The Nashville Declaration of Conscience
- Sep 1, 1994
The Struggle Against Abortion:
Why the Use of Lethal Force is Not Morally Justifiable
“The LORD examines the righteous, but the wicked and those who love violence his soul hates” (Psalm 11:5 NIV).
Contents
- Preamble
- Murder in Christian Perspective
- The Moral and Legal Status of the Act of Elective Abortion
- Legitimate Forms of Christian Response
- Why Lethal Force is Not Morally Justified
- Conclusion
Church leaders and educators: This document is available as a PDF (324 KB) for download and distribution as appropriate for your ministry.
1. Preamble
1.1 Acts of lethal violence recently have been used in an attempt to stop abortion doctors from performing abortions. Such violence has been perpetrated, in some cases, by those who seek to justify their acts on the basis of Christian moral principles. Dozens of violent incidents of other sorts have also occurred in and near abortion clinics over the past fifteen years.
1.2 The aftermath of these violent acts has made it clear that the views of the perpetrators are not merely idiosyncratic, but instead reflect the perspective of a small number of Americans, some of them Christians, who are strongly opposed to abortion.
1.3 Representatives of a wide range of “pro-choice,” “pro-abortion,” and “pro-life” positions have offered public statements condemning such use of deadly force and the moral justification of such acts. It has been a rare instance of agreement. We join in condemning these killings.
1.4 However, the divergent reasons that pro-choice and pro-life groups have offered for their moral rejection of such acts as the Pensacola shootings, and of the moral claims that undergird such acts, bear witness to the continuing and seemingly unbridgeable gulf between these polarized parties to the abortion conflict.
1.5 We who offer this statement speak from a Christian pro-life perspective. Even though we share the moral condemnation of the killings that pro-choice groups and leaders have expressed, we have yet to read a statement from such persons that reflects our point of view concerning why such killings are not morally justifiable.
1.6 In particular, some claim that unborn life is not fully human life, and thus that it is wrong to use lethal force in an attempt to prevent abortion. We strongly disagree with the claim that an unborn child is not fully human life, deserving of full protection. We will reject the killing of abortion doctors on other grounds.
1.7 At the same time, we find the response thus far from the pro-life community deserves more elaboration and depth. We are glad to see that all responsible pro-life groups and leaders have condemned such killings, as do we. But mere denunciation, however passionate it may be, is not enough. We believe that the point of view of persons advocating violence against abortion doctors requires serious moral reflection and engagement, more serious than has thus far publicly occurred. A number of profound questions of Christian morality and Christian citizenship are at stake.
1.8 As pro-life Christians, we are concerned about the possibility that some of our fellow pro-life Christian friends and colleagues will drift into an embrace of violence directed against abortion providers. Lack of serious engagement with the views of persons who advocate the use of violence will only increase the risk that this drift will occur. We are equally concerned that such violence will lead pro-life Christians to withdraw from morally legitimate forms of action to prevent abortion.
1.9 This statement, therefore, is intended as a moral analysis and rejection of the killing of abortion doctors, offered from a Christian pro-life perspective. It is at the same time intended as an urgent plea for intensified Christian involvement in all morally permissible forms of anti-abortion activities. We offer this statement in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, to any who will listen, and especially to our fellow laborers in the protection of the unborn.
2. Murder in Christian Perspective
2.1 Murder, the culpable killing of a human being, is an extraordinarily grave offense against civil law as well as against the moral law of God (Ex. 20:13) on which all morally legitimate civil law is ultimately based.
2.2 The Bible teaches that each human life is sacred, for every human being is made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-27). For this reason, each human life bears divinely granted and immeasurable value. Human beings are not free to take the lives of others, for those lives belong to God, their Creator. This is the meaning of the divine prohibition of murder in the Ten Commandments. “Thou shalt not kill” means that God prohibits the unjustified taking, and mandates the protection, of human life.
2.3 In the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:21f.), Jesus affirmed the prohibition against murder. Indeed, He warned of God’s judgment even on intense expressions of anger and contempt for others, while calling His hearers to seek reconciliation with any persons from whom they might be estranged, even their enemies (Matt. 5:43-44). Jesus also proclaimed God’s special favor upon those who make peace (Matt. 5:9). While wholeheartedly committed to the spread of the Kingdom of God (Matt. 6:10, 6:33), Jesus personally rejected the use of violence to accomplish even this holy aim.
2.4 The Apostle Paul frequently reaffirmed the centrality of peacemaking and reconciliation, even describing God’s saving act in Jesus Christ as an act of divine peacemaking between those who had once been enemies—an act that not only reconciled God to humanity but also reconciled estranged human beings to each other (Eph. 2:11-22).
2.5 Paul also argued that the governing authorities of this world have been established by God. Their mandate in a world deeply marred by sin is to serve God by deterring wrongdoing and bringing punishment on wrongdoers, thus protecting the innocent (Rom. 13:1-7). In this work, Paul writes, the authorities “do not bear the sword in vain” (Rom. 13:4). Most Christians have understood this to be a divine authorization of the use of force by governing authorities, even deadly force at times, when such force is finally required to accomplish government’s divinely mandated purposes. Through the centuries, strict criteria have been developed for the just employment of such force.
2.6 In Christian theology a historic split has existed between those who believe that the witness of Scripture prohibits any taking of human life under any circumstance by any person or institution, and those who believe that under the conditions of sin the taking of human life is in a very small number of tragic circumstances morally justifiable and thus morally permissible.
2.7 Those taking the former position could ground a rejection of the killing of abortion doctors in their uniform and absolute rejection of any killing of any human being under any circumstances by any person or institution. This point of view would be coherent and consistent, and no further argument would need to be made.
2.8 While respectful of this position, we believe that the overall witness of Scripture, including Romans 13, leads to the latter conclusion—that there are indeed a small number of tragic and exceptional circumstances in a fallen world in which the taking of human life can be morally justifiable.
2.9 However, from our perspective the Bible establishes a profound presumption in favor of preserving life rather than ending it. God wills that human beings should make peace with each other, should be reconciled, and should treat every life with the respect its divine origin and ownership demands. There is at the very least a prima facie moral obligation to refrain from killing. This means that an extraordinarily stringent burden of proof is imposed upon any who would seek to justify the taking of a human life.
2.10 To the extent that United States civil law reflects the divine moral law, it likewise is structured both to deter and to punish severely the unjustifiable taking of a human life. Civil law does generally recognize that under certain unusual circumstances normally involving defense of self or third persons against deadly force, the taking of another human life by a private citizen might be justified. A stringent burden of proof in every case rests on those who would justify any taking of life.
2.11 United States civil law is also structured to recognize the broader mandate of government to use force and the threat of force, judiciously and carefully, to deter and punish evil and to protect the innocent from wrongdoing. The government protects its citizenry from domestic wrongdoers through the law enforcement and criminal justice systems, and from foreign wrongdoers through the armed forces. Private citizens rightly are barred from authorizing themselves to perform these functions.
2.12 Those advocating acts of lethal force against abortion doctors claim that such acts qualify as morally justifiable homicide, despite the current status of civil law in the United States.
2.13 This assertion requires Christian consideration of the moral and legal status of the act of elective abortion, as well as the moral obligations of Christians living in a democratic society that by statute permits elective abortion under most circumstances.
3. The Moral and Legal Status of the Act of Elective Abortion
3.1 Since 1973, the United States Supreme Court has interpreted the United States Constitution in such a way as to create a right of a woman to choose to secure the Nashville services of a physician who is paid to “terminate her pregnancy”—that is, deliberately to end the existence of that life which is developing within her body. This state of affairs is justly called “abortion on demand” in that abortion is permitted on the basis of no criteria other than a pregnant woman’s demand for an abortion. The abortion workers who have been killed or injured have been relying on this decisional law to justify their conduct legally.
3.2 The moral status of the act of elective abortion is arguably the most bitterly contested moral and, consequently, legal, social, cultural, religious, and political question of our time. This is not the place in which to offer a rehearsal of the arguments that pertain to this question. We will instead simply state our position in the following way.
3.3 As indicated above (2.2), we believe that each human life bears a divinely granted sacredness. We believe that its sacredness begins at conception, when biological life begins. We believe that gestational life—life in the womb from conception to birth—must be understood as human life in its earliest stages rather than as pre-human, nonhuman, potential, or any other less-than-fully-sacred kind of human life. We know that, if allowed to continue developing without hindrance through a normal pregnancy, a gestating human life becomes a newborn baby. Thus, we are compelled to consider elective abortion the killing of a human being.
3.4 We have already argued that, given the sacredness of human life, the burden of proof is on any who would morally justify its deliberate extinguishing. The terrible flaw at the heart of federal abortion law is that abortions are currently permitted while requiring a woman to meet only a minimal burden of proof which may be imposed by state laws. In terms of gestational life, the federal government has wrongfully abdicated its responsibility to protect the innocent and to establish and enforce stringent criteria for the justifiable taking of human life.
.5 We recognize that for a woman (or, for a couple) an unwanted pregnancy may well be a crisis pregnancy. We acknowledge that women seek abortions for a wide range of reasons. Tragically, these range from the most serious and justifiable (i.e., a threat to the physical life of the mother) to the least serious and justifiable (i.e., gender preference, interruption of vacation plans, and so on). The effect of current abortion law is that any reason for an abortion, or no particular reason, is as good as any other. The great majority of abortions in the United States are performed for what can best be described as reasons of convenience.
3.6 We recall the biblical principle that it is morally forbidden for a private citizen to end a human life except in the act of self-defense. Only in cases when gestational life poses a serious threat to the physical life of the mother, in our view, does elective abortion clearly meet this self-defense criterion. A significant number of pro-life Christians are willing to grant the possibility that abortion in the cases of rape, incest, and/or radical fetal deformity also ought to be included among those exceptions to the general prohibition of abortion that should be recognized by law. We disagree. But we recognize that rewritten abortion laws framed along those lines would still disallow all but a very small percentage of abortions in this country.
3.7 Instead, our nation continues to operate under a law that requires no significant burden of proof for abortion. This represents a fundamental assault on the sanctity of human life. Human beings are not at liberty to lower the threshold for the taking of human life, but that is precisely what abortion laws have done. Lowering that threshold is one of humanity’s greatest temptations, one to which human beings have succumbed all too frequently, especially in our own century of world war and genocide.
3.8 But we need not look elsewhere for examples. Our own violence-wracked nation bears witness each day to the devastating consequences of disrespect for the sacredness of human life. Truly the blood of the murdered cries out from the ground (Gen. 4:10; Lev. 18:28). We believe that abortion on demand is the leading, but not the only, example of a broader national moral and social crisis of disrespect for human life.
3.9 From our perspective, then, the overwhelming majority of abortions represent a morally unjustifiable form of killing. It is a unique form of killing, involving several parties. An abortion is undertaken by a physician who performs abortions, at the request of an unborn child’s mother. Often, a woman is pressured by the child’s father to have an abortion. Pressure may also come from family members, friends, and others. Her decision is then permitted by the civil law of the United States. Each participant in this act of unjustifiable killing, including the government of the United States (and ultimately “we the people,” who are the sovereign of this government and have elected its officials), bears a share of the responsibility.
3.10 For twenty-one years, since the 1973 Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton Supreme Court decisions, abortion on demand has been the controlling interpretation of the Constitution in the United States. In that time over thirty million abortions have been performed in this country. We believe that this state of affairs can only be called a moral outrage.
3.11 We share the intense frustration of tens of millions of this nation’s citizens who grieve each of the lives lost, the futures never realized, the human beings who unjustly have been prevented from ever “seeing the light of day” (Job 3:16). We also grieve for the many mothers and fathers who spend much of their lives profoundly regretting their choice to have an abortion, mourning the children they never had the chance to love and enjoy.
4. Legitimate Forms of Christian Response
4.1 Most Christians who believe, as we do, that the overwhelming majority of abortions are morally unjustifiable acts of killing, rightly feel the need to offer significant moral response. Indeed, millions of American Christians even today are engaged in activities that constitute such a response; most of these activities, in our view, are fully and morally justifiable and quite constructive. They are aimed at saving lives, and are directed at each of the participants in the abortion decision.
4.2 For example, many Christians are involved in supporting abstinence- and valuesbased sex education programs in schools, civic institutions, and churches. The Southern Baptist Convention’s “True Love Waits” program is an effective example. Such programs are rooted in the biblical moral norm that sexual intimacy is designed by God to be reserved for marriage (1 Cor. 6:9-20; 7:9; etc.). It is obvious, but important to point out nonetheless, that the demand for abortion would decrease radically if God’s intentions for sexuality were heeded. Abortions happen because unwanted pregnancies happen; unwanted pregnancies happen, most of the time, because of sexual activity outside of marriage. It is important to note again that it takes both a man and a woman to engage in such sexual activity, and both are responsible for the consequences.
4.3 Christians are also involved in helping pregnant women “choose life,” that they and their children “may live” (Deut. 30:19). Christians have led the way in establishing crisis pregnancy centers and maternity homes. In such places pregnant women are cared for and prepared either to raise their children themselves or to give their children to others who can do so via adoption. This is a noble form of Christian ministry to women and their children. We give thanks to God for those women who avail themselves of these ministries and thus save their children’s lives.
4.4 Pro-life Christians, especially those in the health care professions, are also on the front lines in the struggle over abortion as an aspect of medical practice. Such health care professionals bear witness to their convictions by refusing to “regularize” abortion as an aspect of medical care. They remind fellow health care providers of the “first, do no harm” provision of the Hippocratic Oath. This kind of witness—a witness of winsome moral suasion and example, rather than invective and violence—is an important and appropriate part of the struggle against abortion. It is one of the reasons why very few physicians are willing to perform elective abortions.
4.5 Abortion on demand became law in our democratic society by the decision of persons who attained their office by legitimate processes, and remains lawful through the same processes. Christians, anguished at this state of affairs, are rightfully involved in the wide-ranging kinds of political engagement afforded us within the democratic process.
4.6 Such involvement includes voting, lobbying, campaigning for pro-life candidates, drafting legislation, writing letters to government officials, getting involved in political party platform drafting, running for office, initiating boycotts, and so on. We believe that there is no doubt whatsoever that such activity is our right as citizens and our obligation as Christians.
4.7 Some pro-life Christians are involved in lawful public witness in the vicinity of abortion clinics, such as the handing out of printed materials and the organizing of prayer vigils. We believe that public witness of this type is morally justifiable.
4.8 Some Christians have engaged in various forms of nonviolent, public, civil disobedience in the vicinity of abortion clinics as an aspect of their protest against legal abortion on demand. This kind of activity has been a matter of considerable debate in pro-life circles and concern in the broader society.
4.9 From a biblical perspective, Christians clearly are required to submit to and obey the governing authorities of the lands in which they live. This responsibility flows from the divinely authorized nature of these governing authorities (see 2.5).
4.10 Scripture does recognize, however, that governments sometimes violate their Godgiven purposes, even to the extent of enacting laws and policies that are in direct and Nashville specific conflict with the divine moral law. History bears frequent tragic witness to the same reality. The Bible teaches that Christians are morally permitted, and sometimes even obligated, to violate a civil law that is in direct, specific conflict with the law of God (cf. Ex. 1:16-2:10; Dan. 6; Acts 4:1-31, 5:12-42).
4.11 The burden of proof for justifying civil disobedience rests with those considering it. Besides being intended as a challenge to a morally illegitimate law or policy, such nonviolent civil disobedience should follow the failure of a range of other, less radical forms of action; should have some likelihood of effectiveness; and should have positive consequences that are likely to outweigh negative consequences.
4.12 Christians living in a democratic society who make the grave judgment to engage in public, nonviolent, civil disobedience must willingly submit to the consequences of their actions. Thus, Christians involved in civil disobedience related to abortion should expect to be prosecuted. To break a morally illegitimate law, and to submit willingly to the consequences of doing so, is in fact an attempt to change civil law via moral witness—and thus, to affirm all morally legitimate civil law.
4.13 We believe that laws concerning access to abortion clinics and protests around abortion clinics function as a fence around the immoral law that permits legalized abortion on demand. Because the abortion law is a permission for private citizens to have and to perform abortions, rather than a mandate requiring behavior of one type or another, it is impossible to perform direct civil disobedience in the matter of legalized abortion on demand. This means that nonviolent civil disobedience, if it occurs, can only be directed at subsidiary laws.
4.14 We have outlined several lawful ways in which Christians can offer constructive moral response to the morally illegitimate law permitting abortion on demand. These can by no means be described as having been exhausted. There is much more to be done. This raises the question of whether nonviolent civil disobedience is justified.
4.15 On balance, we believe that acts of nonviolent civil disobedience related to abortion, though not morally obligatory for Christians, may be seen as morally permissible. This is ultimately a matter of individual conscience before God.
4.16 Legalized abortion on demand has become deeply entrenched in our society. What many Christians once hoped would be a temporary aberration has become an institutionalized reality. We must acknowledge that this has occurred because significant portions of our society have wanted it to occur. The tragic and abhorrent legal reality reflects an equally tragic and abhorrent social, cultural, and moral reality.
4.17 Pro-life Christians should work to change these social, cultural, and moral realities in which legalized abortion on demand is rooted. It is a heart-by-heart, home-by-home, city-by-city, state-by-state struggle. We must greatly intensify our efforts in the morally justifiable anti-abortion activities described above. It is our moral obligation.
5. Why Lethal Force is Not Morally Justified
5.1 The killing of abortion doctors by private citizens raises the important question of whether such an action is a morally legitimate Christian response to legalized abortion on demand. We strongly contend that killing abortion doctors is not a moral option for Christians, and respond to the various arguments as follows:
5.2 First, we reject the argument some have made that such killings are valid as an act of defending the innocent from harm. We reply that according to both civil law and divine moral law private citizens are permitted to use lethal force against another human being only if this occurs as an unintended effect of the act of defending oneself or another against an assailant’s unjust attack. Private citizens are not allowed to intend to kill another human being and are not allowed to engage in premeditated acts of deadly force in order to accomplish what they intend. In other words, a private citizen can intend to stop, but not to kill, an assailant regardless of the final result. Attacks on abortion doctors fail this test.
5.3 Furthermore, an act of homicide is unjustifiable if the attacker’s victim could have been adequately defended in any way other than causing the attacker’s death. We believe that the many pro-life measures outlined in section 4 do offer a range of constructive (even if not fully adequate) forms of defense of the lives of the unborn, and thus, the killing of abortion doctors is unjustifiable.
5.4 We believe, further, that the killing of an abortion doctor in actuality does not constitute a meaningful defense of unborn life. This is the case because an abortion doctor is only one of the participants in the act of elective abortion, and not the most important one. It is the woman seeking an abortion who drives the process. The killing of an abortion doctor does nothing in itself to diminish a woman’s demand for an abortion. If abortion is legal, and she perceives no alternatives to abortion, she will find another abortion provider. As long as abortion is legal, if we wish to save the lives of unborn children we must influence the actions of women who are considering abortion. The best and most Christ-like way to do so is lovingly to provide her with viable alternatives to abortion. This does not absolve others, especially the baby’s father, who
may be exerting enormous pressure on the child’s mother.
5.5 Second, we reject the argument that the killing of an abortion doctor is justifiable as a form of capital punishment. We reply that the moral legitimacy of capital punishment in contemporary American society is a point of dispute among pro-life Christians. More germane to the argument is the fact that whatever right there may be to execute a criminal is reserved exclusively to governing authorities, and is never the prerogative of a private citizen. A peaceful and orderly society can have no place for self-appointed executioners.
5.6 Third, we reject the argument that killing an abortion doctor is an act of violent civil disobedience made necessary by the gravity of the moral evil of abortion on demand. It is our conviction that no act of lethal force can be properly ascribed to the rubric of civil disobedience. Moreover, the contradiction between the use of lethal force and civil disobedience is especially glaring in a democracy, in which so many alternative forms of activism for social and legal change are permitted. We contend that such an act is better described as an act of revolution rather than an act of civil disobedience intended to accomplish reform.
5.7 Fourth, we reject the argument that a government that allows legalized abortion on demand has of necessity lost its legitimacy, and that in such a circumstance private citizens are free to resist it “by any means necessary.”
5.8 To this we reply that we accept the legitimacy of the government of the United States, despite its failure to protect the lives of the unborn and its sanction of access to abortion on demand. It is the people of the United States who have, in fair and free elections, selected the leaders of our government, and it is these duly elected leaders who have appointed judges to the Supreme Court and other federal courts. The actions and inactions of persons in all three branches of the federal government over more than twenty years are responsible for legalized abortion on demand. In turn, their decisions have reflected the pressures brought to bear on them by citizens of the United States, functioning through the democratic process.
5.9 From this we conclude that it is the people of the United States, acting through legitimate governmental institutions, who are responsible and ultimately accountable for immoral laws permitting and protecting the taking of unborn human lives. We do not believe that laws permitting abortion on demand remove the legitimacy of our government. Rather, the authority of our legitimate government has been perverted to allow and protect abortion on demand.
5.10 To us, legalized abortion on demand is the single gravest failure of American democracy in our generation. But we recognize it as a failure of a legitimate democracy rather than as the imposition or decree of an illegitimate regime. For this reason, we reject what can only be described as the logic of revolution that some have articulated. Instead, among our other pro-life efforts, we pledge intensified commitment to change the law through the democratic processes of the United States of America.
5.11 Fifth, we reject the claim that private individuals have a right to circumvent the processes of democratic government by using deadly force where the law sanctions abortion on demand. We realize that what is legal and what is moral are not always identical. Where they diverge, Christians bear a dual responsibility, first to act in accordance with the moral law, and second to respect and obey the legitimate authority of government. So long as a government retains legitimacy, and so long as opportunities for reform remain, individuals and groups must work within the democratic process and must resist the temptation to take the law into their own hands.
5.12 We believe that a government may lose its legitimacy as it sets itself against divine law and loses the popular support of its people. Should such circumstances arise, and should that government preclude all opportunities for reform, then Christians, for sake of conscience, may be forced to consider more drastic measures. We deny that our nation is nearing or has reached such a crisis. Our goal must be reform, not revolution.
5.13 We understand that no government can allow laws against the taking of human life to become a matter of private interpretation without placing its own existence and legitimacy in jeopardy. A private citizen who makes the decision to use lethal force against human life contrary to established law is not merely breaking the law against murder, he or she is also assaulting and undermining the authority of the government itself. Thus, any private decision to break the law against murder—even where there is an intention to do good—is an act of rebellion that threatens the existing governing authority, contrary to the will of God (Rom. 13:2). It is not simply an act of civil disobedience. It is certainly not an act of legal reform.
5.14 The distinction between nonviolent civil disobedience and the private use of lethal force can be illustrated from American history. Many Christians felt compelled during the 1850s to violate the fugitive slave laws by participating in the Underground Railroad, which illegally assisted slaves in escaping to freedom. That was nonviolent civil disobedience. On the other hand, John Brown and his supporters fomented slave insurrection and rebellion against the state by lethal force. That was the advocacy and exercise of lethal force by private citizens and is beyond the prerogative of individuals, Christian or non-Christian.
5.15 We wish to call attention to the fundamental difference between nonviolent and violent forms of action for social and legal change. We believe that the witness both of Scripture and of history affirms that a social movement’s crossing over from nonviolence to violence is a most perilous, and almost always unjustifiable, step. One consequence of such a transition is that resistance to certain deeds, such as abortion, is often transformed into attacks on certain persons, such as those who perform abortions.
5.16 When the distinction between the wrong and the wrongdoer is obliterated, social change or resistance movements tend to focus on doing away with the wrongdoer rather than taking concrete steps against the wrong. The morally worthy original goal of the movement is replaced by one that is new and unworthy. Any possibility of reconciliation with the wrongdoer, of conversion of that wrongdoer, and of peacemaking, possibilities at the heart of the life and ministry of Jesus, is eviscerated. Instead, efforts focus on how to kill rather than how to make change occur. The people who are the intended recipients of this violence respond in kind. The devastating cycle of violence is intensified.
5.17 Once the bloodshed escalates, social movements embracing violence tend to slide rapidly along the continuum from violent resistance limited to specified targets toward unlimited violence directed at an ever wider range of persons (are judges and politicians going to be the next targeted?). Even at the first stage, innocent bystanders often are injured. One reason God wisely prohibits murder is precisely because of the incendiary effect of bloodshed on the minds and hearts of sinful human beings.
6. Conclusion
6.1 Our conclusion is that the killing of abortion doctors is not a morally justifiable or permissible Christian response to abortion. We utterly reject such conduct as inconsistent with Scripture and call on all Christian people to join us in this stance.
6.2 We believe that Christians are, nevertheless, morally obligated to oppose legalized abortion on demand and to reduce the number of abortions through other, morally legitimate, channels. We must do so more actively and faithfully than ever before.
6.3 Pro-life Christians must act quickly and vigorously to prevent a small but vocal band of militant activists from destroying the credibility, effectiveness, and witness of the mainstream Christian pro-life movement. We pray earnestly that God will bless the efforts of all who employ morally legitimate means in order to save the lives of the most vulnerable among us, the unborn children. We are persuaded that this reflects the mind of Christ.
THE DRAFTING COMMITTEE:
Mark T. Coppenger, Ph.D.
Vice President for Convention Affairs
Executive Committee
The Southern Baptist Convention
Nashville, Tennessee
David P. Gushee, Ph.D.*
Assistant Professor of Christian Ethics
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Louisville, Kentucky
Daniel R. Heimbach, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Christian Ethics
Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
Wake Forest, North Carolina
Richard D. Land, D. Phil.
Executive Director-Treasurer
Christian Life Commission of
The Southern Baptist Convention
Nashville, Tennessee
C. Ben Mitchell, Ph.D. (Cand.)
Consultant on Biomedical and Life Issues
The Christian Life Commission
Nashville, Tennessee
R. Albert Mohler, Jr., Ph.D.
President
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary
Louisville, Kentucky
*At the Christian Life Commission’s request, Dr. Gushee constructed a first draft, which was then revised by the entire draft committee during a Christian Life Commission consultation meeting in Nashville, September 17-18, 1994. Selected Christian Life Commission staff also participated in the consultation.