Controversial Mailers Flood Wichita’s Christian Community

Wichita, KS — Operation Rescue has obtained an exclusive photo of late-term abortionist George R. Tiller and his wife, Jeanne, taking communion at Reformation Lutheran Church. The photograph has been featured in an ad distributed by Operation Rescue via the US Postal Service to thousands of Wichita households in a campaign seeking church discipline for the unrepentant abortionist. Thousands of E-mails have also been sent across the nation. The ad calls for Christians to contact leaders of Tiller’s church and denomination and demand Tiller’s immediate excommunication. (View full ad here)
Jeanne is a co-owner with Tiller of Women’s Health Care Services, the largest free-standing late-term abortion mill in the Western Hemisphere. Reformation Lutheran Church is a member of the liberal Evangelical Lutheran Churches in America, (ELCA), Synod.
According to the tenets of Christianity, to take communion in the willful state of impenitence is to dishonor Christ, whose body and blood are represented in the communion bread and juice. It is considered blasphemy.
In spite of this, the ad generated controversy even before its public release. A Christian newspaper rescinded its decision to run the ad after receiving negative input from area pastors who expressed concern that the contents were not “seeker-friendly.”
“Operation Rescue is calling for the excommunication of George Tiller and his wife, Jeanne, for willfully defying the Law of God by taking the innocent lives of pre-born children through abortion” said Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue. “While this has caused some in the Christian community to feel uncomfortable, it is nonetheless the right thing to do.”
Newman and OR staff member Cheryl Sullenger have met with Reformation Lutheran Church Pastor Tom Hallstrom, and requested that the Church do her duty to discipline church members by excommunicating Tiller. Those requests were rejected. OR has engaged in frequent First Amendment activities outside Reformation Lutheran Church during services to call the congregation’s attention to the fact that their church member kills innocent babies for a living, then shamefully partakes of the Lord’s Supper as if he and his wife were in a right relationship with God.
Hallstrom acknowledged that before joining Reformation Lutheran Church, Tiller had been excommunicated from Holy Cross Lutheran and “kicked out” of the church. In an act showing apparent disrespect for the disciplinary action instituted by Holy Cross, a member of the more conservative Missouri Synod, Reformation Lutheran Church willingly gave Tiller refuge.
“We cannot really think of a reason we would ask someone to leave our congregation,” Hallstrom said.
“Reformation Lutheran Church certainly bears culpability for enabling Tiller, in allowing him to act outside the conformity to God’s Word. But the rest of the Church Community in Wichita must also bear some responsibility,” said Newman. “Most pastors and laypersons alike stand idly by and say nothing while innocent children are slaughtered each year on the corner of Kellogg and Bleckley.”
“Just as Reformation Lutheran Church disobeys God when it refuses to rebuke Tiller for the shedding of innocent blood, so also the Church Community shares the responsibility of bloodguilt when it silently tolerates evil, neglecting to call out the sin of the ‘Butcher of Bleckley,’” continued Newman. “It is time for the Church to ‘judge righteous judgment’ as Scripture commands and expel Tiller from the congregation in accordance with Biblical mandates.”

Operation Rescue is asking for Christians everywhere to call or write the ELCA leadership and demand the excommunication of abortionist George R. Tiller.
“Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.” -John 7:24
Bishop Mark S. Hanson, Presiding Bishop of ELCA
773-380-2600
bishop@elca.org
Rev. Don Just, ELCA Regional Coordinator
512-295-6330
don_just@ecunet.org
Pastor Tom Hallstrom, Reformation Lutheran Church
316-634-0586
info@reformation-lutheran.org
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