With the word terrorism embedded today in Americas psyche, National Life Chain will line sidewalks in over 1,200 North American cities and towns Sunday afternoon, October 1, 2:30 3:30 in each time zone, (for time in each city, see www.LifeChain.net). Committed to the sanctity of human life, participants will stand silently and pray, while holding signs that include Abortion Kills Children; Adoption: The Loving Option; Lord, Forgive Us and Our Nation; and Abortion Hurts Women. As the signs imply, the event is devoted to repentance, peaceful public witness, and ultimately to ending legalized abortionwhich has mutilated and killed far more innocent preborn American and Canadian citizens than have decades of foreign terrorist activity.
Said Royce Dunn, Life Chains director: Adult America equates terrorism with brutal beheadings and heartless bombings perpetrated by radical Islamists; but if tens of millions of our fellow citizens could speak to us, with their questioning eyes piercing our hard hearts, they would recall fellow Americans who mercilessly suctioned, dismembered, tore, cut, crushed, burned, and starved them to death, while no institution in their culture defended them with serious resolve. Instead, said Dunn, denial ruled the day. Denial by millions of Americans who advocate abortion but would never say they support the killing of preborn boys and girls. Denial by a citizenry who esteem America for her civility when in fact, notwithstanding our Judeo-Christian heritage, America now ranks among the earths most violent nations. And denial by an institutional Church that claims to be prolife but has yielded much of its heart and integrity to self-indicting rhetoric, passivity, and hypocrisy. Anti-Nazi leader and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer noted that no civil law compels the Church to defend the innocent and helpless, but Gods moral law surely does.
Thus Life Chain believes God still judges nations and that legalized abortion is closely linked with the prevailing terrorist threat America faces from abroad. The 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington did not equal one days killing in U.S. abortuaries. Nor is terrorism Americas only threat. Today our culture is sinking beneath abortions bond with aggressive homosexual demands, with unabated pornography and sexual addiction, with illegitimacy now producing one-third of U.S. births, with STDs at epidemic level, and with cohabitation and divorce's assault on traditional marriage and family.
Inasmuch as America's and Canadas most influential leaders are their clergyand preborn childrens hope for survival rests strategically with the Church, Life Chain urges pastors to lead their congregations and parishes to an hour of 'sidewalk prayer' on October 1. Said Dunn, The future of our nation will be determined by church leadership. Our clergy control the privilege and power of our nation's pulpits and thereby, to an eminent degree, the moral climate in which our government functions. Surely pastoral accountability before God is heavy.
The Life Chain sign Abortion Kills Children is joined by Jesus Forgives and Heals and the joyful reality that God forgives repentant hearts and that He heals abortions living victims who seek His forgiveness.
Life Chain is interdenominational and open to everyone who believes human life is sacred and will defend it peacefully. Participants follow the Life Chain Code of Conduct, which stresses a prayerful spirit and forbids frivolity, casual conversation, and negative responses to criticism. To date, over 12,000 Chains have been built in North America, plus Chains in several other nations, and no report has reached the national office of any participant being cited for an illegal act.
This information is also available online at http://www.nationallifechain.org/Press%20Release% 2010-1-2006.pdf
