Without Christ, Without the Gospel, Without Scripture

It is no secret that I am an abolitionist, but before I am anything else, I am a Christian. That is the name Christ gave me when He saved me in 2017, and it is the identity that matters more than any other. Because of that, everything I believe, everything I support, and everything I put my name on has to be measured by God's Word, not by popularity, personalities, or movements.

A few years after I was saved, I became involved in abortion ministry. I attended my first abolitionist conference in 2020, and shortly afterward The Imago Dei Ministry was formed. Since then, I have spent years on the sidewalks, in online outreach, speaking with abortion minded mothers, working on legislation, and calling both the lost to repentance and the church to faithfulness.

I was also invited to the Norman Statement Summit alongside other abolitionists, although the most contribution I made was a brief period of taking notes. I'm saying all of that for one reason. I'm not someone looking at this from the outside. I've been involved in abolition ministry for years because I believe abortion is one of the greatest evils of our day, and I believe Christ is the answer.

Over the last day, I have watched many Christians praise the WRR Resolution and quickly add their names to it while, at the same time, refusing to sign the Norman Statement. Honestly, that made me stop and think.

There is nothing "fringe" about saying preborn children deserve equal protection and justice under the law. Abolitionists have been saying that for years while much of the pro-life movement has softened that truth through incremental legislation and blanket statutory immunity. Equal protection isn't a new idea. It isn't radical. It's simply justice.

So let me be clear. My issue isn't equal protection. I have spent years calling for equal protection and equal justice. What troubles me is that so many Christians are eager to unite around a document that says almost nothing about Christ, the Gospel, the authority of Scripture, or the Church, while refusing to unite around one that is built on those very things.

The Norman Statement starts by saying abolitionists are ambassadors of Christ, that the Gospel is the only answer to abortion, and that activism separated from the Gospel isn't enough. It goes on to talk about the authority of Scripture, the Lordship of Christ, the responsibility of the Church, repentance, and the Gospel from beginning to end. The WRR Resolution, on the other hand, reads more like a legal statement that approaches the issue from a worldly perspective. That difference is significant.

The more I read the WRR Resolution, the more one thing stood out to me. Christ is absent. The Gospel is absent. Scripture is absent. Repentance is absent. While it briefly says legislators have a "God-given duty," it never tells us where God has revealed that duty or why His Word is the standard for justice. Instead, it leans heavily on constitutional language, legal accountability, deterrence, prosecutorial discretion, and public policy. Those things matter, but they aren't the foundation.

As Christians, we don't believe abortion is wrong because the Fourteenth Amendment says people deserve equal protection. We believe abortion is wrong because God has spoken. We believe every child is made in the image of God. We believe civil government is God's minister because Scripture tells us so. Justice isn't defined by the Constitution. Justice is defined by God.

Some people will probably say, "Not every document has to include the Gospel." I agree that not every document has to be an evangelistic tract. But when Christians are being asked to publicly unite around a statement dealing with one of the greatest evils of our day, I think that statement should sound like Christians wrote it. It shouldn't just arrive at the same conclusions as the world. It should point people to Christ and be rooted in the authority of His Word.

Then I started reading through the FAQs, and honestly my concerns only grew. The answers kept coming back to legal strategy, prosecutorial discretion, criminal justice theory, and constitutional principles. I kept waiting for Scripture to be the foundation, but it never really was. As Christians, our first question shouldn't be, "What is the best legal strategy?" Our first question should always be, "What has God said?" That is the question I felt was missing throughout.

Another thing I couldn't help noticing was how many people who have refused to sign the thoroughly biblical Norman Statement had no problem signing the WRR Resolution. That ought to make us stop and ask why.

The difference isn't really about equal protection at all. It's about the foundation. One statement is centered on Christ, Scripture, the Gospel, repentance, and the Church. The other reaches many of the same conclusions but leaves its distinctly Christian foundation largely unstated. As a result, Christians, Roman Catholics, Mormons, and even unbelievers can all sign it without affirming the Gospel or the authority of Scripture. I believe that's exactly the problem.

The Norman Statement is unmistakably Christian because it is built on the authority of God's Word. The WRR Resolution is intentionally broad, making it possible for people with fundamentally different theological convictions to unite around it without any shared confession of Christ.

I want to be equally clear about something else. I am not refusing to sign this because I disagree with equal protection. I don't. I believe abortion is the intentional taking of innocent human life, that it's murder. I believe unborn children deserve the exact same protection under the law as every other image bearer of God. I believe civil magistrates have a duty before God to punish murder without partiality.

Here's where I can't go along with it. I cannot put my name on a document that treats those truths as though they can stand apart from the God who established them. Justice cannot be separated from the God who defines justice. Law cannot be separated from the Lawgiver. Neither can the fight against abortion be separated from the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which alone has the power to save sinners.

When I finished reading the WRR Resolution, I kept asking myself one question: What makes this distinctly Christian? I never really found the answer. It reads like something the world could write if it happened to agree with us about equal protection.

But Christians have something the world does not. We have the Gospel. We have the authority of Scripture. We have the Lord Jesus Christ. If those things aren't central, then we've already lost what makes our message different.

For those reasons, I cannot sign the WRR Resolution.

Instead, I would encourage Christians to read and consider signing the Norman Statement. It does not apologize for Christ or push the Gospel into the background. Rather, it remains rooted in Scripture, calls sinners to repentance, reminds the Church of her responsibility, and points civil magistrates to God's authority instead of merely constitutional authority.

If I am going to put my name on something, I want it to clearly point people to Christ and be grounded in the Word of God.

If you asked me which statement I would encourage Christians to support, my answer would be the Norman Statement. It is unmistakably biblical, unapologetically Christ-centered, and clearly distinct from the world. That is the kind of statement I want my name attached to.