BOOK REVIEW: ABANDONED, The Untold Stories of the Abortion Wars, by Monica Migliorino Miller, Ph.D.

Having been a pro-life activist from 1984 to 1992, I have a very keen interest in collecting books that cover the History of pro-life activism or what is being more commonly referred to by pro-life and pro-abortion authors as the “abortion wars.”  As informative as most of these books that I have are, there is one feature that Abandoned has that these other books don’t.  Abandoned was written by a fellow pro-life activist and I find that to by very appealing.  The author and I share a common bond.  We both have had the experience of being arrested at an abortion mill and seeing the inside of a jail cell.  So for me, the fact that Dr. Miller was an actual pro-life activist gives her book a higher level of credibility than the other books that were written by the non activist authors.

Abandoned is essentially Dr. Miller’s memoirs covering part of her distinguished career as a pro-life activist from 1976 to 1994, primarily in the Chicago/Milwaukee area during that time.  Her post graduate education and background as a college professor is quite evident in the way she compiled her research and arranged her material.  But even beyond that, Dr. Miller can just FLAT OUT WRITE!  Her syntax and writing style is superb.  Not only did Dr. Miller accurately give an account of the events she was involved in, but she wrote her book in such a way that holds her readers’ attention as they glide through the pages.

Abandoned reads like a Tom Clancy novel, as Dr. Miller so brilliantly captured the drama of the events that she wrote about.  Whether it was her interaction with the women that she sidewalk counseled, the police, the judges and lawyers, her jail mates, or her pro-life comrades while retrieving dead babies at the abortion mill dumpsters or planning rescues, Dr. Miller was very thorough in illustrating the demeanor and attitudes of the various characters she engaged.  She has a way of drawing in her readers and making them feel as if they we right there as it happened.  Dr. Miller has done some acting and she has a Bachelors degree in Theatre.  I am guessing that her background in the arts might be one of the reasons she can illustrate drama so well with her words.  I think Dr. Miller would probably be successful if she were to cross over and write in the fiction genres such as novels.

The parts of Abandoned that I found especially interesting were the accounts of the rescues (sit-ins at abortion mills).  Here are some of them:

·         The first rescue in Chicago at the Concord “Medical” Services on March 11, 1978;

·         The first rescue in Milwaukee at the Bread and Roses abortion mill on March 8, 1986.

·         The Interstate Bank Building rescue in Milwaukee on June 8, 1989;

·         The Wendy’s overpass rescue on April 25, 1991;

·         The driveway rescue at abortionist, Neville Sender’s house on June 21, 1993.

As the one who invented the lock and block system for rescues, I especially found the lock-in rescues that Dr. Miller wrote about quite interesting.  Even though the Milwaukee rescuers didn’t use blocks per se as we did in the Houston rescues, they did devise their own unique techniques and apparatuses that achieved the same effect that a block would have.  Such as rescuers using kryptonite bike locks and locking themselves to junk cars or to each other inside a junk car.  Then there was a rescuer that attached himself to barrel filled with cement with a PVC pipe.  It just goes to show that there is more than one way to lock yourself to an object in order to slow down the arrest process.

As I read about Dr. Miller’s experiences during the rescues she was in and her time in jail, I found myself recalling similar experiences during my time as an activist.  As of the time I began to read Abandoned, I was already in the process of writing my own book that will chronicle my History as a pro-life activist.  Also, I spoke with two other pro-life activists who are planning to do the same.  After reading Abandoned, I am inspired more than ever to finish my book.  Suffice it to say Dr. Miller has set the bar very high for all the other pro-life activists who want follow in her path.

May 26, 1988 James C. Kopp Interview, Part 3 (Jim Shares His Philosophy On Crisis Pregnancy Centers)

JK: Keep in mind, I include in the activists, although they are not in a high of profile, and on purpose they are not as high of profile is the Crisis Pregnancy Centers because in the long run they save more babies.  Even though I do believe in the rescues.  Obviously I do, I do them all the time.

MJ: Well they work together hand in hand.  In my first rescue we saved 6 babies, but if we had not had a CPC a block and a half away from the actual mill…  In fact, all of them walked over there.  Some of them couldn’t get in the mill because the door was blocked.  If that CPC wasn’t there, I am not so sure that we would have saved 6 babies.  However, I am of the opinion that CPCs in and of themselves will not stop the abortion holocaust.

JK: Well, I will tell you one little story and this is part of the reason that I have not abandoned the CPC work that I do.  When I am in jail obviously the main thing I can do for pro-life is to pray and to write letters of encouragement to the people who have the CPCs and so forth.  And when I am out of jail, I am usually planning the next rescue.  There is a lot of heterogeneity of style in approach in running CPCs.  A man I know who I have completely modeled myself after in terms of his style of operating CPCs is someone by the name of Bob Pearson.  In fact, Kurt Young.. I think I have the name right, who is the director of the Christian Action Counsel…  He went to Bob Pearson in 1979 or 80 after Bob had been running CPCs for about 11 years and asked him how you do this.  This was about the time of the Koop/Schaffer series and the tour and all that stuff, and within 3 or 4 years on the Evangelical side, the Christian Action Counsel had sponsored like, 250 of these things.  It was incredibly effective and it sweep through the Evangelical churches like it should have, and it did.  To my understanding, most of those CPCs are still standing today.  But anyway, suffice it to say, there is a much older stream of CPCs that came before Kurt Young and he’ll tell you that if you ask him.  And that was operated by a man named Bob Pearson.  It’s not quite as simple as all this but it’s not inaccurate at all to say that he walked into Honolulu in 1968 where there were 8 free standing abortion mills and no Pearson centers.  In 1976, he walked out of Honolulu where there were 8 free standing Pearson centers and zero abortion mills.  He did not throw a bomb obviously, he did not get arrested once, he did not do any rescues or kryptonite himself to anything like we love to do, he didn’t do any number of things.  He quietly opened up these places… You know I heard the other day, someone told me that they opened up a CPC in a conservative area.  It was in the plains somewhere or mid-west, and they had a big party there and a press conference, and a parade.  And I went, “Well, I suppose I could imagine a town that is so conservative, that you could do that, there would be so much support.  But then I said to myself, by the time you got a town that conservative you probably would not have that many abortions anyway.”  You see what I saying?  He opened it up in an aggressive situation.  Honolulu is an extremely liberal town, and so is San Francisco.

JK: (cont’d) Let me give you an example on how not to open a CPCs.  There is this attitude right?  Someone else a very beautiful respected leader with a good heart went in to New York said, “I’m going to open up 20 CPCs” and they announced it in the press and everything.  That night, the state government of New York in Albany held a session and made them all illegal overnight before they could open.  They passed a law that said you cannot do an on-site pregnancy test without a Doctor.  Which is effectively for us…  since we can’t afford to hire Doctors to stand around and rubber stamp urine tests… shut is down.  Now, thank God, I really believe that when the Lord was working in San Francisco, he would have us open these things right under the nose of the devil and do it without him knowing it.  That is how we decided to operate, and that’s definitely how I would recommend it to someone because the greatest need is going to be in your most liberal place.  That’s where you are going to have tons and tons of mills.  So anyway, I said all that just to say that you can have an aggressive policy of running a CPC, you can have a name that does not reveal the fact that you are pro-life.  I don’t care what you say, at this point in the game in 1988, if you open up a pregnancy counseling center and it says over the door, “Crisis Pregnancy Center,” you might as well say on there, “Save a baby for Jesus.”  There is no difference anymore.  There is a Bible verse that says, that the children of darkness are wiser than the children of men.  These people have all these things figured out.  They know what birthright means, they know what CPCs mean.  But if you open a center and I don’t want to use any of the names we’ve used in practice now, but if you open a center and let’s say… Women’s Emergency Center or whatever.  Just pick a name that’s true, and when they come to you, you be as shrewd as you can when talking to them without lying.  Obviously the Lord doesn’t honor lying, but any good salesman knows the difference between lying and being aggressive.  CPCs can cut into, the will not stop all abortions, that’s too your earlier point and I agree with you.  They will not stop all abortions, you will have to have rescues stop to them.  But I could easily say 50 to 70% of abortions could be stopped with CPCs alone.  Keep in mind, when you stop an abortion, you have stopped abortion for that one woman.  If you bring her into a CPC and take care of her and show her that baby she was going to kill, she becomes pro-life.  She becomes a pro-life disciple.  Then she tells other people.

MJ: On the other side of the token, one point Joe Scheidler has often made is that you may have some pro-lifers who get arrested once and rest in their laurels over that one arrest and one rescue.  Where you may have a guy that might sidewalk counsel every Saturday and never get arrested, but he will take several women to the CPC and end up saving 25 to 50 babies.  And of course over the long haul, which one was more effective?

JK: If I were purely into how many babies you could save, I wouldn’t do rescues.  But, part of the reason I do rescues is that there is more involved in just how many babies I can save.  There’s the bigger picture of trying to communicate to a large number of people and get a strong message across.

MJ: I guess the number one thing I see about doing rescues is… obviously it saves the baby and that is or primary purpose to begin with.  But another thing it does is, you got to remember that the abortion industry is a multi-billion dollar industry.  And if we are going to have any chance of stopping this big locomotive that is very heavy and very fast, is by hurting their pocket book and make it inconvenient for them to have an abortion facility and that is one of the things that I see the rescue movement doing.  We are making it inconvenient for the abortionist to practice his death trade.  Where the CPCs on the other hand doesn’t stop the abortionist…  John Cavanaugh-O’Keefe pro-choice because they are giving the girls a choice too.  He wasn’t being derogatory when he said that.

JK: I know, and that’s a much debated comment and we could talk all night about that.  I would just say one thing and that is… every time a woman chooses to have her baby at a CPC that she would have otherwise had an abortion, we have taken 3 or 4 hundred dollars out of the pocket of the abortionist.  Now when you talk about this termite approach and wearing them down, that has a value too.  In the case of Honolulu, the reason those abortion mills shut down was because they had no market.  In the end, it’s the market that you have to aim at.  The young woman with $300 in her hands keeps the abortion industry going.  Until you have changed her mind, or brought her back, you will still have an abortion.  You can change her mind by making it illegal, and fat chance. If that happens, great.  If it doesn’t, we still have our job.  Bob Pearson says in his manual, there is no baby that wasn’t saved that it wasn’t a matter of sidewalk counseling.  Ultimately, it all boils down to sidewalk counseling.  CPC counseling is just good sidewalk counseling moved into an office.  The reason I like CPCs is that you can take someone who is tender hearted… I am always aiming at the tender hearted person.  Most of the people who are interested in pro-life are going to be tender hearted.  Think about it, it just follows.  And those people might not have the where with all to go out on a sidewalk.  So, I can lead those people into a CPC where I pay the rent, and I pay the phones and I sit them down and I say this is your place.  If a young woman wants to come in a take a pregnancy test, she’s my guest.  You see, it’s on our turf or the Lord’s turf that we are operating.  There are a lot more people who will operate in that situation than will go out on a sidewalk.  But, when they are in there, they will learn about the sidewalk.  They will learn about what abortion is all about talking to these girls and pretty soon they will be out on the side walk.

MJ: There is a CPC in Fort Worth where the Attorney General of Texas wants them to shut down.

JK: I know the whole story,

MJ: When I heard that story, my first thoughts were, well obviously they are doing something right.          

JK: Chuck Pelletier is a living saint.  He was a living saint before he opened the CPC…  After he opened it up I think he was getting… Last time I talked to him he said he used to get 3 babies a day.  That was the going rate before his restrictions.  Now he’s under all these restrictions and gets one baby a day.  I don’t know anyone with numbers like that.  That man could shut down 3 mills without ever writing a letter, with 15 abortions a week.  You could have a little tiny mom and pop abortion mill that runs off 15 abortions a week.  That is the whole principle of CPCs.  If you have a town like San Francisco that has 8 abortion mill within the city limits, then you better have 8 CPCs.  This is why it bugs me so much when you talk about someone getting arrested and sitting back on their laurels, I know people who would open up a CPC and sit back on their laurels.  Not only that, if somebody new comes into town and wants to open up a CPC, they will say, “Well, I don’t think there will be enough money.”  Well the Lord’s got the money.  The limiting factor I have always ran into was finding directors that will take it as a full time thing.

MJ: You know my wife worked at a CPC and she told me stories about the financial records and how they are just struggling to stay open and just fighting for every dime.

JK: Well, it has always been my philosophy with every director that I have ever worked with, I always tell them.  Your job is not to raise money.  Your job is to bring young women in your area across your threshold and tell them the good news.  Tell them that they don’t have to kill their baby, they don’t have to continue in their life that is turned away from God.  Tell them the good news.  That’s your job and that’s all your job.  Obviously, they need to recruit counselors and train them. 

MJ: Whose job is it to raise the money?

JK: That’s God’s job.  Our job is to do advertising and whatever it takes to get those women to come in across the threshold.  And for every woman, that’s like money in the bank.  If a woman comes across the threshold and I am taking care of her and her baby.  She sends up a prayer to God that she needs help, how is He going to let my door shut if a keep doing that?  I hate to say this, but most CPCs are paying $500 to $1,000 in rent a month, they have overhead.  They have this and that, and they are just not aggressive enough about bringing people in.  They don’t advertise enough.  There are all sorts of places that you can advertise that won’t cost you a nickel.  Like passing out flyers.  I mean that cost something but not a fortune.  They could go to public schools and pass out cards.  They are not aggressive enough.  They sit in their little office and the got their Yellow Page ad that runs over and over.  Now they have restrictions on their Yellow Page ad so it’s not filed in the same place the abortionist file theirs.  And they have a big disclaimer the Yellow Page ad that says, “we don’t do abortions.”  Then they sit back and say oh woe is me because they are not getting enough money.  We have to overcome these obstacles.  The Lord has given us difficult jobs, but he has also given us infinite resources.  I have had my first CPC out of four that had serious ongoing money problems.  It’s not anything that can be fixed with trying to raise more money.  Part of it is lack of interest in the area, but I think the ultimate thing is that Director needs to get more close to God and spend more time on their knees and just be more aggressive about bringing the women in.  With low budget advertisement and hit the pavement.  So anyway, that’s my little advertisement for running CPCs.

May 26, 1988 James C. Kopp Interview, Part 2

MJ: We are in a holocaust in our country and that has escalated to over 20 million, maybe 21 or 22.

JK: Right.

MJ: And it’s been going on for fifteen years.  What do you think it’s going to take to stop the holocaust here in America?  And number two, do you think it can be stopped?

JK: I will tell you something that is my private opinion.  It’s not something that I can prove to you.  When I say that I don’t mean that it can be publicized, I just mean that there is no proof that I can offer for it.  I am not pointing to any particular Bible verse or anything.  But, if you look at the tradition of the major prophets and look at the times they were in.  Over and over they are describing that judges can be bought.  Jerusalem goes whoring under any tree or hill top with any god that she feels that she wants to.  You just look at the picture that was painted of Jerusalem when the Lord sent major prophets.  Then you look at the time now, and to that extent I would say that there is a connection with Scripture in terms of just looking around the world right now and trying to piece it together.  I personally feel that.. and I don’t want to discourage anyone when I say this, but the basic picture of abortion will not stop in the absence of a catastrophe.  Now, there are all sorts of catastrophes that could happen.  If the Lord were to come again, obviously that would be a catastrophe in the eyes of unbelievers.  If AIDS were to pass the epidemic threshold which is 6% of the total population, it would start moving up toward 51% which is what you would call pandemic, if became a much higher thing and started cutting much deeper into the hetero population, that’s an example of a catastrophe.  Or a nuclear war, or a communist takeover, these sorts of things.  The absolute worst thing that could happen for this whole planet is for everything to go along with the status quo, because then the judgment that God hold in reserve is even greater.  Hitler and his people did not stop doing what they were doing because they had moral qualms about it.  They stopped doing what they were doing because we forced them to.  You know this whole thing about pro-choice now?  That’s bologna.  They are murdering people, there is no choice.  They evolved in that and it’s the same with Mr. Hitler.  Hitler did not stop doing what he was doing because he chose to, and the fact that he had to be forced to stop was that the western civilization slipped back morally.  If Germany could have come to the conclusion that it was morally wrong and stopped for that reason I don’t think we would have had abortion.  So this is really just a continuation of the German situation. 

JK: (cont’d) But, in terms of whether it can be stopped or not, the other side of this whole thing, is because we are pro-life workers, each of us has the tremendous pleasure of knowing at least one woman who had a baby as the result of the efforts that the Lord brought to pass through us.  This is a tremendous privilege.  I would say most of the pro-lifers in the entire country have never had that privilege even though there work accounts for very much.  But, still in a way we know people, we have the faces of the women in our minds right now and the faces of their babies stored away, that we know that we if hadn’t gotten out of bed that morning and overcome all the fear and so forth, humanly speaking… as Dr. Schaffer would always say… “humanly speaking” those babies would have died and the souls of those mothers would have been on the path to hell.  And for that matter I’ll tell one even worse, our own souls, who know where we would have been with the Lord, if he had really been tapping at our heart.  I am not saying that, that is what you have to do to save yourself, I’m just saying Jesus wants us to walk with him.  But anyway, what I was going to get at… I ramble too much, (laughs)

MJ: That’s okay.

JK: What I was going to get at was this, as far as those women are concerned, abortion did come to an end.  You see what I’m saying?  As Mother Teresa says over and over and over…  all these atheist reporters come up to her and ask, “Mother, why are you working in the black hole of Calcutta?”  There is however many tens of thousands of people dying in the streets and you pick up your 500 a day, imagine, I don’t know what the number is, but imagine picking up a 100 dying people in a day and taking good care of them, I mean good care of them.  And even more than that…  I mean even an atheist could even do that if they had enough money.  Right?  Giving them enough emotional support so they can die with dignity which is part of what Mother Ts ministry is all about.  Just imagine how much effort that is.  But anyway, so the atheists come and they say, “well mother you come and pick up these 100 or 200 bums of the streets and half of they die anyway.  And the other half, after you patch them up, they are going back out on the street and they are going to die next week.”  She always has her standard answer that she gives.  She says, “it’s a drop in the ocean, but without that drop, the ocean would be one drop less.”  I have said this to myself many many times while I am sitting in a jail cell, or sitting in a court room.  We have got our one or two babies and as far as the Lord was concerned, he probably would have been prepared to ground the whole universe to a halt just to make sure we got our lazy tails out of bed that morning when we were having second thoughts.  You know what I mean, that feeling before you do a rescue.  You know, and He said, “Jim, the whole universe has been ground to a halt so you can take another 5 minutes sitting there in bed overcoming your fears.  Get down there!  That’s how important that baby is to me.”  And there’s a bigger picture and because of the television and everything, we are used to seeing TV pictures of everything that is evil in the whole world in 30 minutes on headline news, but that’s not our problem.  I hate to say it, but in the bigger picture I suppose it’s our problem.

JK: (cont’d) The Germans had this expression of Weltschmerz, “you want to have this pain for the whole world.”  Well, I do have a pain for the whole world, I wished I could preach the Gospel to every human being.  But I also know that Jesus cannot call me to do that.  Not if he wants to keep me in the flesh doing this and having this amount of energy and needing so sleep and so much to eat and so forth.  There are limitations.  I can think of a lot of Pro-Lifers that I have met that have burned out because they wouldn’t take care of themselves and wouldn’t set limitations for themselves, or would not allow the Lord to set limitations on themselves.  Had they done that, we would have a lot more manpower, we would have two or three times the amount of manpower in the rescue movement alone.  And in the CPC movement, I would say that we would easily have two or three times the manpower there.  If the people had just paced themselves.  This is probably an aside, but there has been many times during my pro-life career where I have taken a whole day off and I didn’t answer to anyone for it on this planet.  There are times when I took two weeks off.  Just before New York I was in a hidden location where nobody knew where I was except for one priest.  Finally toward the end I finally broke down and called Randall Terry, I didn’t want to tell him where I was.  But for two weeks, I walked up and down the beach, because I knew the upcoming Operation Rescue event in New York was going to be a heart attack.  It was going to be a panic and there were going to be people up in my face asking me to do things all week long and that’s exactly what happened.  And as it was, I barely made it through the week.  Having had the resources of two weeks of silence and prayer to build up.

MJ: It’s a marathon race.  A lot of people don’t realize, especially pro-lifers is the abortion is only one front.  Abortion just happens to be the watershed point, it happens to be the tip of the iceberg.  Even if we do stop abortion which I really think we can.  I think it is a very realistic goal, but even if we do stop abortion, there is still a lot of work to be done and a lot of other fronts and we definitely just can’t kick back.  If you really want to evaluate how well your movement is doing, sometimes its good to listen to what your enemies are saying about you.  Because they have a different perspective and can sometimes tell it best.  This is something that Kate Mitchelman who is the Executive Director of the National Abortion Rights Action League said.  This is her quotes: “Up until now the anti-choice groups have been chipping away at the right to abortion with a chisel.  But now they picked up a sledgehammer and they are trying to crush the whole thing.  They obviously feel that it is within their reach to overturn Roe V. Wade and make abortion illegal again.  And the frightening thing is that I am not sure they are wrong.”

JK:  Hum…  it’s great.

MJ: That is heavy when we got the abortion industry shaking in their boots.  I mean they are scared, we have got them scared Jim.  Now that the iron is hot, if we could just mobilize the masses to do it.  What do you think it’s going to take to stop abortion?

JK: Well that’s what I was saying, it would take a catastrophe which would force people to remember God.  In this country we have obviously forgotten about God.

MJ: Do you think a series of rescues would be enough of a catastrophe?  If the rescue movement were to gain more momentum and numbers within the next few years?

JK: I’ll tell about another quote that was made that same week by a similar person.  And this was after a week along effort which I don’t think anyone would ever deny that this was the greatest rescue effort that has ever been done.  In terms of manpower, organization and prayers and just raw success that the Lord heaped on this thing.  Suffice it to say, it was a great effort and one of the abortionist said during that week, “well these people can do what they want.  But basically what it boils down to is that next week we are going to be here and they aren’t.”  That’s one of the reasons I am anxious to get back in New York.  But, I’ll tell you another little story, quickly and that is, I was at a pre New York, OR (Operation Rescue) rally held on Long Island.  Not a rally, it was just where Randy was speaking to a group of people that was let’s just say your average right to life group.  I’m not casting aspersions, believe me these are great people.  Randy was going to speak at the end of the agenda, and they ran through their agenda and there were two people there who we knew at the beginning of the meeting that were identified to us as being clinic workers for Bill Beard.  Or I should say, mill workers that were there sitting in that meeting.  I don’t know why they were even allowed to be there, but the right to life people said, “that’s okay we don’t have any secrets.”  And Randy said the same thing, when he started to talk.  But anyway, so they went through this meeting and we waited for Randy to go on and it was about an hour and a half.  They talked about all sorts of things, legislation, education, “we got to get into this church” and “we got to hold a dinner here” and “we got to have a potluck,” all kinds of stuff which is all fine work.  Now I do remember toward the end that they had a 15 minute discussion on the cheapest source of a precious feet pin.  There were about 30 people there and they were discussing where can you get precious feet pins for the least amount of money.  All of this I admit is great pro-life stuff, and during this whole time these two women sat in the back and just sat there joking the whole time with each other.  Then Randy Terry comes on, and they became extremely quiet, and the expressions on their faces became extremely sullen.  And after a while, they realized the impact of what Randy Terry was going to do, or what he was hoping to do with the Lord’s blessing.  They wanted to ask some questions and they got very angry and got very upset.  For that matter, if they had known that Jim Kopp was standing in that same room, the one who is being sued by N.O.W. for opening up a Crisis Pregnancy Center in the city of San Francisco, the Devil’s play ground, I would have imagined that they would have been quite upset about that too.  Especially if I want to target and open up a CPC across the street from Bill Beard’s mill, or whatever.  You see what I’m saying?  When you get into the more intense pro-life stuff, suddenly just like the point you were making, you enemy perks up and says your hurting me!  Your hurting me!  Well, that’s what I want to do.

MJ: Joe Scheidler said that he attended these abortionist conventions and has told that the number one thing they complain about… they don’t complain about Jack Wilke and National Right to Life, (Jim interjected, “as great of a worker as he is”) and the pro-life political agenda.  When they talk about the problems that they are having, and who is giving them the most problems, they are talking about the activists.  They are talking about the people who are doing the sit-ins, the picketing and the sidewalk counseling.  They are talking about, “how are we going to stop these people.”  That should be a good barometer to go by, I would think.

BOOK REVIEW: Pro-Life Activists in America, Meaning, Motivation, and Direct Action (2002) by Carol J. C. Maxwell

As a former Pro-Life Activist from 1984 to 1992, I have always been interested in reading literature others have written about the movement that I was a part of for 8 years. Carol J. C. Maxwell holds a Ph. D. and is an anthropologist. She wrote this book, Pro-Life Activists in America, Meaning, Motivation, and Direct Action as a part of her anthropological studies. On page one of her book, she stated that she, “embarked on two years of field observations to provide an anthropological account of this social movement (i. e. the pro-life activist movement).” All though I would agree that the pro-life activist movement qualifies as a “social movement” per se, I think the scope of Dr. Maxwell’s study was too narrow. The reason there was a pro-life activist movement, was because our civil government abolished laws that protected its unborn human citizens. The origin of the movement was solely based on a re-action to the federal government’s action. Hence there is a reason the movement came about in the 70s. The reason a pro-life activist movement did not exist in the 60s, 50s, 40s and earlier is because unborn babies were legally protected in the decades leading up to the 70s.


I think an anthropological study of legalized abortion as a whole and its impact on American society as a whole would have been more comprehensive angle to take as opposed to studying a single facet of that issue. As of the date of this article, 53 million babies have been aborted since 1973. I think a study documenting how the loss of 53 million potential wage earners and taxpayers has affected our national economy and the solvency of Social Security and Medicare /Medicaid would be a much more constructive and comprehensive anthropological study. Doing an anthropological study on just the pro-life activist movement would make about as much sense as doing an anthropological study on the abolitionist and the underground railroad during the pre-Civil War 1800s without doing an anthropological study of slavery in America and how it affected American culture. Or, doing an anthropological study on Corrie Ten Boom and other Christian Nazi resistors who hid and harbored Jews without doing an anthropological study of Hitler and the Nazi holocaust as a whole. BTW, when pro-lifers equate their cause for the unborn to Slavery and the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews, Dr. Maxwell calls that an attitude of “ethic of extensivity.” (page 12)

Another thing that gave me pause about this book is Dr. Maxwell taking a neutral posture on the abortion issue. She wrote on page six:
When interviewees asked my position on abortion, I told them that I had trouble reconciling abortion with my personal values, but neither could I know what another woman would best do. As I recall, only one activist pushed me to take a stand on one side or the other of the pro-choice/pro-life divide, but I did not feel the need to define myself according to that dichotomy. The other interviewees appeared to accept or at least tolerate, the neutrality created by the tension of my beliefs.

Dr. Maxwell said that she spent two years (from September 1989 to August 1991) “making field observations” of pro-life activists. Yet, she said that her neutrality on abortion was created by the tension of her beliefs. What? During my 8 year tenure as a pro-life activist, there was one thing you could always count on. Pro-Lifers displaying placard sized photos of aborted babies. I would find it very hard to believe that Dr. Maxwell never once saw a picture of an aborted baby during those two years of interviewing. I find it very hard to believe that she is totally unaware of the carnage that is taking place at the abortion mills where she conducted her interviews. This woman is smart enough to write a book and earn a Ph.D. Yet, she doesn’t know “what another woman would best do” concerning the killing of her unborn baby? Suppose it was legal to kill one week old neo-natal babies. Would Dr. Maxwell still say that she would not “know what another woman would best do”? What other issues in the political spectrum is Dr. Maxwell having an internal struggle over? What about gun control, same sex marriages, illegal immigration and universal government run health care? Is Dr. Maxwell neutral on those issues also?

On multiple occasions, Dr. Maxwell wrote that the motivations of the pro-lifers participating in direct action as being “complex.” When it comes to the pro-life side of the abortion issue, I can assure you that our motivations for activism were quite simple. Babies are killed at the abortion mills and they were there to stop the killing. That is the root motive, you need not go any further than that. And if Dr. Maxwell learned anything during her two years of field observations, she would have known that.

I found one piece of data that Dr. Maxwell gave on page three to be very interesting. She wrote:
By the early 1990s, an estimated forty thousand individuals had participated in sit-ins at abortion facilities and related locations in the United States (Ginsburg 1993:564).

The footnote in the parentheses references the following source:
1993 Saving America’s Souls: Operation Rescue’s Against Abortion. In Fundamentalism and the State: Remaking Politics, Economics, and Militance. Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Applebby, eds. Pp. 557-88. Chicago: University Press.

Now I could be wrong, but 40,000 seems a little high to me. I have often wondered how many pro-life activists have been arrested prior to 1994 and my estimate was much lower than that. I would be curious to know how Martin E. Marty or R. Scott Appleby arrived at that number since Dr. Maxwell cited them as her source. I wonder if they made the distinction between total arrests of pro-life activists and total number of pro-life activists who have been arrested since a lot of them have been arrested multiple times.

Dr. Maxwell published some statistical data on pro-lifers in the appendix of her book. She displayed over a dozen different statistical tables that covered basic demographic fields such as level of education, age, average household income, occupations, religious affiliation, marital status, family size and so on. Her data was compiled within a two year period of a movement that spanned a little more that 20 years and the data gathered was isolated to the pro-life activists working in the mid-west region of America. Anybody who knows anything about compiling sats knows that the data compiled is based on a small sampling size of the body of work that you are investigating and analyzing. However, as thorough as Dr. Maxwell was in compiling and presenting her data, (and I don’t question its accuracy) I don’t think her sampling size was not big enough to paint an accurate demographic picture of the pro-life activists movement as a whole. Especially if she thinks 40,000 pro-life activists has participated in sit-ins.

This book is not an easy read, and is not well formatted in a ready friendly way. As I drudged through the book, I kept asking myself, who is her audience? Her writing style and vernacular was very academic. I don’t think the pro-abortion people would take an interest in this book, why would they want to read an academic dissertation on pro-life activists? They already think that they were a bunch of crazy loons. I can’t imagine very many pro-lifers wanting to read this book either. The pro-life activists who participated in the rescue movement already know what motivated them to action. As for the non-activist pro-lifers, half of them thought that breaking the law was wrong, and the other half were too scared to break the law or just too lazy. As interesting as some of the stats might be, in the end, this book was written by an academian for a bunch of other academians.

May 26, 1988 James C. Kopp Interview, Part 1

Editor’s note: About 10 years prior to James Kopp performing a post natal termination procedure of an abortionist in 1998, I had a chance to sit down with him for about an hour and a half for an interview. I recently, found the cassette tape of that interview while rummaging through my old cassettes a few weeks ago. After I listened to the tape, I was reminded of the deep wisdom and insight that James shared. I was so amazed at what he said, I decided to transcribe the interview and share it with you. This interview is quite long, so I will present it in several parts. Here is part 1.


MJ: There are a lot of things I don’t know about you just form a personal perspective. Could you tell us about who you are and where you are from and some basic background information before we start talking about rescue missions (sit-ins at abortion mills)?

JK: I was born in Pasadena, CA in 1954. I come from a family of five and I have one sister in heaven, and I guess part of my background includes the fact that my own immediate family has three single mothers. So to me, pro-life is very personal and the cost that mothers have to pay is something that I as a male could understand. I went to school in California, and I studied Darwinistic Biology as an under graduate many years ago, and was saved overseas in Francis Schaffer’s ministry and at the same time, through over Darwinism. But, I decided to finish up grad school even though by that time I started to think about pro-life and so I finished my Masters which was in embryology and fertilization. That started to get me into pro-life.

MJ: What year was this?

JK: I finished my Masters in I think about ’82. One of the reasons I got into pro-life was that… At one point during the Masters, I thought I might be interested in med school, so I became a pre-med, and I had some clinical experience. And, one day I was standing in the morgue of the Stanford Hospital and I assisted and observed autopsies there because I was in the pathology department and did my little bit of research at night. They brought in a baby that was 8 months from conception that had been aborted, for having Down’s syndrome. The Pathologist was particularly pleased to show me this baby because she knew that I was pro-life. She knew that I was in the morgue and she sent the baby in and she said, “You see enough of this kind of garbage and you really start to believe in abortion.” Those were the words she said to me, and I don’t think I will ever forget it. Up until then, I had some pro-life involvement intellectually, but it wasn’t until I saw that baby right in front of me, which was an absolutely beautiful baby that had been killed because it had Down’s syndrome. And, I heard those words and they just chilled me through my bones, “You see enough of this kind of garbage and you really start to believe in abortion.” Oh, and she also said, ”You pro-lifers really make me sick.” I was so stunned that I could not think of much to say but what happened is that I made a promise to God in my heart that I would try and do more. Up until then I had done political work in pro-life and my family has been involved in California politics for decades.

MJ: What year was this when you saw the aborted baby?

JK: That was 1982 also. The first rescue I did was in ’83 or ’84 and the first Crisis Pregnancy Center (CPC) that I opened was in ’84. So, it was after then I got on the pathway of CPCs and rescues.

MJ: You said you had your conversion overseas. Was this in Switzerland?

JK: Yes.

MJ: What was the name of the town?

JK: The name of the town was Huémoz-sur-Ollon. But the name of the ministry was L’Abri.

MJ: How many rescues have you done to date?

JK: I really don’t know the exact number, but it is somewhere between 15 to 20 I think. In terms of really big national type rescues with 100 or more people maybe 4 or 5 of those. And probably half a dozen lock-in rescues… maybe more.

MJ: Do you know how many arrests you’ve had?

JK: Well, let’s see... That’s right, some of the rescues did not involve arrests, so I have probably been arrested about 15 times. Not a lot.

MJ: Not a lot? (laughing) One of the things about you that is going against the grain of society is that a lot of people are soft and we have a lot of conveniences. And here, we have someone like you who has literally sold out everything for pro-life. I understand that you even took a vow of poverty at one time.

JK: (laughing) I don’t know about a vow.

MJ: That’s what John Witte told me.

JK: Well the hardest part was when I sold my trumpet. I used to be in the union and I put myself through college, or shall I say the Lord put me through college being in the union. And the hardest thing was when I sold my trumpet, which was an extremely good trumpet. That was how I made my living which was the culmination of my career as a professional musician. So that part hurt me, but ever since then it’s been downhill. I mean, in the sense that, once you…. I mean everyone has a trumpet if you know what I mean. Everyone’s got that one thing. You know, they will give up everything else, you know what I mean? And that trumpet meant probably more to me than anything else in terms of material things. I have already been moving in the direction of what I called, being judgment proof. You know, having no assets so that if N.O.W. (National Organization for Women) sues me, I would have nothing to fear. Which is the place I want to be in. So, I had been moving in that direction for a long time.

MJ: I could just see N.O.W. going after that trumpet. “We got to get Kopp’s trumpet!”

JK: (Laughing)

MJ: We read about Samuel Rutherford, Dietrich Bonheoffer, Corrie Ten Boom, then we look at people in our day and age… and I ask where are our heroes? And we have Joan Andrews and a handful of others. But our generation desperately needs some heroes that will sell everything out and just be radical. In our day and age this concept is very foreign and I just feel that we have a lot of soft Christians now days.

JK: Yeah, I think I see where you are going, and I definitely agree. In fact, any time the Lord has asked me to make a sacrifice… and of course, I cannot make a sacrifice in my own strength. If I were to form the resolution that I should sell my trumpet, that would be no big deal. That doesn’t mean anything if it is in the flesh. But, if you were to pray about it and you are sure that is what the Lord wants, and if you go to him and say, “okay Lord.” Then you are offering it up to God and He’s doing it. I definitely think that we don’t offer up enough things to the Lord, we are hanging on to too many things. That, I don’t think too many people would argue with you, especially in the United States. In my opinion, part of the core of this whole problem is that there has never been a country in the entire History of the planet that has had such a very large number of people with such an average high level of freedom from war, poverty, disease, coldness, hunger and pretty soon when you get that isolated and that independent, God is just an idea after a while. God is out there working on the fine things like do I feel good. If you go into most churches these days, people are concerned with feeling good. They are not thinking about, am I starving? Or, is that guy starving? Have I heard the Gospel? Or, has that guy heard the Gospel? You can say the same thing about missions. There are very few people in this country who will do missions, same thing with pro-life. So I certainly agree… Oh, I know what I was going to say, I ramble.

MJ: That’s okay.

JK: The other thing I was going to say too is, long ago could have done what I call an arrest cycle. I have done two of them now. Or, one or two, I can’t remember exactly. But anyway, its where I come into a town and keep doing rescues until they give me a hard time. And during the hard time I assess and say to the Lord, “do you want me to continue in this town, or do you want me to go to another one? Okay? That is what I would call and arrest cycle

MJ: Okay.

JK: In St. Louis, (laughing) they rotated me out to another position before I got in jail for a hard time because in St. Louis you can get arrested 100 times and never see the inside of a jail cell for more than 6 or 8 hours, it’s really incredible in St. Louis. But, the reason I have not done perpetual arrest cycles, in other words, keep going until you get arrested more and more, is that I sense that the Lord has asked me along the way to stop and take the time to open up Pearson Centers. Or, Crisis Pregnancy Centers. If my whole goal in life, and this is not my whole goal, but if my entire 100% goal in life was to save as many babies as I could, that I physically could myself, I would do nothing but open Crisis Pregnancy Centers. I think there is more at stake than just, how many babies can Jim Kopp save. There is a slightly bigger picture, not much bigger. But anyone who sets themselves a goal, I want to save as many babies as I can. That’s not a bad goal, and I certainly would certainly never fault that, but I think there is a little bit more to it. Something that the Lord has been showing lately is that there is more involved than babies. In China for example, if you go and do a rescue in mainland China, you will be in jail for 25 years, and you will be a martyr and the Lord would certainly honor all your prayers, who knows on a mystical level?

JK: (cont’d) But practically speaking, you can’t do anything in China to really help save the babies until you do something about communism. And you can’t do something about communism without being good Christians in general. You have to have a body working together and part of the body working together is exhortation and a word of knowledge and all these things that are… You see what I mean? There is slightly more to the picture than physically, just how many babies can Jim Kopp save with the hours that I’ve got left in my life. That’s why I take the time out, or I dare say the Lord has asked me to take the time out in Delaware and maybe in Texas, California, New Jersey, New York state or wherever he sends me, to leave a trail of these CPCs and they become focal points for pro-life work. And they become stepping stones for people who want to step up into rescues. Most people can’t take that step straight from political work to rescues. They just can’t do it, they need a stepping stone in the middle. A place where they can meet the girls, get a hands on view of how terrible it is out there, how badly these women are being lied to, and pushed around by their boyfriends, and pushed around by the abortionists…

MJ: Isn’t that the truth. All in the name of pro-choice.

JK: Exactly! Get a real solid picture. Demythologize the pro-choice deal, and then they start to get mad. It’s like when I saw that baby in the Stanford morgue, I got mad. If you come to me after that and start talking about trumpets, I would say… Hey! forget trumpets! We are on another level. You know? And I’ll tell you something, most national leaders that I know, that I have had the privileged of meeting… it’s a funny thing, but they have had a similar kind of experience. Not the exact same experience, but something like it.

Matthew A. Jackson, Pro-Life Activist Profile

Matthew A. Jackson, Pro-Life Activist (1984 to 1992):

·         Participated and/or organized several dozen pickets of abortion mills;

·         Participated and/or organized pickets of the homes of 8 abortionist;

·         Sidewalk counseled 2 mothers approaching an abortion not to go through with their scheduled abortions and took them to a CPC;

·         Was the 1st Pro-Lifer to devise the concept of the lock and block rescue;

·         Directly participated in 8 rescue missions (sit-ins) risking arrest:

- 4 with Randall Terry/Operation Rescue, New York City, May 1988;

- 3 with Don Tresman/Rescue America, Hou., TX, Sep ’86, *Jan ’88 & *Mar ‘89 (* lock & block)

- 1 with James C. Kopp, Houston, TX, Jun ’88 (assisted lock & block);

·         Arrested 8 times:

- 3 class B misdemeanor arrests resulting in convictions and one jail sentence;

- 5 class C misdemeanor arrests.

·         Indirectly participated in 8 rescue missions in a support and training (lock & block) role;

·         Assisted Robert H. Ruff in raiding the Houston Planned Parenthood dumpster in November of 1986.  The intention was to look for the dead babies that PP recently killed.  Instead, they found a few dozen discarded file boxes that had files containing more than two years worth of classified documents.  Some of them were financial statements that revealed how PP was funded and how they misused and embezzled tax dollars.  This discovery is known to be the greatest amount of inside information ever to be gathered on PP.  Robert went on to decipher all the information that he acquired on PP and in 1990, he published his findings in a book that he wrote entitled, Aborting Planned Parenthood.

·         Was the 1st Pro-Lifer in Harris County, TX to serve a jail sentence (8 days) for participating in a rescue mission;

A Response To Dr. Andy Woods' Concept of the Rapture

Dr. Andy Woods of Sugar Land Bible Church published a three part series of articles entitled, “The Rapture,” on the Bible Prophecy Blog: Part 1, February 16, 2012; Part 2, March 4, 2012; Part 3, April 19, 2012.

He started his series with this statement in part 1 of his article:
“I remain astonished at the number of emails I receive from individuals who do not believe that the rapture is a biblical doctrine. Such people seem to have the idea that the whole rapture concept is manufactured by popular, sensationalistic prophecy teachers in their attempt to sell books and make money. Thus, they contend that this rapture doctrine has no biblical justification whatsoever. In order to demonstrate the rapture is truly a biblical doctrine, I am commencing a series of articles on the "Doctrine of the Rapture of the Church."

If Dr. Woods says that he has received a “number” of emails from individuals who “do not believe that the rapture is a biblical doctrine,” then, I will take him at his word. Although, I would be curious to know exactly how many emails he has received and the full context they were written in. (On a side note, I wonder how all these dissenters contacted Dr. Woods by email. His direct email address is not available on any of the web sites on him that I have searched.) Suffice it to say, I don’t know any mature and Biblically grounded Christian who does not believe in the rapture or think it’s not an important doctrine. I think any issue one would have over the rapture would have more to do with all the speculation over other end time events that will supposedly transpire after the rapture, and less to do with the actual rapture itself.

One point Dr. Woods made early on in both parts 1 and 2 his articles was that there were “ten truths” about the rapture and they can be found in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and 1 Corinthians 15:50-58. However, he did not itemize what those “ten truths” are. Dr. Woods said that 4 of the 10 can be found in 1 Thess. 4:13-18. I think Dr. Woods could have better served his readers by numerically listing his perceived ten rapture truths, and make them more plain and obvious. As the article is written now, the curious reader who really wants to know what these “ten truths” is forced to cull through 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and 1 Corinthians 15:50-58 and dig them out.

In part one of his series, Dr. Woods addressed what the rapture is and in part two he addressed when the rapture will be in terms of its relationship with other end time events. To Dr. Woods’ credit, he did not speculate or predict a specific date for the rapture. However, he ended part two of his article by making the case that the Rapture and the Second Advent of Christ are two separate and distinct end time events.

Dr. Woods bases his argument on two trains of thought. His first train of thought has to do Christ’s dual role during His first coming. Dr. Woods wrote:
“Some may think it strange to divide the Second Coming of Jesus Christ into two distinct phases. Interestingly, when we go back into the Old Testament and we study various truths and prophecies related to His First Coming, we very quickly get the idea that different prophecies are saying different things. For example, Isaiah 53 describes the Messiah suffering and dying. On the other hand, Isaiah 9:6-7 describes the Messiah ruling and reigning. How could He come and suffer, and how could He come and rule and reign at the same time?”

For whatever reason, Dr. Woods thinks that those two passages of Scriptures in Isaiah need to be “harmonized.” The answer to Dr. Woods’ question is quite simple. Christ’s suffering is a pre-requisite to Him ruling and reigning. He managed to accomplish the suffering and dying part over a 3 day weekend during His first advent. Dr. Woods is assuming that Christ has to come again to rule and reign and he is assuming that Christ’s second advent will be in two phases as well when he wrote:
"The only way to harmonize these passages is to conclude that there must be two comings of Christ. There must be one coming when He comes and dies to pay the penalty for the sins of the world and another coming of Jesus to rule and to reign. So we can conclude by studying the Old Testament that the coming of Christ takes place in phases. In essence, this same approach leads one to the teaching of the rapture. The New Testament describes the Second Coming of Christ in two different ways. Thus, the only conclusion we can come to is that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ will also take place in two phases."

The ruling and reigning part has already begun from the moment the suffering and dying part was accomplished. The Lord can just as effectively rule and reign from heaven as He can here on earth on earth. After all, He is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient and is capable of multi-tasking.

Dr. Woods’ second train of thought for a future two-phase coming of Christ is his proof-texting of sixteen scriptures that were sub-divided into two categories, the rapture and the second advent. Here are the four Scripture references he cited to support his notion of a first phase rapture: Jn. 14:1 – 4; 1Th. 1:8 – 10; 1Th. 4:15 – 18; Tit. 2:12 – 13.

And, here are the twelve Scripture references he cited to support his notion of a second phase second advent: Job 19:25; Is. 11:4; Zec. 14:4; Mt. 23:37 – 39; Mt. 24:31; Mt. 25:31 – 46; Ac. 1:9 – 12; 2Th. 1:7 – 8; 2Th. 2:8; Jude 14; Re. 1:7; Re. 19:14 – 15.

The only assertion Dr. Woods made without referencing a scripture was when he wrote in the fourth paragraph of part two: “By contrast (to the rapture), at the Second Advent of Christ there will not be an instantaneous resurrection.”

Dr. Woods is a Pre-Tribulational, Premillennial Dispensationalist and the cornerstone of his eschatology is the belief that the sequence of end time events will begin with the rapture of the Church, followed by a seven year tribulation, followed by the second coming of Christ with the Church followed by Christ’s millennial reign in Jerusalem. On the surface, Dr. Woods made a seemingly compelling argument by backing up most of his assertions with a Scripture reference. However, NONE of the Scriptures that he cited validate support the notion of the rapture being followed by a seven year tribulation, and then a thousand year reign of Christ here on earth.

The key thing to remember here is that Dr. Woods’ two-phase coming of Christ argument is only as strong as his Dispensational eschatology. If he cannot make an air tight argument in favor of a seven year tribulation period followed by Christ’s physical thousand year reign in Jerusalem, then his two-phase coming of Christ argument does not mean anything. Making an argument for just a two-phase coming alone will not cut it. What if Christ does return in two-phases with an exclusive rapture appearance for just the Church in the first phase, and a full appearance for everyone else in the second just as Dr. Woods asserted? But, the two-phases are only a few hours or a day a part as opposed to seven years apart? And, there is no anti-christ, Armageddon or rebuilt temple in Jerusalem? Then what?

Dr. Woods has taken a deductive approach to proving is case for a two-phase coming. It is quite obvious that he did not take into account the contexts the of the Scripture references that he cited. Take for example the three passages of Scripture he use from the Olivet discourse (Mt. 23:37 – 39; Mt. 24:31; Mt. 25:31 – 46;). If one were to read those three passages in a vacuum, one might be convinced that Jesus was talking about an event that will occur way off in the distant future. However, the two passages of Scripture that Dr. Woods conveniently did not cite were:
Mt. 23:36 I tell you the truth, all this will come upon this generation.
Mt. 24:34 I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.

On two separate occasions during the Olivet discourse, Jesus emphasized that the audience whom he was talking to would see the events that he was talking about. He was not describing events that a generation 2,000 years into the future would see.

Dr. Woods used Rev. 1:7 to make the case for the Second Advent and how it will be visible to the entire world. Yet, he conveniently ignored the two Scriptures prior to verse 7 that read:
Re. 1:1 The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John,
Re. 1:3 Blessed is the one who reads the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.

Do the phrases, “soon to take place,” and “time is near” sound like an event that will be taking place more than 2,000 years into the future?

Dr. Woods cited Acts 1:9 - 12 to support Christ’s second advent. Acts 1:9 reads: 1:9 “After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.” Acts 1:11 reads:
“Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

Then, Dr. Woods goes on to cite Rev. 19:14 for the same reason and reads as follows: “The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean.”

If Acts 1:11 says that Jesus will come back “in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” Then that begs a question. Is Acts 1:9 and Rev. 19:14 talking about the same event? Where in Acts 1:9 does it say anything about “armies of Heaven,” following Jesus while riding on “white horses” dressed in fine “white and clean” linen when Jesus taken up in a cloud?

Dr. Woods dedicated most of part three of his series defending the notion that an idea can still be Biblical from a conceptual standpoint even if the Bible does not convey the idea literally. The word, “rapture” falls into this kind of scenario. Even though the word, “rapture” is not mentioned in the Bible, the general idea of the rapture can be supported conceptually. Dr. Woods also use the concept of the Trinity to further illustrate his point. The word, “Trinity” also is not mentioned in the Bible, yet the idea can be supported conceptually.

I do not disagree with Dr. Woods’ assertion that an idea can be Biblical even if it is not literally articulated in the Bible as long as that idea can be supported conceptually. However, I challenge him to make a conceptual argument for a seven year tribulation. The Bible literally does not mention a seven year tribulation period, much less that the rapture will precede it. So where is the conceptual argument for that? I would like to read an article from Dr. Woods making the case for a seven year tribulation period. If Dr. Woods cannot make a Biblical case for a post rapture, seven year tribulation period, then its game over for his three articles on the rapture. Those three articles containing over 2,500 words would be nothing more than a meaningless red herring.

If Dr. Woods is really interested in refuting objections of those who have an issue with his brand of eschatology, I would suggest that he engage in a live formal debate with someone who holds a different eschatological view. This should not be a problem for one who (in addition to being a Pastor), is an Associate Professor at the College of Biblical Studies in Houston, Texas and has earned a BA, JD, ThM, and PhD. Ideas that are not worth defending are not worth believing and one cannot defend an idea with any credibility by erecting and knocking down a straw man.

My Response To Dr. Andy Woods

On January 12, 2012, Dr Andy Woods of Sugar Land Bible Church published an article on Bible Prophecy Blog entitled, “Israel-Church Differences.” He began his article by stating:
“One of the rules of basic Bible interpretation is to recognize that the church and Israel represent separate programs of God. They are two trains running on separate railroad tracks.”

Dr. Woods did not cite any specific source for this so called “rules of basic Bible interpretation.” He just declared it as if it were a fact. Since Dr. Woods used the train and tracks analogy to illustrate the Israel-Church distinction, here is how I would use that same analogy. There has been only one train from the start. After Christ’s finished work, we now have a longer train with additional cars, and a new and improved engine that is running on more tracks.

Dr. Woods’ goes on to support his “two trains running on separate railroad tracks” premise by citing twenty differences between the Church and Israel. Here is how he referenced his source on these twenty differences:
“Theologian and founder of Dallas Theological Seminary, Lewis Sperry Chafer, noted twenty-four differences between Israel and the church. [1] Here are a few.” (emphasis mine)

Dr. Woods’ footnote: [1] Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology, 8 vols. (Dallas: Dallas Seminary, 1948; reprint, [8 vols. in 4], Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1993), 4:47-53.

The thing that aroused my curiosity over the twenty differences, is that Dr. Woods quantified them as just “a few” of Dr. Chafer’s twenty-four differences. To me, twenty out of twenty-four does not seem like “a few.” However, I realized why Dr. Woods might have written “a few” when I compared the twenty differences to Dr. Chafer’s original twenty-four. The twenty differences cited by Dr. Woods are about 45% of the size of Dr. Chafer’s twenty-four. The twenty differences cited by Dr. Woods were “a few” from a proportional standpoint in terms of total word volume as opposed to an item by item comparison.

Dr. Woods gave his readers the impression that the twenty differences that he cited were copied directly from Dr. Chafer’s twenty-four, and that those twenty differences were written by Dr. Chafer himself. Come to find out, Dr. Woods was the author of those twenty differences. Dr. Woods reduced and rewrote Dr. Chafer’s twenty-four differences and even mixed in a few original concepts of his own. I don’t fault Dr. Woods for doing this. However, I do fault Dr. Woods for not being more forthright with his readers and telling them that those were HIS twenty differences and that they were BASED ON Dr. Chafer’s twenty-four.

Dr. Woods’ twenty differences between the Church and Israel can be divided into different categories. The first category of differences is what I would consider to be improvement differences.
• Second, Israel gave birth to Christ (Rev 12:1-5) whereas Christ gave birth to the church (Matt 16:18).
• Fourth, king-subject imagery is used to depict God's relationship to Israel (Isa 33:22) while head and groom imagery is used to depict Christ's relationship with His church (Eph 5:22-33).
• Fifth, God's program through Israel began in Genesis 12, and His program through the church began in Acts 2 (Matt 16:18; 1 Cor 12:13; Acts 1:5; 11:15-16).
• Eighth, Israel is a nation (Ps 147:20). As such, she is always biblically portrayed as an independent nation with borders and a capital. Even today Israel is among the nations of the earth, just like Japan, Argentina, Canada, or any other country. By contrast, the church is not a nation (Rom 10:19) but rather is comprised of people from all nations (Gal 3:28; Eph 2:11-22; 3:6, 15). Rather than taking her seat among the nations of the earth, the church is a mere pilgrim in the world system (1 Pet 2:11).
• Ninth, while Israel fought physical wars with various enemies such as the Philistines, the church is engaged in spiritual warfare with angelic enemies (Eph 6:10-20).
• Tenth, the Scripture assigns numerous a quo and ad quem statements to Israel (Gen 15:13-16; Jer 25:11; 29:10; Ezek 4:5-7; Dan 9:24-27). These are timing statements with a specific beginning and ending point for each period. One searches the New Testament in vain to find comparable timing statements for the church.
• Eleventh, Israel had a priesthood with all her priests coming from the tribe of Levi and the line of Aaron. By contrast, the church does not have a priesthood because it is a priesthood (Rev 1:6). The New Testament teaches the priesthood of all believers (1 Pet 2:5, 9). Every Church Age believer is a priest with direct access to God the Father through God the Son.
• Fourteenth, although the gates of the New Jerusalem are named after the twelve tribes (Rev 21:12), who were the foundations of Israel, the foundations of the eternal city are named after the twelve apostles (Rev 21:14) who are the foundations of the church (Eph 2:20).
• Fifteenth, people become members of the commonwealth of Israel through physical birth. By contrast, membership in the church is only attained by spiritual birth (John 3:1-9; Titus 3:5).
• Seventeenth, the Holy Spirit indwelt and filled Old Testament Jews selectively (Joel 2:28), temporarily (1 Sam 16:14; Ps 51:11), and subsequent to salvation to enable for a special purpose (Exod 31:3). By contrast, the Holy Spirit indwells all Church-Age believers (1 Cor 12:13) permanently (John 14:16) and at the point of salvation (Rom 8:9). Thus, the Spirit's work in and through Israel cannot be used as a pattern to depict the believer's normative experience with the Holy Spirit in the present age (John 7:37-39; 14:16-17; Acts 1:5).
As you can see, all of those differences marked notable improvements from the Israel era to the Church era. None of those differences validate the “two trains running on separate railroad tracks” theory. I can just as easily make the claim that they validate the improved and expanded train from one track to several tracks theory.

The second category of differences is what I would call the Scriptural Governance category:
• Sixth, while four-fifths of the Bible pertains to Israel, only one-fifth of it deals with the church.
• Sixteenth, Israel was directly governed by the Mosaic Law (Ps 147:19-20). By contrast, the controlling authority for the church is New Testament revelation. While all Scripture is for the church (2 Tim 3:16; Rom 15:4), only the New Testament's epistolary literature is directly about the church.
• Twentieth, while Israel's program is revealed in the Old Testament, the church's program was unknown in Old Testament times. Because the church is a New Testament mystery (Eph 3:3-6), or something previously hidden and now unveiled (Rom 16:25-26), Church Age doctrine comes exclusively from the New Testament (Matt 16:18; John 13‒17) rather than the Old Testament. Noting such differences should caution us against taking prophecies and promises that are specifically aimed at Israel and misapplying them to the present dispensation of the Church Age.
Dr. Woods acknowledged that the all Scripture (including the Old Testament) is for the Church. However, the New Testament as we know of today was not formulated and recognized as an official part of the cannon until 325 A. D. So, from the day of Pentecost in 33 A. D. until the Council of Nicaea in 325 A. D. (about 292 years), the only official Scripture that the Church had was the Old Testament. When Paul wrote 2 Tim 3:16 and Rom 15:4, he was speaking specifically about the Old Testament because the New Testament did not exist at that time. Dr. Woods seems to think that OT prophecies and promises do not apply to the Church. What about Acts 2:14 -21 where Peter credits the events on the Day of Pentecost as being a fulfillment of Joel 28-32?

The third category of differences that I consider to be ad hominem differences:
• Third, Christ will return to rescue Israel upon her national conversion at the end of the Tribulation period (Matt 23:37-39). Conversely, He will return to rescue the church at the rapture (John 14:1-3).
• Twelfth, while Israel will be resurrected at the beginning of the millennial kingdom (Dan 12:2; John 11:23-24; Rev 20:4-5), Church-Age believers receive their resurrected bodies at the point of the rapture (1 Thess 4:13-18; 1 Cor 15:50-58).
• Thirteenth, Israel's judgment will take place on earth, at the end of the Tribulation period, in the wilderness (Ezek 20:33-44). By contrast, the only judgment the New Testament reveals for the church is the Bema Seat judgment of rewards in heaven following the rapture (Rom 14:10; 1 Cor 3:10-15; 2 Cor 5:10).
In order to accept these set of differences as being factual and true, you would first have to buy into the pre-tribulational/premillennial eschatological system and accept it as being factual and true. As Christians, we can all agree that Jesus will come again, and there are Scriptures that support this notion. However, going beyond that and predicting a sequence of events that will transpire before the Lord’s return is a matter of interpretation and speculation. So, that makes these differences a matter of speculation as well.

The fourth category of differences are the miscellaneous, what’s that got to do with anything differences:
• Seventh, although Israel was a direct party to the biblical covenants (Jer 31:31-32), the church was not a party to these covenants since the church was not yet in existence when these covenants were made. The church's relationship to these covenants can best be described as one of a third-party beneficiary rather than a direct party to them. Therefore, the church benefits from the covenants as opposed to being a direct party to them.
• Eighteenth, while Christ's farewell address to Israel (Matt 24:15; 20) is recorded in the Olivet Discourse (Matt 24‒25), His farewell address to the church (John 16:12-13) is found in the Upper Room Discourse (John 13‒17).
• Nineteenth, although Israel is referred to as God's first-born son (Exod 4:22), the church is never given this same designation or title.
Whether or not these differences are factual and true is irrelevant. The fact is, none of them make the case for Israel and the Church being “two trains running on separate railroad tracks” just as all the other differences don’t.

The fifth category of differences is the non-difference, difference:
• First, Israel is the wife of Jehovah (Isa 54) while the church is the bride of Christ (Eph 5:22-33).
If anything, this phase illustrates what Israel and the Church have in common. What is the difference between a wife and a bride? What is the difference between Jehovah and Christ? Isn’t Christ a manifestation of Jehovah?

Whether it’s Dr. Woods’ twenty differences or Dr. Chafer’s twenty-four, these differences in and of themselves do not make the case that Israel and the Church are “two trains running on separate railroad tracks.” The differences written by Dr. Woods and Chafer are nothing more than a bunch of dispensational red-herrings. So, do not buy into this smoke and mirrors trick.

I am glad there are differences between Israel and the Church and the two do not have to be “two trains running on separate railroad tracks” in order for these differences to exist. Here is one big OBVIOUS difference between Israel and the Church that neither Dr. Woods or Chafer cited: Israel needed to sacrifice and shed the innocent blood of animals on an ongoing basis in order to achieve atonement for their sins; The Church has the gift of the ultimate and final sacrifice of Jesus and His shed blood that has atoned for our sins forever. The gift is available to anyone (including the Jews) who wants to receive it.