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Imprisoned for Peaceful Pro-Life Work, This Pastor Was Ordered to Pay $8.2 Million to Abortionists: How God Beautifully Turned It Around

Will Maule : Jul 9, 2019
Faithwire.com

Despite years of sacrifice and simple living, the Lord used this whole ordeal for His glory, and blessed the Alcorn family in the process.

(Portland, Or) — [Faithwire.com] Randy Alcorn, a well-known pastor and director of Eternal Perspectives Ministries, has recounted the astonishing story of being imprisoned for pro-life work, losing his job and overcoming an $8.2 million judgment against him. (Image: Randy Alcorn-Facebook/via Faithwire)

Back in the 1990's, Randy says he was quite comfortable as a pastor of a large church he had founded a decade earlier. He was earning good money, had a steady flow of book royalties coming in, and was pastoring a thriving congregation.

Then, the Lord laid a specific a specific issue upon his heart—abortion. Soon, Alcorn was involved in civil protests outside abortion clinics and spending his time urging women to choose life and helping those who took the brave step to keep their baby.

As a board member of a pregnancy resources center, Randy said he and his wife even opened up their home to a pregnant teenager, "helping her place her baby for adoption in a Christian home" and also "had the joy of seeing her come to faith in Christ."

But though Alcorn felt his new civil action was a necessary response to the abortion epidemic, it landed him in a fair bit of legal trouble over the following years. "We simply stood in front of the doors to advocate on behalf of unborn children scheduled to die. I did this nine times in a twelve-month period and was arrested seven of those times," he wrote.

Soon, however, the legal situation became worsened for the passionate pastor. Judges began to put pressure on Alcorn and his church family to pay compensation to the abortion clinics seeking to abort as many babies as possible, citing the fact that they had been prevented from doing so because of his presence at the clinic—thus, they had lost out on business earnings. The money paid by Alcorn would be given directly to the clinic for these procedures to be carried out.

Alcorn, however, was absolutely clear—he would not give a dime to the funding of a clear-cut murder. "I stood before a judge in Portland and told him I would pay anything I owed to anyone else, but I could not in good conscience willingly hand over money to people who would use it to kill babies," he wrote. "I explained to the court and the media and all who were there for the human rights of the unborn children, and the established history of civil disobedience to defend human rights."

After his show of courage and brilliant articulation of the issues at stake, the judge responded with some extraordinary words: "One day you may see me out there standing on that sidewalk beside you. But today I am a judge and must follow the law."

Randy was sent to jail for two days.

But despite the inconvenience of a few days behind bars, it was the increasingly crippling financial judgments that were to be Alcorn's biggest challenge. At one stage, the courts issued a writ to ensure that a quarter of Alcorn's wages would be remunerated to the abortion clinic.

Then, eventually, the courts became fed up with the lack of compensation the clinic in question was receiving—and decided to issue Alcorn with a stratospheric fine... Subscribe for free to Breaking Christian News here

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