Friend Theresa at Lumina alerts us to something that is part of the problem instead of part of the solution. If any of our readers would like to help, gently, compassionately, help Jill Stanek take a few steps back from the precipitous and dangerous ledge she is standing on, please do so:
ok guys..if you have a chance help me out here. I was upset to read this post of Jill's this morning calling PA women with multiple abortions "Serial killers". I know it would send many women fleeing from healing if they saw it. There is still such a lack of understanding out there..
so, if you have a chance, it would be good to get some voices on this since it is so widely read.
Theresa Bonopartis
This makes me so sad. Jill Stanek has been such a strong voice in support of women and the unborn. I just am heartsick that she stoops to such condemning, unChristian language and attitude. I strongly believe it's why there's too much acceptance still of abortion as the norm. Too many so-called "pro-lifers" willing to stoop to attacking others, verbally most of the time, but still.
This is what I'm going to post at Jill's blog.
From the commentary in the New American Bible, St. Joseph Edition:
"[The story of Jonah] concerns a disobedient prophet who attempted to run away from his divine commission, was cast overboard and swallowed by a great fish, rescued in a marvelous manner, and sent on his way to Nineveh, the traditional enemy of Israel. To the surprise of Jonah, the wicked city listened to his message of doom and repented immediately. All, from king to lowliest subject, humbled themselves in sackcloth and ashes. Seeing their repentance, God did not carry out the punishment he had planned for them. Whereupon Jonah complained to God about the unexpected success of his mission: he was bitter because Yahweh, instead of destroying, had led the people to repentance and then spared them. [emphasis mine]
A very sublime lesson may be drawn. Jonah stands for a narrow and vindictive mentality, all too common among the Jews of that period. Because they were the chosen people, a good many of them cultivated an intolerant nationalism which limited the mercy of God to their nation. It was abhorrent to their way of thinking that nations as wicked as Assyria should escape God's wrath.
…
It is a parable of mercy, showing that God's threatened punishments are but the expression of a merciful will which moves all to repent and seek forgiveness."
Jill, your calling multiple abortive women "serial killers" is a narrow and vindictive mentality, too. You seem to have lost the sense of how much destruction words like this are doing. You don't even give such women "forty days to repent" figuratively, as Jonah did literally. You smartly and cleverly label them and thus demean and dehumanize them.
You are making sure that such women do not "escape God's wrath" by inflicting it on them yourself.
Is calling women who've had multiple abortions "serial killers"
really "speaking the truth in love", Jill?
Is it really what Christ would do?
Using such condemning, alienating language is just not right, Jill, for you or for anyone to do. You do so much more harm and begin to negate so much of the good you've ever done.
Even true "serial killer" David Berkowitz, the infamous "Son Of Sam" who terrorized Long Island, NY, killing 6 people and wounding 7 more when I myself was a newly graduated high school senior
living right there in his killing grounds, has repented and accepted God (you can read his story in his own words in the book "Touched by the Savior" compiled by Mike Yorkey). The person who "got to him" after 10 years in prison didn't call him "serial killer." He didn't alienate him or piss him off. No, the fellow inmate's first words to David Berkowitz, a Jew who had been engulfed by satanic beliefs and rituals which led him to become a serial killer, were, "David, can I talk to for a few minutes? I want to tell you something. Jesus Christ loves you very much."
Jill, God wants me to put it on your heart: please please please go back to being like that blessed fellow inmate which, since we are all sinners, is really what you are. Please stop this attention-getting, mainstream-media-style, sound-bite-bold language. It does not become you. AND it hurts so, so many. I'm sorry to be so blunt but it's necessary because you, like all those women you just damaged, are a child of God too and I know this is not what God wants you to do.
