United Methodist bishop: Abortion is a ‘moral horror’

United Methodist bishop: Abortion is a ‘moral horror’

Institute on Religion and Democracy, January 25, 2005

For possibly the first time since abortion was widely legalized by a 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision, a United Methodist bishop has publicly denounced abortion as a “moral horror.”

Presbyterian women carry denomination’s banner at pro-abortion rally in Washington in April 2004. The PCUSA was one of the sponsors of the rally.

Presbyterians also lobby
in favor of abortions

Like the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church (USA) is a member of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Rights and lobbies for abortion rights for women.

However, the PCUSA goes even further than the United Methodist Church. The last three general assemblies of the PCUSA have sanctioned partial-birth abortions, which were outlawed by an act of Congress.

The federal law has been appealed. Speaking to a United Methodist pro-life group in Washington, D.C., Bishop Timothy Whitaker of Florida said he regretted that United Methodist agencies belong to the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, which defends abortion rights.

“What I feel is revulsion at the moral horror that is abortion. This revulsion is magnified when I reflect upon the fact, as [Lutheran theologian] Carl Braaten has said, ‘ninety-nine percent of all murders in the United States are abortions.”

The United Methodist Board of Church and Society, which owns the Capitol Hill United Methodist Building in which Bishop Whitaker spoke, is a founding member of RCRC and lobbies against restrictions on abortion. The United Methodist Women’s Division is also a member of RCRC.

Besides regretting United Methodist participation in RCRC, Whitaker lamented that the United Methodist Bishops’ Initiative on Children in Poverty, which focused on ministries for children, included “not even scant mention [about] the deaths of unborn children because of abortion.”

Hosting Whitaker in Washington, D.C., was the United Methodist Task Force on Abortion and Sexuality (TUMAS). Every January, TUMAS holds a “sanctity of life” worship service in the nation’s capital on the anniversary of the Roe V. Wade Supreme Court ruling that overturned legal restrictions on abortion.

Whitaker is the first bishop ever to speak at a TUMAS event. Speaking from the pulpit of Simpson Chapel in the United Methodist Building, he said that the United Methodist Church, America’s third largest religious body, has succumbed to American culture’s preoccupation with “private rights.” Christianity believes in both rights and responsibilities, he said.

“Therefore, we cannot endorse a woman’s right to abort an unborn child as a morally neutral decision because we understand that the child also has a right to live and the community has a responsibility to care for this child if the mother is unable to rear it,” the bishop said.

Whitaker called upon United Methodists to “apply our theological reflection, our pastoral guidance and our public witness against the violence of abortion in the name of the God of peace.”

“Can there be any doubt that there is silence and passivity about abortion in our church?” Whitaker asked. He wondered how many United Methodist sermons discuss abortion and how many congregations are supporting crisis pregnancy centers to help women with unwanted pregnancies.

Whitaker surmised that many United Methodists do not oppose abortion because that would align them with the Republican Party. But he insisted that Christians cannot let ideology or partisan loyalties “constrain our witness to the living God.”

“Those who do not agree with the Republican Party on its foreign policy and many of its domestic policies are reluctant to oppose abortion because they do not want to be supportive of this party on an issue that helps it to win elections,” Whitaker observed. But he insisted that, “We need to view abortion as a concern that transcends ideological or partisan loyalties.”

Noting that many United Methodists are outspoken against war and capital punishment, Whitaker asserted that opposition to violence requires as much “vigilance” against abortion as against war as a “normal political tool” and against state executions. He listed these things, along with opposition to euthanasia, as a witness to God in a world “under the evil spell of violence.”

Quoting Pope John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical “The Gospel of Life,” Whitaker said the commandment, “You shall not kill,” is integral to the revelation of God and to opposing a “culture of death.”

“I think our silence and passivity about abortion comes from the difficulty of being a Christian in America,” Whitaker said. Unlike nations where the culture is overtly hostile to Christianity, the “seductions of American life” are more subtle, with their emphasis on “autonomous individuals.” Christians, he said, have a “different anthropology” that emphasizes people as part of a community with responsibilities towards each other.

The United Methodist Book of Discipline illustrates this tension between Christianity and American culture, Whitaker said. On the one hand, The Discipline declares, “Our belief in the sanctity of unborn human life makes us reluctant to approve abortion.” On the other hand, it continues: “But we are equally bound to respect the sacredness of the life and the well-being of the mother, for whom devastating damage may result from an unacceptable pregnancy.”

What does this “but” mean?” Whitaker asked. If it means saving the life of the mother in “extreme medical conditions,” then “well and good,” he said. He wondered if this “but” clause really was “an escape from moral responsibility in the name of one’s individual right to choose as an American.”

Whitaker said he was not a philosopher or a politician and did not have all the answers as to when exactly a human being becomes a “person” or what the law should be in America. But he said, “I would like to be a bishop of a church that knows how to make philosophers and politicians feel the same revulsion of the moral horror of abortion.”

Admitting the lack of “clear prescription” against abortion in the Bible, Whitaker explained this was because “such a horror” was “unthinkable” to the people of Israel and to the church. “The grand story” of God’s gift of peace and opposition to violence compels Christians to “protect the unborn from killing and to work for a culture of life.”

“Do no harm,” was the first of John Wesley’s General Rules for Methodists, Whitaker recalled. Being faithful to this rule means, “Do no harm to the unborn! Do no harm to the witness of the Church as a peaceable people! Do no harm to the Gospel of peace!”

Whitaker has not been shy about defending Christian orthodoxy since his election as bishop 4 years ago. In 2003 he publicly challenged United Methodist Bishop Joseph Sprague of Chicago for questioning Jesus Christ’s eternal deity, virgin birth and bodily resurrection. Such a public theological debate between Methodist bishops had lacked modern precedent.

The full text of Whitaker’s speech can be found at www.ird-renew.org and www.lifewatch.org.