Most pastors and most priests seldom speak about abortion from the pulpit during the weekly worship service.  Why are pastors and priests so reluctant to talk about this matter in the sanctuary?  Fear.  We are afraid that if we address abortion a woman of whatever age might stand up and storm out of the sanctuary. And on her way out—not facing her religious leader—she will mutter or shout her objection: “You should not talk about these private matters from the pulpit! You are judging! You are making me feel rejected!” In response to this imagined woman, we cannot imagine saying anything. We are frightening ourselves into silence.

For decades, feminists have told us that women are victims. Frederica Mathewes-Green—an author and speaker, who now is Eastern Orthodox—gave us a haunting image of women’s victimhood: “No one [woman] wants an abortion as she wants an ice cream cone or a Porsche. She wants an abortion as an animal, caught in a trap, wants to gnaw off its own leg.” (“When Abortion Suddenly Stopped Making Sense,” January 22, 2016, nationalreview.com) With allegedly victimized women in mind, we pastors and priests dread that a woman, likely one who has had an abortion, would create a nightmarish scene during a sermon defending life.

Instead of letting fear silence faithful preaching in Christ’s Church, we might try overcoming it by considering the following seven points, most of them derived from Mathewes-Green’s unpublished paper “Church Discipline and the Post-Abortion Woman,” which was presented at the Consultation on the Church and Abortion at Princeton Theological Seminary, February 28-29, 1992.

1. Assume that the discipline of the pastor and the priest has two goals. First, pastoral discipline aims for the church member’s salvation and growth in discipleship. Second, pastoral discipline strives to protect “the larger flock from debilitating tolerance or promotion of . . . sin.” (p. 3) (Of course these two goals could be applied to all sins committed by church members, not just abortion.)

2. Assume that “[v]ictims are not sinless.” Why? Because, Mathewes-Green goes on, quoting a friend of hers, “[v]ictims are no more innocent than anyone else. If they [victims] obtain power, they can be just as capable of victimizing others as those who victimized them.” (p. 1) The moral falsehood—victims are innocent—has been advanced by the so-called woke throughout American culture. It has reached even the pro-life community, which now understands women as “victims of abortion” and therefore innocent. But they are not.

3. Know that “women are just as much in need of salvation as men.” (p. 3) Mathewes-Green notes: “While women and men have some delightful differences, one item belonging to our shared humanity is that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23)” (emphasis in the original). The “wretch” in the first stanza of the hymn “Amazing Grace,” the “brood of vipers” in Luke 3:7, and the “whitewashed sepulchers” in Matthew 23:27 are not easily and readily associated with women. “Yet women are just as worthy, and as in need of, such chastisement as men,” according to Mathewes-Green (p. 4). That is to say, women and men are equally in need of forgiveness and salvation.

4. “[G]reat courage is what our God requires of us,” and that includes the pregnant woman in difficult circumstances. “History is starred with martyrs and saints who risked all in order to do right, and noble mothers who exerted the greatest heroism to save their children’s lives. The difficulty of doing something does not excuse us from doing it—on the contrary, our Lord exhorted us to follow the difficult and narrow path (Matthew 7:13).” (p. 5) To be specific, pregnant women are not exempt from that call to courage, to take the narrow path.

5. A woman who regrets obtaining an abortion should hear from the pulpit a sincere invitation to repent of that sin (and all her sins), and a strong pronouncement of divine forgiveness. Also, she might “find great comfort in naming and releasing the child in a memorial service” (p. 6) sometime in the future.

6. A woman who is indifferent to her abortion should hear from the pulpit the Gospel of the forgiveness of all sins—including abortion (by name). If she contacts the pastor or priest, she should be counseled apart from the larger community. To her, the pastor or priest speaks the truth in love, never fearfully or evasively, for the Holy Spirit guides.

7. A woman who insists that her abortion was not sinful and causes a ruckus during a worship service (like the one described above), is harming the congregation. Here, Mathewes-Green observes, the pastor or priest seeks “the preservation of the faithful community from pernicious and debilitating messages that lead, quite literally, to death. The pastor is under no obligation to grant such an abortion advocate equal time to voice her views; in fact, it is his obligation to refuse to allow lies any entry into the household of God. Firmness, love, and servant-hearted leadership should be pursued, together with frequent reminders that abortion is just one of the many facets of sinful self-will, no better or worse than others, and all covered by the blood of the Cross.” (p. 8) At the same time, eager to listen and glad to speak the truth in love, the pastor or priest approaches this woman later to ask for heart-to-heart conversation.

To be sure, men are often unseen participants in abortions. Some abandon the woman they have impregnated and are never seen again. Others will pay for an abortion but don’t want any other involvement. Still others simply withhold reassurances such as “I love you,” “I am staying with you,” or “I am not leaving you and our child.” Such action and inaction lead to the majority of abortions today. The pastor or priest should invite these men to repent and receive God’s forgiveness.

For 2,000 years, the sanctuary of the Church has been a place where life and abortion have been addressed, where sins related to abortion have been forgiven, where lives were born anew. Today’s sanctuary should not be considered an abortion-talk-free-zone because of the pastor’s or the priest’s fear. After all, Jesus Christ is the Lord of the sanctuary and the Lord of life.  He visits the sanctuary in Word and Sacrament. There and then, He calls all to an accounting—to repent, to receive forgiveness, to accept new life, and to be transformed—through a pastor or a priest whom He has blessed with courage. When the word is faithfully preached, the Holy Spirit applies that word to the hearts of women and men who hear. Truth changes all of us.