Abortion Economics (Justice,Greed,Tax) Isaiah & Micah Religious Right

Micah on Economic Violence (and Abortion)

Here’s a Scripture that should be used to argue against abortion, don’t you think?

From Micah 3:

Micah saw ECONOMIC injustice as tearing the flesh from people, breaking their bones, chopping them up like meat.

Then I said,
“Listen, you leaders of Jacob,
you rulers of the house of Israel.
Should you not know justice,

2 you who hate good and love evil;
who tear the skin from my people
and the flesh from their bones;

3 who eat my people’s flesh,
strip off their skin
and break their bones in pieces;
who chop them up like meat for the pan,
like flesh for the pot?”

4 Then they will cry out to the LORD,
but he will not answer them.
At that time he will hide his face from them
because of the evil they have done.

I don’t hear it quoted much.

These are our fellow humans created from the hand of God, and … God takes it very seriously.
It brings up a problem. However effective these words might be in support of anti-abortion politics, this passage was not written about abortion or infanticide. It is instead a criticism of ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION.

Whatever strategy we favor for dealing with abortion, which is a very distressing pattern in human life, in fact the Bible deliberately puts MUCH more attention – and much more VIGOROUS attention – on economic injustice. That is a Biblical reality that we do have to face.

They covet fields and seize them, and houses, and take them. They defraud a man of his home, a fellowman of his inheritance. [2:2]

Her leaders judge for a bribe, her priests teach for a price, and her prophets tell fortunes for money. Yet they … say ‘Is not the Lord among us?’ [3:11]

Church leaders often completely ignore the moral fundamentals of economic issues. But the Bible gives that issue a great deal of attention.

God’s prophet Micah saw ECONOMIC injustice as vicious violence – tearing the flesh from people, breaking their bones, chopping them up like meat. That language is not extreme. Economic exploitation often amounts to murder, and it is often tortuous, very deliberate and very far-reaching.

That language is not extreme. Economic exploitation often amounts to murder, and it is often tortuous, very deliberate and very far-reaching.
We do have to take it seriously, because these are our fellow humans created from the hand of God, and because God takes it very seriously. Please, Christian brothers and sisters, we cannot ignore such things just because our favored politicians want us to. For such economic fraud and injustice the prophet promises:

because of you, Zion will be plowed like a field, Jerusalem will become a heap of rubble, the temple hill a mound overgrown with thickets. [4:12]

Such terrible judgment on “God’s people” happened back then. It has happened many times since. And unless this great nation profoundly changes its ways, it will happen to us. Maybe it is already beginning.

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