A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb… Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” (Psalm 139:13,16)
A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH
The following is from a “Focus on the Family” article by Glenn Stanton: Regarding the history of Christianity and abortion, the question of the value of life inside the womb was really quite simple and direct. It didn’t revolve around highly technical questions of when life and personhood began. Still, these early teachers of Christian orthodoxy had a very direct and irrefutable rationale.
1. If abortion is needed to bring the death of a child, that child is considered to be living.
2. If living, the child had to have received that gift of life from God – the giver of all life – and God is actively sustaining that new life in His goodness, even in the secret of the womb, as Psalm 139 teaches.
3. Therefore, abortion is to be condemned because it rejects the goodness and sovereignty of God.
Many biblical passages talk about God’s value of life. However, we can also see in the history of Christianity and abortion that Christians have held this belief, inherited from their Jewish roots, since the beginning. They also held it boldly and consistently.
(Today) many Christians believe that the topic of abortion and God’s value of all life, no matter how young or old, is something individual believers can agree to disagree on… This was certainly not the case in the earliest centuries of the Church. There was crystal clarity on the matter, expressed with strong and unwavering conviction. And the only thing that has changed in recent years is politics and rhetoric. These certainly do not determine proper Christian belief, conviction and practice.
Thankfully, the Christian church has grown increasingly responsive to life in the womb and the needs of women dealing with unexpected pregnancies. We can confidently say that today is the golden age of Christians responding to the needs of the unborn and their mothers in need. As Warren Cole Smith, president of Ministry Watch, illuminates so well: “The idea that pro-lifers don’t care for babies after they are born has been a convenient slander hurled against pro-life Christians. To cite just one example, U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass) once said pro-lifers believe “life begins at conception and ends at birth.”
Smith counters, “The biggest problem with that clever line is that it is simply not true.” He explains that today there are more than 2,500 pro-life pregnancy centers (like our local Pregnancy Help Center) where the staff show up to work every day with one single purpose: to compassionately aid pregnant women in hard places and help them and their child thrive.
Every corner of Jesus’ body throughout the earth must continue the expansion of this true and uncompromising teaching about the evil of abortion and the inestimable value of pre-born life, coupled with compassionate action toward those in need.
In His Service, Jim