From LifeDate - Spring 2007.

I recently had a conversation with a doctor who volunteers his time at my Care Net office to perform ultrasounds for women in crisis pregnancies. He mentioned that his wealthy, very prestigious, church had been abandoning specific ministries for hurting individuals. The church had individual pastors for children, youth, and young adults, but there was no one to reach out to divorced families, single parents, etc. He concluded with the statement, "You know what it is? The church really doesn’t want to have people with problems."

His church, like many others, appears to have a problem with sinners. Condemning the sin is easy, but welcoming the sinner as a fellow forgiven member of the body of Christ is difficult. Several years ago I received a call from a woman looking for help for a daughter who was pregnant. During our conversation she mentioned where she was worshipping and I, knowing the church and pastor, commented that it was good she was in a pro-life congregation. Not so, she replied. She was experiencing much judgment, comments, and condemning looks. The situation was so difficult that she dreaded attending services or meetings.

Sometimes Christians have a problem with pride. We put ourselves on pedestals with statements such as, "I don’t know how anyone could have an abortion," or "My daughter will never come home pregnant." We know that all people are sinners and in need of God’s forgiveness, but sometimes fail to equate our sins with the girl pregnant outside of wedlock or the woman who had an abortion. After all, we haven’t done anything quite that bad. But God’s Word tells us differently. "All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6). "For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it" (James 2:10).

The church is for all sinners in need of God’s forgiveness. One of my friends—a woman who had an abortion years ago—equated the hearing of the Gospel like being a kid in a candy store. God no longer condemns them and that is our message. "There is no condemnation for those in Jesus Christ" (Romans 8:1). Pro-life Christians are called to encourage our churches to love these forgiven men and women among us who have made wrong choices in the past.

Certainly the choices people make matter. As Jesus told the woman caught in adultery, "Go now and leave your life of sin" (John 8:11). But we need to understand the horrible pressures that make women choose to abort their child. A woman who sidewalk counsels at a Chicago area abortion clinic wrote, "I wondered how the women could do such a thing. Then I started to talk to them, to hear their stories of desperation, of pain, of feeling they had no other way out. I talked to the girls who were afraid to disappoint their parents. Could I honestly say I wouldn’t feel the same way if I had made different decisions as a teenager?"