: “Well done, good and faithful hedgehogs. You were faithful in the One Big Thing, therefore you have prevailed in many. Enter into the joy of your Lord.”