David Platt was at one point one in a group of young up and coming pastors who seemed as though they were going to shape the future of Evangelicalism. But the decline of David Platt due to wokeness, Branch Covidianism, and general mismanagement would prevent such a towering influence. Nonetheless, David Platt preached a sermon on abortion that drew headlines from Capstone Report and Christian Post. Whereas, Capstone Report largely read the worst possible intentions behind what Platt said in one particular instance, a typical Christian Post fluff piece promoting a celebrity pastor focused on a more controversial point Platt made about understanding the reasons for abortion.
Having listened to the whole sermon, David Platt did much better than the typical Big Eva writer. However, when David Platt veered from Scripture teaching his own ideas, the message quickly went into Social Justice.
Platt does a good job teaching that Scripture values life inside the womb and the importance of the personhood debate. Yet where Platt’s own words heavily implied that abortion was murder in the beginning of the sermon, towards the end, abortion is reduced to a negative consequence of poverty.
David Platt states that we are to do justice in response to the overturning of Roe which means providing more resources for poor pregnant women.
Additionally, David Platt was too accommodating for the reasons why people get an abortion. While David Platt teaches that to the Christian, abortion is off the table therefore the evangelism is an abortion reducing strategy, he begins to disconnect abortion from sin. Abortion (murder) is not some sin people are dead to, it’s a merely a misguided hope that these women have for a better life.
And so the pro-life movement to David Platt has more to do with convincing women to not murder their own children and convincing them to want their own children. The pro-life movement has the intent to criminalize abortion. The Great Commission has the intent to baptize new believers and disciple them. These two missions are distinct. The feminists in the pro-life movement want a legal movement to focus on hearts and minds which is insufficient because the gospel is where eternal hope and redemption is found.
Though David Platt is not the worst offender in injecting feminism into the pro-life movement, he is above average in promoting Social Justice.