When Your House Is On Fire
By Ernest L. Ohlhoff
NRLC Director of Outreach
There is a fire in our country which is raging out of control: abortion on demand. Since 1973, abortion has been burning a gaping hole in the fabric of our families, communities, government, and indeed the very culture itself.
But there is hope. You and your pro-life friends and neighbors are the firefighters who are working to put out the blaze by restoring legal protection to all innocent human life.
The astonishing thing is that pro-life people are erasing the boundaries that in the past have so often kept people apart. Today, differences in religion, education, age, sex, race, ethnicity, and occupation pose no obstacles to cooperation within the pro-life movement.
This is nowhere better illustrated than in the interdenominational cooperation that is the hallmark of the National Pro-Life Religious Council (NPRC).
In the mid-1980s, Candice Muller and I helped found the NPRC, which sought to promote communications and cooperation among the various "for life" religious groups that were operating independently within various denominations. Attendees at the first few meetings were somewhat guarded about whether or not this new organization might somehow violate their particular denominational norms.
At the time abortion was rampant, euthanasia was on the horizon, stem cell research and cloning were distant nightmares. NPRC has continued to grow because we set aside our differences so that we might better focus on the life-threatening threats that had already arrived or were soon to arrive. Before Pope John Paul II coined the term, we understood there was such a thing as the "culture of death." It was upon us - - threatening all of us, individually and collectively - - and only in unity could we repel it.
Over these past two decades, NPRC has published several books, held press conferences, sponsored seminars, co-hosted numerous ecumenical prayer services, published a regular newsletter, and presented workshops at many conventions. It has grown into a solid, cohesive organization that speaks with one voice on the life issues. Not as individual Methodists, Presbyterians, Catholics, Lutherans, etc., but rather in one collective voice.
Recently, I was reminded of how far we have come in our ability to set aside our differences and cooperatively work in harmony. This was beautifully illustrated January 22 at the NPRC-sponsored "National Memorial for the Pre-Born" on Capitol Hill.
The large auditorium was standing room only as hundreds of Christian pro-lifers from all denominations joined together to hear an inspirational Christian message, and award Christian leaders who have stood up for the cause of life.
At the January NPRC board meeting, one of the long-time members attested aloud to how far we had come. And that was because, as a group, we have clearly identified the threat - - the culture of death - - that threatens all of us, and we have set aside our differences to join together in strength.
Individually we are not strong enough to fight this evil, but collectively we cannot lose.