Taproot Church

On the Murder of George Tiller

Tragedy has struck and the pastors of Taproot church would like to address it in no uncertain terms. I got the permission of the other pastors to write this blog—they may not say it exactly the same way as I, and they can and should nuance it, but we all agree on my gut level reaction to this situation.

For those of you who don’t know, Dr. George Tiller, a health care practitioner and provider of late term abortions, was gunned down in cold blood as he served his church as an usher this last Sunday. He was killed in the foyer of that church. The people inside the sanctuary heard what some thought was a child popping a balloon. Tiller’s wife was singing in the choir at the front of the church at the moment of the shooting. An usher went and got her and lead her, alone, to her husband in the foyer. Her screams echoed through the church.

The reason I felt prompted to write this is because in situations like these it has all too often been my personal experience that people use “weasel words” to talk about what happened. Everyone knows you’re supposed to condemn something like this, but when you hear someone say a curt, unfeeling, “Well that was wrong,” and then they go on and on, and on, about the evils of abortion, you get the feeling they don’t think it was so very wrong. “Ok, he killed him and that was wrong, but do you know how many hundreds of thousands of babies are killed every year in this country?” You’re weaseling out of what you know you’re supposed to say. What this flows from is the fact that it is something you personally despise. The human nature tendency is to give the benefit of the doubt to something you agree with. “The man with the gun was pro-life, I’m pro-life—I’m not saying he was right, but I won’t be shedding any tears tonight.” No one thinks it that prosaically, but that is what we do. It’s why it was easy for those who didn’t like Bush to assume he was lying about WMD. It’s why whites could watch fire hoses and attack dogs be unleashed on blacks in the 60’s and not bat an eyelash.

The mark of a Christian, above all else, is love. Situations like these provide us with the opportunity to be other-worldly and not do the typical thing.

There is no justification for this senseless murder. We have no mitigating words to offer relating to the nature of abortion. The pastors of Taproot believe thou shalt not murder is still in effect and applies to this situation. Our heart and prayers go out to Tiller’s family who are now dealing with unspeakable pain.

Let me be clear: Taproot Church is a pro-life church. We do not personally see how one can be Christian and condone abortion. That is where we come down on that issue. That being said: In light of this man’s murder is not the appropriate place for anyone to be opining on the issue of abortion. To begin to speak about abortion in this context is to begin the walk down the road to justification. It is the equivalent to the man who beats his wife, and then says it’s because she lied to him. The evidence is immaterial, it is not a reason or an excuse, and to acknowledge it is to give aid and comfort to sin.

What if the roles were reversed? Let’s say your father was a pastor and influential leader in protecting traditional marriage, and he was gunned down. And then you heard people saying, “Yeah, it was wrong, but the guy was a bigot.” Would it be easy for you to see, regardless of whether or not that’s true, that it is beside the point?

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