Sermon Is a Speech Last

Sermon is a Speech Last Sunday when I went to church, our minister was absent, and we had a substitute. He started out by making a joke. Everybody laughed and it seemed to warm up the audience. The only trouble was that the joke had nothing to do with the topic of his speech. I thought it should, that an attention-getting joke should lead into a discussion of the topic and the central idea of the speech.

His sermon was about how we should vote for Republicans because President Bush is against abortion and stem cell research and a "praying man." His topic was really abortion. The central idea was that abortion is murder and therefore a sin. I guess he couldn't think of a joke for such a serious topic. I've never heard anybody joke about it, anyway. The minister said women that have abortions are murderers. He gave statistics showing that last year more than 1.5 million babies were killed this way.

He said every baby was a child of God and that women who have abortions are just taking the easy way out. They have irresponsible and immoral sex and then they don't want to pay the price for their behavior. They knew they could get pregnant when they did what they did. They could have their babies and give them up for adoption instead of killing them. He said that the Rowe v.

Wade decision to make abortion legal in the first trimester had opened to door to sin, premarital sex, and immorality and that stem cell research is a logical consequence of condoning murder. I thought his speech was structured pretty well and well-organized. He did have a central idea and he stuck to it throughout -- except maybe the part about stem cell research -- that seemed to be going off course a little bit, although I guess it is related because the research uses aborted fetuses.

He felt if we make it all right to do research on aborted fetuses, that might make it seem like something good was coming out of something very evil. And women who had abortions wouldn't feel so guilty about what they had done. The first thing I noticed about him as a speaker was his voice. It was deep and ringing and could be easily heard everywhere in the church. He used it to enhance his message, too.

He seemed like he was about to cry almost when he talked about the poor little babies. He used his voice in ways that kept people listening. I didn't think it was a good idea to call women murderers who have abortions, however. There may have been some women there who have had one, and I'm sure it would hurt to be called that; in fact, I think they would stop listening.

Also, there might be men whose wives, or daughters, or girl friends (or even mothers) had had an abortion, and they would be offended by the label murderer applied to women they loved or cared about. People stop listening when they get offended. A also thought that he had not prepared the speech for us. I thought it was a speech he had given many times before, and he probably didn't change it or adapt it to our church congregation. In our congregation, the issue is a divisive one.

It would maybe have been better if he had found that out and then adapted the speech for an audience not already completely persuaded. He talked in a sort of confidential manner sometimes that implied he thought we all agreed with everything he was saying. But not everyone does in our church. Take me, for instance. I'm not saying I'm "for" abortion.

I'm not -- but I don't think a woman who has been forcibly raped by a stranger or by someone she doesn't even like should have to bear that person's child. I don't think young girls who get molested by their fathers or uncles or brothers should have to bear their babies. He didn't even talk about that. And he didn't show any sympathy at all for women who are in.