You Shall Not Murder - Exodus 20:13
In recent years two polls have been released showing the correlation between American's Christian faith and their views on abortion. The Gallup poll was released in April of 2006 and shows not only a person's religious faith and opinions of abortion but also the relationship between the frequency of church attendance and views of abortion. In June of 2010 The Barna Group researched American's religious faith and their correlating views on abortion.
The Gallup poll from 2004-2005 shows the following who think abortion should be legal under any circumstance:
Protestant - 20%
Catholics - 23%
Other Christians - 15%.
The frequency that someone attends church has a direct correlation on their views of abortion:
Attend once a week - 9%
Attend almost weekly - 20%
Attend once a month - 25%
Seldom or never attend - 29%
The Barna Group study reveals the following responses to making abortion legal in most or all cases:
Evangelical Christians - 22%
Non-Evangelical Christians - 39%
Active Churchgoers - 33%
Non-Mainline Protestants -34%
Self-Identified Christians who
were not born again - 31%
Catholics - 36%
Mainline Protestants - 40%
Faiths other than Christianity - 42%
Overall, of the 1,001 adults surveyed, 49% prefer keeping abortion legal in all or most cases. 15% want abortion to be legal in every situation.
In analyzing the data there seems to be similar results between the two studies. The Gallup Poll shows only those who think abortion should be legal in all cases so the numbers are smaller because they don't include the choice of "legal in most cases" that the Barna study does. Except for only 22% of Evangelicals that believe abortion should be legal, most of the results fall in a similar area. The result that is the most surprising is that 36% of Catholics believe abortion should remain legal in all or most cases, and 23% of the Gallup poll shows that they want abortion to always be legal. This does not seem to correlate with the fact that the pro-life view is prominent in the Catholic religion compared to many of the other faiths.
The numbers are interesting on the subject of frequency of church attendance and views on abortion. It only seems to make a huge difference when someone attends every week. It can't be because they get more of a pro-life message from the pulpit, because the number jumps up to 20% for those who attend almost every week. That's only a 9% difference from those who don't attend at all.
The Barna study shows that 57% of Americans in general took a moderate or "not sure" position. From my experience that shows that the majority of Americans truthfully do not want to even think of the issue, and if they did, they don't want come out with a definitive position against it. Even if they think the killing of the unborn is wrong, the most conclusive of an answer from them might be that it's not right for them but others should be allowed to have an abortion.
In general, most of the fault lies with the churches. Even for those that seemingly have a strong pro-life message, such as the Catholics, the pro-life view is not sinking in as it should. The majority of churches are operated like any other business, and they believe that if the pro-life view is proclaimed from the pulpit, then they might offend those who have had an abortion. They also see the poll numbers showing that half of the people out there think abortion should be legal, so the pastors want to be politically correct and not get anyone upset. It's obvious that they just don't want to lose any customers. There are exceptions in the non-Catholic churches, such as Legacy Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where pastor Steve Smothermon often discusses the issue.
After the attacks on 9/11 many churches opened their doors for either special services, counseling, or prayer sessions. Their actions were great, but the same amount died in the attacks on 9/11 as die every day in the name of abortion, but most churches rarely, if ever, utter a word about the these horrors. Some denominations even believe so strongly in abortion that they have included support for it in their church doctrine. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, the Presbyterians, and the Methodists support abortion in church writings while many other churches just avoid the subject. Just go to almost any church's website in this country and type in the words "abortion" or "pro-life" in the search box, and nearly every time there will be no result.
Obviously, the conclusion is that millions of Americans who call themselves Christians believe in the killing of unborn children. The major reason is nearly total silence on the issue by the churches, but it also takes willing sheep to follow along with this silence.
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2 comments:
I knew it was bad but seeing it in writing really is heartbreaking. People need to read their bible if they have one and then just do it!
Thanks for your posts.
It's the same or worse here in the UK. It would be interesting to see a percentage for those who are ACTIVELY pro-life. I doubt if it would reach half of one percent. No wonder Jesus told the parable of the Samaritan. It's the religious guys who walked by on the other side! Your comments about pastors and churches being run like business is very telling. Where are the men and women who have the courage and conviction to stand up?
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