Violence is out of Place in the Sanctuary

Sunday morning in Wichita, Kansas, death intruded into a sacred space and violently took the life of Dr. George Tiller. This is the most recent in a growing line of Church-related shootings. In recent years this scene has become all too familiar to us. After the March attack in Marysville, Illinois, this is now the 21st such shooting in the past decade.

Bewildered, we wonder aloud: is there no place sacred? Is no place safe? But unlike the spate of shootings over the previous decade, this one already is being reported differently. For Dr. George Tiller was a well-known late-term abortion provider.

As I write, no one has been charged with the crime. Nor is any motive, ideology, religion or politics known. But assumptions are already being made and conclusions being drawn. By the time this is printed much more will be known. If the assailant proves to be attached in any way to the pro-life movement, his behavior will paint all who speak in defense of life in the womb.

Although pro-life organizations across the nation immediately denounced the killing and distanced themselves from the perpetrator, leaders of these same organizations are publicly worried that efforts to defend life in the womb will be set back by an unwilling association with one who shares their name.

A movement dedicated to saving life will be tarred as anti-life. Those moved by love to protect the innocent will be called dangerous and hateful. To the extent that these efforts succeed, another sacred place will continue to be invaded by the instruments of death that take the smallest and most defenseless lives.

Nevermind that Reformation Lutheran Church of Wichita is not a member of the Lutheran church body of which I am a pastor. It is still called Lutheran and still called Christian and with that nomenclature, everyone who calls themselves by either of these names will inevitably be painted by association with Dr. Tiller.

While pro-life organizations across the nation distance themselves from the ideology and behavior of the assailant, how will Christians distinguish themselves from the ideology and behavior of the assailed? Does the evil perpetrated against Dr. Tiller now canonize his cause? Are Christians now forbidden to exclude his ideology and behavior from their midst? Or shall we temporarily quiet our objections to abortion and tacitly accept Dr. Tiller as one of our own until this tragedy passes from the headlines?

This I cannot do. For it is especially now in the face of these events that we must speak up against the invasion of all sacred spaces and the taking of any life given by Christ.

This ought not to be a partisan matter nor a denominational affair. For the issues of life and death which concern us today have been addressed by the Scriptures and confessed by the whole Christian Church from the moment of its inception.

One of the very earliest Church documents preserved to us is called the Didache (circa. 50-120). The second chapter of that document treats the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" (Exodus 20) and its words are uncannily appropriate to address this confluence of events.

Here the murder of Dr. Tiller is obviously forbidden to Christians and it goes on to state, "thou shalt not murder a child by abortion nor kill them when born." Then, a few lines later and still on the same subject, we read, "Thou shalt not hate any man, but some thou shalt reprove, and for others thou shalt pray, and others thou shalt love more than thy life."

There is no better time than now and no better place than here to say aloud that Christians still believe in and abide by these words. Children are not to be aborted either by the primitive means of the ancient Romans or by the "sophisticated" means of modern physicians.

We are not to hate either Dr. Tiller or his assailant. But they should be reproved by all Christians. We reprove to invite repentance from the way of death that Christ's forgiveness unto life might follow.

We should mourn Dr. Tiller and pray for the assailant and both families. All people—famous or infamous, adult or fetus, right or wrong—should be loved more than your own life. For this is how Christ loves you, giving His own life to rescue you from the way of death.

Let all Christians take up these words as our own. And then, having taken them on our lips, let us remember what the Didache says in the same place: "Thy word shall not be false or empty, but fulfilled by action." This is the way of life—the life which Christ came to give.