Abby Johnson, the former Planned Parenthood clinic director whose about-face on abortion prompted her to resign her job, says she’s gotten flack for her decision from an unexpected quarter: her own church.
Her Oct. 6 decision to leave Planned Parenthood in Bryan, Texas – after viewing an ultrasound-guided abortion of a 13-week-old fetus two weeks earlier – made headlines, especially when she ended up volunteering at the Coalition for Life center a few doors away. Her former employer filed a restraining order to silence Mrs. Johnson, but a judge threw out the case on Tuesday.
Now she is facing a different kind of music at her parish, St. Francis Episcopal in nearby College Station, the home of Texas A&M University.
Whereas clergy and parishioners welcomed her as a Planned Parenthood employee, now they are buttonholing her after Sunday services.
Shocking! sarcasm off!!!
But wait, I thought there was inclusion and love for all…
[blockquote]”A lot of people would consider the Anglican faith a pro-choice faith.”[/blockquote]
WOW. I actually winced.
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Home » News » NationalFriday, November 13, 2009
Former clinic director: Church chilly to my pro-life turnRate this story
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By Julia Duin
She and her husband, who grew up Lutheran, dropped out of church until two years ago, when they began attending St. Francis, a 25-year-old church that achieved parish status in February.
“I thought that because this church was so accepting, maybe I was doing the right thing,” she said of her former employment of eight years. “A lot of people would consider the Anglican faith a pro-choice faith.”
The U.S. Episcopal Church has one of the most liberal stances on abortion of any mainline Protestant denomination and is a member of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), which supports legalized abortion.
A former longtime RCRC board member, the Rev. Katherine H. Ragsdale, is the newly installed dean of the Episcopal Divinity School, a seminary in Cambridge, Mass. She is famous for making a 2007 sermon in which she termed abortion as a “blessing.”
Mr. Williams “made it clear we were welcome” at St. Francis, Mrs. Johnson said.
“I have gone to some churches in the past where they have said, ‘You can’t go here because you work at Planned Parenthood,’ ” she added. “That’s not right. What kind of ministry is that? It’s been very difficult for us.”
The couple made St. Francis their home. They were confirmed Episcopalians, and their daughter, now 3, was baptized there. A photo on the front page of the church’s Web site, stfrancisonline.org, shows her seated at the right end of the front row, holding a girl dressed in pink. Her husband, dressed in an orange shirt, is to her right.
“Chief among our values,” says a statement below the photo, “are service, tolerance and understanding of the people and events that God has put into our lives.”
Now the Johnsons are “reconsidering” their membership. Another Planned Parenthood staffer who was a member of St. Francis has not attended since Mrs. Johnson made her new views public a month ago.
“I know Planned Parenthood told her to not have any contact with me nor attend the same church,” she said.
Now the Planned Parenthood spokesman denies this in the following lines, but it made me think about a series we had in our local paper, the St. Petersburg Times, about what happens to people who leave Scientology (the Scientology Organization has a big facility in nearby Clearwater). In that, people who leave Scientology describe being shunned by friends and family who are still in, a charge Scientology officials deny.
The question is — “Is Planned Parenthood a cult, too?”
[i]The rector at St. Francis refused to comment on the charge of nonacceptance. [/i]
There is no excuse for this.
He could easily say “my parish is welcoming of people with varying views, and we believe that good Christians can be both pro-life and pro-choice?” But he chooses not to, for reasons that we can guess.
A rector has an obligation to tell the world what he stands for. Would he refuse to comment on whether his parish is accepting of gays and lesbians?
I was reminded just yesterday that there is a film showing the arms of a tiny in-utero human being trying to push away the needle being inserted in the mother to kill the child. I believe some mothers have chosen to have their babies because of this film. I cannot but hope that Abby Johnson and her family will find many Anglicans to support them after her laudable change of mind. And may Mrs. Johnson always know God’s grace. Anglicans For Life would stand ready to help any one facing decisions about life issues.
http://www.AnglicansForLife.org
So, her TEC parish “embraces differences and disagreements” while at the same time parishioners publicly dis her about her pro-life change of heart? And her priest gives a “non-comment” that speaks volumes about his (non)defense of her act of conscience.
Yeah, The Episcopal Church Welcomes You!
Once again The Episcopal Sect degrades the public Christian witness for all of us. It is a continuing blight on efforts to share the Gospel with the Lost.
I am reaching a point where I am debating if praying, “Thy Kingdom Come” should also include a prayer that TES decline and die even more quickly.
I don’t think I could write anything in response to this that would not run afoul of the ever vigilant elves. So I will just let this stand on its own.
They’re only pro one choice.
I believe this is the parish where the current diocesan of Texas was vicar.
Please, please pray for her. What a difficult time she and her family are going through – her job, now her church, and all of this taking place in the harsh glare of public news. May the Lord keep her safe and her faith unfaltering. May she find a church home that honors God and all life.
I too find it inexcusable for the rector to refuse to comment.
This is a typical case of how liberal Christians prattle that they are for :Choice.” BUT you better choose their choice or prepare to be treated as warmly as a penguin in Antarctica. There is no such thing as neutrality on some issues. You are either FOR the extermination of human life in the womb (as fraudulent Christians accept and defend as some sort of savage” right”) or you are a defender of life –as l the earliest Christians of the Apostolic era passionately were.
She should come over to the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.
I had a look at the church’s website. It contained the slogan :
[b]Embracing, Encouraging, Empowering …[/b]
In Ms. Johnson’s case, they should have added :
[b]None of the above.[/b]
So sad. She needs our support. Is there an Anglican Church near her?
What a warped “church.”
The summary of the ECUSA/TEC positions is first, thou shalt bless what God has said not to do, and the seconds are, thou shalt bless homosexual behavior and abortion. The beginning and the end of political correctness, Amen.
I read the article and am having a very difficult time trying to figure out what the substance of the story is. It appears that Mrs. Johnson left her previous church because folks there had problems with her working for Planned Parenthood. She apparently found a welcoming church home at an Episcopal Church. She has since parted company with Planned Parenthood and now reports that another parishioner who works for Planned Parenthood has not attended church since Mrs. Johnson’s break with that organization. She has also said that some of the members of the Episcopal church have expressed disagreement with her decision to depart Planned Parenthood. So what’s the story? That people at churches disagree on things from time to time? Or is the story really about the fact that when she worked at Planned Parenthood, there were churches that explicitly told her that she could not be a member of their congregations? Perhaps, but that seems like old news, particularly since she found a church home where she and her family felt comfortable. Should her priest have commented to the secular press about this? No. 11 thinks so. I would be really miffed if my priest started talking to the Washington Times about any of my discussions with him. Why is this different?
Back to my original question, though: What is the story here? AS best I can tell, the headline should be “Sometimes People Encounter Other People Who See Things Differently, Even at Church” Wow.
I hate to comment, not knowing the actual particulars. There are so many factors that are obscured here by rumor and innuendo.
Extremes in both the Pro-life and Pro-choice wings tend to get paranoid. (I am not insinuating the main person in this article is as I don’t know her personally, but just the people reacting to it seem to automatically take one side or the other without questioning the facts.)
Likewise, the Media tends to exaggerate or take things out of context. The Washington Times is not exactly a fair and balanced newspaper. Why exactly would a Washington paper be running a story on the after church goings-on at some parish in College Station, Texas, anyway? Episcopalians being snooty at coffee hour isn’t exactly news in my book.
No. 18 is right. If there’s a story here, one would have to know the particulars. However, the Times reporter either didn’t know any or chose not to share them with us. That leaves the rest of us (other than the dozen + commenters here who seem very sure that the “Episcopal Church” – as opposed to a parishioner who has stopped attending there – is behaving very badly toward Mrs. Johnson) in the dark as to what is going on and why a major city daily is writing about it.
I know John Williams. He is a good man and a good priest. I would caution my fellow orthodox Anglicans to not rush to make negative judgments on his pastoral choices based on one or two sentences quoted in the press. He is doing his best in a difficult situation. I do not in the least see why anyone should make a big deal when someone decides to quit her job because she no longer believes in what her job requires of her. Honestly though, I would feel very uncomfortable, from an ethical viewpoint, having her attend my church at all, and would probably not encourage her membership in the first place unless I had the objective of getting her to see that what she was doing was wrong .
I agree with Commenters 17-20. There was nothing of substance in this story and the Washington Times isn’t the best objective source. If a couple of parishioners made comments to her, then that’s those people’s problem and it’s not the fault or necessarily reflective of parish views.
#10 – Branford: I am praying for Abby Johnson and her family.
I think the story is quite clear. This parish is intentionally welcoming to abortion providers. Other churches in this couple’s past were not. It is well known in pro-life circles, though I could not prove it, that Unitarian and Episcopalian clergy are the most supportive of Planned Parenthood. I saw this in the students I knew at CDSP in Berkeley. They were extraordinarily pro choice. Those Episcopalians I have known to be pro-life have all now left TEC. So, none of what was said surprises me, especially the convenient “no comment” from an abortion supportive pastor.
I have personally had a fair number of women from liberal protestant churches come to the confessional. So many women who considered their consciences clear at the time suffer years later from post abortion stress syndrome and find that their liberal pastors are unwilling to take seriously their guilt and shame and need for healing. One woman told me her pastor said to her in so many words, “But you did nothing wrong. You were in college. You had your whole life to think about.” So, she ended up in a Catholic confessional and then to Rachael’s Vineyard. ( If interested: http://www.rachelsvineyard.org/ )
Deep, deep shame on ANY Christian who supports what is the gravest evil of this generation. One day I am certain that we will look at pro-aboriton priests and people like we look at priest’s making the heil Hitler and those involved in slavery.
This story makes me want to visit the church and turn over its tables and drive them all out with a whip! It is sick and a balsphemy on CHrist’s deep love for every child in the womb…the womb from whcih he leapt and blessed the work of the baptist.
No. 23, I would be very concerned for the future of any church that made it a policy to turn away sinners at its door. Some of those concerns are institutional. But some are selfish – where would I go? In this story, the crime of the church that you want to visit and wreck is that they welcomed this woman after she had been shunned by other denominations. Perhaps that welcome was an element of here eventual realization that she was an enabler in the abortion trade and that she should turn away from it. The story (to the extent it can be teased out of the reportage) seems to have a largely positive ending – the woman is now actively opposing the abortion culture.
We need to remember that many in the media love to play the game “let’s you and him fight.” We don’t know what was said by the priest (or anybody else), but not quoted in the article. We don’t know what we don’t know.
Abortion is murder. It seems that Abby Johnson’s vincible ignorance was defeated by the ultrasound. I am dealing with a large group beset by willful vincible ignorance in matters of race and economic class and they can be very difficult when their worldviews are challenged. No one likes to have their worldviews challenged and they tend to react negatively to people who held their view, but changed. We need to pray for Ms Johnson – that God use her as an effective witness to end support for abortion and we need to pray for her congregation – that their hearts would be soften and opened to the plight of all who are affected by abortion – the children, the mothers who kill their children, the doctors and medical staff who use their skills to end life and the political groups that use abortion for funding and power (on both sides of the issue).
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
I will admit that the report isn’t terribly clear about what actually is happening in this case.
It does seem that St. Francis parish was “welcoming” of this woman when she joined. It is not clear whether they were welcoming a sinner involved in the killing of the unborn or someone who was on “the right side” of the abortion “issue”. Some of us have our suspicions.
But if there is hostility in the parish now that she has changed “sides”, we have a clue. And it isn’t clear whether the “shunning” is coming from one, a few or many. Nor is it clear what role the rector plays in all this, although his statement doesn’t seem particularly supportive of her.
But let’s assume that the parish welcomed the sinner. If that were the case, what would be the reaction of the parish if the sinner repents at some personal sacrifice? I think Jesus gives us a clue.
[blockquote]Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. (RSV Luke 15:7 )[/blockquote]
The lack of joy in this instance suggests which of the two possibilities is the actual case, and that the parish is far removed from heaven.
NoVA Scout’s comment confuses me. A church who welcomed the woman simply because she was shunned by others might help her come to an awareness of the evil she was participating in. If the welcoming church was an institutional and financial supporter of “Religious Coalition for Reproductive Rights” and fervently embraced the absolute right of a woman to dispose of the life in her womb, it is difficult to understand how such an entity could lead to the woman’s rethinking her position. If anything, it would do much to convince her she was doing the correct thing.
I love how amateurish wannabe theologians and pastors have degraded “Via Media” into meaning: “You Say/I Say” about anything at all. Via Media was not ever meant to join together two entirely contradictory claims. It is meant to be a middle ground of theology, but not of practice. For instance we can all say “He will come again in glory…”. Now your particular Scriptural interpretation of that may be different, but so long as we hold the common core of “he will come again” we are practicing Via Media.
Via Media does NOT ever apply to ethics such as life/death/murder.
Attention: Neff Powell. Look into this before you bless another Planned Parenthood Clinic.
NoVA Scout intentionally confuses the issue. ECUSA is functionally supportive of the grave evil of abortion, of which this story is only one among many supportive pieces of evidence. The issue isn’t “welcoming sinners”: it’s glorifying and wallowing in the sin, “licking the earth.”
[blockquote]He is a good man and a good priest.[/blockquote]
All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men and women to be silent.
My former Rector took a similar position in 2003. When I spoke to him about my concerns he responded that there were too many differing opinions in the parish for him to comment. To this I pointed out that as Rector he was our teacher. Which ever side he took, he had an obligation to state what was right and correct those who were wrong. He remained silent.
I will briefly add some background: The parish was a small, fabulously loving congregation under Father Jeff Schiffmayer. The nearest thing to the Community of Acts that we have ever experienced. (Father Jeff came out of the charismatic Redeemer, Houston.) It certainly would have welcomed the former director’s change of heart. We left before Andy Doyle, the current bishop of Texas became vicar. Under Andy Doyle’s ‘leadership’, the parish became a “Integrity ” friendly church.
Watch out diocese of Texas.
with you #30- hence I would preach a prolife message were I the ONLY one in support and likely to be vilified. I am passionate because it IS murder, and to say anything else is to let people sleep walk into mortal sin
Among all of the egregious acts by TEC, its pro-abortion behavior is one that troubles me the most. It is perhaps more than anything what I struggle with even in an orthodox diocese.
I would question the methodology of moral reasoning NoVA Scout uses when questioning the point of the story about the abortion clinic leader’s change of heart and subsequent shunning by (at least) some of the members of her TEC parish. If I get N.S.’s criticisms of the story and many of the commenters’ responses right, N.S. is having all believe that there is something fishy about a news article that singles out a liberal congregation’s exclusion of a member who repents of holding a view deemed right by the congregation when no story is being written about the conservative congregations that previously excluded the abortion clinic worker from membership. Here is what I think might be being missed in this approach. Moral judgements’ are being made differently in conservative and liberal congregations on issues of life. An abortion clinic worker is viewed no differently than a school teacher or a trash collector or a plumber. All are roles people can play in society. Having or providing an abortion is a choice without much or any moral consequence in the liberal congregation, not that much different than going to the dentist to have a bad tooth extracted.
Now in the conservative context abortion is seen as a moral issue with the unwarrented taking of life as a morally unacceptable outcome. Helping or assisting this outcome as a worker or manager or medical performer of abortions would be a moral wrong and not just a choice of life work or lifestyle. Applying the rules of the gospel of radical inclusivity, which is what I think NoVA Scout is doing in this case, without putting the radically different moral reasoning methods of the differing liberal and conservative on the table creates confusion, not moral security in the Christian community. The congregations mentioned in the article aren’t applying similar moral reasoning so the story at the Texas Episcopal church probably is very different from the other stories. It may be we don’t really know enough about that church from the article to say as much as some have said in this thread but there is still enough in the article and our collective moral experience to learn from this post.
All that being said, I think abortion is a moral blight, it is hard for me to see how it is moral or even helpful to ever term it an unmitigated “blessing”, and that a person who has assisted in enabling mothers (and fathers?) to abort a child but has repented and decided to stop doing so is in a most delicate and sensitive place where assurance of God’s perfect grace is paramount. The gospel of radical inclusivity is a cruel hoax. In stead the church is meant to be a network of shared belief in Christ as savior and lord and Scripture as the ultimate authority for belief and practice.
I am going to continue to pray for the people in this church.
I agree entirely with you on the evils of abortions, No. 34, and assume you just weren’t paying attention when you read my comments. My point was that there was nothing in the story that reflected badly on the parish that welcomed Mrs. Johnson other than that one of her former co-workers at Planned Parenthood apparently has stopped attending church regularly. My issue was that there was no story.