Presbyterians Pro-Life NEWS
Winter 2004

"Every church values its own standards more than the unity it could achieve by dropping them. Many people think this very picky, petty, small-minded, and selfish of them. Why make the entrance fee so high? they ask. Why not be generous and let someone in even if he doesn’t accept everything you teach? Why keep Christians divided when it is so easy to bring them together? The entrance fees are high for good reason. Joining a church–and this applies to any Christian body–is like a marriage. It is a total commitment, not allowing any reservations, because every little point is still a crucial point, a point upon which the health of the whole thing depends. Leave out one of these little points, so apparently insignificant and you do something very bad to the marriage.

"....This instinct for exclusion is not a barrier to unity but the path by which it must be pursued. God will bring true unity to his scattered and divided people only if they are faithful to the Faith as they know it. He can do something to reconcile real Catholics and real Baptists, but he cannot do much with lazy, ignorant, or dishonest ones. I suspect he can do even less with those who value ‘inclusivity’ over truth.

"So if you want to do something for Christian unity, keep your entrance fees high and demand 100 percent acceptance of everything you teach, and trust the Lord to work out Christian unity in his own way and time. Do not lie or pretend you are not who you are."

• Excerpts from "Ecumenical Exclusion," by David Mills, in Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity, Nov. 25, 2003.

A recent Gallup survey reports that 72 percent of teenagers, aged 13 to 17, do not consider abortion to be a morally acceptable choice and oppose the use of abortion in most circumstances. Nearly one- third of teenagers believe abortion should be illegal in all circumstances compared with 17 percent of adults. The survey found that church-going teenagers were more likely to oppose abortion than those who do not attend church.

The results suggest that sex education programs that promote abortion as an option in teen pregnancy are failing to persuade their audience. The Presbyterian Church (USA) sexuality curriculum for teens gives the church’s blessing to abortion, as well as to same-sex relationships, and the use of contraception.