Issues@Hand

AFA initiatives, Christian activism, news briefs

January 2017 – Institute for Pro-life Advancement, a research arm of Students for Life, has reported that only 1 in 10 mainline* Protestant pastors preached on pro-life issues in the preceding six months. Conversely, 75% of Catholic priests and 48% of non-mainline* pastors said they talked about the pro-life cause from the pulpit within the same time frame.

Barna Group extracted the results from a survey of 513 Protestant pastors (30% mainline, 70% non-mainline*) and 88 Catholic priests.

Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, responded: “Often, being introduced to the pro-life position comes through one’s faith, and if that introduction isn’t persuasive and nothing is ever said again in the place of worship about the tragedy of abortion, opportunities are missed to build a well-educated and passionate pro-life community.”

More than half of women (54%) who have had an abortion self-identified as Christian, and more than 40% of those women stated they were actively attending church. More than three-fourths of active church-going women said their church had no influence on their decision to abort.

lifenews.com, 9/7/16; 
instituteforprolifeadvancement.com

*Mainline Protestant churches: American Baptist, United Church of Christ, Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church (USA). Non-mainline: All other Protestant church affiliations, including non-denominational.