Pro-life Christians often focus on those outside the church when they talk or think about the future of abortion in America. That’s a mistake. Abortion is inside the church, too.
As many as 1 in 6 churchgoing Christians have had, funded or somehow encouraged an abortion.
We must begin here—in the pews of our own churches, turning to the men and women sitting next to us—to heal and prevent the terrible wounds abortion inflicts on those it touches.
How do we, God’s hands and feet, propose to end the abortion machine’s slaughter of innocents when it is successfully deceiving and preying upon those who ought to be safe in God’s house? We need to start by helping prevent fellow Christians from making the blind, desperate stagger into abortion clinics. And if we are too late to stop them, we must show them God’s love, that they might heal.
This looks in practice like proactive biblical teaching, and support for pregnant women in our churches—as well as an intentional post-abortive ministry. An important part of the presence of abortion in the church is, after all, confusion about when life begins.
Two-thirds of the churchgoers surveyed in the poll I mentioned earlier affirmed that the Bible clearly indicates when life begins. Why isn’t that 100%?
One in 10 of them even said that abortion was “up to the couple involved,” and 7% thought that disabilities in the preborn child made abortion biblically permissible. Neither of these positions are biblical.
The fact is that abortion kills a child and often leaves a mother stricken with grief, shame, doubt and regret. It aggrieves God and mangles those made in His image. It’s a core responsibility of pastors to make sure their congregants understand what the Bible says about abortion—and why.
Loving but clear education from within the church on the moral and physical stakes of abortion will help prevent churchgoers from obtaining abortion at the same time it helps dispel the shame and secret guilt of post-abortive women among us.
God personally suffers the loss of each child, and grieves with every post-abortive mother. He desires her reconciliation with him. This desire in no way diminishes the tragic loss of her child—but it does dictate how we should minister to women who’ve aborted a child, or are considering doing so.
