Americans, pray to end abortion, an evil killer.
Posted on 11/26/2012 1:17:49 PM PST by victim soul
I wasn’t a Christian when I became pro-life. I was kind of anti-Christian. I was converted on the basis of science, reason, ethics, and human rights.
A year later, I was confirmed in the Catholic Church. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. But I also don’t think one has to be a Christian to be pro-life.
I do, however, believe that one has to be pro-life to be a Christian.
Why? Well, because, duh.
I mean, is it really necessary to go into deep biblical study over this issue? Is it necessary to quote Exodus 21:22-23, or Psalm 139:13-15, or Matthew 18:10, or Jeremiah 1:5? Is there even really anything to argue about? I think the big “argument” about whether you can be a Christian and be pro-choice is B.S. I think that deep down, every Christian who knows the truth of abortion knows the answer to this.
Is it possible to have even a rudimentary understanding of Christianity and think abortion is okay? Can any of us really imagine Jesus Christ holding a woman’s hand and encouraging her to have an abortion?
I was astounded when, a few years after becoming pro-life, I discovered that there were denominations of Christianity that were not explicitly pro-life. I was shocked when I learned there were Christian denominations that were explicitly pro-choice.
I did a little research, and of the major branches of Christianity, the only ones I found with a strong pro-life platform were the Catholics, the Southern Baptists, the Eastern Orthodox, and the Evangelicals. There are thousands of Protestant denominations, so I’m sure I missed some, but of the major ones, these are the only ones I have found. Please correct me if there are more
I’d love to hear that there are more. That there are so few Christian denominations who have an official pro-life platform is troublesome. What is even more troublesome is that there are many Christians who, despite having submitted to the authority of a church that tells them abortion is a grave and mortal sin comparable to almost nothing else, believe in abortion “rights” – and vote for them, against clear instruction from their church. Southern Baptists and Evangelicals who are pro-abortion are less common, and, ironically, they do not have the same belief that their church can separate them from full communion with Christ through excommunication, as Catholics do.
According to large denominations of Presbyterians, Methodists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Quakers, Church of Christ, and more, abortion is not incompatible with Christianity, which is the same as saying abortion is not incompatible with Christ.
Do you believe that? Do you believe that pro-choice Presbyterians, Methodists, Episcopalians, et al. actually believe that?
I don’t. I don’t buy it for a second. I don’t for one second think, if Jesus Christ appeared before a congregation of “pro-choice Christians” and asked them their opinion on abortion, they would look Jesus in the eye and say abortion is okay. I don’t believe for one second that a “pro-choice Christian” would stand in a clinic with Jesus Christ and watch a woman have an abortion.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they have really convinced themselves that abortion is kindness to women, and somehow not cruelty to and the killing of an innocent, dependent human being.
And hey, maybe my understanding of Christianity is completely bass-ackwards. Maybe Christianity is not really about loving and helping those in need, protecting the innocent, telling the truth, and bravely defending justice and righteousness. Maybe Christianity is about intentionally and specifically ending an innocent human life if it is inconvenient or difficult, and encouraging women to “solve” their problems with violence against their children. Maybe “suffer the little children to come unto Me” is just pretty words, or just a poetic way of telling people to make sure the children they allow to live outside the womb go to Sunday school.
Jesus wanted Christians to be kind. No one argues with that. But kind to whom, exactly? And what does “kind” mean? Just going around being “nice” to everyone is lovely if you’re a saffron-robed Tibetan monk, or a spaced-out hippie. But if you’re the slightest bit aware, and if you have any concept of justice, you must admit that, like David Mamet said, “[k]indness to the wicked is cruelty to the righteous.” We have to get over this idea that encouraging terrible behavior is ever kind.
So, if we apply this truth – “Kindness to the wicked is cruelty to the righteous” – to abortion, who is the wicked, the mother or the child? The mother, obviously. We don’t mean that she utterly sinful and repulsive, but it is she who created this situation in almost every case, and it is never the innocent child. Also, if we choose to do “kindness” to her instead of the child, someone will die. If we choose to do kindness to the child, no one will die.
Then there is this: choosing to do “kindness” to the mother by encouraging or allowing her to abort her child is not kindness. It is telling her that doing something despicable and wrong is okay and will help her. That is a lie. Lying is wrong, kids.
It’s fun to pretend Jesus was a misty-eyed hippie. Except he wasn’t. The culture we live in tells us Jesus was okay with, for example, adultery, because he saved a woman from being stoned to death for committing it. They leave out the part where told her to “sin no more,” because nowadays the only sin is believing in sin. Our culture too often confuses mercy with leniency. They are not the same thing.
I have no doubt that Jesus was kind, but I don’t think he was nice – not in the way we mean it today. He told us to love everyone. Loving everyone does not mean smiling and shrugging at everyone’s sin. I don’t expect mine to be smiled and shrugged at. If I wanted that, I would be a Unitarian Universalist. Telling people killing their babies is okay is not loving. It’s not true. It’s not righteous. It’s not Christian.
Saying publicly that abortion is not Christian is judgmental and mean, or so I have been told repeatedly. Well, I’m judgmental and mean, I guess.
Look, I know I am a sinner. I sin all the time. I’m horrible and lowly. I fail constantly. But I am a Christian, and I rely on the mercy of Christ to save me. What I don’t do is pretend my sins are not sins. I have done it before – we all have, probably – and I had to repent. You can’t go around indignantly declaring that grave, life-destroying sins are fine with Jesus because it makes you more modern and hip and “with it,” or because it sounds “nice,” or because hell yeah women’s rights.
It’s one thing if you engage in sin - then come before the Lord and seek forgiveness - but if one continues to sin (supporting abortion) despite what should be the conviction of the Holy Spirit - then perhaps one is not really a Christian after all.
Saying the “sinner’s prayer” or calling oneself a Christian doesn’t make it so - “by their fruits you will know them” - perhaps they have decieved themselves.
True - only God can know the heart - but again: “by their fruits you will know them”.
...& who could be more innocent??
Sure, all sorts of foul people and misinformed people can be Christians.
Its not a bad litmus test. If a denomination is explicitly pro-choice you can assume that Christ has departed the building.
Its time to call the realtors.
Any sin that is ongoing and the sinner unrepentant is not covered. To be pro choice means that one has given a thumbs up to ongoing sin. That’s quite different from having an abortion at 17 and asking God for forgiveness sometime later knowing it was wrong.
What is the Bible verse that says, if you keep sinning you will not be forgiven and in the context of this thread Saved.
Fruits refer to false teachings and false prophets.
**Does Someone Have to be Pro-Life to be a True Christian?**
Absolutely!
That’s why dimocrats are not true Christians. They support both abotion and euthanasia in their party platform.
Whoa, when did the rules change on what a Christian is? Last I knew True Christians(tm) are those saved through God’s mercy.
Now you guys want to add other stuff? God’s mercy isn’t enough anymore?
Thank you for reminding me why I quit organized religion.
No Catholic can support murder of any kind — Obamacare included.
Don’t you mean CINOs?
Yeah, cause that Jesus fella never hung around sinners.
I have to say, until recently I wouldn't have thought it necessary to have an official pro-life platform.
You would think it so self-evident as to not require comment.
What do you mean that Christ did not set it down.
He adhered to the Ten Commandments. What don’t you understand about “Thou shalt not kill.”????????
“Fruits refer to false teachings....”
Yes - and abortion is a (false) “teaching” - it is also a lie from the gates of hell.
In any church you’ll find people who have had abortions and people who have paid to have them done.
Its the nature of the business. People are not perfect. People make mistakes, and the church is where these people gather to worship the God who made them and who has said he will forgive them.
Abortion is not the unforgiveable sin. A woman who has had an abortion knows very well what she has done and doesn’t need to be beat up on. God can heal the damage done to her spirit and if she’s in church she is in the right place.
Thats one issue.
When a church no longer can discern right from wrong, the spirit has departed. Jesus spent all of his time with sinners. He loves us and even likes us. He didn’t preach sin. Separate issue.
The Pharisees and Sadducees thought they had right and wrong all figured out too.
I'm also guessing people don't really believe Paul when he says nothing can take you out of god's hands and that instead of saying "now is there no condemnation" Paul really meant to write "now is there mostly no condemnation."
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