Abortion and the Church Part 3

Over thirty years ago I had the privilege of helping lay the foundation for a local Crisis Pregnancy Center. Sharon and I picketed hospitals that performed late term abortions that resulted in live births of babies who were then left to die alone. I've debated pro-death candidates on their pro-abortion positions and preached from a pro-life worldview all of my ministry life. I share the discouragement of pro-life people who are watching our new President dismantle every brick of the pro-life protection afforded children by our laws. No matter how much pro-death people try to paint us as unfeeling and uncaring for the woman facing a crisis pregnancy, we must continue to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. Who knows if God will move through these words to turn a woman's heart toward Him as she faces the frightening prospect of bringing a baby into the world that she didn't expect. There are crisis pregnancy centers all over our country, ready to offer help and hope to hurting women.

Abortion is not a new concept. Listen as our early church fathers plead with listeners to protect the child growing within.

Augustine of Hippo (354-430) also known as St. Augustine was a philosopher and theologian. Augustine, a Latin Church father, is one of the most important figures in the development of Western Christianity. Augustine was heavily influenced by the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus. He framed the concepts of original sin and just war. When the Roman Empire in the West was starting to disintegrate, Augustine developed the concept of the Church as a spiritual City of God (in a book of the same name) distinct from the material City of Man. His thought profoundly influenced the medieval worldview. Augustine's City of God was closely identified with the church, and was the community which worshiped God.

"Sometimes, indeed, this lustful cruelty, or if you please, cruel lust, resorts to such extravagant methods as to use poisonous drugs to secure barrenness; or else, if unsuccessful in this, to destroy the conceived seed by some means previous to birth, preferring that its offspring should rather perish than receive vitality; or if it was advancing to life within the womb, should be slain before it was born." (De Nube et Concupiscentia 1.17)

On the undeveloped fetus:

"Hence in the first place arises a question about abortive conceptions, which have indeed been born in the mother's womb, but not so born that they could be born again. For if we shall decide that these are to rise again, we cannot object to any conclusion that may be drawn in regard to those which are fully formed. Now who is there that is not rather disposed to think that unformed abortions perish, like seeds that have never fructified? But who will dare to deny, though he may not dare to affirm, that at the resurrection every defect in the form shall be supplied, and that thus the perfection which time would have brought shall not be wanting, any more than the blemishes which time did bring shall be present: so that the nature shall neither want anything suitable and in harmony with it that length of days would have added, nor be debased by the presence of anything of an opposite kind that length of days has added; but that what is not yet complete shall be completed, just as what has been injured shall be renewed." (Enchiridion 23.85.4)

On therapeutic abortion:

"And therefore the following question may be very carefully inquired into and discussed by learned men, though I do not know whether it is in man's power to resolve it: At what time the infant begins to live in the womb: whether life exists in a latent form before it manifests itself in the motions of the living being. To deny that the young, who are cut out limb by limb from the womb, lest if they were left there dead the mother should die too, have never been alive seems too audacious. Now, from the time that a man begins to live, from that time it is possible for him to die. And if he die, wheresoever death may overtake him, I cannot discover on what principle he can be denied an interest in the resurrection of the dead." (Enchiridion 23.86)

"Therefore brothers, you see how perverse they are and hastening wickedness, who are immature, they seek abortion of the conception before the birth; they are those who tell us, 'I do not see that which you say must be believed.'" (Sermon 126, line 12)

Apocalypse of Paul - This document is without date and has been proven to be a falsification, but it is included for its historical value and influence.

"And I saw women wearing white robes, being blind, and standing upon obelisks of fire; and an angel was mercilessly beating them, saying: Now you know where you are; you did not attend when the Scriptures were read to you. And the angel said to me: These are they who corrupted themselves and killed their infants. Their infants therefore came crying out: Avenge us of our mothers. And they were given to an angel to be carried away into a spacious place, but their parents into everlasting fire." (40)

Vision of Paul

"I asked and said: 'Who are these men and women who are strangled in fire and pay their penalties?' And he answered me: 'These are women who defiled the image of God when bringing forth infants out of the womb, and these are the men who lay with them.' And their infants addressed the Lord God and the angels who were set over the punishments, saying: 'Cursed be the hour to our parents, for they defiled the image of God, having the name of God but not observing His precepts: they gave us for food to dogs and to be trodden down of swine: others they threw into the river. But their infants were handed over to the angels of Tartarus who were set over the punishments, that they might lead them to a wide place of mercy: but their fathers and mothers were tortured in a perpetual punishment.'" (40)

The Apostolic Constitutions

"Thou shalt not use magic. Thou shalt not use witchcraft; for he says, 'You shall not suffer a witch to live' [Ex. 22:18]. Thou shall not slay thy child by causing abortion, nor kill that which is begotten. If it be slain, it shall be avenged, as being unjustly destroyed." (Apostolic Constitutions 7:3 [A.D. 400)

The Letter of Barnabas (AD 74) is a Greek treatise with some features of an epistle containing twenty-one chapters, preserved complete in the 4th century Codex Sinaiticus where it appears at the end of the New Testament. It is traditionally ascribed to Barnabas who is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles, though some ascribe it to another apostolic father of the same name, a "Barnabas of Alexandria," or simply attribute it to an unknown early Christian teacher.

"The way of light, then, is as follows. Thou shalt not slay the child by procuring abortion; nor, again, shalt thou destroy it after it is born" (Letter of Barnabas 19)

Hippolytus wrote the Refutation of All Heresies a Christian polemical work of the early third century. It catalogues both pagan beliefs and 33 Gnostic Christian systems deemed heretical.

"Women who were reputed to be believers began to take drugs to render themselves sterile, and to bind themselves tightly so as to expel what was being conceived, since they would not, on account of relatives and excess wealth, want to have a child by a slave or by any insignificant person. See, then, into what great impiety that lawless one has proceeded, by teaching adultery and murder at the same time!" (Refutation of All Heresies)

If you are considering an abortion, please do not go forward with that decision. Give God the opportunity to bring beauty from the ashes of your dreams, to give you treasures in the darkness and most of all, to bring your child into this world.

In His Grip,
Pastor Betters

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