The Works of God

That title probably isn’t fair.   I don’t know if the clergy associated with Planned Parenthood are intentionally misrepresenting the Bible, or if they don’t know it all.

From Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Clergy Advisory Board’s Pastoral Letter on Abortion:

Our religious traditions have somewhat different opinions about abortion, but we share some basic understandings.

No one knows the circumstances of your life as well as you know them; no one knows what is in your heart better than you. Allow yourself to be at peace with your decision.

I will just focus on two things that are significantly wrong with that bullet in the letter:

1. We lie to ourselves even more effectively than we lie to other people.  We justify our own actions far more frequently than we would justify the same actions from others.  When we are most burdened is usually when we cannot see the way clearly.  What these clergy have endorsed is no kindness for individual women in crisis, and leaves these women with the sole burden of discerning what is true and good and right in this situation.
2. NOBODY knows us like God.  Even when we think we know ourselves, God knows so much more.  We should ask wisdom from God.  David knew that when he wrote Psalm 19:

Who can discern his errors?
Declare me innocent from hidden faults.
Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins;
let them not have dominion over me!
Then I shall be blameless,
and innocent of great transgression.

Psalm 19:12-13

When an unborn baby is diagnosed with a disability, the overwhelming statistical response is to abort that baby.  Yet, the time of diagnosis is just the time when real information – about God in his sovereignty, about support services, and about families who are parenting children in similar situations – should be brought forward.

God holds all of us accountable for our decisions, but he holds those who influence decisions toward evil outcomes to an even higher standard.  Pray for the members of the Planned Parenthood Clergy Advisory Board that God would let them see what they are really doing and that they would turn from it in droves.  He is powerful enough and kind enough to do it for them when they can’t see the way themselves.