Ordained Presbyterian minister Marvin Ellison stated in his May 11 Maine Voices column (“For me as a chaplain, Planned Parenthood’s name is blessed“) that “clergy were among the earliest supporters of Margaret Sanger,” so that’s one reason he supports Planned Parenthood.

During the Progressive era of the early 20th century, Margaret Sanger launched the initiative that eventually became Planned Parenthood. She also supported the eugenics program, which called for the forced sterilization of people who courts deemed “undesirable.”

In the book “The Second Coming of the KKK,” by Linda Gordon, the author confirms the fact that some clergy in America’s predominantly white Protestant denominations did support the eugenics movement. Such clergy’s oratory skills were highly sought after by the Ku Klux Klan during their brief surge of popularity in the Northern states. They could deliver a fiery message of hate against immigrants and people of color at a cross-burning rally on Saturday, then deliver a distorted message of God’s love for mankind the next morning. Such a time was predicted long ago.

In the Bible, the Apostle Paul wrote, “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear” (2 Timothy 4:3). What is the result of certain clergy abandoning sound biblical doctrine for the latest hip, progressive philosophy of the day?

Unfortunately, the same thing is happening to formerly great churches where people also prefer having their ears tickled with the ever-changing manmade philosophies of the day instead of sound biblical teachings.