Lutherans Call for Life Sunday
Gerald B. Kieschnick, the head of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, made a case for life in a statement released about Life Sunday, calling it a duty against the culture of ''abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, and other threats to human life.
Gerald B. Kieschnick, the head of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS), made a case for “life” in a statement released on Dec. 21, 2004. In making his case, Kieschnick urged Christians to take part in “Life Sunday,” a day dedicated to respecting human life as an endowment from God.
“Traditionally observed in the United States as “Life Sunday”, January 23, 2005, is fast approaching on our calendars. I ask you, dear brothers, to encourage the people of your congregation to remember on this--and every other day--that human life is not an achievement, but an endowment from God. Every individual, at every stage of development and every state of consciousness, is known and loved by God,” he said.
Kieschnick also noted that the LCMS “has a well-earned reputation in the world for being an actively pro-life church.”
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“Strong resolutions supporting life and opposing abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, and other threats to human life continue to be regular agenda items for our national and district conventions,” he said.
”The church has a responsibility to speak the clear word of truth with a clear voice—to our world and especially for the sake of our members. The church must speak directly and forcefully in those clear and limited circumstances when fundamental moral principals are at stake,” he added.
Taking note that Life Sunday looks deeply at the rising rate of abortion in the nation, Kieschnick said abortion “has resulted in a coarsened society that is desensitized to death.”
”While abortion has led to the shocking loss of 40 million lives since 1973, it has also resulted in a coarsened society that is desensitized to death and disloyal to life,” he said. “But respect for life is not just an intellectual or moral belief. It is a personal commitment that recognizes our best witness is given when our commitment is evidenced in actions. Acts of compassion to the unprotected innocent, the poor, the aged, and handicapped will provide a compelling alternative to a culture of death.”
In light of such cultures, Kieschnick said the LCMS “affirms the truth that no one is worthless whom God has created and for whom Christ died.”
For more information on Life Sunday, visit: www.lcms.org/pages/default.asp?NavID=891
