Posted on 03/06/2014 9:14:17 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Chris Oyakhilome, charismatic pastor of 30,000-member Christ Embassy church in Lagos, Nigeria, has sparked an online debate after insisting that it is "never mentioned anywhere in the Bible to keep a child from a woman who was raped!"
Christ Embassy Naples in Italy shared on its Facebook page remarks reportedly made by Pastor Oyakhilome during a question-and-answer segment during a church service on Sunday, March 2.
Considering the question, "Can a baby that is a product of rape be aborted?" Oyakhilome was said to have responded:
"No child should be brought into this world by force, if a lady has been raped, it is left for her to make a decision of whether to keep the baby or not. If you have never been raped or someone close to you haven't [sic], you may not agree with this statement.
"It is never mentioned anywhere in the Bible, to keep a child from a woman who was raped!"
Vanguardngr.com, the popular online portal of the Nigeria daily newspaper, reports that Pastor Oyakhilome's comments have been trending on Facebook after various responses were posted online "swinging in and out of his favor."
Among the nearly-200 responses to the news item were comments from Nigerians expressing disagreement with the Christ Embassy founder, usually referred to as "Pastor Chris," that the Bible was silent on victims of rape who conceived having to keep the baby.
"If really Pastor Chris made such [a] response, then it's just unfortunate. The Bible is clear on murder — abortion irrespective of how the pregnancy came about is a murder," wrote Fred Otone Olomuro.
"Wicked as rape may be, it CANNOT be a valid ground for abortion. Beware of human rationalisation. If we accept this, I can assure you that there will be a sea of human reasons why we will be committing murder in the name of abortion," added another commenter named Valentine.
There were others, like Stanley Chukwu, who agreed with Pastor Oyakhilome's assessment.
"It is perfectly the best thing to do. Pastor Chris is absolutely right, keeping a baby conceived out of rape is morally reprehensible," wrote Chukwu.
Another commenter, perhaps speaking from personal experience, said she "totally agreed with Pastor Chris," and added, "If you are not been rape(d), shut up your mouth."
Although the Bible does not specifically address the issue of abortion, the intentional termination of a pregnancy, Christians, which amount to 40 percent of Nigeria's population, often cite passages like Jeremiah 1:5, Psalm 139:13-16, and Exodus 21:22-25 to argue against the act, even in cases of rape. The Roman Catholic Church, which claims nearly 19 million adherents among Nigeria's 168 million residents, also cites passages like Jeremiah 1:5 and Psalm 139:15 in its doctrinal position on abortion as a "moral evil" in all cases when a life has formed.
In Nigeria, ranked as the second-most religious country on WIN-Gallup International's "Religion and Atheism Index," abortion is only legal when the mother's health is threatened. The Guttmacher Institute, which reported in 2004 that rape accounts for 1 percent of all abortions in the U.S., also revealed in a 2008 study that there are at least 760,000 abortions carried out yearly in Nigeria, most of them illegal and resulting in the deaths of thousands of women.
Pastor Oyakhilome, whose Christ Embassy is ranked as Africa's 10th largest church by the Leadership Network, is considered controversial due to his prosperity teachings and faith-healing claims. The Nigerian minister was compared to a "false prophet" and a "charlatan" in a 2012 opinion post by journalist and author J. Lee Grady. Grady cited Oyakhilome's ministry's alleged "cult"practices, gnostic-like "New Creation" theology and connections to T.B. Joshua, another popular and controversial Nigerian minister and self-declared prophet.
According to Grady, "Oyakhilome already has 16 churches in the U.S., mostly attracting African immigrants in cities such as Dallas, Houston, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta. He has 39 churches in the United Kingdom (where many Nigerians live) and 18 in Canada, and his daily devotional books called Rhapsody of Realities are supposedly available in 70 languages."
You have a right to your opinion I suppose...
That is a stretch.
Perhaps. . .but I do not agree. The baby’s mere existance would be an on-going “assault” even if the woman placed the child for adoption.
RE: The baby’s mere existance would be an on-going “assault” even if the woman placed the child for adoption.
So the solution to this ongoing “assault” is to kill the baby? How does murdering an innocent person terminate the assault?
To be fair, you may not “love killing defenseless babies” but you do argue that as a course of action.
Please read the posts between me and babygene to understand what I am saying. I am not saying what you think I am.
“How does murdering an innocent person terminate the assault?”
It is the rapist’s DNA which he left inside of her by force. It is certainly homicide to take the life of the child, however homicide is not always murder. Ever heard of self defense?
I thank God everyday that my wife’s birth mother gave her up for adoption, than choosing to abort her. Her birth mother was raped by her step father.
There are many natural ways an egg does not implant inside a uterus, ‘The Pill’ just does this same thing.
If every sex enounter where an egg was fertilized was successfully implanted and grew, our population would be enormous.
I DONT LIKE that this even has to be done, but it merely brings upon a normal menstrual period for a woman, who may not want (as another poster put it) to allow herself to continue to be assaulted
Seems like any idiot with a clean suit can become a mega pastor these days.
May the real Christians win. Life is life. A risk to the mother is the only valid excuse.
“Can”? Technically, yes.
“Should?” That’ll be for G-d to know and you to figure out.
If viable artificial wombs/fetal transplants are ever developed does the victim still get the choice to defend herself against the aggression by killing the resultant unborn human?
FReegards
This is Nigeria, not the US. Do you know about Boko Haram in that country. I think that is what Pastor Chris is alluding to without mentioning them directly. They not only bomb and urn churches and kill the congregants —they RAPE THE WOMEN BECAUSE THEY ARE INFIDELS!!!!. I am being easy on Pastor Chris on this one. In USA people shack up, go out for one night stands, have sex all over the place and many times the women gets pregnant —and even if she isn’t pregnant she cries rape, either because she got pissed off at the dude, or she was drunk and didn’t remember or many reasons. Abortion under these circumstances is different than in what occurs in Nigeria and to minority women in the Islamic world. It doesn’t make the act of abortion morality right —but I wouldn’t give a woman grief if she chose to do so in these circumstances.
like people in Nigeria are going to adopt a kid when many can barely feed their own kids.
RE; It is the rapist’s DNA which he left inside of her by force.
1) Does DNA determine destiny or personality?
DNA is just a group of self-replicating material that determine our genetic traits. Suffice it to say that what we have is a DIFFERENT PERSON, not the rapist.
2) Therefore, killing the child is NOT self-defense because the child is not the individual. It is the one with the other DNA — the rapist.
3) The child has a LIVING SOUL in the image of God.
4) You don’t have to be the mother of the child if you don’t want to. There are hundreds of thousands of people waiting to love and adopt the child. Most of them you need never hear from again.
“If viable artificial wombs/fetal transplants are ever developed does the victim still get the choice to defend herself against the aggression by killing the resultant unborn human?”
They could probably transplant it today, or at least try... Perhaps into the rapist’s scrotum.
RE: “Should?” That’ll be for G-d to know and you to figure out.
Does Jewish scripture and tradition give us any guideline on how to figure out?
One could, but the argument holds no water in the face of an undeniable truth: the woman has a human life inside her womb, with a beating heart. Not a mere "continuation of an assault."
I can't imagine the traumatic emotional and mental results of a rape (thank God). But as bad as they must be, I don't believe it benefits a woman emotionally to abort the child. Long-term, I believe it will only add to her problems.
Sadly, I am not sufficiently educated on the subject.
I’ve heard it both ways. I’d like to hear the Hasidic thinking.
Anyone?
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