It’s the Christmas season once again! Recently, Jessica and I were looking through some old photos from Decembers past, and the changes in our two boys are remarkable. Our oldest son, Caleb, is a sophomore in high school; our youngest, Zachary, is in the 7th grade. Over the last year, Caleb grew dramatically and is now just one inch shorter than I am (something he reminds me of constantly). Zachary, at 12 years old, hasn’t hit his growth spurt yet; but his mind is developing quickly, and he can occasionally outwit his dad. As they get older, their temperaments, personalities, and perspectives continue to develop according to their uniqueness. And wow, are they unique. I’ll find Caleb watching a cooking show on TV (he gets that from his mom); while Zach will be writing, creating, or composing by himself in another room (he gets that from his dad). Each child is wonderfully and marvelously crafted, made in God’s image and expressing His majestic creativity and artistry. I love watching them as they grow into fine young men and become who God intends them to be. You might recall I wrote a short article on the incarnation last year. That God, our Creator, chose to come to earth as a human continues to amaze and mystify me the older I get. So I once again find my thoughts drifting to Jesus as the God-man and to His relationship with His greatest creation—humans. God created all things, yet He reserved special privileges and rights for the crown of His creation. We humans are the only created beings given rule over our domain (Genesis 1:28) and able to enter into a personal relationship with our Creator. And we each bear a resemblance to our Creator because we are made in His image. You may remember a Christian musician and songwriter from the 1980s and ’90s named Rich Mullins. “Awesome God,” “Elijah,” and “Step by Step” are some of his better-known works. As I was contemplating what it means to be human with God’s divine imprint on each one of us, I recalled the prologue to one of Mullins’ lesser-known songs, “Higher Education and the Book of Love.” Here is a transcript of Mullins’ spoken words:

“What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be human? I cannot help but suspect that at one time in the history of thinking that people believed that it meant that we were spiritual and that we could make choices and were capable of aspiring to higher ideals. Like maybe loyalty or maybe faith. Or maybe even love. But now we are told by people who think they know, that we vary from amoeba only in the complexity of our makeup and not in what we essentially are. They would have us think, as Dysart said, that we are forever bound up in certain genetic reigns—that we are merely products of the way things are and not free—not free to be the people who make them that way. They would have us see ourselves as products so that we could believe that we were something to be made—something to be used and then something to be disposed of. Used in their wars, used for their gains and then set aside when we get in their way. Well, who are they? They are the few who sit at the top of the heap—dung heap though it is—and who say it is better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven. Well, I do not know that we can have a heaven here on earth, but I am sure we need not have a hell either. What does it mean to be human? I cannot help but believe that it means we are spiritual—that we are responsible and that we are free—that we are responsible to be free.”

This awful battle we fight—to save the youngest members of our race from being killed by the older members—is rooted in polar opposite perspectives on what it means to be human. If we believe being human means we are spiritual and endowed by our Creator with rights that begin the exact same moment we are conceived, then we must make a stand to protect all preborn humans. But we cannot make exceptions; otherwise, we demean and diminish our own humanity. Earlier this month, a United States senator (and former GOP presidential candidate) publicly decried the members of his party who want to make abortion illegal in cases of rape and incest. He said to a cheering room, “I believe that you can be pro-life and win an election. But if you are going to tell a woman who has been raped she has to carry the child of a rapist, you’re losing most Americans. Good luck with that.” This senator is horribly incorrect. Our humanity is not determined by race, color, creed, economic status, or even the circumstances of one’s conception. If we accept that every human being is created in God’s image with purpose and a plan, then a child conceived in rape cannot be valued differently than a child conceived in love. Her worth is determined entirely by whom God created her to be and not by any other variable. Some call the senator’s position “pro-life lite,” meaning he is generally pro-life but makes certain exceptions. However, there’s no such thing as “pro-life lite.” He is actually “pro-abortion lite,” as he thinks killing babies is acceptable in a small number of situations. This senator’s words were terrible and nonsensical. How about telling a pregnant woman who was raped that you will walk with her, care for her, and even suffer with her throughout her pregnancy? What about promising her that you’ll be with her long after the birth of her beautiful, innocent child who, although conceived through a brutal act, is a marvelous, miraculous blessing uniquely created in the image of God? I’d love to ask this senator why he thinks a human being conceived in love is worth the world, but a child conceived in rape is worth less than nothing, legally allowed to be pulled apart or poisoned. Rich Mullins’ words are worth repeating:

“They would have us see ourselves as products so that we could believe that we were something to be made—something to be used and then something to be disposed of. Used in their wars, used for their gains and then set aside when we get in their way.”

I don’t know if Mullins had preborn humans in mind as he wrote these words, but they are eerily evocative of abortion. Preborn boys and girls are seen by many as something to be used and then disposed of. As we learned over the summer, the body parts of preborn babies are worth far more than their lives to those third-party companies that purchase fetal tissue from Planned Parenthood and then turn around and sell it to researchers. You may be thinking, Brian, this is a pretty strange Christmas message. Perhaps. But I think dwelling on the incarnation reminds those of us who follow Christ about the utmost importance of cherishing, protecting, and humanizing preborn babies. Christ didn’t come to earth as a fully developed baby. He came as a zygote and grew for nine months inside His mother’s womb—just like each one of us did, thereby revealing the majestic beauty of every human life, born and preborn. This is why we MUST make abortion unthinkable and unavailable in our nation. God is the Giver of LIFE—both spiritually and physically. We must evangelize to save one, and end abortion to preserve the other. Your prayers, support, encouragement, and courage helped us rescue 1149 babies from abortion this year. In 2016, God willing, we’ll continue to grow, pushing ourselves to help rescue even more babies from this horror. Thank you for joining us in this lifesaving work. On behalf of Jessica and the boys, I wish you and yours a very merry Christmas and a happy new year. And if you have a moment, I encourage you to spend some time dwelling on the incarnation and how that miraculous event proved why we must protect all innocent human life.