Five Signs Church Has Lost Her Moral Authority, p. 3: Abortion Response

John 1:14   And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

There are many cultural issues that face the church today, but I believe that the issue of abortion is one of the most important for the church.

I don’t think many Christians would deny that the Scriptures are opposed to abortion. There are some people, however, who do deny that scriptures are opposed to abortion. I have read liberal arguments that try to say that women and babies aren’t important in the Old Testament, but the methods used to come to those conclusions are seedy at best.

So, moving on, if we were to measure the success of the church based on the amount of people who understand that the church doesn’t support Abortion, we could celebrate, but I don’t believe we as the Church have much to celebrate.

Why?

Because I believe we have failed in the aftermath of the debate; we have failed and lost our moral authority because we turned it into an ideological debate rather than a focus on the people who are making these painful decisions everyday.

Humanity is broken, sinful, and lost without Jesus Christ. This means that humanity, in all of its sinfulness, will continue to rebel against God and reap the consequences of sin. So, as the church, it isn’t our job to stop sin completely. That is an impossible job. It is our job, however, to help those who are reaping the consequences of sin so that they will trust us to lead them to the real solution to sin: Jesus Christ.

As a Church, we have failed to act as Jesus would toward those who are faced with the tough decision of abortion. Here’s how we fail: We sit on the sidelines and throw stones at them with our picket lines and our Bible verses and fancy condemning rants instead of walking up to them with open arms and telling them that we are going to help them through this tough time.

Let me share a story with you. A young woman named Claudia is in the 10th grade and is a 4.0 student. She is now pregnant and her boyfriend is not capable of supporting her and child. She and her boyfriend had to scrounge to get coupons so they could afford to pay for an abortion.

Sure, we can stand on our walls of righteousness and sling arrows of condemnation at her and say, “You shouldn’t have had sex in the first place, now deal with the consequences!” But, honestly, how does that address this young woman’s struggle? How does it help her? How does it mirror the Jesus who came to earth in the midst of our sin, both mine and yours, to deliver us?

We need to hear this as clearly as possible: The church is filled with people doing the very same things those in the world are doing. Our teenagers and singles are having sex outside of marriage, our marriages are full of people having affairs and getting divorces. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees in his day for putting excessive requirements on people that they themselves couldn’t meet.