In an exclusive interview with Live Action president and founder Lila Rose, Pastor Francis Chan spoke about the death of his mother at his birth, rejection and abuse by his father, his secrets to a happy marriage, and why Christian leaders should speak out against abortion. Chan and his wife Lisa have seven children together. They founded Crazy Love Ministries and have authored books including “Crazy Love and You And Me Forever: Marriage in Light of Eternity.”
Chan feels pastors are currently “shell shocked” when it comes to speaking out against controversial issues including abortion. But, he noted, “I would say to leaders out there, we gotta stop playing this game of trying to please everyone and just say it like it is.”
He added, “I will not back down on declaring the truth even if it costs my life.”
The world may hate you
“We are going to answer to a Holy Creator, who is the author of life,” Chan told Rose. “We don’t have the right to take that away. We are going to stand before God … the most important second of our existence is when we stand before Him and it’s just us and Him, and did we make our decisions and did we come up with our beliefs based upon that moment of going, ‘I’m before you, God’ and ‘Did I value You the way You thought and the way You taught? Did I really make my decisions based upon the things You said and did in history? Or was I swayed by my desires, by what’s popular, what the culture was saying?”
Chan spoke about how Jesus said, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.”
The current culture in America may mean that pro-lifers are hated for speaking out against abortion, but it would be “unloving,” said Chan, to support a woman in obtaining an abortion rather than support her to choose life for her baby — because ultimately, she is going to have to face God for that decision to abort.
“… [O]ut of love I’ve got to say, ‘Don’t do it [abortion]. There are other options and this is far bigger than maybe you realize and it’d be so unloving for me to not say that and just let you come before this God at the end of your life,'” he explained.
Forgiveness for abortion
Chan also spoke about the forgiveness that God offers for fathers and mothers who have undergone abortions and have regretted that decision. “His throne is a throne of grace and we can approach Him and receive mercy and find grace in our time of need,” he said. “And so it’s not like if you have committed this act that it’s the impardonable sin, but you have to humble yourself and admit, ‘God, whether I didn’t know or I didn’t see… I see it now and I am so sorry.’ There is absolute forgiveness for you…”
Abortion is inherently wrong
Chan also noted that all persons — Christians or not — have imprinted on them the knowledge that it is wrong to kill an innocent person. Even a woman who may feel empowered by an abortion can feel the weight of that decision years down the road because she knows deep down that abortion kills a human being.
“I mean, how many people have gone through with the killing of their babies and then afterwards just lived with this regret and horror?” he explained. “People who didn’t even know God… there is a sense in which He puts a law in our hearts and we just know something isn’t inherently perfect.”
