One of the things I get to do with my life is work with a team at the International House of Prayer as they pray for LIFE. This past week as we took to the Friday LIFE sets we do, a common theme arose as it often does when we all pray: Praying for a culture of LIFE in the church. One of our leaders finished his cycle of prayer saying:

“God, end abortion in the church, we pray.”

The phrase struck me with grief. When did we become a culture in the church who had to pray for God to end abortion among us?

However, we know we do. Recently I reported on the compromise on the abortion issue in the United Methodist Church. As I said in my reports on them, they are members of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), a “faith-based ministry” that advocates for abortion rights at about the same level and degree of passion as Planned Parenthood.

Immediately I am reminded of a scripture from Hosea 8:7, which begins

Even the unbeliever is guided by the principle of sowing and reaping. They may call it karma, but they mean, if you do good, good will be returned—and vice versa. What Jesus said is true, even if people try to discount the source. And when we sow to the wind, to things with no foundation or base, we reap destruction.

There are some in the church in America sowing into abortion and death. They have fallen for the deceit that somehow it’s helping women and families to allow them to kill the babies and help them do it—in the name of Jesus.

Some commentaries I read noted that in Hosea 8, Israel, who was laboring in sowing into idols, reaped not only what it sowed, but more, and in a terrible way. Because they sowed to wind—they put so much work into idolatry, that they actually reaped a whirlwind.

Take a look at more of Hosea 8 in context:

Essentially this is the idea that when we work  tirelessly to promote sin, as those promoting abortion within the church do, that we crate a bigger problem than existed before we began that work.

It’s like living in a windy city and then working hard to control the environment in such an unnatural way that you help create a tornado that destroys it.

That we’ve come to a point in our nation where Christians have to pray for the church to end its own abortion problem is a troubling statement.

Along with the RCRC flavor of abortion rights advocates, The Guttmacher Institute shows 37 percent of women having abortions claim a Protestant affiliation, while 28 percent claim a Catholic one.  This isn’t a difficult idea to grasp when we look at the long list of member church bodies in the RCRC, from United Methodists to Episcopal to Presbyterian (USA) to more “fringe” groups that would identify themselves as Protestant, and even groups called Catholics for Choice (You can see the entire member list here), it’s no wonder so many abortions happen within the church, and that’s in addition to the clandestine abortions that happen in mainstream churches because of shame or those with unexpected pregnancies being scared because maybe the church hasn’t addressed the issue, so they live with a sense that its’ “bad” but no idea how to handle it.

When my friend prayed “God, end abortion in the church,” the most tragic thing was the validity of the prayer, that abortion is such a problem within the church that it needs its own prayer focus. What a tragedy we’ve allowed under our stained glass and crosses. What responsibility must we bear when we claim Jesus supports “reproductive rights” and then we use His name to destroy life in the very form in which God Himself came to this earth.

I urge us to not be part of sowing to the whirlwind that’s coming. As the church if we don’t speak up for LIFE then how can we expect the politicians and medical community to do this? The voices must begin inward. We must take issue with those such as the RCRC member churches and cut out ties with such places, raising our voices in unity. How can we be one as Jesus and the Father are one if we can’t even be unified on when it’s okay to take life?

We must speak now or we are sowing to the wind, and the coming whirlwind will look and sound like the blood of 55 million aborted babies crying out their collective voice from the ground.