The only consistent
biblical logic is to affirm the sanctity and dignity of every human life from
the moment of fertilization.
September 2017
To the
utter consternation of the abortion rights movement, the issue of abortion
simply will not go away. Decades after abortion rights activists thought they
had put the matter to rest with the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision,
America’s conscience is more troubled than ever, and near-panic appears to
break out regularly among abortion activists. Such a panic is now under way,
and the defenders of abortion are trotting out some of their most dishonest
arguments. One of the worst is the claim that Christians have only recently
become concerned about the sanctity of human life and the evil of abortion.
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A
vote for choice is a vote for abortion.
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In fact,
one of America’s most infamous abortion doctors, Dr. Willie Parker of
Mississippi, has made such a claim in his new book, Life’s Work: A Moral
Argument for Choice. Parker, who refers to himself as a Christian, writes:
“If you take anti-abortion rhetoric at face value, without knowing much about the
Bible, you might assume that the antis have Scripture on their side. That’s how
dominant and pervasive their righteous rhetoric has become.” But the Bible
consistently reveals life as God’s gift and mandates the protection of human
life, made in God’s image, at every stage of life and development.
Even more
recently, Nicholas Kristof, an influential columnist for The New York Times,
approvingly quoted Parker in his column as stating, quite astoundingly, “I
believe that as an abortion provider, I am doing God’s work.” Kristof is well
known as a humanitarian, a defender of human rights and human dignity. The
great tragedy is that his humanitarian vision does not extend to unborn human
beings. He celebrates Parker as a doctor who had a “come to Jesus” moment who
now believes it is morally right to perform abortions.
“If that
seems incongruous,” Kristof writes, “let’s remember that conservative
Christianity’s ferocious opposition to abortion is relatively new in historical
terms.” He goes on to make Parker’s argument that the Bible “does not
explicitly discuss abortion” and proceeds to state “there’s no evidence that
Christians traditionally believed that life begins at conception.”
What is
the truth? Let’s begin with where Kristof’s punch lands with force. He makes
the case that America’s evangelical Christians came late to a consistently
pro-life position. On this he is absolutely right. He is able to document the
equivocation and confusion that abounded within evangelicalism, from the annual
meetings of the Southern Baptist Convention in the early 1970s to the pages of
Christianity Today. An embarrassing number of prominent evangelical
preachers held to “moderate” views on abortion and speculated about when life
begins and thus deserves protection. That did not begin to change until the
latter years of that decade, when the biblical and theological logic of the
pro-life position began to take hold of the evangelical mind and heart.
The only consistent
biblical logic is to affirm the sanctity and dignity of every human life from
the moment of fertilization.
At this
point, we need to separate two issues that are confused in Parker’s and
Kristof’s argument. The first is the historic Christian understanding of the
morality of abortion. The second is the question of when what some theologians
have called “ensoulment” takes place. The second question is not a helpful
theological question, nor is it answerable. The only consistent biblical logic
is to affirm the sanctity and dignity of every human life from the moment of
fertilization.
As for
the first question, the evidence is irrefutable. The early church was
decidedly, vocally, and courageously pro-life and opposed to abortion. One of
the earliest documents of Christianity after the New Testament is the Didache,
dated to around AD 80–120. The teaching describes two ways: the way of life and
the way of death. The way of life demands that Christians “shall not murder a
child by abortion nor commit infanticide.” Both abortion and infanticide were
common in the Roman Empire. Christians were forbidden to murder any child, born
or unborn.
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"If
I know anything about the character of God after fifty years of ministry, I
know that God hates abortion." - R C Sproul
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Clement
of Alexandria (AD 150–215) made clear the sin of women who “in order to hide
their immorality, use abortive drugs which expel the matter completely dead,
abort at the same time their human feelings.” Tertullian (AD 160–240) taught
even more comprehensively: “For us, we may not destroy even the fetus in the
womb.” These church fathers are just two examples of a pro-life position rejecting
abortion that also included—at the very least—Athenagoras, Hippolytus, Basil
the Great, Ambrose, Jerome, John Chrysostom, and Augustine.
As
ethicist Ronald Sider comments, “Eight different authors in eleven different
writings mention abortion. In every case, the writing unequivocally rejects
abortion.” Michael J. Gorman states in Abortion and the Early Church:
“All Christian writers opposed abortion.” Every mention of abortion in the
early church rejects it forcefully.
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Good does not triumph unless good people rise
to the challenges around them. - Alister McGrath
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The shame
is not that evangelicals hold these pro-life convictions now. The shame is that
there was ever any evangelical equivocation on such a matter of life and death
and human dignity. Furthermore, there can be no question that historic
Christianity condemned abortion and affirmed the sanctity of human life, born
and not yet born.
Let there
be no confusion on this question. The Bible reveals the sanctity of all human
life, the early church affirmed the sanctity of every human life, and anyone
who performs an abortion is not “doing God’s work.” Rather, he is undoing it.
As the Didache, echoing Deuteronomy, reminds us from so long ago, we are
to choose the way of life, and never the way of death.
Dr. R.
Albert Mohler Jr. is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in
Louisville, Ky., a Ligonier teaching fellow, and host of the daily podcast The
Briefing. He is author of several books, including We Cannot Be Silent.
