As Pro-Life Christians rejoice in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision that ends the Roe v. Wade compulsion of states to allow infanticide of the pre-born, and to call it a “constitutional right,” the ruling has revealed fault lines that were probably not obvious to the average member of confessional Lutheran church bodies.

Predictably, the Los Angeles Times is spinning a narrative that claims that most Christians are actually (to use the popular euphemism) Pro-Choice. By reading the article, one would get the impression that the typical Christian pastor believes in abortion as a protected constitutional right, including the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod.

One single LCMS pastor is quoted in the article to render support for the belief that abortion is a right, though not making it clear that the vast majority of our pastors and laity are, in fact, Pro-Life. It is so typical for the large media outlets to be deceitful in service to their narrative.

From the article:

In L.A.’s West Adams neighborhood, the Rev. ST Williams Jr., pastor of the 97-year-old St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church, a historically African American church, said that the ruling “set us back as a nation, a people and a culture.”

Williams, who shepherds a congregation of 375 families of Black Americans, as well as Caribbean, African and Latino parishioners, many of them immigrants, said the nation already was on edge because of COVID-19, mass shootings and inflation.

Telling people “they no longer have a right to choose” will not allow for proper family planning and will affect those who can least afford to have children.

“It’s a sad day as a Lutheran Church minister because it will cause a lot of chaos and calamity,” he said of the ruling. “You’re not allowing people to be who they want to be.”

Though the Los Angeles Times would like to portray us as a divided church body on this issue, we are not. But at the same time, given the sad reality that there are apparently some who see abortion as a “right to choose” among our clergy, we have more work to do regarding our Catechism and the Fifth Commandment as well as what it means to be a human being, as the Lord reveals through the Psalmist:

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Ps 139:13-14