Posted on 10/02/2009 4:46:22 PM PDT by wagglebee
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A coalition of mainline Protestant churches have authored a letter to members of Congress asking them to make certain the health care bills they are considering contain taxpayer funding for abortions. The letter comes from a group of churches that have long advocated the pro-abortion position.
Under the umbrella of the Religious Institute, the church denominations and more than 1,100 pastors and church staff from the denominations endorsed the letter.
The letter calls abortion a “morally justifiable decision” and opposed any amendments to the House and Senate bills, which current contain massive abortion funding, to strike that taxpayer-financing.
“Already, federal policy unfairly prevents low-income women and federal employees from receiving subsidized [abortions]," Rev. Debra W. Haffner, executive director of the Religious Institute complained.
The letter added that she doesn't want more abortion funding bans in place and complained that additional "restrictions" on abortion funding constitute a "serious moral injustice.”
The denominations endorsing the letter include the American Baptist Churches, Church of the Brethren, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), United Church of Christ, and the United Methodist Church, and others.
"We affirm women as moral agents who have the capacity, right and responsibility to make the decision as to whether or not abortion is justified in their specific circumstances," the letter says.
The Jewish Reconstructionist Federation, Unitarian Universalist Association, and United Synagogue for Conservative Judaism also endorsed the pro-abortion letter.
The Religious Institute claims to represent 4,800 clergy and 40 Christian denominations.
Some of the signers to the letter include: Fr. Dr. Luis Barrios, Chair of Latin American and Latina/o Studies, John Jay College of Criminal Justice - CUNY; Rabbi Dan Ehrenkrantz, President, Reconstructionist Rabbinical College; Rev. Dr. Yvette Flunder, Bishop, The Fellowship; The Rev. Dr. Paula Gravelle, Chair, Clergy Action Board; and Rev. Dr. Larry Greenfield, Executive Minister, American Baptist Churches of Metro Chicago.
They also include Rabbi Peter Knobel, Former President, Central Conference of American Rabbis; Rev. Dr. Pamela Lightsey, Dean, Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary; Rev. Michael Livingston, Executive Director, International Council of Community Churches; Rev. Dr. Deborah Mullen, Director, Center for African American Ministry and Black Church Studies, McCormick Theological Seminary; Dr. Sylvia Rhue, Interim Executive Director, National Black Justice Coalition; and Rev. Dr. William Stayton, Professor of Sexuality and Religion, Morehouse School of Medicine
God doesn't want you to kill ANY babies you fool.
Pro-Life Ping
yikes! They should be ashamed.
These people are NOT Christians.
I had no idea Satan was so well-represented in church.
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Ichabod.
Words fail me.
Anyone know, are these Baptists Baptists? The others, sadly, don’t surprise me, they’re just more of what we’re getting used to seeing, cardboard cutouts pretending to be something they aren’t. But Baptists? When they go over to the dark side, I’m getting scared.
These are not “mainline” church denominations. They are extreme leftist churches.
I knew that when an oddball guy from school became a minister at a “Brethren” church only AFTER he got divorced that that church was one bizarre place.
God made a mistake when he placed that child in your belly, so it is perfectly acceptable for you to kill it. ELCA
My God doesnt make mistakes.
Bunch of Godless heathens. I truly despise those who advocate abortion, and the fact that these bastards would stand as leaders of churches makes my blood boil. I truly hope they rot in hell for this.
American Baptist Convention is the northern and always very liberal group, much smaller in number than the Southern Baptists; likewise the “Lutherans” are not the “Missouri Synod” Lutherans.
how inexpressibly tragic.
My assumption is that they ARE NOT Southern Baptists, they are probably part of the same apostate Baptist group that Jimmy Carter is (in other words, not really a Christian Church, just a group of Marxists who meet on Sunday morning to sing Kumbaya).
I'm sure I'll hear about this Sunday from our former refugees from ELCA, now become Anglicans. At least if this is causing them pain I hope I'll hear, because a few of us have been through this too.
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