In the Name of Christ – Stop!

by Dr. Shawn A. Mitchell
August 1, 2015

May 1, 305 AD, the most powerful man in the world, Emperor Diocletian, stepped down from ruling Rome, only two years after he had begun a systematic persecution to exterminate Christianity. Diocletian forbade worship, burned books, arrested clergy and demanded pagan sacrifices. From Europe to North Africa, thousands were persecuted and martyred.

Suddenly, Diocletian was struck with a painful intestinal disease and resigned. Eight years later Emperor Constantine ended the persecution of Christians.

In the fourth century, a monk thought he heard God telling him to go to Rome. He followed a crowd into the Coliseum and saw the gladiators.  He realized they were going to fight to the death. He cried out, “In the Name of Christ, stop!” He made his way through the crowd and climbed the wall into the arena.

As he was pleading with the gladiators, one of them plunged his sword into his body. His last words were, “In the Name of Christ, stop!”

Suddenly the gladiators stood looking at this tiny form. In dead silence, everyone left.

That was the last battle in the Coliseum. One tiny voice saying, “In the Name of Christ, stop!” We should be saying that today.

We can only hope and pray that with the recent disclosures about Planned Parenthood’s practices that even those that do not believe in the Creator of this world or His moral requirements will silently stand up and walk out of the abortion/choice coliseum. If ultrasound pictures showing what is going on in the womb and the casual/trivial way the remains of the unborn are discussed is not enough to convince someone to rethink their position on this issue, I am scared to think…what would it take?

When we found the German concentration camps, the horrors they forced on millions that were an inconvenience to them and the uses they made of their body parts supposedly in some cases for medical research, we asked ourselves how could any civilized people do these things? I believe a day will come in which the same question will be asked of our culture. How could they have killed millions of unborn children and sold their body parts? But what also concerns me is that God will ask some Christians why they were in the coliseum of death and gave tacit if not overt approval to what was being done.

Regardless of your beliefs in this area, Ann and I are committed to loving you and praying for you; we are both just sinners saved by grace and we believe in supporting women that need help in having and raising their children instead of aborting them. We do not believe in condemning anyone who has had an abortion.  They deserve love and support just as much as anyone else.

 

— Dr. Shawn A. Mitchell is Chaplain of the National Federation of Republican Assemblies and a member of the Council for National Policy.