“We believe the greatest hope we have for change is found in Christ,” Graham told BP. “Our calling as believers is to live out the Gospel by being the hands and feet of Jesus. Our desire is to see a day when vulnerable mothers are served, children in foster care find safe and loving forever families, children are adopted, and we see families flourishing. It is our joy to serve in this way, and we pray for the moment that abortion will become illegal, unthinkable and unnecessary in our day.”
During Thursday’s “Stand for Life” event, Florida pastor Kevin Smith encouraged pastors, lay leaders in churches and other Christians “to contend for the life of the unborn and to do it in a way that brings glory to the Lord Jesus Christ and to do it in a way that is fragrant with the scent of Christ.”
“Jesus’ disciples enter cultural settings with a distinct perspective that is flavored by the Lordship of Christ,” said Smith, teaching pastor of the Family Church in the West Palm Beach area. “That’s not inconsequential. That’s not peripheral. That’s essential to the life of a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
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Smith based his remarks on Matthew 22:34-40, which includes what is known as the Great Commandment – first to love God “with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind,” and second to love “your neighbor as yourself.”
Love of neighbor “is a significant part of our public witness,” he said. Christians “working to end the legal, political and cultural affirmations of abortion in our society” are “more than mere political strategists or cultural warriors,” he told the audience.
It is sinful “to maliciously, intentionally treat my neighbor in a way I would not like to be treated if I were in my neighbor’s situation,” Smith said.
Christians also “must maintain a biblical understanding of love, rejecting superficial, cultural understandings,” he said, adding the clearest way to demonstrate this is “loving mothers in crisis, babies in peril and fathers in confusion.”
A.B. Vines, senior pastor of New Seasons Church in Spring Valley, Calif., also delivered a keynote address, and writer and Bible teacher Brittany Salmon spoke on cross-cultural adoption.
A panel also discussed pro-life ministry currently and in a future in which Roe has been overturned. Panelists were Chelsea Sobolik, the ERLC’s director of public policy; Amy Ford, president of Embrace Grace; Jeff Bradford, president of Human Coalition; Jor-El Godsey, president of Heartbeat International; and Herbie Newell, president and executive director of Lifeline Children’s Services.
The ERLC’s other pro-life efforts include the Psalm 139 Project, its ministry to help provide ultrasound technology to pro-life pregnancy centers. The ERLC has placed or committed to place more than 30 ultrasound machines toward its goal of 50 placements by January 2023.
This article originally appeared at Baptist Press.
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