My friend was raped...

Question: My friend has a question, she asked a pastor and he just couldn’t answer it. She was raped, and is on many meds for a disease she has. Her and her husband always practice safe sex for this reason, but since she was raped, no protection was used, thus resulting in her pregnancy. If she gets an abortion, can she still go to Heaven?

Answer: Now, here are some questions that I have for the woman. While I can't imagine the horror that she endured in the rape, the question is, is the baby at fault? Meaning, is it the baby's fault that she is pregnant? The obvious answer is, "No."

Have you ever heard of the name Pam Stenzel? I heard her speak once at a youth conference about a teenage girl who was 17 and was raped. The rape happened to result in a pregnancy. But she knew it wasn't the baby's fault that she was raped. The baby was innocent in the matter. While the baby was the result of rape, the child shouldn't bear the penalty for her father's terrible decision. So, the 17-year-old mother decided to give the child up for adoption. As Pam was relating this story to the group I was in, she said, "You know I am so glad that she decided to give up that child for adoption, because if she didn't I wouldn't be here today." Get it? Pam was the child. Her mother had been raped, but rather than kill the baby, her mother decided to give her up. And God is using Pam in unimaginable ways. She says, "My mother was a teenage girl and my father was a rapist, but what man meant for evil, God meant for good."

I don't think aborting the child is the answer. Adding murder to rape doesn't remove the rape, it only adds murder to it. It would be best to give the child a chance. There are thousands of couples out there that can't have kids of their own and would jump at the opportunity to take this child. And if you need some referrals, I would be glad to put you into touch with some of them that are looking for children to adopt.

I'm not sure if this helps you or not, but please consider what I have written. God wants this child to live and have a future.

But, you have asked a question and I have hesitated to answer it, simply because the question itself is faulty. Your question: “Can she still go to heaven?” is asked on the premise that she intentionally chooses to kill her child. Meaning, she wants to intentionally sin in the face of God and then ask for forgiveness later, but this is to presume upon God’s grace. While God does forgive all of our sin, we do not choose to presume upon God’s forgiveness by deliberately sinning against Him. Surely, God can and will forgive all who ask for it (1 John 1:9). But, we don’t take forgiveness lightly by choosing to sin and then presume upon His grace. As the apostle Paul wrote, “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?”—Romans 6:1-2 (ESV)

My advice would be to reconsider your question. Rather than asking, “Will she go to heaven?” How about taking a few steps back and asking the question, “What does God want me to do with this child?” I think that asking that question reveals a degree of spiritual maturity in the face of horrendous injustice. The response is no longer about what sin is allowable or excusable to allow one into heaven, but rather moves the question to the realm of discipleship where the cross is taken up in the face of great tribulation, enabling Christ to be seen as her expiation.

Expiation is when Christ takes away the stain of sin upon our soul. Whether it is through sin that we have done or sins done to us that have hurt us beyond our ability, Christ can take away all of the pains and hurts of sin. As 1 John 1:7 says, “But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”—1 John 1:7 (ESV)

I pray that God would sustain her during this difficult time. And I pray that God may touch your friend in a way that she can see Christ’s atoning sacrifice as not only her own, but for the man that raped her. I also pray that God will take this child and raise him or her up for His glory, a vessel of His immense grace. May God be glorified in this situation. Amen.

At the Intersection of Christ and Culture

How do church and culture intersect? One of the most difficult tasks in being a Christian is answering that question. The question is probably more important now than ever before, as our culture is becoming more globalized and with the continual growth of technology becoming more essential to the make-up and framework of the average man and woman. How does one live out his or her faith?

I must say that this question baffles me. And here’s why. When I first got into the ministry, I was learning. I had learned from professors, other godly and older Christians, and under their tutelage, embarked on a journey using the ministry methods and insights that they had learned from years of successful and fruitful ministry. I was told, though indirectly, “If you journey down this path, you will have success.”

As I journeyed down that path, I noticed a disconnect between myself, my mentors, and the individuals that I was ministering to. The ministry methods of the previous generation were inherited from their mentors. And their methods came from the previous generation before that. Most of the generations have done it the exact same way. There was one key area of commonality between them; their ministry methods were born in a culture where the Judeo-Christian message was well known if not intimately acquainted with. My culture was and is completely different. Theirs was, for lack of a better term, Christian, or at least from a greater cultural perspective, born in a society that was moderately religious, tolerant, and embracing of the Judeo-Christian worldview, because there simply wasn’t much else. In my culture, it was not the majority view, but simply one view, and not a widely held view at all. Pluralism, globalization, and technology have served to bring the world to their doorstep.

Perhaps an analogy will suffice here. If worldviews were ice cream, then the previous generation had vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry to choose from. Mine had 31 flavors, plus 100 more. The question then became for me, how do I modify the ministry methods I inherited from the previous generation (if I can modify them at all or do some need to be scrapped altogether)? Or, better yet, how do I put to death the methods that no longer work, embracing a view that allows me to reach the lost without alienating those whom I love so dearly? That is the question that I have wrestled with for the past decade and am still wrestling with. Others of my generation have bid a “sayonara!” to the previous generation’s ministry methods, but in doing so, have not only jettisoned the ministry methods, but the theology upon which it was built. Others have adopted the ministry methods in a spirit of homage and honor to the previous generation, but have filled their churches with the proverbial choir of churchgoers who have plunged their heads in the sand of Christian safety all the while ignoring the greater culture at large. What is one to do?

I believe that there is a new vehicle of ministry on the horizon that is loyal both to the biblical text and to the culture in which we minister. I am not sure what it is yet, but I believe it to be here, or right on the horizon. I just hope and pray that when it comes, I am not to dense to see it.