Liberal Evangelicals Facilitate Obamacare Abortion Funding

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You’ve read that a last-minute compromise with Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson over Obamacare on abortion would allow federally backed insurance plans to cover abortion. States could opt out of the coverage, and individual enrollees would pay for the abortion coverage with separate checks. The Catholic bishops, and pro-life groups, lament that this legislation, if passed, would be the first dilution of the 33 year old federal policy of not facilitating abortions.

Somewhat oddly, some liberal and otherwise pro-life evangelicals and Catholics jointly urged Senator Nelson to accept an earlier but somewhat similar and perhaps even more permissive compromise that the senator initially rejected. These evangelicals included leaders of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) and an editor of Christianity Today. Seemingly, federal direction of health care is more important than protecting against federal funding of abortion. Here’s my article from The Weekly Standard. And here’s Alan Wisdom’s analysis of church stances towards Obamacare overall.

Another signer of the Obamacare abortion compromise was NAE leader and immigration activist Samuel Rodriguez, who has been crucial to persuading NAE to back liberalized immigration laws. Read Connor Ewing’s article about him here.

Besides Obamacare and immigration, climate change has also been much in the news, especially with the Copenhagen Summit. The NAE’s former chief spokesman, and Global Warming alarmist, Richard Cizik, now working for left-wing philanthropist George Soros, was there of course. So too were many current church officials, including the Archbishop of Canterbury. Read Jeff Walton’s article here. The Religious and Evangelical Left continue to espouse apocalyptic scenarios about climate change and demand massive restrictions on capitalism and redistribution of wealth, all in the supposed name of science.

While worrying about theoretical threats from climate, many church officials are silent about the atrocities of the radical Islamist regime in Sudan. But IRD’s religious liberty advocate Faith McDonnell is decidedly not silent. Here’s her latest news release.  And here’s an article from her about the latest on Sudan.

Many of our churches are silent about radical Islam. They prefer to blame America, all the time. Many church voices also espouse pacifism and reject any national defense or military intervention, no matter the provocation. A leading voice for Christian pacifism is Methodist ethicist Stanley Hauerwas. Here’s my latest article on him.

Thanks to you, IRD is able to report, expose and critique church agencies, bishops, seminaries and ecumenical councils, many of them professing to speak for you. To continue aggressively into 2010, we very much need your continued support. Please consider a special end of the year gift, which you can make easily here.   If you’d like to make a stock gift, please phone us at 202-682-4131. And please remember, the church officials we critique rely on church collection plate money from often unsuspecting church goers. In contrast, IRD that flies its banners openly and directly, relies on prayerful supporters like you!