The Scarlet Letter

The Church Can Turn the Tide

In 2000, King traveled with Real Women’s Voices to Washington, D.C., to lobby then-Sen. Barack Obama. But she says when the group arrived at his office, the senator walked out the back door.

“I saw him and said, ‘Hello, Sen. Obama.’ He looked down at the floor and walked away.” It’s a response she is used to, but she says it won’t stop her from mounting the steps of Congress to keep the issue of abortion before lawmakers.

In November, King found herself on the opposite side of the political aisle when other members of the King family publicly supported Obama for president. She says her family’s situation is a reflection of a larger issue in the body of Christ.

She knows the struggle some people face because of the overwhelming popularity of the president, especially among African-Americans. But the voices of her babies who died at the hands of abortionists and the millions more who will be aborted this year force her to put racial issues and politics aside and fight for the cause she’s been called to uphold.

She says Christians have a responsibility to protect the next generation of children, and nothing is more important to God than issues of life and spiritual death. “God will deal with the skin-color issue, and yes, there is a problem with racism in America,” King says.

In fact, black pro-life advocates say black babies are aborted at a higher rate than babies in any other racial group. According to staunch pro-life advocate, Johnny Hunter, 1,452 African-American babies lose their lives to abortion every day. He says if the numbers continue to rise, the population of black people in America will dwindle.

Hunter resigned a full-time pastoral position to work with LEARN Inc., a pro-life advocacy group created to save black babies from abortion through education and other resources.

“Abortion is racism in its ugliest form. It nullifies every civil rights gain we’ve ever made,” he says. “What good is the Voting Rights Act to a dead baby?”

Like other pro-life, African-American Christians, King is asked the race question, but says the church must move beyond “political machinations” and start a prayer movement that will lead to spiritual reform.

“Morality cannot be legislated. The human heart must be changed by a divine touch, and the church has the key, the responsibility of leading the way. Has the church fallen short? The answer is yes, and yet it is never too late to return to God,” says King, who attends Believers’ Bible Christian Church, a full gospel congregation in Atlanta.

She says Christians won’t deal with issues of life and abortion because of what she calls “mistaken compassion” and “misplaced compassion.”

“Pastors will say, ‘Oh, we don’t want to hurt the woman’s feelings.’ Or, ‘It’s such a personal issue.’ But the church can stem the tide of abortion in America,” she says.

King urges women around the country to go to their pastors and speak out. “Tell them abortion is bad for children; it’s destroying families.”

Her message to Christians who voted for Obama: Go to Washington on behalf of the babies. She says their voices should be heard first and foremost in Washington.

“They need to tell the president of this land and all of Congress: ‘It is not OK to kill the weak. It is not OK to kill the babies in the name of science. It is not OK to kill the youngest,'” she says.

King says she nearly had a nervous breakdown when she accepted Jesus and came to grips with the fact that her unborn babies were not “blobs of tissue” but were in fact human beings.

“I have a dream in my genes,” King wrote in a message to pro-life constituents. “Ultimately, what brings us the greatest rewards or the worst scars are the choices that we make concerning things that have spiritual consequences. … As my uncle Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘The time is always right to do what is right.’ “

Valerie G. Lowe is associate editor of Charisma. To contact Alveda King, go to priestforlife.org/africanamerican.