Shane Claiborne in Irresistible Revolution talks about how he met some evangelicals when he was a kid at school and joined in with them and was “passionately pro-life and anti-gay, and I tore apart liberals”. What impressed me was his footnote to this comment:
I must say I am still passionately pro-life. I just have a more holistic sense of what it means to be for life, knowing that life does not just begin at conception and end at birth, and that if I am going to discourage abortion, I had better be ready to adopt some babies and care for some mothers.
Obvious - yes. Practiced?
I’ve never quite understood why the church in the UK has not taken such a stance on abortion as the US church? But if we’re going to do that, we need to also take a massive stance (and be practicing) on adoption and caring for mothers, especially single mothers. We didn’t have a Roe vs Wade and we don’t have a supreme court, and it’s unlikely any politician would get elected if they were anti-abortion.
Or you could do as I’ve done for the last twenty years and acknowledge it’s not a good practice but really, what can little old me do about it……..the shirker’s option. Time for Scottish church to stand up and be counted again?
What does your church do:
- for single mothers
- for unwanted children
- on discouraging abortion
This is a really tough and complicated issue that it’s easy to spout off on, and not do anything in practice about. I would hope that the church can be a place that pregnant women will turn to in trust and look for love, when they are struggling. I’m not sure we’re that place yet.
Filed under: missional
http://www.amicapcc.org/where/where.htm
A few people in our church volunteer here. Maybe we should raise the profile and get some of the students involved.
I think this is a massive issue! And the UK church really doesn’t seem to give a any-four-letter-word. Our society is reallly is pretty fallen.
For some chilling information check out http://www.blackgenocide.org .
Lincoln, thanks for the comment. I wasn’t aware of the Amica connection, good to hear (reinforces my view that as a church we need to do better about communicating). I guess I was also thinking at the period that goes from birth on day 1 for multiple years, how do we care for those mothers and kids? You’re right we need to raise the conversation, not sure how you do that - maybe an “education” type evening, sort of like a seminar, with the aim of trying to educate the masses (including myself). We all have our prejudices here, but it’s a really difficult issue. It’s a good example of how we’ve narrowed “life” to one specific period. Why’s abortion not ok but it’s ok to go to war, or have the death penalty?