Part of the reason cherishing and defending innocent human life is not a vibrant, conscious, organized mainstream part of the church’s mission today is because of our own guilt on the matter. We have aborted our own babies.

One out of ever six abortions are performed on women who identify themselves as “born again” Christians. With some 1.5 million women submitting to abortion each year, this equals 250,000 evangelically oriented Christians aborting annually.

In another study, 31 percent of postaborted women identified themselves as Catholic. Indeed, the abortion industry could not survive financially without the paying customers drawn from the church. Since 1973, Christians have committed homicide 5.6 million times. Every 20 seconds another baby is killed, and every minute and a half, a “born again” Christian adds to the fatality count.

I was shocked in 1989 to discover that fully 30 percent of the women in my own congregation were postaborted. I refer to this day of discovery, when we looked at the painful truth of abortion for the first time, as “the day God lanced a boil.”

Prior to that time, it was common and acceptable for people to confess their involvement with drugs or alcohol or promiscuity or any other sin common in the city of Boston. But nary a word had ever been spoken about abortion. That was the unspeakable sin in our midst.
The secrecy, the shame, the fear of discovery all worked to blackmail us into silence and to paralyze the church into inaction. How could we heed the biblical call to cherish and defend innocent human life when we had blood on our own hands?

After the silence was broken, women told me that for years, even as “born again” Christians, they thought, What would everyone think of me if they ever learned that I aborted one of my own babies? What would they think of me if they learned that I aborted three of my babies? Men mirrored the same fear and shame. What would people think if they knew I paid money to have my own child destroyed?

Cherishing and defending innocent human life requires us to face the truth about abortion. It is a painful truth to face, but the law of love demands it. As the first-century writer Plutarch said, “Medicine, to produce health, has to examine disease; and music, to create harmony, must investigate discord.” A good doctor does not withhold the lance to spare the patient pain.

Nor can good physicians of the human soul beg off examining the disease and discord now festering in 40 percent of the people in their own church. It is spiritual malpractice!

We must lance the boil of this guilt if we are going to produce true health and life. This is painful and difficult, but it is also purifying. And it is our duty.

The biggest mistake we are making in our local churches today regarding abortion is rightly sensing its destructive power but then remaining silent to spare people hurt. Some tears are medicinal. This is a case, I assure you, where godly sorrow is cleansing.
Make the cut and you will be able to say with the apostle Paul, “See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done” (2 Corinthians 7:11, italics added).

Imagine a whole church ready to see justice done! What resources would flow into the breaches to reinforce family and neighborhood foundations, as godly sorrow produced earnestness and eagerness, alarm and concern!

What kingdom entrepreneurs and virtue capitalists would emerge! People who have been forgiven much love much! And this is the promise of the gospel. If we grieve what presently stains our consciences and paralyzes our life in Christ, then as Hebrews 9:14 says, Christ will “cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!”

One of the first things I needed to do as a pastor in calling my church body to cherish and defend innocent human life was to remind them what the gospel is and why it is called “good news of great joy” (Luke 2:10). I had to remind my dearest friends that Christ was given the name Jesus because “he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). I had to start with some of my own elders.

This article is an excerpt from Answering the Call by Rev. John Ensor.

Alan Guttmacher Institute, “Induced Abortion,” Facts in Brief, January 1998.
“Strong Ties Between Religious Commitment and Abortion Views,” Gallup Poll Monthly, April 1993, pp. 35-43. See also “Abortion Patients in 1994-1995: Characteristics and Contraceptive Use,” Family Planning Perspectives, vol. 28, no. 4 (July/August 1996).