 PCUSA commissioners urged to remember 'the defense of every innocent human being' By Craig M. Kibler The Layman Online Tuesday, June 29, 2004
"It is a stand that distinguishes Christians from unbelievers," Terry Schlossberg, executive director of Presbyterians Pro-Life, told more than 175 people Saturday night. Commissioners will consider three overtures this week in Richmond that seek to overturn the denomination's position on abortion – protecting life in the womb, urging delivery in problem pregnancies and advocating for life over abortions. Schlossberg, explaining that she often is asked when PPL began, said that, "This is the 216th year that this denomination has held an annual meeting, whereas PPL was incorporated in 1985, the year of the 197th General Assembly. That was two years after the General Assembly adopted a policy that approved abortion as a moral Christian decision. In doing that, the General Assembly reversed its almost 200-year history in the United States alone and its nearly 500-year history since the Reformation." "That policy also reversed the 2,000-year history beginning in the New Testament where John the Baptist leapt with joy over our Savior while they were both hidden in their mothers' wombs. And that 1983 policy reversed thousands of years of history before that, all the way back to the revelation in Genesis that we are created in God's image." Schlossberg discounted modern efforts to redefine a fetus. "Acknowledging the humanity of babies in the womb is not a new idea. Voicing opposition to abortion and speaking in defense of human beings while they are still in the womb has been a part of the Church's proclamation all along." She quoted from a second century church document, the Didache, that says, "'Thou shalt not murder a child by abortion.' It links the prohibition to the command to love our neighbors as ourselves." Schlossberg added that "Both Martin Luther and John Calvin wrote explicitly in opposition to abortion. Calvin called it 'atrocious' to 'destroy the unborn in the womb….'" In the 19th century, she said the church's General Assembly called "abortion a crime against God and nature. This denomination, up until the 1970s, spoke with strong opposition to abortion. Its statement of 1962, reaffirmed in 1965, said: 'The fetus is a human life to be protected by the criminal law from the moment when the ovum is fertilized.'" Schlossberg defended the stand taken by Presbyterians Pro-Life as not being what she called a "modern innovation" but, instead, "This place where we stand is with both feet planted firmly in Scripture and supported by our confessions. The defense of every human being is a position that Christians have taken through the centuries, and it is a stand that distinguishes Christians from unbelievers. It is just as Jesus said: 'This is how they will know that you are my disciples; because you love each other. You protect the innocent and vulnerable among you. You care for the widow, the orphan, and the poor, and you know that the little unborn child is one of you.'" In closing, Schlossberg said Presbyterian Pro-Life's position "is the position the Church passed down to all of us – just as every truth of Scripture is handed down to us. We, like you, seek to be faithful to the calling God has given us to hold up this truth before our church and pray for the restoration of godliness." |
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