“Life begins when that mother conceives – and even though it may be an out of wedlock pregnancy, it’s a life that matters. And we affirm that – on that we speak and we do not stutter. That the life in the womb and the life to the tomb matters, it matters to God and therefore it must matter to us. . . . The role of the church is critical.” Dr. Tony Evans – Care Net Conference 2014
Dr. Tony Evans, Matt Chandler, David Platt, Roland Warren, John Piper, Russell Moore and the list goes on (but is not nearly long enough). What do these men have in common? They are pastors, authors, teachers and leaders who are unashamedly pro-life. And they are calling for the Church community to step up and stand up for the lives of the innocent unborn in America.
As early as the second century, the Church (with a capital C) has been a witness against the killing of the unborn and has taken a stand:
- The Didache 2.2 (a second century catechism for young Christian converts) “Do not murder a child by abortion or kill a new-born infant”
- Clement of Alexandria “Pedagogus” (second century Christian theologian) “For those who conceal sexual wantonness by taking stimulating drugs to bring on an abortion wholly lose their own humanity along with the fetus.”
- Athenogoras (a second century philosopher answering a charge that Christians were cannibals because they ate the body and drank the blood of Jesus) “How, then . . . can we put people to death? And when we say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder, and will have to give an account to God for the abortion, on what principle should we commit murder? For it does not belong to the same person to regard the very fetus in the womb as a created being, and therefore an object of God’s care, and when it has passed into life, to kill it.”
- John Calvin (Influential theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation 1509-1564) “The fetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being (homo), and it is almost a monstrous crime to rob it of life which it has not yet begun to enjoy. If it seems horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man’s house is his place of most secure refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to light.”
- Helmut Thielicke (Protestant theologian 1908-1986) “Once impregnation has taken place it is no longer a question of whether the persons concerned have the responsibility for a possible parenthood; they have become parents.”
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer (hanged by the Nazis in April, 1945) “Destruction of the embryo in the mother’s womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed upon this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And this is nothing but murder.”
- Mother Teresa (1910-1997) “Abortion kills twice. It kills the body of the baby and it kills the conscience of the mother. Abortion is profoundly anti-women. Three quarters of its victims are women: Half the babies and all the mothers.”
- “America needs no words from me (Mother Teresa) to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has shown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father’s role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts ~ a child ~ as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience. It has nominally accorded mothers unfettered dominion over the independent lives of their physically dependent sons and daughters. And in granting this unconscionable power, it has exposed many women to unjust and selfish demands from their husbands or other sexual partners. Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being’s entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be declared to be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or a sovereign.”
If the church, since the second century, has stood in opposition to abortion, we can do no less.
Care Net is commissioning research, developing products, and seeking to train, equip, and resource churches to stand for life. By building a coalition of well-equipped churches Care Net envisions an army of “Life Advocates” who will carry the light of truth into our culture so that women and men faced with pregnancy decisions will be transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ and will be empowered to choose life for their unborn children and abundant life for their families, because the God of the Bible is a God of life!
Through compassion, hope and help, Care Net seeks to open the eyes and hearts of the church to the hard, cold fact that abortion is a cancer upon the soul of our society that must be stopped. It must be stopped for many reasons, not the least of which is that abortion is decimating minority people groups, and in particular, the African American population. The impact of abortion on the African American population is a clear-cut strategy and a plan, not an accident.
The Word of God says that the truth will set you free, John 8:32. So know the truth, do your own personal research and investigation so you can lovingly and truthfully share the facts surrounding abortion with your pastor, with your Bible study group, with your friends and family. Deception has brought our nation to this crossroads and only the truth can turn our nation back to embracing the fact that life matters to God and therefore must matter to us as well. John 14:6.