I don’t keep my profession a secret, but there are times when I wish I could. One recent example involves a little monthly pampering that I give to myself: I get a pedicure about once a month. I’ve seen the same pedicurist for several years. I’ll call her Tammy. I’m sure I told Tammy long ago that I was a Protestant minister, but somehow Tammy never absorbed that piece of information— until a couple of months ago. This has turned into an unfortunate situation, involving problematic assumptions that people sometimes make when they hear the word “Christian.”

Last month, as one foot was soaking and the other was beginning to get the treatment it so desperately needed, Tammy started talking about Maine’s “terrible governor,” who was poised to sign into law expanded access to abortion, including late-term. Tammy was beside herself. “I keep thinking about my precious grandbabies,” she declared. And, then she went on to talk about how horrifying it was to think about other grandbabies being aborted just a day before they were to be born, that women could decide at the last minute that they had changed their mind about giving birth and could abort at any point throughout the pregnancy. “I just can’t stop thinking about my precious grandbabies,” she commented several times, emphasis on “precious.” It was clear enough that she believed that she was in the company of a kindred spirit, one who would join her in her outrage.

My conversations with Tammy, during my regular visits, rarely venture into political issues, but on that day in June, she went on at length, clearly assuming that I shared her discomfort and anger. As Tammy went on (she had a lot to say before I could get a word in, to dispel her assumptions), she told me about all the things that she had learned about the “terrible” governor’s policies from her friends at the church she attends. Tammy, it turns out, does not watch or read the news herself. She completely relies on information that is passed to her in places like church, and she spends little energy in asking any questions about that information.

When I could finally get a word in edgewise, I told her that I had a very different approach to the issue at hand, that I believed abortion was a matter of choice for women. It took at bit for Tammy to understand what I was trying to say to her. She knew that I was a Christian clergyperson and the expectations she held about what that meant ran deep and strong.

She finally asked me how I could hold such a view that “precious” children, like her precious grandbabies, could be terminated just before birth? I paused and waited for her to look at me and then I asked, “Do you know any woman who would make such a decision on a whim and not in the event of something catastrophic? Do you know any woman who would do that?” And, then I went on to inform her that, although Maine’s governor was indeed poised to grant greater access to abortion, that abortions beyond the viability stage are exceedingly, extraordinarily rare.

It took a moment or two for Tammy to think about this. She had a lot going on in her head, as she absorbed this unsettling notion that someone who shared her faith did not share her views on an issue that was likely one of the foundational pieces of how she understood the faith and its essential beliefs. Finally, she admitted that she could not think of any woman who would do that, but still, it seemed to her that access to abortion ought to be more severely limited and not expanded. How could any good Christian think otherwise?

As we continued our conversation, I suggested to her that women ought to be trusted to make good and moral choices, and that churches ought to spend more time reflecting on the negative views they have about women as well as the control they wish to place on women’s lives and bodies. As the expression on her face got more and more perplexed, I told her that I was frustrated by the scare tactics many Christian churches employ to frame dangerously disrespectful notions of the personhood of women and to draw terrible portraits of the murder of “precious infants,” as if there’s an entire class of homicidal women getting pregnant precisely to murder babies just before birth.

Tammy had a hard time with our conversation. And, I’ll admit that I did too. I don’t like the assumptions that are made when one identifies as Christian. I don’t like that many Christians are led to believe that “good Christians” agree on certain topics. My conversation with Tammy was not the first time I’ve found myself in a conversation in which clear (but false) assumptions were made about where I stand on sensitive matters like abortion— not only because of I define myself as a Christian, but I’m also a member of the clergy.

I wonder sometimes about how many people have stopped going to church because of the dominance of anti-choice sentiments among many Christian churches and denominations. How hard do I need to wave my different approach on such matters, as well as the different approach of the entire denomination of which I am part? And will it make any difference?