Millions of Christians in this country take the issue of abortion very seriously, and they have done much to provide moral and spiritual leadership in the pro-life movement. In the years since the Roe v. Wade decision these defenders of life have founded and supported thousands of organizations and ministries to help pregnant women and those wounded by abortion. They have organized marches and protests, conducted research, produced educational resources, and worked on laws and regulations on federal, state, and local levels that would protect the lives of the unborn.

I write as a pastor, now retired. Like other pro-life pastors, I have preached sermons, given talks, counseled women (and men) wounded by abortion, and supported pro-life measures at denominational gatherings.¹ In more recent years I have worked with the National Pro-Life Religious Council, an ecumenical Christian organization founded to support and encourage pro-life teaching and action in Christian churches. Though seldom noted, these prolife activities—involving Catholics, Evangelicals, Orthodox, and conservative Christians from many denominations working and praying together—have fostered a practical and lively ecumenism. Genuine differences exist, and yet where human life and dignity are concerned there is an enormous common ground shared by those who seek to follow Christ. It is abundantly clear that the heart of the pro-life movement is in the Christian churches of America.²

In all this there is much to be thankful for. And yet there are millions of Christians who accept the legality of abortion. A recent case in point involved Catholics for Choice, an Ohio organization which urged support for an amendment to the state constitution that would ensure access to abortion by undertaking a “billboard blitz.” The billboards (30 of them) stated that “63% of Catholics support legal abortion in all or most cases. Vote YES on Issue 1.”³ It is certain that many Protestant Christians also supported this effort. Even more troubling are the surveys of recent years showing that over 50 percent of the women in the United States who obtain abortions identify as Christians. Of these, about 40 percent identify as Catholic and Evangelical.⁴ This means that, of the sixty-four million abortions since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, as many as twenty-five million unborn children were destroyed at the behest of mothers (and many, many fathers) who belong to Catholic and Evangelical churches, the most pro-life of Christian communities.⁵ Of equal concern is that many women who have an abortion or think of having one consider their church fellowships to be judgmental and unhelpful.⁶

These findings constitute a tragedy of epic proportions, a picture of a house divided against itself. They are particularly lamentable because the sanctity of human life is rooted in the Christian faith—in the biblical story, in the Christian worldview. In his insightful essay “An Almost Absolute Value in History” (reprinted in the Human Life Review, Winter-Spring 1985), the late legal scholar John Noonan made clear that the value of the unborn child was known to the Jews, and inherited and amplified by the early Christians. Both Jew and Christian viewed the unborn child (along with those naturally born) as their neighbor, a being made in the image of God, to be loved and cared for through pregnancy and on through life.⁷ It is an ethic not found in the ancient world, nor in natural law as such. Abortion, though very dangerous for women and invariably deadly for the unborn child, was not all that rare in the ancient world. The unborn child as a fellow human being, worthy of love and respect, was a view of life implicit in Jesus’s commission to the apostles to go into the world and make disciples who, filled with his Spirit, would be obedient to his teaching. That teaching, which remains relevant to this day, comprises what Pope John Paul II referred to as the Gospel of Life.

The Gospel of Life became explicit with regard to abortion and the sanctity of human life in early church writings such as the Didache. Moreover, there was a serious effort to put this ethic into practice. The commands to love, the heightened status of women, and the teachings on keeping sexuality within the bounds of marriage—all emphases of Jesus and the early church—made abortion a rarity in the Christian communities. Concern for children was also incarnated in the efforts by many early Christians to adopt children abandoned by the Romans, a practice not that uncommon in the ancient world.

Noonan wrote that the sanctity of life ethic remained a constant down through the centuries. It was not always practiced, yet it remained a command and an ideal which—aided by growing medical insight into the development of the preborn child (and the courageous reporting of certain news journals)—eventually led most American states in the early years of the 20th century to enact laws protecting the unborn child.8 In the last century, however, this view of life began to fade, even among Christians.

The question, insofar as these things are true, is why? Why, given the biblical and historic support for the sanctity of human life accepted by every Christian tradition until the 1960s, have such great numbers of Christians, fathers as well as mothers, chosen to destroy their children?

A number of reasons come to mind—among them the fact that abortion is legal, and for many people (and many Christians), as the Gallup poll showed, it is morally acceptable. Another factor is the easy availability and relatively low cost of abortion in many states. The growing secularization of Western culture through the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries is also a major factor.

The ideas of the Enlightenment—such as the disparagement of authority, a hyper-rationality which emphasized the natural to the exclusion of anything supernatural, and an emphasis on individual rights separated from Natural Law and the understanding that all people are created in God’s image—played a significant role. The Enlightenment’s support for science (which largely excluded a religious perspective) contributed to the success of Darwin’s theories and the social Darwinist movement that followed. The higher criticism of the Bible, while of value in seeking a better understanding of biblical texts, their sources and development, was largely undertaken from a secular (scientific) perspective that downplayed or ignored the role of divine inspiration and undermined the confidence of many Christians in the biblical story and worldview. The decline of natural law philosophy, the eugenics movement of the early 1900s, the powerful achievements and authority of materialist science, along with the feminist movement and the sexual revolution in more recent decades likewise contributed to a secularizing cascade.⁹ This cascade then contributed to violence on a monstrous scale in the twentieth century.

I believe it could be said that the secularizing forces of modern times have led to a disenchantment of reality, in which the richness, mystery, and beauty of the world—indeed the preciousness of life, the wonder of a child being knit together in her mother’s womb—have been ignored and denied. The effects of secularization, East and West, have been deadly.

Although war, political actions involving mass executions, planned famines, and terror have destroyed hundreds of millions of lives, the most efficient and deadliest source of modern violence has been and remains abortion. It is astonishing and horrifying to realize that, worldwide, well over one billion children have been destroyed by abortion since Russia first legalized it in 1920.¹⁰

The authors of the Worldwide Abortion Report state that over 130 million of those abortions have taken place in countries long associated with the Christian faith, over 64 million of them in the United States.¹¹ There can be little doubt that the Christian churches of the modern world, in the United States and elsewhere, have not done well when it comes to abortion—not to mention other issues such as the Christian response to the Holocaust.¹²

Yet another factor, I believe, and perhaps the most important, is that substantial numbers of Christians—Catholic and Protestant—lack a thoughtful understanding of and commitment to the biblical worldview on which the right to life is grounded. Many pastors and churches fail to undertake the spiritual and ethical formation of their people with genuine seriousness. The biblical story given in the Word of God, the history of the Christian Church, the power of the Holy Spirit, and the Christian perspective on fundamental issues such as abortion are too often treated lightly. I know Christians who are devout in terms of worship, Bible reading, and prayer, but who do not want to talk or learn about issues such as abortion or euthanasia because they view them primarily as political issues. Others—perhaps equally devout in terms of personal devotional practices but greatly influenced by the cultural acceptance of abortion—say they favor abortion because they believe that compassion dictates support for women troubled by an unexpected pregnancy.

I came across an article recently in which a black pastor applied the term “post-abortive” to black pastors who do not preach about abortion because someone they know—wife, another family member, or friend—has had an abortion.¹³ The same can be said of a good many white pastors as well. I know a number of Evangelical pastors of whom this is true—one of them a close personal friend.

The point is that too few Christians understand that abortion, understood biblically and theologically, is a grave sin. The losses to the Christian community due to the avoidance of this issue have been great (and continue):

• There has been a widespread disobedience of the command not to kill.

• Millions of unborn children who belong to the Christian community, and might well have helped secure its future, have been destroyed by abortion.

• Millions of mothers (and fathers) have been deeply wounded by their experience of abortion.

• The relationships of these couples (married and unmarried) are often badly shaken, if not broken altogether.

• A Christian mother and father, in aborting their children and thereby harming their own relationship, severely undermine the unity of the Church for which Jesus prayed, a unity that he said was necessary to the credibility of the Gospel.

• The moral community in which the sanctity of all human life is grounded and heralded has been badly compromised.

That abortion is an issue requiring great sensitivity and understanding, given the deep anguish and guilt that has affected so many inside (and outside) the Christian community, is understandable and necessary. Nonetheless, it should be addressed forthrightly in teaching, preaching, and counseling. Abortion is to be repented of, and the post-abortive mother and father should receive the prayerful and compassionate support they need in finding healing and renewal. (Those needing healing may include family and friends who have also been deeply affected by the abortion.)

Unfortunately, the moral clarity and spiritual power needed to teach and counsel within the pro-life perspective are lacking in the lives of many Christian pastors. The fear of being labeled a right-wing zealot, hurting postabortive mothers, and dividing their congregation over the issue of abortion are among the concerns that inhibit pastors from speaking out. Many mothers (and fathers) lack the conviction and strength to choose life when an unexpected pregnancy occurs. Further, many congregations fail to provide a welcoming atmosphere in which mothers (and fathers) facing an unexpected pregnancy can find help and understanding. Multitudes of Christians, though believers in Christ, are not truly his disciples who are willing and able to actually speak and act on behalf of the Gospel of Life. That this is so, I consider the scandal of Christian discipleship.

There must be a new reformation in Christian churches, a reformation that fosters the spiritual and moral maturity in which commitment to Jesus Christ as Savior includes an equal emphasis on him as Lord, an understanding that the way of life he taught and modeled relates to all aspects of life, and an emphasis on actually obeying what he taught. Only this kind of commitment and obedience can withstand the winds of modern secular culture. This should be the concern of every pastor and every Christian educator. But it should also be the concern of Christian parents.

In discipling the apostles, Jesus called them to be with him. He loved them, and modeled a life he wanted them to imitate. They were with him to observe, to converse, to learn, to think anew about God and what he was doing in the world. Through these experiences and the new way of seeing made possible by the Holy Spirit, he reshaped their worldview and behavior and sent them into the world to make more disciples. Parents have children that they might be with them. The responsibility of parents is to love and enjoy their children—and to care for them, protect them, feed them, toilet them, teach them a language (a complex task many parents do quite well) and moral values along with a variety of other skills that taken together will hopefully develop the character that will prepare their children for life.

Unfortunately, the lives of multitudes of Christian parents—including many from conservative denominations—do not resemble the life that Jesus taught and commanded. Sociologist Christian Smith in his study of youth and young adults noted that by and large the faith of children reflects that of their parents. If parents are mildly religious, it is likely that their children will share that perspective in later life, and if parents are religiously committed, it is likely that their children will themselves be more committed.¹⁴ The problem is that the ethical values many Christians actually live by, as revealed in a variety of surveys, more closely reflect those of the wider culture than those taught by Jesus. This includes permissive attitudes toward sexuality and abortion.¹⁵ Well-known Evangelical scholar Ron Sider provided his book title The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience with a subtitle in the form of a question: “Why are Christians living just like the rest of the world?”¹⁶ It’s a question worth pondering at length.

But there is hope. Today growing numbers of parents (multitudes in response to the Covid pandemic) are learning to home school. In fact, home schooling—home discipleship—is a responsibility that belongs to all Christian parents. Moses provided the charter in his word to his people that accompanied the giving of the Ten Commandments. To paraphrase Deuteronomy 6:1-9, “As long as you live, listen to his laws and obey. Love the Lord your God with heart, soul and strength. Never forget these commands, and teach them to your children, at home and away, at work and at play. Day in and day out.” Parenting and discipling take time. And for many years parents will have far more time available to spend with their children than do their schools (public or private) or their churches. But parents need to make wise use of it. And they can learn to use that time wisely if they are motivated by the Spirit of God to take the spiritual formation of their children seriously, in keeping with Jesus’s command to make disciples who will obey what he taught. The future of the pro-life movement depends in good measure on discipling those who will belong to the next generation.

Genuine faith and discipleship cannot be coerced. They take time, humility, and humor. There are no shortcuts to obedience or maturity. In addition, this work must be done by parents (and grandparents) who are making a serious effort to live out the worldview they want their children to embrace.¹⁷ Christian parents must take discipling their children in the worldview of Jesus as seriously as they take the involvement of their children in sports, music, or seeking entrance to a good college.

There are genuine differences among Christian traditions, and these must be acknowledged with respect. Even so there remains a great common ground with regard to the importance of the family, the creation of the universe, the fall, God’s redemption through the life, teaching, death, and resurrection of Jesus, the giving of the Holy Spirit, and the hope of restoration in a new heaven and earth. Included among these great commonalities is the truth that all human beings, young and old, black, white, yellow, and red, handicapped

and able-bodied, born and pre-born, are made in the image of God. Motivated by this deep concern for the sanctity of life, an ethic rooted in the biblical story, Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox Christians in recent decades have engaged in a growing, practical, and prayerful cooperation that has saved hundreds of thousands of lives. God willing, this cooperation will continue and flourish.¹⁸

These Christians have helped provide a model of discipleship and service worthy of emulation and support. As Christians and citizens, we must work for changes in the law that will promote a culture of life in which the unborn (indeed, all human beings) are assured of protection and respect. But we must also seek to put our own Christian house in order. It is probable that there will always be Christians who, for one reason or another, will seek an abortion. But it is not unreasonable to think that if discipleship were taken more seriously than it is now—in the home, in churches, in every Christian institution and endeavor—far more lives would be saved than is now the case. And that in so doing, unity among Christians would be deepened and the credibility of the Gospel strengthened.

Why should we think that the world will pay attention to the sanctity of life if substantial numbers of Christians fail to take it seriously?

NOTES

1. I served as a pastor in the United Church of Christ from 1969 until 2015, when our congregation voted out of the denomination due in large part to concern over the pro-abortion stance of the UCC.

2. Though Christians comprise the great majority of prolifers in this country, it is important to note that the pro-life movement includes great numbers of people who share different faith perspectives.

3. Arnold, Tyler. “Catholic pro-abortion group funds ‘billboard blitz’ ahead of Ohio Issue 1 vote.” Available at https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/255870/catholic-pro-abortion-group-fundsbillboard-blitz-ahead-of-ohio-issue-1-vote. [Accessed 11/7/2023].

4. See Bilger, Micaiah, “Shocking Report Shows 54% of women getting abortions are Christians.” Available at www.LifeNews.com/2016/05/13/shocking-report-shows-54%-of-women-gettingabortions-are-Christians. [Accessed 11/11/23]. This article was based on a Guttmacher Institute study published in May 2016 that included information on religious affiliations. Available at https:/ www.guttmacher.org/report/characteristics-us-abortion-patients-2014. Another study done by Lifeway Research reported that 70 percent of women who had abortions identified as Christians, 25 percent Roman Catholics, 17 percent Evangelical. See Aarons, Earl, “7 in 10 women who have had an abortion identify as a Christian,” available at http//ResearchLIfeway.com/2021/12/03/7-in-10women-who-have-an-abortion-identify-as-a-christian. [accessed 11/11/23].

5. Earls, Aaron. “7 in 10 Women Who Have Had an Abortion Identify as a Christian.” Available at https//ResearchLifeway.com/2021/12/03/7-in-10-women-who-have-an-abortion-identify-as-a-christian/. This research reflects a Pew Landscape Religious Study that surveyed over 35,000 Americans in all fifty states. [Accessed 11/11/23}Pro-life Evangelical Protestant denominations include: Assemblies of God; Church of the Nazarene; Evangelical Congregational Church; Charismatic Episcopal Church; Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod; Presbyterian Church of America; Southern Baptist Convention. See DiMauro, Dennis, A Love for Life. Christianity’s Consistent Protection of the Unborn. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock. 2008. Appendix, 107—144.

6. Green, Lisa Cannon/ “Survey: Women Go Silently From Church to Abortion Clinic.” June 21, 2018. Available at: https://www.focusonthefamily.com/pro-life/abortion/survey-women-go-silently-from-church-to-abortion-clinic. [Accessed 20 February 2023]

7. Noonan, John T. “An Almost Absolute Value in History.” In The Morality of Abortion: Legal and Historical Perspectives. Edited by John T. Noonan, 7-59. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970.

8. The New York Times in the late nineteenth century was strongly pro-life. Fox, Robin, “Historical Perspectives on Abortion” in Affirming Life. Biblical Perspectives on Abortion in the United Church of Christ, edited by J. B. Brown and Robin Fox, Bechtelsville, PA: UCC Friends for Life, 22-23.

9. Brad S. Gregory argues convincingly that the root of this problem goes even further back, to the Reformation and its aftermath, a historical revolution which opened the door to secularization. See his book, The Unintended Reformation. How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University, 2012. This book, and Hadley Arkes’s new book Mere Natural Law, should be studied by every Christian, and every American for that matter.

10. Jacobson, Thomas W., and Wm. Robert Johnson, editors. Abortion Worldwide Report: 1 Century, 100 Nations, 1 Billion Babies. GlC Publications: West Chester, Ohio, 2018, xi, 45. However, abortion counters.com, puts the worldwide total at over 1,700,000,000 since 1980! A lawyer with years of experience with pro-life litigation told me recently that he thought the number to be over two billion! Whatever the actual number, it is clear that abortion is the most efficient and effective form of violence in world history. While the sheer numbers of abortions are truly incredible, it is also horrifying to note that a large proportion of these unborn children are the victims of unspeakable brutality through poisoning, the use of suction devices, and dismembering, in which these small human beings are torn asunder as though attacked by wild animals. And with no concern for the pain each one of these tiny victims would have experienced.

11. Jacobson, Thomas W., and Wm. Robert Johnson, editors. Abortion Worldwide Report: 1 Century, 100 Nations, 1 Billion Babies. GlC Publications: West Chester, Ohio, 2018, xi. See also Ertel, Steven. “64,442,118 Babies Have Been Killed in Abortion Since Roe v. Wade in 1973.” Available at https://lifenews.com/2023/01/09/64442118-babies-have-been-killed-in-abortion-since-roe-v-wadesince-1973. [Accessed 21 February 2023].

12. In recent decades in the West the marvels of modern communication systems have made the influences of secularization readily available—even for young children—through computers and smart phones. Modern secularism has done much to undermine the confidence of many Christians—conservative as well as liberal—in the truth of the Christian faith, and their willingness to obey its moral teachings. In a book just published, Lilies That Fester: Abortion and the Scandal of Christian Discipleship, I view abortion in the context of the Christian response to modern violence, and note that this response in nations with a history of Christian influence has been quite ineffective. The behavior of many Christians is indistinguishable from that of their non-believing neighbors.

13. Trotter, Jack, “The Post-Abortive Culture,” Chronicles. Vol. 45, No. 11. November 2021, 7-8.

14. Smith, Christian, and Melinda Lundquist Denton. Souls in Transition, New York: Oxford University Press, 2009, 261.

15. Diamant, Jeff. “Half of U.S. Christians say casual sex between consenting adults is sometimes or always acceptable.” Pew Research Center. Available at: https://pewresearch.org/facttank/2020/08/31/half-of-us-christians-say-casual-sex-between-consenting-adults-is-sometimes-oralways-acceptable/. Thirty-sex percent of Evangelical Christians agreed with this, and 62 percent of Catholics. [Accessed 21 February 2023]

16. Sider, Ron. The Scandal of the Christian Conscience. Why are Christians Living Just Like the Rest of the World? Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2005.

17. Obviously, all Christian teachers (lay and clergy) on every level—churches, elementary and secondary schools, colleges, graduate schools and seminaries—must teach with a concern for discipleship, and practice what they teach. Still, parents who take discipleship seriously for themselves and their children have far more time, and far more opportunities, to teach and model what it means to follow Christ as a disciple.

18. Theologically, one model for this could be Evangelicals and Catholics Together, the organization founded by Charles Colson and Richard John Neuhaus.

_________________________________________________

Original Bio:

John Bossert Brown Jr. is a retired pastor and member of the National Pro-Life Religious Council. He is the author of Lilies that Fester: Abortion and the Scandal of Christian Discipleship (Resource Publications, Eugene, Oregon, December 2022).