Interview: Shawn Carney, 40 Days for Life

Shawn Carney is the executive director of the Coalition for Life, a pro-life organization consisting of 60 churches and thousands of people. He joined The Matt Friedeman Show to promote the ongoing 40 Days for Life. Below are the "CliffsNotes" of his interview.

What is 40 Days for Life?

It started as one simple campaign.  We decided to do 40 days of prayer and fasting, and as a result, the abortion numbers in that community dropped by 48%.

We've been doing it ever since. We have a fall campaign and a spring campaign. It's built on prayer, and going to the places where the abortions actually happen. 

We've had 53 abortion clinic workers have conversions and leave their jobs. We've seen a lot of people overcome that natural fear of going out to pray outside of abortion clinics. It's been a joy.

And all you're asking people to do is show up and pray?

Absolutely. I think it's been the prayerful approach that's been the success of 40 days for life. We're not there to judge the women, we're not there to yell at them. We're there to give them a better option for their baby. And we're there for the workers as well.

It's wonderful to see what God is doing. We have a record 301 cities this year. 46 of those are new, including cities in Puerto Rico, Argentina, and Germany.

You can learn more about 40 Days for Life, including how you can get involved, at their website.

A pro-life question: Why not more pastors...?

"Why aren't more pastors involved in this?" asked one of my friends standing with me outside an abortion clinic.

I told him we were happier preaching and staying respectable in the eyes of the world and our parishoners than we were in activating the faith.

Then we asked someone else who was standing out there. Doug said that most churches are outreach oriented in the first place and, second, most churches who are will start ministries that are easier and more compatible with traditional emphases than, say, abortion clinic ministry. If that is ever added, it will be added to a much larger mix of outreach and compassionate efforts.

He is probably right.

But the abortion clinic ministry was our first ministry at our decade old church.  Then we added all the rest.

What a backward bunch I serve with!

"I'm a pastor" - helpful words or not?

OK - here's the deal.

I'm outside of the abortion clinic (or, frankly, on my regular forays to the jail) and knowing I don't have much time to talk (ten seconds, max) while the ladies are heading for the door I use a regular pitch hoping against hope that something makes them pause: "Ma'am, I am a pastor. We at the church will do anything - ANYTHING - to help you through this. But please love your baby today."

If they pause, you get a few more lines. Upon departing you get to say something a little bit different depending on whether they are pre- or post- 24 hour waiting period (the law in our state).

I have thought this thought many times but given the headline in our paper today, I am rethinking yet again. Should I change my pitch, particularly my identity.

The identity: "Ma'am, I am a pastor..."

Headline this morning: "Priests...among 4 accused of raping young boys."

Oh, sure, the news was from Philadelphia, but still. The clergy in the last several years have hurt themselves in the headlines - priestly pedophilia, prosperity gospel, pastoral adultery, the disingenuity and money grubbing of television evangelists.

Gallup a few years ago said this:

"There was a time when members of the clergy were usually the most respected members of their community ....Currently, a slim majority of the public rates the honesty and ethical standards of the clergy as 'very high' or 'high,' but one person in three considers them only average, and one in ten thinks they are 'low' or 'very low.'"

Low, very low - this is what I think from time to time when I announce myself as a pastor. I am esteemed lowly, very low, in many people's minds.

Back to the abortion clinic. Our most recent in-state abortionist has apparently now gone blind and is no longer performing the procedure. Prior to his apparent dismissal, he had a felony charge that hit the mark. Before we decided to approach this doctor with love at the clinic we used another tack - we used to try and frustrate him by yelling at him as he got our of his car concerning his felony and his butcherous ways.

One day we were yelling such things and he, brandishing the latest pedophilia charges against the priesthood, came rushing towards waving the newspaper. How could we, people of God, point a finger at him in his unrighteousness? He was laughing.

Pastors. Do they laugh at us? Trust us anymore? Appreciate us...or roll their eyes at our vocation?

It is stuff you think about when you lie in bed and see Sunday approaching.

The unnerving thing about 'Sanctity of Life Sunday'

On the one hand, I am very appreciative about pastors (and the congregations that support them) who preach on the topic of abortion and the necessary loyal opposition to that abhorrent but legalized practice in this country.

But...we are nearing 60 millions lives taken since the Roe v. Wade decision of 1973. Preaching and listening to God's Word is great. But somewhere between zero and 60 million - well, shouldn't we be motivated to do something other than preach, listen and vote?

I suspect there are some churches that take some degree of pride in preaching on the modern culture of death that is the bane of our existence. It proves somehow that we are a people who care about the evil around us.

Forgive us Lord, for that pride. And may many more of us rise up and DO something.

Vote pro-life? Yes, of course, yes. But let us also fund the pro-life efforts as if a million-plus children were dying every year. Let's go and stand outside of those clinics and pray. Let's support our crisis pregnancy centers with our efforts.

Let's ACT like there is a vicious, decades long murderous atrocity going on in our community and that God is expecting us to be salt...light...the priesthood of believers.

I read a piece by the late Carl Henry years ago talking about the scariest word in the New Testament. It was 'paradidomai." You see it three times, Henry said, in the first chapter of Romans. It is rendered: "I give you up."

Henry wondered in his article whether or not God hadn't already done that with America in light of our abortive practices (among other things). Scary thought. But scary enough to move us to action?

Adventures out at the abortion clinic

A friend named Dana stopped a young couple walking out of the abortion clinic. He was carrying a sonogram picture of the woman's baby. Dana said, "Ooohh, let me see a picture of your baby." That started a heart to heart talk that lasted a few minutes.

After a while, it looked like Dana might need some fortification. I moved in, asked them if I could hold their hands and pray and they looked open to that. I grabbed their hands and lifted up their situation to Jesus.

Then she said, was carrying "He is standing with me in this, and he ain't the one who got me pregnant." I looked up at him, grabbed his arm (pastorally, of course!) and said, "YOU are a MAN. This is what MEN do!"

Unwed births in Mississippi are around 54% of all births right now. Above 80% amongst African-Americans. Men are having sex and running away from responsibility. Here was a guy running into responsibility.

May "his tribe increase.

Is MLK Day a Pro-life Day?

The Rev. Joseph Parker was on the radio show today. He insists that the MLK Day commemoration ought to be a celebration of the greatest civil rights movement our our era, and perhaps of any American era. And that civil rights movement is the Right-to-Life movement.

Parker is the Director of Community Outreach and Intercession with the American Family Association. He is also the pastor of two African Methodist Episcopal churches.

A friend from church was just in our house. She and her children came to the abortion clinic today to share faith, hope and love. But she noted with dismay that EVERY lady entering the abortion clinic was black. It broke her heart.

That is what Rev. Parker is getting at. Most African-Americans say they are pro-life but they get over a third of the abortions in this country while being only 13% of the population. Something is wrong with that and what better day than MLK Day to let people know about it.

By God's grace and His people stepping forward, it doesn't have to be this way.