An Emergent Religious Doctrine Making Two Plus Two Equal Five
"A Baptist minister, a Presbyterian pastor and a Jewish cantor walked into an abortion business. . . "
It sounds like it could be a lead-in to a macabre joke but as dutifully reported by The New York Times, it was decidedly unfunny.
These ordained members of the clergy went to a new killing center in Maryland not to protest the murder of the innocent unborn, but to bless it and the staffers who oversee the slaughter.
"Through a ritual blessing of the year-old clinic," the Times reported, "they wanted to show that religion could be a source of support for abortion rights."
The three clergy members are part of an organization called the Religious Community for Reproductive Choice (RCRC.org) whose most visible activity is blessing abortion businesses.
Clearly its members all missed the memo Moses received at Mount Sinai that was crystal clear on the subject of killing.
Several days after the Dec. 27 scandal was reported, another religious leader offered a different view of how faith should guide our reaction to abortion.
In his New Year’s Day message from St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Pope Francis implored, "I ask for a firm commitment to respect the dignity of human life from conception to natural death, so that each person may cherish his or her own life and all may look with hope to the future."
The Pope often compares abortion to "hiring a hitman to solve a problem," and his words on Jan. 1 were a much-needed reminder that blowing a shofar in the room where the unborn are violently torn from their mother’s wombs does not sanctify the gruesome process.
I serve as president of the National Pro-Life Religious Council (NPRC) and more than 20 years ago, we literally wrote the book on the apostasy of abortion mill blessings.
"Holy Abortion? "written by Michael Gorman and Ann Loar Brooks at the invitation of NPRC, is an expose of the Religious Community for Reproductive Choice.
We wanted to show that the organization’s position is, in reality, far more extreme than that of the pro-abortion rights denominations that join it.
Dressing up abortion in religious language is nothing new.
The RCRC grew out of the pre-Roe v. Wade 410 U.S. 113 (1973) Clergy Consultation Service on Abortion, a network of ordained religious leaders who actually helped women have abortions before it was legal.
In 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court sanctioned the killing of the unborn, in Roe, the Religious Coalition (now, Community) for Reproductive Choice was founded by 10 denominations and faith groups.
It described itself as "the interfaith movement for choice" and as the only national confederation of religious bodies that promotes pro-choice (that is, pro-abortion) policies.
Nearly 40 national organizations from Christian and Jewish denominations, movements, and faith-based groups, as well as Unitarian, humanist, and ethical associations, made up its membership by the time our study was performed in the early 2000s.
Its goals included articulating a "theology of choice" to guide individuals, politicians, and the media, promoting affordable abortion services and supporting abortion clinics.
Additionally, it engages in lobbying local, state, and national legislative bodies for unfettered access to abortion; mobilizing clergy to advocate for abortion in their congregations, communities, and local governments, and broadening the movement to focus on Black churches and on youth.
The organization publicly supported the now-outlawed partial-birth abortion procedure and the approval in 2000 of the deadly chemical abortion regimen — deadly both for babies and some of their mothers.
What these alleged "people of faith" support is a violation of the commandment, "You shall not use the Name of the Lord in vain."
That doesn’t just prohibit cursing.
It prohibits invoking God’s blessing on practices God abhors.
It’s also nothing short of scandal, which is defined by the Catholic Church as an attitude or behavior that leads someone else to do evil.
By donning their stoles and burning their incense, these clergy members are encouraging people down a path that brings death to a baby and a lifetime of regret to all involved.
The New York Times ends its story by noting that one mother who had an abortion at the Maryland mill wrote in a notebook kept for patients that "God will forgive me for my decision."
That's absolutely true — if one repents.
But blessing abortion makes repentance harder because it obscures and justifies its evil.
Repentance means you realize that what you once thought was good is actually evil. RCRC makes people think that what they once thought was evil is actually good.
And as a result, churches that condone abortion are ill-equipped to provide the healing needed by those devastated by it.
I serve as pastoral director of the world’s largest ministry of healing after abortion (Rachel’s Vineyard) and also the Silent No More Awareness Campaign.
In those roles I can attest that those wounded by abortion need clergy who understand their pain — a deep pain that comes from the realization that they have committed murder.
While religion clarifies and strengthens why we are pro-life, and enables us to live it, the pro-life position can be seen by reason alone.
The Bible isn’t going to tell us that two plus two makes five, and we’re not going to believe that. Nor is religion that’s worth anything going to tell us it’s OK to kill a baby.
Later this month, many churches will observe Sanctity of Life Sunday.
It’s time for the clergy to step up to the plate and not permit the abortion industry to hijack churches. Instead, let them loudly and clearly reiterate the historic biblical teaching against abortion.
(Additional information may be found here: www.ProLife.Church.)
Frank Pavone is an anti-abortion leader, and National Director of Priests for Life. Read Frank Pavone Reports — More Here.