It is between him and God, of course, but killing unborn children for a living hardly qualifies as good fruit — even if you do go to church on Sunday.
And this guy didn’t just do abortions, he did “partial birth abortions,” AKA infanticide. The pro-aborts are mourning him and even holding vigils. Ugh.
And what kind of a church lets a guy like that be a member, let alone serve?
Dr. George Tiller, one of the nation’s few providers of late-term abortions despite decades of protests and attacks, was shot and killed Sunday in a church where he was serving as an usher.
As Melinda noted at Stand to Reason, Killing Abortionists Is Wrong. Period.
A friend pointed out the irony of this statement about Tiller:
The family said its loss “is also a loss for the city of Wichita and women across America. George dedicated his life to providing women with high-quality health care despite frequent threats and violence.”
And more irony:
President Barack Obama said he was “shocked and outraged” by the murder. “However profound our differences as Americans over difficult issues such as abortion, they cannot be resolved by heinous acts of violence,” he said.
Of course we shouldn’t resort to killing abortionists, but abortion itself is a heinous act of violence. If abortion isn’t violent, nothing is. It should be illegal, just as killing Tiller was illegal.
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I saw one Christian writing that the murderer took away Tiller’s chance to repent. Don’t worry, folks, God is sovereign. No one will be able to claim that they just needed a little more time to repent and believe.
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Another writer said to pray for his soul. Uh, sorry folks, too late for that.
Hebrews 9:27 Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment
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Also see The Wintery Knight blog, which “strongly condemns all abortion-related violence, whether it’s committed against the born or the unborn,” while asking if it is rational for atheists to condemn his murder.
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I subscribe to over 100 blogs. Well over a dozen have commented on this. I’ve yet to see one that didn’t condemn the murder, though I’m sure the MSM will ignore the clear and consistent principles of the pro-live movement and try to demonize and broad-brush us with this.
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Eternity Matters 
There’s already been talk of “christian terrorism” because of this. How pathetically transparent.
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Hey Neil,
Did I just see you advocating “salvation by works” (which is a misnomer) in this article? I think you did. I mean, Tiller went to church and I’m sure he claimed to be saved by Jesus. But your gut tells you this just isn’t enough. If Jesus is in your heart, it must necessarily come across in your actions otherwise you are a liar. Maybe Catholics aren’t quite as crazy as you make them out to be…
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Hi Scott,
No, I’m not sure where you read that into it. My gut does not tell me that the Catholic view of justification is correct, and even if it did I’ll go with the Bible over my gut / heart / head any day.
I never claimed that Catholics were crazy, just that Catholic doctrine is seriously false on some important topics. So go easy on the martyrdom, OK? 😉
Peace,
Neil
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The first thing that came to my mind after I read the news was “What was he doing in a church?!”. I can’t understand people who call themselves Christians and yet go about killing innocent unborn children. Though I don’t approve of his murder (I hardly can, being a Christian) you are right about now it’s being between him and God. But I really don’t think praying for his soul might actually help him now. For one, he was not ignorant. He exactly knew what he was doing. Second, Jesus had the harshest words for people who sinned against little children. So tough chance really.
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Hi Shalini,
Good points. My guess is that it was one of those fake theologically liberal churches. A church can’t be held accountable if an abortionist or someone like that sneaks in to worship, but this guy was serving there. They had to have known, and they exercised zero discernment or church discipline.
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Once man (fairly early after Christ instituted the church) started to let the smallest amount of false teaching in, it snowballed from there. Now you have a “Christian” church for just about any and all beliefs you can imagine. If we all tried to get back to the teachings, the organization, and the rightness of the 1st century, New Testament church that Christ established, we’d all be much better off for it.
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“And what kind of a church lets a guy like that be a member, let alone serve?”
While I agree with you about the atrocity that Tiller unleashed on the pre-born, I am thinking, what better place for a sinner than in a church? Isn’t the Church the very place where we would want sinners to be? Does anyone believe he would have been called to repentance in a better place?
Granted, his church was probably an apostate church, but God is in those as well. Not so one could tell but He is in them, too.
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Mark, the problem is that if someone is walking in sin you can’t have fellowship with them. It isn’t like he was striving to rid his life of sin, and stumbling along the way like the rest of us. We are all sinners, but we have to be striving to walk in the light as he is in the light.
Also, attendance is one thing. Membership and allowing to serve is something altogether different.
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P.S. “Fellowship” means in the spiritual sense, not in the being friendly and associating with sense.
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I agree with lonewolf. As far as I understand it, the Church is supposed to be the saved people working and witnessing to unbelievers. It’s the ‘in’ crowd.
Pretty sure Tiller wasn’t on the ‘in’ side.
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I’ve heard that a lot of anti-life, liberal politicians will go to the most conservative church they can find; it’s a coldly political move, designed to appeal to Christians who don’t pay much attention to politics.
Tiller’s membership could have been for the same reason: it would have nothing to do with actually caring about religion and the Bible and everything to do with being a respectable member of the community who isn’t really “that” bad, since he goes to church and all.
That aside… I’m saddened that he was murdered. I don’t like living in a society in which human beings kill one another – for whatever reason.
I do think that this undermines much of the pro-life movement’s best arguments (or highlights them, depending on one’s perspective). We have often said that, legality aside, there is a certain lawlessness to abortion: it is the ending of a human life without a judgment by a neutral third party about the justice of that killing. As Neil has often said, he would be content to give the unborn the same protections given to accused criminals and convicted murderers: a trial and then ten years of appeals.
We’ve often said that the end does not justify the means. We (or I, at least I) have often said that the goal of not being pregnant when one does not want to be is fine, but that cannot be accomplished by any means available (i.e. abortion). Likewise, getting Dr. Tiller to stop performing late-term abortions is a laudable goal, but that does not mean that his murder is justifiable.
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By the way, Neil, you didn’t include my Facebook snark in your blog post. Any reason that you didn’t want to repeat my comments about liberals finally going to church – now that there is a dead abortionist to mourn? Or that, given the outpouring of sympathy for Tiller from the progressives, we should point out to the progressives that babies who are aborted can’t grow up to be abortionists themselves? :p
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Double LOL.
Have you retired from blogging? You can always guest post here if you want.
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I might take you up on that.
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Manyof theblogs youlinkedto, Neil, advocated the death penalty for the murderer. Or, as I like to call it, “the punishment firs the crime.”
What was also interesting is that all the people saying this were…social contervatives! Isn’t that something? You’d think–since we all want to enslave women to the product of conception in their uterus and, while we’re at it, take over the government, reinstiture slavery and kill all homosexuals–that we’d let the little darling have a pass since he did what we’re all itching to do. That all prolifers are awful, ignorant people who are certifiably insane and that this lucky fellow got to it first.
Either all these conservatives are lying or the Lefties need new straw men, because the crows got to the old ones.
Oh…I just Googled Tiller’s church and discovered it is affiliated with the ELCA, or in laymen’s terms “the type of Lutheran church Martin Luther wouldn’t attend.” Much like John and Charles Wesley would have hives over the UMC today if they weren’t IM-ing Mary Magdalen and going to Irange Julius with John the Beloved. (I have to stop readig Randy Alcorn’s books, Neil.)
David
PS–I was totally channeling Rob Tilton when I wrote “isn’t that something?” 🙂
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Beautifully said, David! Interesting point about the death penalty. If Tiller’s murderer is found guilty of capital murder then I’d be OK with the death penalty. The pro-aborts will still try to spin that, I imagine, into saying we endorse the murder of abortionists.
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This wasnt the justice of man, it was the justice of God.
Just like the evil men in scripture —too many to name—, God used someone to bring them down in his own time.
David wrote “fret not thyself because of evildoers (of whom Tiller was certainly one) …for they shall soon be cut down like the grass and wither away. Ps 37
Vengeance is mine saith the Lord, I will repay. The blood of countless innocents have been crying out to God and he has answered them. Murderers cannot escape the justice of God. Tiller thought that being in a church would justify his wickedness but there is no place where God’s hand will not reach when the time has come to pay the dues of sin.
While he was alive George Tiller could have ceased his murderous practice and asked for God’s mercy and forgiveness, but he ignored God’s warnings to him. Now the days of mercy are over since he showed no mercy to the innocent children he slaughtered without conscience.
He judged the children’s life unworthy and God has judged him as well. It cannot be said that God did not extend to him far greater mercy than he ever extended to those children.
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I am HORRIFIED at all the typos in my comment! Sorry. Not for you all but for me. Correct typing reflects on my thoughtfulness to the topic at hand. I really must use MS Word and then cut-and paste. =)
David
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