When Rev. Paul Schenck addresses a crowd of Evangelical and Catholic clergy, the one thing on his mind is unity of purpose when it comes to achieving the goals of Operation Rescue.
Schenck doesn’t say forget your differences; he says be charitable enough to ignore them. When someone is singing a familiar old Protestant hymn, marching up and down of an abortuary – everyone should try to sing along with him. And if someone is singing a Catholic hymn – do likewise.
Be they Jew, Christian of Moslem, if they are occupied with rescuing preborn children, all persons should have an intense respect for each other, Schenck said.
A Pentecostal minister, Schenck is senior pastor at New Covenant Tabernacle in Buffalo, N.Y., and president of the U.S. National Clergy Council for Rescue. He was in Toronto April 13 to address an enthusiastic group of forty-five predominantly Evangelical clergymen attending a Canadian Clergy Council for Rescue.
Schenck described abortion as a decadent and deplorable act of murder. He said at one time he was pro-abortion by his actions, but pro-life in his belief, and it was through the efforts of fellow evangelist Randall Terry that he came to participate in the rescue movement.
He re-told his heart-wrenching story about two of his church members bringing the mangled bodies of four aborted babies to him. This shocked him into having a funeral service for them on the front lawn of the abortuary that killed them. The media called it a “mock funeral,” he said, and the pro-abortionists said that the bodies were “chicken parts.”
Schenck spoke about his fears of getting involved in Operation Rescue. Would he continue to have an evangelical influence in the community? He was afraid that he might lose the respect of the mayor – a personal acquaintance of his. Then he realized that it was men he was afraid to antagonize. He thought about judgment day when God would ask him: “How did you respond when I called you?”
More and more clergy are afflicted by the North American abortion holocaust, Schenck said, and look to massive rescues as the answer.
