A Word to Pastors
Don't be silent about the sin of abortion.
Page Summary:
Pastor John Piper urges his fellow preachers to "put their lives and ministries on the line" as it relates to abortion – proclaiming boldly from their pulpits that abortion is immoral and unjust, even as they offer hope and blood-bought forgiveness to all the women and men in their congregation who have experienced or encouraged abortion.
In 2002, John Piper's book, Brothers, We Are Not Professionals, hit the shelves. It is a plea for pastor's to be more consumed with Christ than they are with ministry "success". Chapter 27 ("Brothers, Blow the Trumpet for the Unborn") is all about abortion. The charge at the end of that chapter includes something like this: Create new pro-life ministries... Be a dreamer and an entrepreneur for justice. That charge helped birth Abort73, and so we urge pastors across the globe to hear these words:
Many pastors surpass me in their courage and consistency. I praise God for them. I will happily honor their superior rewards in the last day. But oh, how I long to be among them. So when it comes to abortion, I try. So much more could be done. I agonize over what more I should do, and this is not the only such issue! But for fifteen awakened years I have done what I can.
I preach on the horrific sin and injustice of abortion and on the glory of the cause of life at least once a year in our church. I try to encourage the Sanctity of Human Life Task Force in our church in other ways. I call our people to dream of ways of being sacrificially involved in the pro-life efforts to make abortion unthinkable in our country. I glorify adoption and fan the flames of its spread in our church. I offer precious blood-bought forgiveness and hope to all the women and men in the congregation who have experienced or encouraged abortion. I speak and pray at pro-life gatherings outside abortion clinics and support crisis pregnancy centers with my presence and my money. In past days I have joined peaceful protests and been arrested numerous times and spent one night in jail. I have made my case for life before angry crowds, and before judges, and over lunch with an abortionist.
The point is this: I believe pastors should put their lives and ministries on the line in this issue. The cowardice of some pastors when it comes to preaching against abortion appalls me. Many treat the dismemberment of unborn humans as an untouchable issue on the par with partisan politics. Some have bought into the incredible notion that they can be personally pro-life but publicly pro-choice or noncommittal. In response to this attitude our church sponsored an ad in the Minneapolis StarTribune with these simple words: “I am personally pro-life, but politically pro-choice” – Pontius Pilate.
The law of our land is immoral and unjust. That should be declared from tens of thousands of pulpits in America...John Piper, Brothers, We Are Not Professionals
Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 2002
pp. 211-212
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