Catholicism, the pro-life cause and the gospel

Written for Catholic readers who oppose abortion. We are glad of you. Please read to the end.

Where we stand together

The Roman Catholic Church has stood against abortion longer and more steadily than almost any other body in Britain. For decades, when much of the evangelical church said nothing, Catholic clergy, religious and lay people prayed outside clinics, ran pregnancy centres and said in public that the child in the womb is a human being whom it is wrong to kill. That is to Rome’s credit, and we say so without reservation.

If you are a Catholic who opposes abortion, then on the thing this site exists for we are on the same side of the grave. We want you in the fight.

Where the gospel divides us

But standing against a sin is not the same as being forgiven of sin, and it is on this — not on abortion — that we have to speak plainly, because it matters more.

The Scriptures say that a person is made right with God by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9). “A person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ” (Galatians 2:16). “To the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness” (Romans 4:5).

Rome teaches that justification is begun in baptism and increased through the sacraments and good works, and that it can be lost and regained. The Reformers, reading the Scriptures above, said no: Christ’s finished work is received by faith, complete, once, and nothing is added to it — not by the church, not by the sacraments, not by our own striving, however good. Good works follow salvation as fruit follows the tree. They do not earn it.

We do not raise this to win an argument. We raise it because a person who is relying, even in part, on his own works or his church’s sacraments to put him right with God has not yet received the gift. And the gift is the whole point.

Why this changes the fight

Abolitionism is gospel work before it is moral work. We do not believe that Britain’s deepest problem is its abortion law; the law is the symptom of a nation that has forgotten God. Only the gospel deals with that. And the same cross that condemns the shedding of innocent blood is the place where the guilty are washed clean.

That is why the pro-life movement and biblical abolitionism, which look so alike from the outside, differ at the root. One seeks to reduce an evil by law, campaign and compassion, and may do real good. The other says: the evil is sin, the only answer to sin is the cross, and the people who would fight it must first be forgiven of their own. We call the church to repentance before we call the nation to abolition, and we call every one of us to Christ alone before we call anyone to the streets.

Come to Christ, and then come and fight

So here is what we ask of you, as of ourselves. Not that you stop opposing abortion — never that. But that you look at the Scriptures above and ask whether you have received Christ’s righteousness as a gift, whole and finished, by faith alone. If you have, you are our brother or sister, and the fight is yours. If you are not sure, the good news is for you: Jesus Christ lived the life we owed and died the death we deserved, and rose; repent, and trust in Him, and you are forgiven — completely.

Then come and fight with us for the children, on the one ground that can bear the weight.

The good news, in full → · Where abolition and the pro-life movement differ →