Churches Back Abortion Funding in Obamacare

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Congress may vote on Obamacare this weekend. Appallingly, religious and evangelical liberals are backing the Senate bill, which would severely compromise once-firm prohibitions against U.S. Government facilitated abortions. Of course, our Mainline Protestant lobbies, including the United Methodist Board of Church and Society, are pushing for abortion funding. Even more disturbingly, the rising evangelical left is now behind it.

Here’s my article in today’s Weekly Standard and here’s IRD’s press release.

So much is happening this weekend in Washington, D.C. involving religious leftists. Besides Obamacare, all the mainline church groups are hosting an annual political rally today and tomorrow called “Ecumenical Advocacy Days.” It will conclude with a giant march for liberalized immigration laws. Here’s IRD’s press release. Note that both the National Council of Churches and the National Association of Evangelicals are backing this march, as are radical groups like ACORN.

Outside of Washington, there’s plenty of church news as well. This week, the Episcopal Church has elected the Anglican world’s first ever openly lesbian bishop. Read IRD’s press release here. Liberal Episcopalians, presiding over a shriveling denomination, are determined to widen the schism between the U.S. church and the rest of the Anglican Communion.

Meanwhile, there are troubling compromises over marriage and sexuality also occurring in the evangelical world. David Gushee is a prominent evangelical ethicist and co-head of a new evangelical left political group here in Washington. Here’s Connor Ewing’s article about Gushee’s liberalizing views on marriage definition and civil unions.

Same-sex “marriage” in the Episcopal Church is moving forward. Here’s Jeff Walton’s latest article, published in “Forward in Christ” magazine. And here’s Jeff’s piece in Touchstone magazine about the National Council of Churches’ struggles as it tries to deal with Islam.

Please pray for the Christians of Nigeria, many of whom live with the daily threat of persecution and even death by radical Islamists. Read Faith McDonnell’s article here.

Please also pray for all that is happening in Washington this weekend; pray for our churches, our nation, and the IRD. Your prayers for our ministry of church reform and accountability give us immeasurable strength and encouragement. And please donate to IRD today to ensure that IRD can move boldly ahead in challenging the religious and evangelical left while lifting high the banners of traditional Christianity.