Thread by @bartbarber

This tweet represents the lowest point of dishonesty to which we can descend when we sell out to the crass tone of secular politics instead of following the way of Christ.

https://twitter.com/DustyDeevers/status/1570079767071961088

Deevers is attacking the consistent pro-life position of the Southern Baptist Convention as represented by more than 20 resolutions adopted over the span of 40 years. To give some specific details…

Since 1980 we have consistently said that abortion should be illegal unless the life of the mother would be in peril if the pregnancy were to continue (such as in the case of an ectopic pregnancy).

That means—don't miss this—that Southern Baptists have not supported exceptions permitting abortion in cases of rape or incest.

Ours is not a "moderate" position. It is certainly not a position that is "against the innocent preborn."

We have funded crisis pregnancy centers and foster care and adoption services, have adopted tens of thousands of children ourselves, and have created poverty-assistance ministries in our communities, working in every way to ease the burden of carrying babies to term.

We have invested in providing advanced imaging technologies to pregnancy care facilities across the country—massive investments—to help expectant mothers to meet their babies before deciding whether to let them live. We've tried to give the baby a voice to speak to her mother.

And we have not been silent on the legal front. We have supported legislators and legislation from state-to-state with the goal from the very beginning to accomplish one thing: The end of legal abortion.

Through success and failure, with indefatigable courage, over the course of decades, calling upon the brightest of minds and the strongest of wills, Pro-Life legislative and judicial strategists successfully implemented an incrementalist strategy that has finally toppled Roe.

This is the only Pro-Life approach that has actually saved any babies at all.

And now, post-Dobbs, the abolitionism movement that Deevers favors is at work opposing Pro-Life legislation like the "Value Them Both" amendment in Kansas. Not content just to accomplish nothing, this movement works against accomplishments by others. aimks.org/9reasons/

But Deevers has chosen this line of messaging. According to him, if you supported the actual legislative and judicial work that produced the Dobbs decision and overturned Roe, you might still be "against the innocent preborn."

If you fund prenatal clinics that help women meet their babies and choose life, you still might be "against the innocent preborn."

THEY can oppose the "Value Them Both" amendment in Kansas and claim the high road in doing so, but anyone who opposes their poorly-written legislative efforts they will accuse of being "against the innocent preborn."

How? Why?

Because unless you 100% agree with every jot and tittle of Deevers's obsession with sending 16-year-old girls to prison for succumbing to the coercion of their parents to have an abortion, he will label you "against the innocent preborn."

How? Why?

Because if you want an exception in the law for ectopic pregnancies where the mother (and the baby) would be in grave danger of death if the pregnancy were not ended, he will label you "against the innocent preborn."

Even he knows that this isn't true. Even @dustydeevers knows that @LeatherwoodTN isn't "against the innocent preborn."

He's just hoping that YOU won't know that.

Because honest discussion of the actual issues is not his goal.

And it is THAT—this Faustian bargain with the devil of politics, this gossipy accusing of the brethren, this focus-group-tested rabble-rousing that tramples truth in the quest for quote-tweets—that represents one of the gravest threats to the work of the SBC today.