United Methodist Evangelical Leader Preaches Pro-Life in DC

On a cold rainy Monday morning, a band of pro-life activists convened for worship in the United Methodist Building on Capitol Hill, across the street from the U.S. Capitol. The participants, all supporters of United Methodism’s unofficial pro-life caucus “Lifewatch,” met to mourn the 39^th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion in the U.S. The communion service featured a sermon by the Rev. Dr. James Heidinger, the former long-time head of United Methodism’s evangelical caucus, “Good News.”

The United Methodist Church officially and controversially affirms abortion rights. And its agencies, including the General Board of Church and Society that owns and occupies the United Methodist Building, belong to the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, which opposes all legal restrictions on abortion. Lifewatch’s annual service in the United Methodist Building is a rare pro-life witness at that locale.

Working from II Timothy 2:14-19, Heidinger encouraged his listeners to “rightly handle the work of truth.” The retired pastor knows quite a bit about such a task. Heidinger worked as a tireless advocate for United Methodist renewal, especially as leader of the Good News organization for twenty-eight years. The church renewal veteran hoped for the Christian church to speak the truth about abortion even in an age awash in postmodernism, the “view [that] asserts that groups and individuals create truth for themselves.” Christians ought to instead to preach “the pattern of sound teaching.” He added, “And this includes the church’s teaching about life, about family, marriage, and children.”

Heidinger declared: “We now have a generation of United Methodists, and of Americans as well, who have known nothing except the culture of abortion brought about by Roe v. Wade. Many of them may not be aware that it was not always this way.” He pointed out that the decision itself has been “sharply criticized by respected ethicists, legal scholars, and Christian theologians.” Heidinger observed that Roe v. Wade (alongside Doe v. Bolton) demanded “the removal of all meaningful limits on abortion throughout the entire nine months of pregnancy,” overturning anti-abortion laws in nearly all of the states. “This was not a benign decision reflecting a gradual liberalizing trend in America about abortion. It was a radical departure from the present practice in America at the time,” Heidinger exclaimed. He illustrated that the decision fell afoul of many legal theorists “as seriously flawed jurisprudence.” Nevertheless, he commented, “A reversal of Roe would not be at all unprecedented in terms of the Court’s history.”

The United Methodist evangelical leader further attacked abortion based on classical and Christian tradition. Prohibitions against abortion appear in the venerable Hippocratic Oath, the standard for Western medicine since the fourth century B.C., Heidinger noted. Thus, “Roe” entailed a radical ethical overhaul within medicine. The early church fathers also forbade abortion. Tertullian, for example, urged, “He also is a man who is about to be one; you have the fruit already in its seed (Apology IX).”  Heidinger cited recent Protestant theologians who sided against the pro-choice position: Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Helmut Thielicke. He also recalled the testimony of Dr. Bernard Nathanson, who converted from an atheistic pro-abortion advocate and practitioner to a staunchly Catholic pro-lifer.

Heidinger also highlighted the late United Methodist ethicist and Princeton professor Dr. Paul Ramsey. Ramsey authored a clause for the 1972 United Methodist Book of Discipline which included a belief “in the sanctity of unborn human life.” But liberals at the 1972 General Conference added a “schizoid” amendment declaring: “[W]e support the legal option of abortion under proper medical procedures.”

Both young and old United Methodists will develop a stronger, bolder view of fetal human life in the years to come, Heidinger hoped. And he concluded: “I am so grateful for the faithful ministry of Lifewatch and of others who have helped to give us a United Methodist position on abortion in our Discipline that is far more affirming of life—and it’s a position which opposes the reasons usually given for probably 95 percent of all abortions.”

The 2008 United Methodist General Conference narrowly fell short of withdrawing from the abortion coalition. Undoubtedly, Methodism’s abortion stance and membership in the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice will be debated at the General Conference that starts in April in Tampa.