So far in this five-part series, we’ve considered how the gospel ends racism, misogyny and abortion, both now, in the lives of all true believers, and ultimately, in Christ’s future worldwide reign. Regarding the subject of this e-teaching, political polarization—something we’ve certainly witnessed during the last election—it is easy to understand why only one political viewpoint will dominate the future reign of Christ. But it is puzzling that evangelical Christians are politically polarized, right and left, along with everyone else, with each side claiming the higher moral ground.

I confess that I—on moral grounds—lean a little more to the right, but I’ve got good Christian friends who lean a little more to the left—and also on moral grounds. Yet we’re all reading from the same Bible.

“Legalized abortion is the greatest human rights violation of our time. It is going the way of slavery and segregation, sooner or later.”

That was my prediction in Part 1 of this series, and it was based on more than just wishful thinking. According to a recent Gallup Poll, “Support for making abortion broadly illegal [is] growing fastest among young adults” (gallup.com/poll/126581/generational-differences-abortion-narrow.aspx). That is a good sign for the future.

Moreover, in 1996, 56% of Americans considered themselves “pro-choice,” while only 33% considered themselves “pro-life.” As of May, 2016, that gap narrowed to 47% and 46% respectively (gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx).

The “pro-life” and “pro-choice” labels, however, fall short of identifying the various stances people hold regarding abortion. The truth is, many people who consider themselves to be pro-choice actually hold views that are pro-life to a degree, and vice versa.

If someone had written an article in the London Times during its first year of publication, 1785, titled, “The End of the Slave Trade,” no reader would have taken it seriously. Britain had dominated the Atlantic slave trade for 200 years. Slavery was an entrenched institution.

In 1787, however, a tiny Quaker and Anglican abolitionist society began working to influence public opinion. They were eventually joined by a born-again politician named William Wilberforce, and in 1791 he introduced his first bill before Parliament to abolish England’s slave trade. That bill was soundly defeated.

Just about every year thereafter for the next 20 years, Wilberforce introduced a motion for abolition that was voted down, a drawn-out battle that is well dramatized in the 2006 movie, Amazing Grace. Wilberforce’s persistence was finally rewarded in 1807, when Parliament voted in favor of abolishing the slave trade. Slavery itself was not abolished by Parliament for another 26 years, in 1833.

It was a 46-year struggle. During the first 45 of those 46 years, the consciences of every British Parliamentarian sided with Wilberforce, but the majority clung to their justifications for slavery—all based on the various lies they employed to suppress the truth. In the end however, the truth, which had not changed in 46 years, prevailed.

Charles Darwin concluded that women were inferior to men. He wrote in The Descent of Man, “males are more evolutionarily advanced than females,” and he believed that children and women had smaller brains and therefore were led more by instinct and less by reason. Darwin concluded: “Men attain a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than can women—whether requiring deep thought, reason or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands… We may also infer from the law of the deviation from averages, that the average mental power in man must be above that of women.”

In Darwin’s evolutionary-advanced brain, such thinking was obviously justified. If you are a member of the “more intelligent gender,” you naturally have an advantage over the “less-intelligent gender” to know that your gender is inherently more intelligent.

In last month’s e-teaching, however, I tried to show that the Bible is not so misogynistic. On the contrary, the first female whom God created was custom designed to rescue the first male, turning his “not good” predicament into something “good.” Eve was the original Superwoman. (In fact, when Adam first laid his eyes on her, he gasped and said, “Whoa, man!” No doubt it is from Adam’s stunned reaction, repeated every time he looked at his wife, that the modern word, “woman,” evolved.)

Misogyny is a word it seems we’re hearing more often these days. It is derived from two Greek words, miso, meaning “hatred,” and gunē, meaning “women.” But you don’t have to hate women to be a misogynist, as the modern definition has been expanded to include “the dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women (or girls).”

Misogyny is a pervasive evil that has existed from very early in human history, and it is alive and well in the world today. (I’ll shortly provide you with some examples.)

The good news is that misogyny is something that Jesus is in the process of eradicating from the earth. At present, that eradication is limited, because Jesus only transforms those who believe in Him.

There is nothing like politics to expose sin. First, politicians who run for office are mercilessly vetted (as they should be, of course). Their opponents and the media search for any dirt they can find, and skeletons are dragged, kicking and screaming, out of closets for the world to see.

Beyond that, candidates boast about themselves and rail against their opponents, competing, it seems, for who can take the lowest ground. Not only is their pride exposed, but also their hypocrisy, as they violate the simple moral principle of “let him who is without sin cast the first stone,” and “why do you point out the speck in another’s eye when you have a log hanging out of your eye?” They often seem like rats who point their fingers at other rats and call them rats.

At the end of last month’s e-teaching, I mentioned the fact that only 2.6% of all American workers earn the federal minimum wage and that minimum wage workers are typically young, single people who have just entered the work force work and who only want to work part time. They are earning the minimum wage only temporarily, and are on their way up and out.

I knew as I wrote those statistics that they would be little consolation to breadwinners who are only earning the minimum wage (or slightly higher) and who are struggling to meet the needs of their families. Thankfully, one compassionate reader, whom I will refer to as “Glenn,” wrote to provoke me to consider their plight. I asked if I could use his words as the starting point in my next e-teaching, and he gave me permission: