I don’t think it is a secret at this point that I am openly Pro-Life. I do not apologize for this position, and will not apologize. While everyone is talking about how blacks are supposedly oppressed in 2020, and hispanics, and women, and LGBTQ plus whatever other letters they use for that. There’s this idea that there is systemic oppression against these groups. Well, they are partly right. There is systemic oppression in the United States, but not against any of those groups. The only group facing systemic oppression in 2020 America is unborn babies. Unborn Babies are the only group of people in this country who people can legally murder and celebrate it. According to the CDC in 2018, 614,820 abortions happened that year. That’s almost 1,700 a day. We are in the midst of a horrid Holocaust in this country and there are still people who openly embrace it. What’s even more concerning is that there are professing Christians who are either passive on the issue or just support it altogether.
While it is true that not all people in the pro-life movement are Christians, all Christians should be pro-life. Scripture is clear about this.
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, And before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
– Jeremiah 1:5 NASB
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For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well.
– Psalms 139:13-14 NASB
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You Shall not Murder
– Exodus 20:13 NASB
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Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
– Genesis 1:26-27 NASB
So in other words, if you are a follower of Christ, there is no justified reason for you to be ok with abortion. Unfortunately, there are professing Christians who are openly ok with it. The current democratic senate candidate Rev. Raphael Warnock is openly pro abortion, and preaches at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. He’s not the only pastor who has those beliefs. Here is a piece from The Washington Post by a pro-choice minister titled I am a Pro-Choice, and I’m far from the only one. We should speak up more. Here’s what it says.
The morning after the appallingly restrictive antiabortion legislation passed in Alabama last week, my friends in ministry and I — working in parishes of all sorts across the country, on college campuses and in nonprofits — wondered whether we might have to, finally and perhaps belatedly, officially resurrect the Clergy Consultation Service.
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The CCS was the underground network of Christian and Jewish clergy who assisted women in need of abortion and other reproductive health services in the days before Roe v. Wade. In my corner of the religious world — I’m a United Methodist pastor serving in the United Church of Christ outside Chicago — clergy who are advocates of abortion rights are the norm, and we have been for a long time. We’re not unlike the rest of the American public, of which 58 percent say that abortion should be legal in all or most instances, or our white mainline Protestant communities, which are 67 percent pro-choice.
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That support for reproductive health and rights is neither knee-jerk nor shallow and comes from wrestling with texts and traditions, social and medical science, and the complexity inherent in human life. It is strengthened by being trusted and graced with the stories of the people for whom we are called to care: of sexual violence and contraceptive failure; of devastating diagnoses for wanted children and health complications for mothers; of trauma and poverty.
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Yet, despite the widespread support for safe and legal abortion, very few congregations or members of the clergy are likely to speak out about reproductive justice. Roughly 80 percent of mainline clergy have no problem regularly speaking on issues of social justice, such as hunger and poverty, and more than two-thirds address issues of marriage and family often. But a measly 26 percent report addressing abortion or capital punishment.
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A complicated history suggests reasons for the widespread support for abortion rights and the ongoing reticence to speak regularly and publicly about such issues. But that reticence has allowed national conversation about abortion to be taken over by an overly simplified narrative forwarded by Catholic and white evangelical churches. Instead of a complicated pastoral issue requiring nuance, empathy and, above all, the trusting of women to make choices for their own bodies, abortion (even from the moment of conception) is falsely equated with infanticide. Legislation in states across the nation has become increasingly punitive for doctors and for women in need of care, a new direction in the antiabortion movement that had, for years, focused on simply making abortions nearly impossible to get.
Abortion is not falsely equated with infanticide, it is infanticide.
Gillian Frank, a scholar at work on a book about the Clergy Consultation Service, argues that clergy had provided comfort and moral authority in the course of their pastoral ministry for generations; that meant they had often been approached by women and families in the midst of reproductive crises. Though abortion had been criminalized for more than half our country’s history, until the 1950s, the procedure was not difficult to get, or even unduly dangerous. More-restrictive laws came into effect then, rendering abortions more dangerous. Clergy in the late 1960s and early 1970s saw firsthand the effects of those legislative shifts and were part of a brief moment of broad consensus that antiabortion laws were leading to a public health crisis. Reform was desperately needed, and consensus was so broad as to include liberal Jews, Unitarians and even Southern Baptists. The consistent and vocal position of the Catholic Church was, then, an outlier, rather than the rule.
So basically in this piece, you have someone who professes to be a Christian supporting abortion and saying the majority of protestants do as well. All the while calling those who are pro life privileged who don’t care about women’s health. This straw-man has been used against pro-life Christians for years, basically suggesting that we only care about the baby when it’s unborn and don’t do anything to help them outside the womb. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. The Pro-Life movement is filled with people and organizations that seek to help women and their babies who are in need. Of course, they say this because we don’t support universal Healthcare, open borders, etc. However, one thing the author is right about is that most Christians are quiet about this, which is unacceptable.
A lot of Christians today are very passive when it comes to issues like abortion. They would rather stay out it because they believe Christians should not be talking about politics or the culture. But the reason why the culture and politics is the way that it is right now is because Christians have refused to stand up. The passivity on Abortion is the most egregious one. Babies are literally having their skulls crushed, and are torn apart, and you somehow can just brush it off saying “it’s not my business”. The excuse I hear is that while they are not personally ok with it, they don’t feel that they have a right to dictate a woman’s choice, which applies to the government as well. Look, I’m pretty much libertarian on most issues, because they suck at everything. However, Abortion does not fall into that category. The constitution guarantees a right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Abortion violates all 3 of those, and thus should be banned at all stages.
The time of passive Christians, especially Christian men, is over. We can no longer afford to sit on the sidelines. This doesn’t mean we can be jerks about it. We should do it with the love of Christ, but we cannot stay silent on these issues any longer. We need to be more than just pro-life, we need to be Abortion Abolitionists. This is our slavery fight.
Washington Post Piece:
The God and Freedom Blog 