Saturday, August 15, 2015

Planned Parenthood Is God’s Work Claim So-called Christian Pastors


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Jesus said, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these."  Matthew 19:14
Planned Parenthood Is God’s Work Claim So-called Christian Pastors

By de Andréa, Opinion Editorialist
for ‘THE BOTTOM LINE’:
Published August 15, 2015

Americans should be shocked at the undercover videos that show a baby's limbs and organs
being dissected and sorted for sale at the Planned Parenthood clinics, but there are those that claim to be Christians who claim God is quite pleased with Planned Parenthood.  The people making that claim are clergy, says Jeff Walton of the Institute of Religion and Democracy.   

In particular, he says, those claims come from Planned Parenthood's "clergy advocacy board," whose members are defending the abortion giant after the secretly recorded videos exposed the dissection and sale of murdered baby body parts.

"They effectively claim God's endorsement for Planned Parenthood," Walton says of the clergy group. "They say that that employees of Planned Parenthood are 'doing God's work' and they basically say that this is an organization that is providing high quality care that 'does the best of what religious traditions do.'"

The clergy group submitted a lengthy statement last month condemning the videos as a "smear campaign" and claiming that Judaism, Christianity and Islam condemn such "dishonesty and hate." I don’t find it peculiar that Muslims think it is their god Allah’s work that they kill everyone in sight including Christians and Jews, Baby’s and innocent men and women.  But Christian pastors and Jewish Rabbis? Has Satanic Islam now completely taken over the minds and spirits of all humanity?

Rather than respect religious liberty and individual conscience as they should, the clergy group wrote. "Some seek to impose their values and work obsessively to limit access to health care on individuals despite the fact that denial of health care may have a tremendous impact on their families."  What about imposing your twisted values on those innocent unborn children?   Don’t they have a right to health care, or at the very least the right to live???????? What a bunch of hypocrites…

The 400-word statement above somehow defends Planned Parenthood and the sale of human baby body parts without using a key word – "Murder."   Or Abortion for that matter.  They use to hide behind the word abortion while committing murder now they just ignore it altogether.  An example of this is hiding behind the term “After Birth Abortion” while committing Infanticide.  Oh yes! That’s next…

Planned Parenthood, in fact, is the largest baby murder for hire in the United States, performing 327,653 last year or an average of 37 per hour, approximately 60 million since Roe v Wade.

 

So who are the Planned Parenthood Clergy?

Since beginning my original article about the Planned Parenthood Clergy Advocacy Board, I haven’t been unable to access the linked list of board members due to Planned Parenthood pulling down most of its web site.

Fortunately, a cached version of the page is available. The network of 14 clergy members from a variety of denominations who support Planned Parenthood is reproduced below.

STATEMENT OF BELIEFS.

·        We believe that clergy have a special responsibility to bear witness in support of reproductive rights so that the public and their elected representatives may understand   d the theological and moral basis for reproductive rights.
·        We believe that family planning and responsible sex education are the most effective methods of reducing the need for abortion. Clergy must help parents reach and teach their children by providing medically accurate and age-appropriate sex education in their congregations and in their local communities and schools.
·        We believe that both men and women have an inherent right to reproductive freedom that this freedom includes the right to abortion, and that abortion is a complex moral and ethical issue that cannot be resolved by solutions that are simplistic or cruel.
·        We believe that ultimately the decision about abortion is a matter between a woman, her conscience, and/or her God, and that those close to her should offer support in any way they can.

Who are these clergy who praise the work of the largest Murder provider in the United States? Hardly a rogue’s gallery of Religious Left boogeymen, the list is more likely to evoke a collective “huh?” from readers otherwise familiar with activist clergy.

Eight are Christian pastors, three are Reformed Jewish rabbis, one is Muslim, one is a Unitarian Universalist and one is an adherent of Universal Sufism. Of the pastors, three are Episcopalians, two are Congregationalist (UCC), two are Baptist and one is affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). I’ve reported a few interesting tidbits about each clergy person below.

So-called Christian Pastors:

The Rev. Susan Russell
All Saints Episcopal Church
Pasadena, CA
 
Episcopal
Russell, who serves as Vice-Chair of the board, is an associate priest at All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena, California, the only sizeable Christian community on this list. One of the largest Episcopal parishes on the West Coast, All Saints has been politically active on left-leaning issues for many years. Russell herself is past president of Integrity USA, the Episcopal Church’s unofficial LGBT caucus, as well as two-time elected deputy from the Diocese of California to the denomination’s General Convention.

The Rev. David A. Ames
Providence, RI 
Episcopal
Ames is Priest-in-Charge of All Saints Memorial Church in Providence, Rhode Island. All Saints has steadily dropped from 190 members and 70 attendees to 85 members and 60 attendees from 2003-2013, the most recent reporting year. The church’s plate-and-pledge giving is only about $100,000 a year, and the parish appears to be limping along on foundation grants and an insurance payout.

Rev. Tom Davis
Saratoga Springs, NY 
United Church of Christ
Davis, past chair of the Clergy Advocacy Board, is a retired Skidmore College Associate Professor of Religion and College Chaplain. Davis served on the national board of Planned Parenthood Federation of America from 1992-1998 and is also a member of the state board of the New York State Family Planning Advocates, and the Religion, Culture, and Public Policy Board of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.
While Davis does not currently pastor a congregation, he is known for an abortion-themed book, Sacred Work: Planned Parenthood and Its Clergy Alliances.

The Rev. Dr. Gawain F. de Leeuw
White Plains, NY
Episcopal
De Leeuw is rector of St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church in White Plains, New York. St. Bartholomew’s has dropped from 320 members and 80 attendees to 60 members and 50 attendees from 2003-2013, the most recent reporting year. The church’s plate-and-pledge giving is only about $100,000 a year.

The Rev. Kevin Jones
Greenacres, FL 
Baptist
Jones serves at the independent Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church in West Palm Beach, Florida where he is Minister for Youth and Young Adults. A former staffer at Planned Parenthood of Greater Miami, Jones also serves on the Interfaith Clergy Alliance Board.

The Rev. Vincent Lachina 
Seattle, WA
American Baptist
Planned Parenthood Washington State Chaplain Vincent Lachina pictured above, earned notoriety in 2011 when he proclaimed at a Mississippi legislative hearing on a state personhood amendment that “I am an ordained Southern Baptist minister.” Lachina is actually affiliated with the United Church of Christ and American Baptist Churches USA. His chaplaincy is full-time and he does not pastor a congregation.

The Rev. Jeremy Lopez
Salem United Church
Tonowanda, NY
United Church of Christ
Lopez has served as pastor of Salem United Church since 2012 and was an associate minister with the congregation for one year prior. The congregation has attendance of around 150 persons.

Rev Janet Maykus
Indianapolis, IN
Christian Church DOC
Maykus was principal of the College of Pastoral Leaders at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary from 2003 – 2010, she also served as director of church relations at Disciples-affiliated Texas Christian University. She later served for two years as Vice President for Operations and Organizational Development for the denomination’s Church Extension Financial and Missional Resources. Maykus served on the Board of Directors of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas. Maykus is not listed with a congregation, and is now operations director at a solid waste hauling company in Austin.

Non-Christian Clergy:
Chair
Rabbi Jon Adland
Canton, OH
Reform Jewish
Jon Adland has served as chair of Planned Parenthood’s Clergy Advocacy Committee since 2007 and Rabbi of Temple Israel in Canton, Ohio since 2011. He previously served congregations in Indianapolis, IN and Lexington, KY, where he was President of the Board of Lexington Planned Parenthood from 1989-1995 and on the board of Planned Parenthood of Indiana from 2005-2010.

Rabbi Dennis Ross
Concerned Clergy for Choice
Albany, NY
Reform Jewish
Ross has served as director of Concerned Clergy for Choice at the Education Fund of Family Planning Advocates of New York State since 2004. Ross consults to Planned Parenthood on clergy organizing, religion in the media and religious lobbying. He is author of Abortion and Judaism: Rabbinic Opinion and Jewish Law and has been Rabbi of Congregation Beth Emeth since 2009.

Rabbi Peter Stein
Temple B’rith Kodesh
Rochester, NY

Reform Jewish
Stein began his tenure in Rochester in 2014 after serving congregations in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. Stein’s biography statement says his rabbinate is “defined by a love of learning and teaching and engagement in social justice.”

Rev. Dr. Daniel Kanter
First Unitarian Church of Dallas
Dallas, TX 
Unitarian
Kanter was called by the congregation to serve as Minister of First Unitarian Church in 2003, later becoming Senior Minister in January 2009. He blogs about faith for the Dallas Morning News. First Unitarian is one of the larger congregations represented on this list, with 1027 members. Attendance data is not listed. In 2014 the congregation hosted the Faith Voices for Reproductive Justice Award, presented by the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

Dr. Scott Sattler
Eureka, CA 
Universal Sufism
Sattler is a retired abortion doctor from Eureka, California who has performed abortions since the mid-1970s. Raised Presbyterian, he later embraced Sufism, but has no congregation listed.

Ani Zonneveld
Muslims for Progressive Values
Los Angeles, CA 
Muslim
Zonneveld is a regular in religious left circles, typically the only Muslim to sign on to pro-LGBT or pro-abortion statements. Featured at the annual Evangelical Left Wild Goose Festival, Zonneveld embraces an interpretation of Islam that would be unfamiliar to most Muslims. Possibly Chrislam which is neither Christian nor Islamic.  Zonneveld served as a board member of the short-lived Progressive Muslim Union of North America and has presided over same-sex weddings for Muslim and Interfaith couples.

THE BOTTOM LINE: The Bible says in the last days even some of the followers of Christ will fall away from God.  Just as in the time of Noah, before the Great Flood only a few survived, in the last days only the few faithful will live eternally in heaven.

Are you one of those few?   

Thanks for listening – de Andréa


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