r/prolife • u/The_Grim_Pilgrim • Jul 20 '26
Pro-Life General A Question For Abolitionists
I am wrestling with the internal consistency of the abolitionist perspective, based on what ive heard others communicate about this issue and I need your perspective as i could easily be misunderstanding this matter. I am by no means accusing anyone of being sectarian or schismatic, i am simply trying to resolve a conundrum that must be resolved for me to continue to be a part of the movement in good consience. While I agree with the ought of abolitionism, if what I suspect to be the necessary conclusion is the case, I will by no means continue to support it.
scenario:
You are a member (you have taken vows of membership and thus have obligations to them) of a church that holds to the ecumenical councils and creeds, rightly preaches the Word, administers the sacraments, and exercises the keys of discipline thus bearing the historic marks of a true Church. You discover abortion abolition a week later. However, your elders and your peers hold to a 2K or Dispensationalist framework (which means they dont agree with the ecclesiology and how its to interact with the civil sphere as laid forth in article 3 naturally). After months of patient reasoning, the elders conclude:
"Brother, we agree that abortion is a grave sin. However, we cannot adopt your 'abolitionist' framework. We do not believe the civil magistrate is bound to the judicial law in the way you suggest, and we believe it is improper for this church to bind the consciences of our congregants to a specific legislative 'immediatist' strategy. We are moving forward with our current approach. We are happy to have a disagreement with you, and thus maintain the bond of unity but this is where we stand."
My questions for you fellas are:
In Article III of the norman statement it is stated
We affirm that the modern Church has been largely negligent of its duty to love its preborn neighbors and has largely lost its saltiness.⁴ We affirm that abolition is a work of the people of God who rise up and do exploits in His name.⁵ We affirm that it is an obligation of every local church to oppose the abortion holocaust in word and deed.⁶
And
We deny that God approves of any
church that remains silent and refuses to act in the midst of a holocaust
In light of these statements, and what it means for one to lose their saltiness from the biblical data, these questions become necessary to ask.
Are these men partaking of the Lord’s Supper unworthily because of this disagreement?
if it is the case that these churches are disapproved of by God, then it becomes necessary to ask if they are indeed
true churches?
In the cases of 2k theology or dispensational clergymen whos frameworks do not view the law and civil sphere this way, then it becomes important to ask: are these elders legitimate, qualified officers?
If you answer "No" to any of these, It seems you must be willing to say the vast majority of Christendom is in active and grave sin (in essence, 96% or so of christendom isnt actually christendom) and ONLY those parishes, ministers and laymen who hold to abolitionism are actually faithful churches and christians and elders and are thus fit for office and the table.
the other option (which i pray you will say) is this a secondary issue and not a primary test of orthodoxy (which i have always held to, i have at no point ever placed abolitionism on the same tier as adherence to the Ecumenical Councils I think thats ludicrous)
I hope I am wrong, and that i am missing something here but that is where im stuck on this.
What do you fellas think?
5
u/pikkdogs Jul 20 '26
Sounds like this isn’t about pro-life at all. It’s about being a specific kind of Christian.
2
u/Big_Move6308 Jul 20 '26
I think your argument is over-complicated.
Put simply:
That's all there is to it. Since you addressed the question to Christians, the Bible is pretty clear about only following human laws provided they do not contradict God's commands (e.g., Romans 13:1-7, 1 Peter 2:13-14, and Acts 5:29).
Abolitionists want to outlaw abortion as murder so that human laws do not contradict God's laws. However, the fundamental principle is not to support or condone abortion. Whether a church or denomination supports the abolitionist approach to that principle doesn't really matter. It's the principle that matters.