The integrity of a Christian worldview becomes most evident whenever the timeless truths of Scripture collide and intersect with the issues of our contemporary moment.
That happened for one of our recently commissioned Colson Fellows named Kirsten. Kirsten’s story about speaking up at a pro-choice rally is the stuff of movies. It’s also the stuff of ordinary Christians everywhere who choose to join in God’s story, in the time and place where He has put them. The following is a transcript of Kirsten’s story. Note how God brought her into His larger work in this particular cultural moment, and where she’s now headed.
Kirsten’s story:
I was homeless, living in Berlin, Germany. I had just checked myself into an orphanage. I came from a background of not having been planned. My mom had an unplanned pregnancy. I was not desired or planned. I had a difficult childhood and then ended up checking myself into an orphanage. And at that point I was invited to a pro-choice rally. Out of curiosity, I decided to go since I was a Christian already at the time.
I arrived at the rally about 15 minutes late. It was in a big conference room with a huge oak door, and behind the door I could already hear that the rally had started.
I was going to sneak in quietly and sit in the back, but as I opened the door, it slammed shut really loudly and everyone turned in my direction, including the speaker. And I just thought, well I’ve got everyone’s attention. I might as well ask the question that’s burning on my mind. So, I addressed the speaker and said, “What makes abortion a good thing in your mind?”
And he was surprisingly gentle and calm as a person. He replied in a very kind tone, saying, “Imagine a child, a child that was not planned And that has a difficult childhood and ends up living in an orphanage. Wouldn’t we be doing that child a favor by not exposing it to such a miserable existence?”
I looked at him and I blurted out, “I am that child. I’m that child you are talking about right now. I was not planned. I had a really hard childhood and I’m living in an orphanage right now and I’m glad to be alive. I’m glad to be alive because God made me, and He has a plan for me and that’s all that matters.”
There was complete silence in that room. Even though the meeting had just started, it was already over. All you could hear was chairs moving and people getting up and leaving the room. There was nothing left to be said. I realized how powerful the truth was, how powerful my own story was.
Many years later, I moved to South Carolina, married, and had children. I decided to google: “Is there anything pro-life near me.” There was a pregnancy center. I contacted them to ask if I could volunteer. They responded by saying, “Well, to be quite honest, we’re not even able to pay the electricity bill. We are not known. Churches don’t even know we’re here. Girls don’t know we’re here. Things are just not going well.”
I ended up becoming the director of the crisis pregnancy center. One of the things I was asked to do was to equip people with pro-life apologetics. So, I contacted Scott Klusendorf (of Life Training Institute) and said, “Scott, can you give me a print-out of one of your speeches? I can learn it by heart and then I can start going to schools and teaching.”
He said, “No, definitely not. You will not be able to do that because as soon as someone asks a question, you won’t be able to answer it. The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in battle. I’ve got a stack of 10 books. Read those and then get back to me.”
I got a group of friends together and we read and discussed the books for six months. Then I went through public speaking training for three months. And afterwards I felt well equipped to start speaking at churches, youth groups, and schools. And I felt more and more passionate that this was really what I wanted to do. I trained someone else to take over the director role of the crisis pregnancy center and started doing more of the speaking full time.
Before I was trained in the Colson Fellows program, I was batting pro-choice arguments on a surface level. Then I realized that abortion is just a symptom of underlying worldviews. To address those root issues is so effective when talking to someone who says, “My body, my choice,” or “It’s just like mercy killing at an animal shelter” (something I heard the other day).
You look at all the different arguments. Instead of just answering the arguments (it was like batting mole hills before), now I can understand that wow, these are the different worldviews that align against the biblical worldview. So now, I can go deeper and address those worldviews. That’s what Colson Fellows program did for me.
That’s Kirsten and her testimony of the impact of the Colson Fellows program on her life, the impact that it’s had on her, and is having on her right now. She is in the first few months of carrying out her three-year ministry plan, a significant part of the Colson Fellows program training. If you’d like to join a Colson Fellows cohort near you, be mentored to understand a Christian worldview, and like Kirsten, live it out in this cultural moment, visit colsonfellows.org.
Publication date: June 24, 2021
Photo courtesy: Maria Oswalt/Unsplash
John Stonestreet is President of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview, and radio host of BreakPoint, a daily national radio program providing thought-provoking commentaries on current events and life issues from a biblical worldview. John holds degrees from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (IL) and Bryan College (TN), and is the co-author of Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview.
The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of CrosswalkHeadlines.
BreakPoint is a program of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. BreakPoint commentaries offer incisive content people can't find anywhere else; content that cuts through the fog of relativism and the news cycle with truth and compassion. Founded by Chuck Colson (1931 – 2012) in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today's news and trends. Today, you can get it in written and a variety of audio formats: on the web, the radio, or your favorite podcast app on the go.