In 177 AD, an influential Christian intellectual wrote A Plea for Christians. In this early Christian apology, Athenagoras pleas to the Emperor asking for an understanding of Christianity and argues that if Christians are to be punished, they should be understood, not misrepresented. Of particular importance is Athenagoras’ highlight on the ethics of the community of faith. He writes,
What man of sound mind, therefore, will affirm, while such is our character, that we are murderers? . . . When we say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder, and will have to give an account to God for the abortion, on what principle should we commit murder? For it does not belong to the same person to regard the very fetus in the womb as a created being, and therefore an object of God’s care, and when it has passed into life, to kill it; and not to expose an infant, because those who expose them are chargeable with child murder, and on the other hand, when it has been reared to destroy it. – Plea for the Christians, 35 (177 A.D.)
From this early Christian apology, we learn this truth: Consistent Christian confession values life in the womb.
Headlines are flooding from news outlets telling us the Supreme Court of the United States, now understood as "composed of a conservative majority," “Will Hear a Major Abortion Case.” Adam Liptak of the New York Times reports,
“The Supreme Court on Monday said it would hear a case from Mississippi challenging Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion. The case will give the court’s new 6-to-3 conservative majority its first opportunity to weigh in on state laws restricting abortion.”
Liptak continues,
“The case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, No. 19- 1392, concerns a law enacted by the Republican-dominated Mississippi legislature that banned abortions if “the probable gestational age of the unborn human” was determined to be more than 15 weeks. The statute included narrow exceptions for medical emergencies or “a severe fetal abnormality.”
Christians reading the news can already begin to see the lines being drawn. Our society understands the “right to life” in terms of conservative or liberal, republic or democrat. Christians need to be clear at this point. Though the political party lines are drawn and have been for some time, the abortion issue is not merely a matter of politics but a matter of ethics and morality. And, from a Christian perspective, an issue of worship. Defining life pulls at the very fabric of society.
Liptak then takes us to Judge Carlton W Reeves, a Federal District Court judge who blocked such legislation in Mississippi back in 2018 who said,
“The state chose to pass a law it knew was unconstitutional to endorse a decades-long campaign, fueled by national interest groups, to ask the Supreme Court to overturn Roe vs; Wade. This court follows the commands of the Supreme Court and the dictates of the United States Constitution, rather than the disingenuous calculations of the Mississippi Legislature.”
Judge Reeves is to be commended for his consistency. Christians make our plea; we follow a higher authority than the changing winds of public opinion. We follow the unchanging word of God.
The New York Times reports Judge Reeves' startling statement. He says,
“With the recent changes in the membership of the Supreme Court, it may be that the state believes divine providence covered the Capitol when it passed this legislation. Time will tell. If overturning Roe is the state’s desired result, the state will have to seek that relief from a higher court. For now, the United States Supreme Court has spoken.”
Hearing those words reminds me of other words spoken with confidence before the tragic events of the sinking of the Titanic. Though the story has been repeated and the source is hard to track down, it was reported that someone said, “Not even God himself could sink this ship.” My great-grandmother was born on April 11, 1912. She was three days old when the unsinkable ship sank.
Abortion in our age has become an “unsinkable ship.” Judge Reeves’s comments represent the ironclad status of abortion in our society. Some who oppose abortion see recent events in Mississippi as a divine wind of providence. Reeves and others see it as a passing breeze.
The real question before Christians as we consider these comments and their issues is which word will endure? Will the Supreme Court’s words are the enduring words, or will the Word of God endure?
I recently started studying the Ten Words of God, or more affectionately known as The Ten Commandments. In those ten words is the sixth word - You shall not murder. Christians identify abortion as murder. At the head of the ten words of God is the first word, the word that puts all the other words in order: You shall have no other God’s before me. The sixth word flows from the first. For Christians, abortion is not only a matter of ethics. Abortion is a matter of worship.
Lawrence Hurley at Reuters rightly notes, “Abortion remains a divisive issue in the United States, as in many countries. Christian conservatives are among those most opposed to it.” Consistent Christian confession will always oppose abortion. We oppose it because God opposes it, and he has since the beginning.
“Time will tell,” Judge Reeves, said, “if overturning Roe is the state’s desired result, the state will have to seek that relief from a higher court. For now, the United States Supreme Court has spoken.” Though the Supreme Court has spoken, another voice is speaking, reminding creation of reality. Often Christian confession is cited as being on the wrong side of history. Still, Reuters again reports, “Abortion rates in the United States have steadily declined since the early 1980s, reaching the lowest levels on record in recent years, according to the nonprofit Guttmacher Institute.” These statistics are revealing God turning hearts back towards reality. Abortion is wrong. Even the most ardent opponents know it deep down in their hearts.
Perhaps abortion is not as ironclad as some think. Christians take the challenge of Judge Reeves. Time on this issue is on our side. We grieve the egregious nature of abortion. We continue to fight for life because God, the supreme authority, has spoken.