[This is excerpted from the above booklet (click to order a free copy), by Mark Crutcher, of Life Dynamics, pp 7,8]
As for the church, the reason why the vast majority of churches are not involved in the fight against abortion is actually quite simple. It takes courage and character they simply don't have.
Trading moral authority for comfort, convenience, and popularity has become a tradition of the modern clergy. When Africans were being captured, bought, sold and brutalized, church leaders conveniently decided that slavery was none of their business and looked the other way. And when the Nazis began to slaughter millions of innocent human beings, also claiming that their victims were not fully human, the church again decided it was none of their business and looked the other way.
So now that another group of "Not fully humans" are being legally butchered by the millions, we should not be surprised that spineless priests and spineless pastors are choosing to look the other way.
Some pro-lifers say that if we will just educate the clergy about abortion, they will get on board. That is nonsense. These guys may not know all the repugnant details about abortion, but every pastor and priest in America knows that it is the deliberate killing of an innocent and defenseless baby. They also know that they have an obligation to fight against it. So don't be misled. The missing ingredient here is not education, but courage.
Now you may think I am being overly harsh on the church. But if you are going to believe anything I've written in this book, believe that the silent and dormant church is the abortion industry's single greatest ally. The abortion holocaust would end overnight if just a fraction of this nation's 600,000 churches became active in the battle.
Instead, we have church leaders who look us right in the face and say, "I know that abortion is murder, but I've got people sitting in my pews who feel differently, and I'm not going to offend them." Of course, if someone was killing off tithers instead of unborn children, you can be certain that these old boys would be speaking out loud and clear, and they wouldn't care who felt differently or who might be offended.
We've also got people sitting in the pews who say that their silence and inaction only means they are not taking a position one way or the other. That is a lie. There is no such thing as not taking a position on abortion. When a man sees helpless children being slaughtered and does nothing to stop it, he is taking a stand. His failure to intervene is tacit approval for the killings to proceed.
Then you've got Christians who say that abortion is simply not any of the church's business. That too is a lie. If the killing of God's most precious creation is none of the church's business, then we may as well turn every church in America into a bowling alley.
I have been asked many times what I think the church should do in the abortion battle. At Life Dynamics, we maintain a list of specific actions the church can take, but basically they are the same as those available to the pro-life community at large. The greatest thing would be for the church to fight abortion exactly like it would fight the government if they tried to take away the church's tax-exempt status. Compared to that, World War II would look like a third-grade food fight.
After almost thirty years of effort, no one can rightly claim that the pro-life movement has not done everything humanly possible to make America's clergy and politicians do the right thing. But it is increasingly obvious that our resolve is no match for their cowardice.
The fact is, the pro-life effort is going to succeed whether they are on board or not, and every ounce of energy we squander trying to get them to do the right thing is an ounce we don't have for the battle against abortion.
Before we leave this subject, I want to predict that a time will come when every preacher, every priest, and every politician in America will be pushing and shoving to get to the front lines of the pro-life effort. I can even tell you when that seemingly unlikely event will occur.
On the day it becomes obvious to them that victory over the abortion holocaust is at hand, these guys will come running out from behind their mammas' skirts, grinning from ear to ear, giving high-fives to everyone they can get in front of, and slapping every back in sight. Then, with their arms draped over our shoulders, they'll start crowing about how they were with us all along.
Of course, in the spirit of the prodigal son, God will expect us to bite our tongues and accept them as our brothers and sisters in Christ.
I tell you all this now so you can start practicing in front of a mirror. It's not going to be easy.