Scott Klusendorf is the quintessential pro-life apologist - intelligent, informed, gracious, compassionate, and bold. Consequently, his new book The Case for Life: Equipping Christians to Engage the Culture is marked by these qualities, as well. It's comprehensive, but simple and direct. It's simultaneously practical, theological, and philosophical. It's the most complete handbook on the subject, appropriate for a Christian who hasn't yet apprehended why the pro-life issues is a necessary consequence of Biblical values, and also for an experience pro-life apologist who can always refine and improve his efforts.
The media recently has declared the decline of the religious right and consequently the supposed failure of the pro-life movement to overturn Roe v. Wade. Scott's book illustrates that pro-life persuasion has a variety of goals. Certainly, changing the law is important consequence of the pro-life logic. But changing minds is a goal in its own right, and is also a necessary condition to change the law. Changing people changes culture, which changes law. And based on that multi-front view of the pro-life movement, there's plenty of work and plenty of success. And plenty of work for all Christians to take up.
Scott begins with the basic case to motivate action and the fundamental case to change the law. He explains the medical facts of when life begins and moves on to argue for the value of the unborn persuasively that is easy for someone to master and use themselves. He points out it's both the medical and philosophical facts together that are necessary to make a case for for the moral obligation we have to protect the unborn, to treat them as humans being with rights under the law. The ESCR debate demonstrates that our culture needs to be persuaded of the value of the unborn even after it's persuaded that it's a human life. Culture has declined so much that human value can't be taken for granted.
The second part of the book is a primer on reasoning and argumentation, focusing on the issues and questions that often come up in discussions about abortion. These are so fundamental and common in discussions of all sorts, that Scott's primer is applicable to any kind of defense of faith and values.
The third section of the book responds to typical objections by showing the heart of the fallacies inherent in each and clearing up the factual errors most of them presume.
The final portion of the handbook is a call to action by addressing four topics. Scott offers counsel and encouragement to pastors why and how they should engage the issue in their churches as part of their discipleship responsibility. Scott emphasizes the necessity of offering compassion and forgiveness. Pro-life persuasion needs to incorporate the hope of the Gospel for those who've sinned because ultimately it's about convicting people's convictions and consciences. God's grace needs to follow because the people we engage, as well as the unborn, are also valuable human beings God wants to redeem. Scott offers counsel on how to partner with pro-lifers of other faiths without making theological compromises, and finishes with a strong encouragement of the progress and promise of changing people's minds, the culture, and the law to protect the unborn.
Scott has managed to boil down a critical and complex field of cultural engagement without losing any substance - in fact, it highlights the substance in its simplicity because it's so clear. I know this comes from many years of Scott's practical experience and thought about his field of passion and expertise. Scott is an excellent teacher and book is the best tutorial in print you'll get.
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