One of the things in ministry that brings joy to my heart is the privilege of leading Bible studies at church where we dig deeply into the texts, meanings and application of the Scriptures. My love for the Scriptures began with hearing my mother read the Bible to us and ask us what we though. Later on in life a series of wonderful youth pastors at St James Newport Beach, CA carefully “unpacked” the bible for me as I faced the challenges of life in middle and high school. In college, I learned to further engage God’s word through the “inductive Bible study” method that I learned with Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship in college. One of the highlights was spending a whole week in the Sequoia National Forest on a Stanford Christian Fellowship “bible dig-in” where we studied the second half of the Gospel of Mark every day, for hours on end. It was life changing, and still is.
Last Sunday in our Bible study class we were looking at I Corinthians 15, where Paul himself raises that great application question “What if there is no Resurrection? What if Jesus in fact did not rise from the dead? What then?” Indeed… and then he goes on to spell out the implications: “your faith is futile; you are still in your sins…you are lost… we are to be pitied more than all men… What have I gained? If the dead are not raised ‘let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die.’” (I Corinthians 15: 17, 18, 19, 32)
What you and I believe really matters! As we read I Corinthians 15, our class realized that what Paul believed gave him the courage and confidence to face savage opposition, relentless persecution and even death itself. The same is true today. Christians who believe that Jesus rose from the dead and raises us with Him have that same confidence and courage to face deprivations of all kind, persecution, and even death.
What we believe—or refuse to believe—is at the heart of the crisis within Anglicanism today. Everybody thinks the issues we face are about sex. But as has been demonstrated “sex” is just the tip of the iceberg. Beneath the tip of the iceberg that gets all the attention, we see huge challenges to faith that really matter. Beneath the surface of that iceberg we see a direct challenge to the Biblical doctrines of Creation (what God defines as “good”), marriage, the authority of the Scriptures, who gets to make decisions in the Church about what we believe and, ultimately, the message of Christ’s Gospel itself (is Jesus saying “come as you are and stay as you are” or “Come as you are and let me change you from the inside out so that you find your identity in ME alone”).
So I read with sadness this week the story of an Episcopal priest who aborted her baby so that she could finish seminary. The story came out in an amicus brief submitted to the US Supreme Court by those who are challenging a Texas law that would require abortionists to have hospital admitting privileges and abortion clinics to meet the same health and safety standards as other outpatient surgical facilities. The case, Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, was argued this week. As one advocate of the law said, it’s about life, not death: “Life is precious—whether it is the life of the child in the womb, or that of the young mother facing an unplanned pregnancy—and it deserves to be protected.”
But the deep pockets of the abortion industry feel burdened even by Texas’ compassionate law. And so they turned to an Episcopal priest, the Rev. Anne Fowler, who testified in their behalf that her abortion during seminary was the result of an ‘accidental pregnancy.” Apparently it was unplanned and she saw that baby not as a person but rather as a burden and an obstacle to a better life:
“If the Reverend Anne Fowler had not had access to an abortion…she would never have been able to graduate, to serve as a parish rector, or to help the enormous number of people whose lives she has touched….”
According to the amicus brief, her “touch” included encouraging many pregnant woman who are very young, or struggling “economically or emotionally,” to abort their babies too—through her leadership in such organizations as Planned Parenthood, NARAL and the Religious Coalition for Reproductive rights.
Her testimony goes on to assert that if she had not had free and unburdened access to a nearby abortion clinic, she would have been “Unable to pursue her calling or be the mother she wanted to be for the daughter she already had, she would have been broken.”
So apparently she believed that even in pursuing a “calling from God,” she would have had only enough love and care for one child. She could not have found an expression for that ministry calling in being a mother caring for two children. She would not have been honoring God or that calling by delaying her ordination in order to care for those children. In fact, anything short of an abortion and ordination within the regular period of time would have left her broken.
Am I missing something, or is there an absence of grace, faith and trust in God and treasuring the gift of LIFE in such thinking?
Today I am celebrating my eldest daughter’s interview and first job as a “long-term” substitute teacher of 9th grade language arts. She was born at 24 weeks, five days, weighed under a pound and fit in the palm of my hand. I am sure she would not even have been considered “viable” by the Rev. Fowler and her friends. But here she is, almost 28 years later. She has just finished college—a testimony to the grit and determination in overcoming many challenges. She is also deaf in one ear and hard of hearing in the other. But God has given her a passion for working with other “special needs” children. And she will be doing so! Isn’t God incredible in the way he redeems, far beyond anything we can ask or imagine!
I can still remember the song I sang over her when she was in NICU, in that isolette. “Yahweh, I know you are near.” It is a wonderful hymn and declaration of a Biblical truth from Psalm 139:
“For you created my inmost being: you knit me together in my mother’s womb, I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made…” (Psalm 139:13-14 NIV)
That truth, that hymn, enabled me to sing, and pray, and persevere through many fearful days and nights. I see the grace of God in my daughter; the gift that she is, and how with all of her challenges she is fearfully and wonderfully made!
You see, what we believe really does make a difference. Whether it has to do with the beginning of life or the end, the womb or the resurrection, what we believe as followers of Jesus Christ makes all the difference in the world!
The Rev. Canon Phil Ashey is President & CEO of the American Anglican Council
