wfn.org | [LCMSNews] LFL offers faith-based message

["LCMS e-News" <LCMSENEWS@lcms.org>]

	 <http://www.lcms.org>
e-News
	LCMS News

	PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO THIS E-MAIL MESSAGE! This message comes
from a "Send Only" Mailbox that does not recognize replies.

	December 8, 2005 .................... LCMSNews -- No. 77

	Supporters: LFL's faith-based message makes a difference

	"These people are brilliant," said Sarah Fields of Hobart, Ind.,
as she summed up her impressions as a first-time participant at
Lutherans For Life's (LFL) 2005 national conference Nov. 11-13 in St.
Louis.

	Sarah, with 2-year-old daughter Anna in tow, and her husband
Carl holding their 6-month-old son, John, had just heard the opening
speakers for LFL's 23rd annual national conference, which drew nearly
300 attendees.

	The conference followed a first-time bioethics conference
co-sponsored by LFL, LCMS World Relief/Human Care, and the Concordia
Bioethics Institute at Concordia University Wisconsin, Mequon.

	Lutherans For Life, describing itself as "the only pan-Lutheran
pro-life organization in the nation," is based in Nevada, Iowa, and has
15 state or regional federations, 155 local chapters, and 745 "life
ministry coordinators" nationwide.

	Sarah and Carl Fields have been involved with their Lake County
(Ind.) National Right to Life group for well over a year, but joined LFL
only a month before this year's conference.

	"We're very glad we did," says Sarah. "We're used to hearing
about pro-life causes from an academic perspective, but not from the
Christian perspective, like we're hearing here -- the perspective
including God's grace and mercy."

	"We've heard and read a lot about pro-life causes from a
non-sectarian view," said Carl. "But, just like Todd Wilken said in his
presentation this morning, the Christian comes at it from the bigger
issue of fallen mankind. Abortion and other life issues are symptoms of
a fallen world, and it's eye-opening to realize the answers are in God's
Word, and to see it in the perspective of His grace and mercy, with
salvation through Christ."

	The Fields are members of Redeemer Lutheran Church, Highland,
Ind., which Carl pinpoints as between Chicago and Valparaiso.

	Rev. Todd Wilken, host of the nationally syndicated program
"Issues, Etc." on radio station KFUO-AM in St. Louis, had just finished
speaking to the conference on what he termed "a cross-shaped theology of
life."

	Tracing Christ's life from the virgin's womb through His death
on the cross, Wilken asked, "How could Christians not be pro-life when
the very means by which God redeemed fallen men was a human life?"

	Wesley J. Smith, an award-winning author from Castro Valley,
Calif., gave a keynote address just before Wilken spoke, and was on the
bioethics conference program the night before.

	Smith said that many in the field of bioethics no longer believe
that human life has value "simply and merely because it is human."
Rather, they see it as "expendable, exploitable, and disposable."

	Too often when discussing a human embryo, an unborn child, or
the elderly or disabled, Smith said, the question seems to be, "Who can
we kill and get a good night's sleep?"

	"No human life should ever be seen as an object," said Smith.
"Every human being should be seen as a subject."

	Smith is an attorney for the International Task Force on
Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, a special consultant for the Center for
Bioethics and Culture, and a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute,
which is a nonpartisan public-policy think tank.

	LFL conference sessions also included workshops on topics such
as euthanasia, assisted suicide, the media, the dangers of the
right-to-die mentality, Christian care giving, advance directives, and
"the mission, message, and manner" of LFL.

	Dr. James I. Lamb, the organization's executive director, led
Sunday Bible study and a worship service on the conference theme, "In
Life, In Death, Abide With Me," based on Phil. 1:20-21.

	Lamb recalled that since the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision
that legalized the procedure in 1973, "over 45 million babies have been
killed through surgical abortion in this country -- 36,000 every day, or
one about every 24 seconds."

	"The legacy abortion gives us is that death is the solution to a
problem, and that certain people are better off dead," Lamb said. "[But]
as long as God gives life, then God is at work giving life meaning and
purpose."

	Noting that "Paul reminded us [in the theme text] today that
certainly it is 'far better' to depart and be with Christ ... he also
reminded us that the timing is in God's hands. If He gives us continued
life, then in His plan, it is 'more necessary' that we go on living.
Whether we live or die, we know that Christ is at work and that He will
be exalted."

	"I'm thankful that Lutherans For Life has always sought to
address the issues in a God-directing, God-pleasing way, using God's
Word as the base," said Ethel Peterson, 85, of Grafton, Wis., who has
attended national conferences "since Jean Garton was LFL president in
the 1970s and 1980s," as she puts it.

	Active in the Ozaukee (Wis.) chapter of LFL, Peterson gets
involved in its rose sale in May, and at the national conference she
buys recordings of speakers and picks up other LFL resources, taking
them home to "give to different people," including fellow members of
First Immanuel Lutheran Church, in Cedarburg, Wis.

	But she said the "reality" of her involvement in the
organization "hit home" several years ago, when a granddaughter became
pregnant out of wedlock and the baby's father wanted her to have an
abortion.

	"But she didn't have it," Peterson said, "and I don't know if I
made that much of a difference. But I know that God did."

	She said her granddaughter and the now 5-year-old's father
planned to marry after she returned from the 2005 conference.

	"We equip people to make life-affirming decisions," LFL
President Diane Schroeder told the conference. "You can make a
difference in the lives around you ... speak the truth in love and
patiently wait for miracles."

	For more information, contact Lutherans For Life at 1120 S. G
Ave., Nevada, IA 50201-2774, or toll-free at (888) 364-5433 (LIFE). Or
visit its Web site at www.lutheransforlife.org.

	****************************************

	If you have questions or comments about this LCMSNews release,
contact Joe Isenhower Jr. at joe.isenhower@lcms.org or (314) 996-1231,
or Paula Schlueter Ross at paula.ross@lcms.org or (314) 996-1230.

	****************************************

	  This Edition of "LCMS News" e-News is provided by:

	Board for Communication Services, Division of News and
Information
Contact Editor
<http://www.lcms.org/enews/contact_editor.asp?title=LCMS%20News&editorid
=6>


		To subscribe to or unsubscribe from this Newsletter and
many others, please visit LCMS e-News <http://www.lcms.org/enews> .
		Share this Newsletter
<http://www.lcms.org/enews/forward.asp?m=3429>  with a friend.

MessageId=3429 UserId=10073
  _____

Design © Copyright 2002 - 2005 The Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod.
<http://www.lcms.org>
No reproduction without consent. All rights reserved.