It’s not out of character for the ABC to misrepresent Christianity. Unsurprisingly, the public funded organisation this week published an opinion piece by Dr Carol Portmann titled, ‘I’m a Christian doctor and I help women have abortions. Here’s how I reconcile that.’
This is called fake news. Dr Carol Portmann is not a Christian.
In the piece, Dr Portmann claimed she could reconcile her professed Christianity with her practice of helping women kill their unborn children.
Anticipating the obvious, Dr Portmann goes on to falsely state: “Only God can judge me.”
I believe that I am doing the appropriate and right things, and I am hoping that’s how I will be judged. I also believe that only God can judge me.
Have you ever noticed that the only people who make that claim are those who are living inconsistently with their professed beliefs?
Point out their hypocrisy, like helping women abort their babies while claiming the Bible is the ultimate moral authority, and how do these types respond? “Only God can judge me!”
Believe it or not, that’s not what the Bible actually says. According to the Scriptures, not all judging is wrong.
There is bad judging, like pronouncing hypocritical judgments on others (Matthew 7:1-5), but there is also good judging, like weighing up whether someone is living consistently with their professed beliefs (Matthew 7:15-20).
In 1 John 3:9-10, the apostle says: “No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God.”
Now, look at what he says in verse 10: “By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.”
Generally speaking, it is made “evident”, or revealed, or made manifest, who a Christian is, not only by their attitude towards sin but by whether or not they show love towards others.
That includes unborn babies.
“Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him” (1 John 3:15)
