On Being a Pro-Life Congregation

Pro-life congregations can find 1,001 things to do. Some of them are as simple as extending communion-rail blessings to the unborn children as well as those born. Others may join the Life Chain on the first Sunday of October or participate in a local March for Life in January. Others may partner with a pregnancy resource center to support mothers in need and so address the fears that drive abortion.

But this article is about being, not doing. Our lives as Christians flow from who we are in Christ. In order to address this foundation, LCMS Life Ministry has provided an important new resource. Marriage, Life and Family: Reflecting the Holy Trinity. It is offered to help congregations and pastors begin to plumb the depths of Lutheran theology through engagement with the most pressing challenges of the day.

Ultimately, LCMS congregations do not engage marriage, life and family as mere social issues. We engage them because through them we have an unprecedented opportunity to proclaim the Father who sends His Son to die for the sins of the world and who, from the cross, gives His Holy Spirit to all who believe.

Engagement with the world today cannot help but see an exponentially increasing chaos. Families are in disarray. Culture is in upheaval. People are set against one another, isolated, angry and hurting. The Christian worldview that once tied communities together has dissolved into rampant nihilism. As a result, the Church is not only marginalized, but attacked with increasing ferocity.

The first step in being a pro-life congregation is to receive these challenges as a gift from God and not a curse to be avoided. No cross can harm God’s people. Knowing this, we can approach the challenges with joy and not foreboding. We can be certain that the more we engage the world with the word of God, the more we will grow.

For Lutherans especially, our respect for the proper distinction between law and Gospel can be exploited by Satan to cause us to be timid and tentative in applying the law to our world. This is disastrous because it mutes three aspects of the Gospel itself.

First, it forgets the beautiful fact that our bodies are created by the very hand of God. His word about how to use them is not a foreign intrusion, but the very words of the One in Whom we live. Second, it also mutes our confession that Christ has died to take away the sin of the world. The promise of the resurrection goes beyond the removal of guilt. It promises freedom from sin itself—freedom from the self-destructive desires and impulses that enslave the human race.

Most importantly of all, marriage, life and family are gifts that God provides to help us see Him in our daily lives. The newest resource from LCMS Life Ministry is designed to start this discussion. It is only a start. But as the LCMS thinks on these matters together, all will benefit from the vistas that God will provide.