The Failing Pro-Life Church

I drove past the local Planned Parenthood today and saw six very brave warriors of Christ standing on the sidewalk holding their pro-life signs.  I was impressed that these people cared enough for the unborn innocence to face ridicule and disdain from those driving by on the busy main thoroughfare.
 
It got me to thinking, are we individually and more so, are our churches willing to stand up for the unborn in the face of anger?  Of fear of offending?  Of fear of financial backlash?  

I am a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), whose leadership and policy always takes a pro-choice position, while attempting to sound accommodating to pro-life members.  So it is no surprise that I have not seen any action or statement by the ELCA's controlling hierarchy in support of pro-life causes.  As an ELCA member, I have also come to realize that many ELCA churches which have a pro-life outlook will not publicly support the cause.  Perhaps that is true of churches in many denominations.  The congregational leadership does not want to publicly support pro-life clinics.  They do not want their annual report to show a financial gift to a pro-life organization.  They do not want a pro-life event to be publicized in the church bulletin.  And they surely do not want to say from the pulpit that abortion is wrong, a sin, devastating on the mother, against God’s will or to call it what it is, murder.

There is something wrong in our churches.  Call it fear, call it political correctness, or call it not trusting in God’s goodness to provide for them when they stand against this great evil, in the face of a world which embraces it.

We need children of God, warriors for Christ and church leaders who will support and unashamedly proclaim that they and their church are on the side of the unborn.