GA06016
Pro-Life Dinner
Former executive director says work of church impaired by abortion stance
by Shane Whisler
Terry Schlossberg, executive director of the Presbyterian Coalition, spoke at the Presbyterians Pro-Life Dinner. Schlossberg directed Presbyterians Pro-Life for 18 years. Photo by Danny Bolin.
BIRMINGHAM, June 15 – The ambiguous stance the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) holds towards abortion impairs the ability of the church to fully extend grace to all men and women, Presbyterian Coalition Executive Director Terry Schlossberg said Thursday at the Presbyterian Pro-Life gathering of 120 people.
"If we do not find the truth about what God reveals to us as human beings," Schlossberg said, "we are bound to get it wrong."
Schlossberg, the former executive director of 18 years for Presbyterians Pro-Life, initially endorsed the women’s liberation movement, including the right to have an abortion. But years later, after a transformative period of Bible study, she said she learned that Scripture calls on the faithful to defend and protect life.
Schlossberg said it does not take a great leap to see how that call extends to caring for the unborn. Citing passages from Scripture, the confessions of the PC(USA) and John Calvin’s writings, she asserted it is time for the church to be clear that abortion is wrong.
During that journey of discovery, she found it troubling that the Presbyterian Church seemed to be traveling the opposite direction in the 1980s, with the General Assembly stating that abortion could be a responsible choice in some circumstances. Matters were not improved with a new position taken by the General Assembly in 1992, which is ambiguous and suggests every position on abortion is acceptable, she said.
"The church’s witness on abortion is no small matter," Schlossberg said.
Chris Bolan, speaking as a "witness of the unheard voices" earlier in the program, also called for the PC(USA) to be clear in its abortion stance. He shared that both he and his son, who was adopted, had birth mothers who considered abortion. He said neither would have been born had it not been for the intervention of the Roman Catholic Church, in his case, or by the Orthodox Church in Romania, in his son’s case.
"The Roman Catholic Church has taken a full and complete stand," Bolan said. "Where are we?"
Related articles
June 17, 2006
Committee rejects overture to ban church financial support on either side of abortion issue
Author says economic justice tied to reproductive justice
|
