YESTERDAY MARKED THE 40 YEAR ANNIVERSARY of the Roe vs Wade decision to support the legalization of abortion. If you follow the Christian blogosphere, it was as if a bomb went off as the cry against abortion rights was echoed through the digital globe. The controversy was kindled yet again as Christians unified their voices to rally in support of the unborn or, among some of our more liberal brethren, to advocate that the church recognize a woman’s inherent right to her own body.
The arguments were plentiful, and adding to the cacophony here would only serve to drown the voice of this blog in the midst of a rising sea of typographical bellowing. Instead, I want to ask a question that I found strangely absent. After 40 years of controversy and battle, what can the church learn about itself and the way it responded to this issue? I contend there are three lessons we would be dutiful to adopt.
- Passion has the ability to override compassion. There is a women’s health clinic not far from where I live that provides abortions, and it is on the doorsteps of this place that I will occasionally see group of protesters holding signs such as “abortion is murder” or “you’re killing your child.” Every year, my church receives an invitation to join in such a protest but, in doing so, I have to wonder where the line is between protector of the innocent and victimizer of the vulnerable. Women who find themselves in such a position are struggling, vulnerable, and exposed. Some of them are here as the victims of rape, others are here as frightened young girls who do not know what else to do. I have to wonder: before they ever reach those doors, where was the church? Who is there to extend hands of healing, arms of compassion, a presence of strength? Instead, the first encounter they have with the people of a redeeming God is to be offered the label of child-killer. Yes, we should be a passionate people, but should not our compassion rise to the fore in times of trouble?
- The politicization of Christianity has caused us to lose our witness. As Christians, our values should always influence our stance on policies. However, when we begin to make Christianity about our policies, we have lost the heart of our faith. We stand as the recipients of a tradition borne out of a small nation on the edge of a mighty empire which spanned the known world. It was in an obscure town that our faith finds its roots, yet it is a faith that moved throughout the empire and, despite persecution and ridicule, transformed a global culture. This is who we are as Christians: we are transformers of culture. If we suddenly discover that policies are beginning to be adopted and passed which battle against our deepest convictions, then we need to recognize that for what it is: a sign that we are losing our influence as transformers of culture. Should we not, then, rekindle our desire to be the church, to live as countercultural people of love? Should we not take a good, hard look at our Christian witness, and see what actually reflects the God we love? Should we not first look at ourselves and be convicted that we have become complacent and lazy, content to rest in a “Christian nation”, and failing to take seriously the call of Christ? Culture is not transformed by imposing political agendas; politics are transformed by an imposing culture.
- Pro-Life means protecting all of the oppressed. We should be ashamed at how often we, as the church, rant and rave and actively seek to block abortion yet disappear the moment that child is born. We may have convinced her to carry her child to term, but now there is nobody around to help that struggling young girl to feed, clothe, and raise her baby. As much as we say we are “pro-life”, what we really mean is “pro-conception-to-birth”. What then? How many churches do you know that have funds designed to help single mothers? Contrast that with how many churches you know that actively stand against the injustice of abortion? The child is not the only vulnerable one in this situation and, furthermore, that child does not cease to be vulnerable after it is born. If the church wants to really make a difference in the statistics, it needs to put down the picket signs and take up the offering plate. It is not out of a sense of joy that women pursue this decision; it is out of a lack of options. After 40 years of lip service, it is time that we provide those options, and look to actively support and aid these young women.
In short, the church faces the same struggle preachers do. It is easy to stand on a soapbox and talk; it is easy to ramble around in theories and make decisions for others; it is easy to build to a crescendo, demonstrating our passion for all to hear. It is not so easy to step off that pedestal and put words to action, to set down a sign and take up a cross. It is, however, as cross-bearers that we are called to be a people of compassionate witness, working for the protection and aid for the oppressed in every form.
What do you think? What can the church learn from the past 40 years?
Image Credit: Sabian Maggy
Holly Anne January 23, 2013 at 11:22 am
Amen! Very well said. Coming from the “Bible belt” in the South, I have been trying to convey this very message…we preach well, but we don’t DO well.
velkyn January 23, 2013 at 1:04 pm
hello, thank you for liking some of my blog posts over on club schadenfreude. I’d like to ask you a question. I was a Christian once, Presbyterian. I lost my faith over time, looked into other sects of Christianity, read the bible thoroughly, prayed for help regaining my faith, looked into other religions and finally found that atheism was what the evidence supported. I often see Christians claim that their version of Christianity is the only right one. Now, that there is no more evidence for your version than say a United Church of Christ, Westboro Baptist, Roman Catholicism, evangelical Methodist, etc, I wonder how you would say one can tell who the “real” Christians are. What exactly is the “call of Christ”?
I do find abortion an amazingly stupid thing to use for birth control, but until everyone can get birth control when they want it and sexual education when they need it (happily my mom told me the truth and I told my friends in what was one of the worst rural schools in PA for teen pregnancy), it is what some women must choose for their own reasons. I do very much appreciate you mentioning that “pro-life” doesn’t mean just denying abortion to women. I have seen many many Christians who aren’t pro-life at all when they vote against helping those mothers and children. It appears they only want to force a theocracy on everyone, no actual concern, care or empathy in sight. It seems that it’s only a bid for external validation, that the bigger the “herd” is (even if by force), the better the believer feels.
robin claire January 23, 2013 at 6:58 pm
Hi,
I would like it if you would read these two posts. I think this information regarding abortion, [from having a personal experience with it], needs to be spread to the world at large.
https://robinclaire.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/a-post-recovery-abortion-story/
https://robinclaire.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/healing-from-the-guilt-of-an-abortion/
thank you,
robin
ps – I am a re-born Christian myself. I don’t believe in abortion but, realistically, I know it will continue to be done. However, I want to emphasize that this process I talk about in these two post can only be done once, for persons who don’t understand what they are doing. After that, the guilt from aborting is on their own heads.
Patty Perkins January 23, 2013 at 9:26 pm
Appreciate this so much! Your points are well made. It’s easier to stay on the soap box than “to set down a sign and take up a cross”…ouch, in a good way. It’s easy to forget that these gals are caught in dire situations and often have no where to turn. My own experience of having precious birth moms choose to carry our children and relinquish for adoption still blows my mind. Seeing situations first hand gave an appreciation for the hearts of these gals and what they go through. Thanks for visiting and liking my blog posts.
T. E. Hanna January 23, 2013 at 9:31 pm
Hi Patty! I so agree. I’d love to hear more of these experiences. Thanks for stopping by!
Heidi Viars January 24, 2013 at 9:16 pm
Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord with all our heart, mind, and soul … and then to love our neighbors… maybe seeing people as God-image bearers helps us love better. As we try to understand the Gospel and its impact on every part of our lives and those around us, we find strength to love in practical ways…those deeds that He prepared for us…He will show us if we ask …. Isaiah 58:6-13
Susan January 26, 2013 at 5:19 pm
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I agree! This is why I volunteered for 6 years at a pregnancy center. We have to be willing to help the women who decide to keep their babies. This clinic is right next door to an abortion clinic. We had many girls come in “by mistake” and after seeing an ultrasound decide to keep their babies with much help from the center.
T. E. Hanna January 26, 2013 at 5:44 pm
Hi Susan! These at the stories I love to hear. I was a volunteer with the Crisis Pregnancy Center in Phoenix for three years, and I loved my time with them.
Andrew January 30, 2013 at 11:04 am
Interesting thoughts. I have also often wondered how people can call themselves pro life just because they oppose abortion. We need to show care for the widows and orphans which I’m our context must I include single mothers and those with disabilities. It is a rough line to walk – desiring to show love to sinners yet also feeling the need to defend the most helpless if society ( the unborn).
T. E. Hanna January 30, 2013 at 11:27 am
I think we need to remember that we “show love to sinners” in the same way we show love to anybody… because, after all, aren’t all of us sinners?
Iryn January 30, 2013 at 11:32 am
Hanna, you are right – I believe the church is losing its focus and helping the devil to gain more grounds by taking on the position of clamouring over certain issues in the society we truly ought to be ashamed of and which should drive us to our knees for our generation to beg God for forgiveness and to reveal Himself to perpetrators of abortions instead of carrying ‘protest’ banners to condemned those who are already fallen! It is pathetic! And we so think that we are ‘brigade’ of Christ! How strange! The arm of flesh will always fail us!
And truly, our shout is louder than our actions! Such ‘acts’ of help will be discussed in so-called committees and pushed under the carpet because of what men opinions are! I was discussion this with a pastor friend of mine about launching out to help such single suffering ladies in our societies and do you know what he said ‘Oh, no! No! We can not do that – doing that will encourage the younger ones in our midst! What a mind set! What about those who were ‘victims?!
May God help our generation!
Tonirand February 3, 2013 at 11:33 pm
” I have to wonder: before they ever reach those doors, where was the church? ”
To borrow the words of a famous song “the answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind..”
Shooting fish in a barrel is quite easy…
My non-scientific thoughts suggest that as a church, we are divided. Against much. Hard to reach out to those who need Christ when many behind us stand with stones in hand.
Abortion is not the ‘worst’ thing there is, but for some reason, the visible sins are much easier to be condemned and cast out. God help us. May we never be found guilty of wounding our own soldiers.
Thanks for asking the tough questions.
Blessings
ann
Bob February 5, 2013 at 10:16 pm
Well said. We are called to be doers who take up their cross and follow Christ’s example. Thanks for the inspired insight.
T. E. Hanna February 5, 2013 at 10:22 pm
Hi Bob!
I agree, we need to actively live our faith rather than truncate it to protests and proclamations. I’m glad you came by! I hope you stay connected and become a regular part of the community here!
Sara Wagner February 15, 2013 at 12:18 am
Although I disagree with your stance on abortion, I believe it is important for a woman to have full medical control over her body, her health, and her life circumstances, but I appreciate the gentleness with which you write. I do have one thing to point out though, you seem to assume that a woman who is entering a clinic has her first experience with christians/christianity by being loudly protested at. Since one in three women will access abortion care in their lives and far more than 60% of women have darkened the door of a church I’m guessing there is a lot of overlap between churched women and women who obtain abortions. Assuming that women simply don’t know the opinions of some denominations or church leaders (that is, being against abortion) and somehow make it to adulthood before considering their own spiritual and religious lives is patronizing. No one needs protestors outside of a clinic to find out what some churches believe about abortion. It is most probable that women who decide to get an abortion have weighed this choice with their own religious heritage and beliefs and evaluated this decision within their own moral understanding. In the same way that I understand how you can come to a considered belief in abortion being wrong, you must see how one can come to the considered belief that it is neutral.
T. E. Hanna February 15, 2013 at 10:07 am
Hi Sara! Thank you for coming by and sharing your thoughts!
Let me clarify a few points that I was attempting to make in the article.
For starters, I was not insinuating that protests are the first encounter with the church, but I am insinuating that the church is seen by those outside the faith principally in terms of political stance and agenda rather than in terms of grace, mercy, redemption, love, and spiritual transformation. This is a problem.
Furthermore, abortion is never an emotionally peaceful decision. When the church places themselves as harbingers of judgment and cruelty rather than a people of healing, this is also a problem.
Lastly, my question “where was the church?” assumes that many women who choose abortion DO have a background in the church (and statistics would support this). When an unwanted pregnancy happens in a church context, the primary call of the people of God NEEDS to be one that identifies and meets the needs of that woman during and after pregnancy. If abortion becomes the only option, I have to think that the church failed to do that in some way.
As to my stance on abortion, I tried to keep that out of the article. I believe that abortion needs to remain legal, if only for the fact that abortion issues are complex. So long as there remain issues of rape and life threatening pregnancies, there needs to be an option. Furthermore, morality cannot be legislated and imposed, it can only be shaped by engaging culture on a grass roots level. The former is inherently oppressive; the latter is inherently freeing.
The moral question of abortion simply boils down to one question: at what point does life begin? If life begins at conception, then we have to deal with the reality that abortion takes the life of another. If life begins at birth, then abortion does not take the life of another. Essentially: is the fetus just a clump of cells, or is it a living person? There are moral implications to how that question is answered.
Sara Wagner February 15, 2013 at 10:37 am
Thank you for taking the time to give my comment such a well thought out reply. Let me reiterate, I think both your original post and your reply are thoughtful and considerate of the importance of this topic. I had understood the sentence, “Instead, the first encounter they have with the people of a redeeming God is to be offered the label of child-killer,” as suggesting that women entering a clinic had no previous experience with the church.
I’m glad you separate the problems of the legality of abortion and the morality of abortion. It is important to see the difference. Plenty of things in this life are immoral but legal (lying, cheating on a spouse, being selfish) and others are illegal but morally neutral (driving on the wrong side of the road, building without permits). Abortion needs to stay legal because women in dire straits will access abortions no matter it’s legal status, which only puts their lives at risk as well.
I can respect a church that identifies women who would like to carry their pregnancy to full term but cannot due to material circumstances (parents/baby daddy kicks them out of housing, no money for pre-natal care, can’t miss school or work) and finds a way to help them through those obstacles. I believe that just like every women should be able to access abortion care for an unwanted pregnancy every family, even those only yet “in a family way,” should have access to medical care and basic material needs. A woman carrying a wanted baby should have the resources to carry to term and I applaud any group that aids her where our government has fallen short.
T. E. Hanna February 15, 2013 at 10:15 am
As a side note, Sara, I absolutely love your blog and the way you fight for the freedom of the marginalized. I was incredibly glad I stumbled across you on wordpress.
And anyone else reading these comments, you should be reading her blog as well. Here it is: http://beholdconfusion.wordpress.com/
Sara Wagner February 15, 2013 at 10:38 am
Thank you very much!