It's Time to Start Disciplining Pro-Choice "Christians"

Churches Need to Enact Church Discipline on Those Who Believe Abortion is Morally Okay

“Do not be mismatched with unbelievers. For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship does light have with darkness?”

2 Cor 6:14

“If your brother sins against you, go and rebuke him in private. If he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he won’t listen, take one or two more with you, so that by the testimony of two or three witnesses every fact may be established. If he pays no attention to them, tell the church. But if he doesn’t pay attention even to the church, let him be like an unbeliever and a tax collector to you.”

Matt 18:15-17

“Do not murder.”

Exodus 20:13

This post has been a long time coming. I have hesitated writing it, thinking perhaps it too controversial or too divisive. But I have come to see being controversial now often just means speaking truth clearly and with conviction, while “not being divisive” has become a false virtue for many Christians. “Not being divisive” today describes an attitude of intellectual and moral passivity which has only enabled grave theological errors to overwhelm our Christian communities. In turn, this passivity has lead our churches further away from biblical truth and holy living. Jesus was not not divisive (Matt 10:34ff), nor should we not be divisive. Instead, the only relevant questions for us Christians are what to divide over and when to do it (admittedly, there is probably also a “how” question well, making it three relevant questions). But that we divide is essential to Christianity: most fundamental for us is dividing ourselves from the world, or the world’s ways, and that on account of Christ Himself.

In addition, I realize that no matter how well I argue for the position I am taking, or how nuanced I might make the case, there will be those who will not be able to see it as anything other than “hateful” or “unloving.” They will plug their ears, gnash their teeth, and, as is now commonplace, tout their own, culturally-conformed version of love as the proper corrective to the biblical conception. As far as I am concerned, these reactions are themselves indictments of the error, and evil, being exposed. Nevertheless, if Christians are to separate themselves from the world and its ways, one means by which this is done is through holding each other accountable. We who call ourselves followers of Jesus hold each other accountable when we either demand that a) one of us stop acting in a manner contradictory to Jesus’ teachings (which includes the teachings of his apostles, e.g., of Paul), or b) willfully hold beliefs that are contradictory to what is clearly laid out in the Scriptures.

The question I am therefore raising, and will also answer, is this: “Isn’t it time for Evangelical churches to start disciplining church members who are pro-choice?”. Here I will argue it is not only time, but high time, for churches who say they are pro-life, meaning pro-life from conception to natural death, to stop welcoming members who support abortion (the “members” part here is not trivial). This would include those who vote for pro-abortion political candidates because of those candidates’ pro-choice policies, or who engage in some form of apologetics for abortion rights, euphemistically called “women’s rights” by many self-proclaimed “Christians.”

On an important side note, this same general argument would also apply to anyone who is pro-euthanasia, although this issue hasn’t hit the U.S. quite as hard as it has in countries like Canada. Not yet at least.

The Culture of Death and The False Christian

The culture of death that then Pope and now Roman Catholic saint, John Paul II, warned about decades ago must be stopped in the West. “Why,” one asks? Because a culture that advocates for unnatural death is fundamentally at odds with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which is also the Gospel of Life (Jn 10:10). I begin with this basic premise: genuine Christians can only hold beliefs that are life-promoting, and, as such, genuine Christians will only try to prevent murde, and can never try to facilitate murder in any way. Anyone who seeks to facilitate murder, to be distinguished from killing, cannot be a true Christian.

This said, if the Church in America cannot take the lead in ending the destruction of innocent human life in the womb, the central defining feature of the death culture John Paul II spoke of, then we cannot expect the culture of death to itself die. Yet one way to fail to stop abortion, the greatest moral evil of our time, is to continue to allow people who willfully believe in the morality of abortion to continue to practice and participate in our churches. Thus, to act to end the culture of death, the culture which is antithetical to the Gospel of Life, entails the removal of willful believers in abortion from our churches.

In his seminal address on the family, Familiaris Consortio, John Paul II rightly identified the heart behind those who entertain reasons for terminating pregnancies:

Some ask themselves if it is a good thing to be alive or if it would be better never to have been born; they doubt therefore if it is right to bring others into life when perhaps they will curse their existence in a cruel world with unforeseeable terrors. Others consider themselves to be the only ones for whom the advantages of technology are intended and they exclude others by imposing on them contraceptives or even worse means. Still others, imprisoned in a consumer mentality and whose sole concern is to bring about a continual growth of material goods, finish by ceasing to understand, and thus by refusing, the spiritual riches of a new human life. The ultimate reason for these mentalities is the absence in people’s hearts of God, whose love alone is stronger than all the world’s fears and can conquer them.

John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio [emphasis added]

According to John Paul II, those who doubt whether or not human life is worth living, or who believe we can intervene to prevent a human life from being born, or who believe that there are other considerations that override the value of pre-born human life, have these “mentalities” for one ultimate reason: they do not have God in their hearts. But those who do not have God in their hearts, clearly cannot be genuine followers of Christ. “God in their hearts” acts as a metonym for the fuller theological claim regarding the regeneration of the sinner by the power of the Holy Sprit (2 Cor 5:16). This is a fundamental teaching of Roman Catholics, Protestants and Orthodox Christians. Thus, “unregenerate” church goers may pay lip service to God, but God talk and God walk are categorically different things. We see Jesus Himself identify the difference between the person who only acts religiously, usually for social reasons, as opposed to the genuinely religious person, whose heart is with God and, as such, belongs to God’s people.

Responding to the Pharisees, who praised God with their lips and acted in religiously appropriate ways, Jesus says (referencing the prophet Isaiah):

Hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you when he said:

These people honor Me with their lips,
but their heart is far from Me.
They worship Me in vain,
teaching as doctrines the commands of men.

These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

Matt 15:7-9

There are those in the Church, here understood as the visible church on earth in its various denominational and institutional manifestations, who act and speak religiously but whose hearts, or, more precisely, whose wills, are far from God. The actions and the words appear to be in alignment with God’s will, but they are nothing more than that: appearances. They fake religion. The Pharisees were representative of those who look to be in the community of God’s people, but who are not real members of it. In this case, these pretenders were themselves the leaders of the community. This means they had risen to positions of prominence in the ekklesia.

In the apostolic period, we see both Paul and John struggling, like their Lord, with the same problem: those who appear Christian but who, in truth, are not. They look like members of a church, but are not members of the Body of Christ. At Ephesus, Paul even predicts that upon his departure such “wolves” as these will come into the church. Their purpose? To deceive and to eat, i.e., spiritually devour, genuine members of the flock:

Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock that the Holy Spirit has appointed you to as overseers, to shepherd the church of God, which He purchased with His own blood. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And men will rise up from your own number with deviant doctrines to lure the disciples into following them. Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for three years I did not stop warning each one of you with tears.

Acts 20:28-31

In 1 John, the apostle John also describes others who have come into the Church pretending to be something they were not:

Children, it is the last hour. And as you have heard, “Antichrist is coming,” even now many antichrists have come. We know from this that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. However, they went out so that it might be made clear that none of them belongs to us.

1 John 2:18-19

Just prior to this passage, John clarifies what it means to be a true follower, a genuine member, of the flock of Jesus Christ:

This is how we are sure that we have come to know Him: by keeping His commands. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” yet doesn't keep His commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly in him the love of God is perfected. This is how we know we are in Him: The one who says he remains in Him should walk just as He walked.

1 John 2:3-6

While the theological judgments of Pope John Paul II are not ultimately authoritative, they nevertheless draw out a basic inference from the biblical text, which is ultimately authoritative. That inference is that anyone who willfully believes that murder is morally just does not, nay cannot, really have God in their hearts. This inference is so obvious I will not waste time referencing the multitude of Scriptures that speak to God’s hatred of murder, although perhaps the first of all of them will help drive home the point:

Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s guardian?”

Then He said, “What have you done? Your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground! So now you are cursed, alienated, from the ground that opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood you have shed. If you work the ground, it will never again give you its yield. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.”

Gen 4:8-14

Finally, if we add to this obvious, biblical inference— that people who willfully believe murder is morally just cannot have God in their heart— Jesus, Paul and Johns’ teaching that there are those who pretend to be godly—who act as if they are followers of Christ, and who speak as if they are Christians, but who really are not— then we might conclude there is at least the possibility of people in our churches who willfully believe murder is just, yet who are pretending to be Christians in virtue of doing all the typical kinds of things real Christians do, or speaking in a fashion typical of genuine Christians.

From this conclusion several questions emerge regarding some people in our churches:

1. If there are people in our churches who willfully believe abortion is okay, is this equivalent to believing that murder is okay?

2. If yes, then how can it be that these people have God in the hearts, i.e., how can it be that they are real Christians?

3. If they are not real Christians, because they do not have God in the hearts, then how can the real Christians in a particular church have fellowship with them?

4. If the real Christians in a church cannot have fellowship with them, then how does this not warrant alienating those non-genuine Christians from the community of God, just as God alienated Cain after he killed Abel?

5. How should a church go about discovering who willfully believes abortion is morally okay, and then how should those persons be removed, i.e., what should the process of alienation, or “shunning,” look like?

Clearing Up The Issue

To reference John Paul II once more,

If such great care must be taken to respect every life, even that of criminals and unjust aggressors, the commandment "You shall not kill" has absolute value when it refers to the innocent person. And all the more so in the case of weak and defenceless human beings, who find their ultimate defence against the arrogance and caprice of others only in the absolute binding force of God's commandment.

In effect, the absolute inviolability of innocent human life is a moral truth clearly taught by Sacred Scripture, constantly upheld in the Church's Tradition and consistently proposed by her Magisterium.

Evangelium Vitae, III.57

Protestants, like myself, can feel free to rely solely on the authority of Sacred Scripture, which even the Pope admits, teaches “clearly” on the inviolability of innocent human life, one example of which is the baby in the womb. I will not deal here with all the arguments for why abortion just is murder. It is that and Christians who accept both the special Revelation of the Bible and the general revelation found in nature and Reason, can have moral knowledge that abortion is murder. We need not rehearse any longer, the manifold evidences and arguments for that judgement. It is, to borrow a phrase from a less reliable source of knowledge, origin science, “settled theology.”

Knowing that we know that abortion is murder, what then do we do about those in our churches who willfully believe that abortion is morally okay? When I say “willfully,” what I mean is that this is not a belief held in ignorance. In other words, we are only talking about church members who know enough about the issue of abortion, who understand what abortion is, and yet who still maintain the belief that abortion is morally justified or justifiable. Of course, it is hard to imagine anyone in our country, even young children, who do not know what abortion actually is. This is especially the case since the advent of ultrasound technology in the 1960’s. Thus, given the non-ignorant believer in abortion, it must be concluded that those who believe or support abortion rights cannot truly “have God in their hearts.” For no genuine Christian can believe that murder is morally okay in the eyes of God. That belief is so antithetical to God’s heart, that to believe it is to not be in Christ.

It should, therefore, be assumed that those who non-ignorantly defend the murder of children in the womb, be it through direct advocacy, e.g., helping women get abortions, or even through indirect means, liking voting for pro-abortion candidates because of those candidates’ pro-abortion policies, are not genuine Christians. And, if not genuine Christians, they should be removed from the fellowship of God’s people unless they repent. The general process for this removal is laid out by the Lord Jesus Himself:

If your brother sins against you, go and rebuke him in private. If he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he won’t listen, take one or two more with you, so that by the testimony of two or three witnesses every fact may be established. If he pays no attention to them, tell the church. But if he doesn’t pay attention even to the church, let him be like an unbeliever and a tax collector to you. I assure you: Whatever you bind on earth is already bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth is already loosed in heaven. Again, I assure you: If two of you on earth agree about any matter that you pray for, it will be done for you by My Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there among them.

Matt 18:15-20

In this particular case, Jesus is talking about two adult men who are at odds with one another, and who are in need of reconciliation. One might object, given the context, that a person in the church who holds pro-abortion beliefs has not actually committed a murder against another, concrete person. However, the principle Jesus elucidates applies equally to the case of the pro-abortion church member. The sinful disposition of the pro-murder church member toward a potential or actual pre-born child is on par with the sin committed against one’s “brother.” The only relevant difference is that the pre-born child, potential or actual, cannot defend itself and, as such, requires a moral proxy or advocate to speak on its behalf. That advocate is the pro-life Christian adult.

No genuine Christian can see it as desirable, or find it morally just, that another, innocent human being, potential or actual, is unworthy of life. That is a violation of the gravest kind, as it is a sin against the image of God in man itself. But since the target of such an evil disposition cannot speak for itself, it becomes incumbent on the adult members of a church to rebuke the pro-murder “Christian” in their midst, and to carry this out in the way described by Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel. The end result of this process, lest the brother, or sister, who has sinned against the unborn baby repent, is to treat that brother, or sister, as an unbeliever (which is probably the case already).

Some Final Clarifications For Potential Interlocutors

So far I have argued that non-ignorant, i.e., willful, belief in the murder of unborn children is an indicator that a particular church member is not a genuine Christian, and, as such, worthy of being put under church discipline. Moreover, if such a member is put under discipline and refuses to repent of their willful belief in abortion, then the only logical, morally just, and spiritually loving thing to do would be to excommunicate that person from the local community of God’s people. This act is justified in that it protects the flock of true believers from false belief, potentially immoral practices, and, as Paul says in 2 Cor 6:14, from “spiritual darkness” with which the true Christian can have no fellowship.

There are a few points, however, to clarify when it comes to how this process might take place, and to whom it would and would not apply. I hope, although I doubt, these clarification will convince any commentators that this argument is not “hateful” or “legalistic.”

First, this argument has nothing to do with women who have had abortions. Women who have had abortions, or who have entertained having one, are not implicated in this argument unless, and only if, they maintain the belief that their abortion was just, and, being just, they did no wrong. If that is the case, then these women would be subject to church discipline as laid out above. However, any woman, regardless of whether they have had one, or many, abortions who has come to see the error of her ways, and has repented and been restored, would clearly not fall under church discipline. Why? There would be absolutely no need, since these women have already been restored in Christ. On this point, many of us know stories of women who have had abortions, repented, been forgiven and restored in Christ to His Church. It is to these women especially that the Church should listen most attentively.

Second, as to the process of discovering which church members do hold pro-abortion beliefs, this is a more complex issue. I am not advocating for a kind of inquisition. However, that a little leaven leavens the whole lump is a biblical principle taught by Christ Himself. Thus, while it may not be entirely appropriate to directly investigate church members to find out who is and who is not pro-murder, minimally there should be some method by which pastors and elders in the church can know who is breaking this fundamental teaching of Jesus. If this can be done subtly, so much the better. However, I would argue, ultimately this needs to be done, and if it cannot be done behind the scenes, there is precedent to do so publicly and directly. The threat to the church that is unwilling to expose evil, as we have seen with other types of sins (e.g., pastoral sexual scandals), is far greater than exposing it in an unpleasant manner.

Third, I am by no means limiting this process of discipline to women only. As to men in the Church who hold pro-abortion views, I would hope they would castrate themselves! (Gal 5:12) While I realize I am taking Paul out of context here, there is a biblical and moral principle that might apply to men who believe either that a) abortion is morally just, or b) that they are not in the position to make a moral judgment about abortion. Men who believe abortion is morally just, should probably not be allowed to procreate. From a biblical worldview, it would be morally worse for a man to assist in the conception of a child to only then facilitate that child’s murder than for that same man to be castrated, removing from him any possibility to kill a child of his own conception. As to the man who might personally be against abortion, but who sees it solely as the choice of the woman, or his wife, the same would seem to apply. He should castrate himself so that he not ever become an accomplice in a murder, thus keeping himself from sin. Of course, for this man, it would be better to just not marry a pro-abortion woman.

Either way, these false Christians, be they men or women, must be put under church discipline and, if they remain in a posture of unrepentance, be subsequently and duly removed from their churches. After all, in our present moment, it isn’t as if they won’t find other “churches,” or pagan temples, that will welcome them with open arms.

Keep These People Out of Church