Apr 9, 2025
Many American pastors may find themselves poorly prepared for the pro-abortion counter-offensive launched at the overturn of Roe v. Wade, warned David Closson, director of FRC’s Center for Biblical Worldview and author of “Life after Roe: Equipping Christians in the Fight for Life Today,” but that doesn’t have to be true. The tactics of the enemy have changed, but Christians can still stand firm on the unchanging truth of God’s word.
“Since Roe was overturned on June 24th, 2022,” Closson explained on “Washington Watch,” 14 out of 17 states to vote on abortion ballot referenda have “gone the pro-abortion direction.” He blamed this largely on “out-of-state millions [that] can fund the pro-abortion side [and] spread lies [or] misinformation.” These ballot measures have ensconced abortion into state constitutions, often with vague language of unexplored extent.
Meanwhile, European abortion protections have developed to the point that not only peaceful protest but even silent prayer is a criminal offense; it’s only a matter of time before pro-abortion activists in America attempt to incorporate Europe’s heavy-handed abortion model into these vague but sweeping abortion ballot measures. This could directly threaten the freedom of speech and religion for Christians who believe abortion is wrong.
In addition to new legal threats, Christians also face a new dominant method of abortion. “Folks like me who grew up in the 90s — we remember going on Saturday morning to pray outside an abortion clinic,” Closson reminisced. But today, “over 60% of abortions don’t take place at abortion clinics anymore,” but rather “through chemical abortion, the two-pill regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol that was approved in 2000 by the Clinton administration.”
There is also a new dominant intellectual argument for abortion, now that ultrasound technology convincingly shatters the old excuse that an unborn child is merely “a clump of cells.”
“I’m telling Christians who are engaging this issue, you need to be aware of the intellectual, pro-abortion argument that’s being used, which is Personhood theory,” Closson warned. “Personhood theory basically posits this idea that there’s a distinction between being biologically human and being a person that has moral standing and therefore has legal rights.”
“As Christians, we can’t buy that,” continued Closson. “We believe all people are made in God’s image, and that happens at the moment of conception, that you have value and dignity and worth.”
Yet many pastors who would theologically reject Personhood theory have neglected to reject it pastorally. As FRC Action President and former Congressman Jody Hice noted, “Only 44% [of pastors] have preached about abortion in the 12 months after Roe was overturned. Why is this? Why are we not having churches and church leaders, spiritual leaders discuss this?”
It’s easy to misinterpret this statistic to conclude that pastors were talking about abortion about half the time, but it actually shows far weaker engagement. The flip side of this statistic is that 56% of pastors mentioned abortion in zero out of 52 weekly sermons in the year following Dobbs. The 44% who did mention it probably preached on abortion no more than a handful of times, perhaps even once.
As a result, many people, including many Christians, heard far more from the world about abortion than from the church. It’s possible that many Christians heard persuasive presentations of the anti-biblical Personhood theory and, because they never heard their pastor make the counter-case, believed it. This — Christians being led astray “with plausible arguments” (Colossians 2:4) — is the real danger lurking behind a pastor’s silence on issues like abortion.
“There are a lot of pastors who don’t want to offend people in their congregation, because they know abortion is a controversial topic. In fact, I would say [this is true of] especially younger preachers, guys I went to seminary with. … We were brought up, and we heard the criticisms of the Moral Majority,” proposed Closson. But “the older I get, the more I realize how those guys were really right on the issues, and their diagnosis of the culture was right on.”
“There was kind of this idea of, ‘Well, we don’t want to serve the donkey or the elephant. We want to serve the Lamb.’ … I get the impulse behind that,” Closson clarified. But Christians have spoken clearly on abortion since the first century, even where such criticism cut across cultural currents. He offered the following examples:
A first-century Christian instruction manual called The Didache: “You shall not murder a child by abortion, nor kill that which is begotten.”
Clement of Alexandria, second century: “Christians should not, in an effort to hide sexual sin, take away human nature, which is generated from the providence of God, by hastening abortion and applying abortifacient drugs to destroy utterly the embryo, and with it the love of man.”
Tertullian, second to third century: “To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man killing.”
Augustine, fourth century: It is cruel lust that would resort “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.”
John Calvin, 16th century: “For the fetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being, and is a monstrous crime to rob it of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy.”
Closson said this “clear moral language” has characterized Christian teaching “for 2,000 years of church history.”
The reason why Christians have been so clear about the moral evil of abortion is because the Bible is clear about the dignity and worth of all human beings, even the unborn. Human life is precious because humans are made in the image of God (Genesis 9:5-6). This is part of the pre-fall creation order (Genesis 1:26-27), which Jesus affirmed as still relevant and applicable to questions of social morality in his own time (Matthew 19:3-9). The whole testimony of Scripture never contradicts this logic and only reaffirms it, from Psalm 139:13 to Luke 1:41-45.
So, Closson exhorted pastors, “Where the scripture is clear, we need to be clear. … When it comes to the life issue, we have text. We don’t have to guess what God’s opinion is. And so, I would just encourage pastors: don’t give in to fear of man.” Solomon counsels, “The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe” (Proverbs 29:25).
Of course, this does not mean that pastors should preach against abortion to the exclusion of other topics, or exchange their service’s wholesome liturgical feast for a diet of culture-war jerky. As Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.) recently counseled, “I don’t believe pastors should preach politics all the time. I think they should talk about Jesus and salvation and the goodness and grace of God all the time. I think that should be their obsession.”
But neither should pastors shy away from the topic of abortion where appropriate. For instance, many passages in Scripture address some aspect of human dignity. When preaching on such a passage, a pastor can take a moment to apply the text to the issue of abortion.
Finally, perhaps there are pastors who are reticent to address abortion not out of fear of man, but simply because they do not feel qualified or knowledgeable enough to do so. Based on one final aspect of Closson’s discussion, I would argue that any pastor who is qualified to preach the word of God is qualified to condemn abortion. This is because, now more than ever, abortion debates are more spiritual than they are intellectual.
The discussion began with a question from Hice, “Having seen an ultrasound … how can [anyone] then advocate for the killing of an unborn baby and keep a straight face about it?” Closson responded, “Scripture gives us categories for this. Scripture uses the language of being hardened.”
“Frankly, when you deny what your eyes tell you, you deny what good science and philosophy and theology teach you, over time, you can become hardened. You can become calloused in your conscience, that moral sense that we all have, that’s embedded in us,” he elaborated. This happens “as you suppress the truth in unrighteousness, as Paul talks about in Romans 1, [and] that voice can become fainter and fainter and fainter until you don’t even hear it anymore.”
“As Christians, we want a rightly calibrated conscience, and we want to see that for our friends on the other side of this issue as well. Because, if you have a rightly calibrated conscience, you’ll see through the means of common grace and science that the unborn is made in God’s image and has value and dignity,” he continued. It “doesn’t matter what point on the developmental stage you’re in, you’re human. And therefore you have value and dignity.”
In other words, Christians should address the abortion issue by appealing directly to the conscience, penetrating through unbelief and hard-heartedness through the power of the word of God, which “is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12).
Appealing to consciences, boldly presenting God’s word in faith — this is what pastors should be doing already. This means that any pastor who preaches according to his own authority or effort, but according to God’s word and God’s Spirit, is already qualified to apply God’s word to issues like abortion, where the biblical position is clear. The enemy may use different arguments, different methods, and different strategies, but the unchanging God still builds his church through the same means he has always used: his word, his Spirit, and his people.
Stay Awake. Keep Watch.
SOURCE: Harbinger's Daily