IS ABORTION REALLY DESIGNATED A SIN IN THE BIBLE?

Although there is no verse that explicitly mentions “abortion,” there are many that would designate it a sin. Of course, there is the general injunction against taking the life of a human:

•                “Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind. (Genesis. 9:6)

The Bible makes no distinction between the human pre-born and the human post-born. A human is a human and not an animal. There is therefore no reason why this prohibition wouldn’t also apply to humans in the womb:

•                "Do not pollute the land where you are. Bloodshed pollutes the land, and atonement cannot be made for the land on which blood has been shed, except by the blood of the one who shed it.” (Numbers 35:33; Gen. 1:26-27)

The next verse identifies what happens when a pre-born is killed:

•                "If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury [to the fetus], the offender must be fined whatever the woman's husband demands and the court allows. But if there is serious injury [to the fetus], you are to take life for life.” (Exodus 21:22-23)

If there is serious injury to the fetus, the penalties seem to be the same as the penalties for injury to a post-born. If the pre-born dies, there is to be a life for a life. Clearly, the pre-born is regarded as a human life in the same way the post-born is.

We also observe that God has profound interest in the fetus, as He does with any human:

•                For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. (Psalm 139:13-14)

God tells his Prophet Jeremiah that even in the womb, he was a “you” not an “it”:

•                "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations." (Jeremiah 1:5)

Even in the womb, the pre-born is considered a “baby”:

•                As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. (Luke 1:44)

The baby is God’s workmanship:

•                “Did not he who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same one form us both within our mothers?” (Job 31:15)

Abortion was explicitly condemned by the early church:

•                “Love your neighbor as yourself…You shall not murder a child by abortion nor shall you kill a newborn.” (Didache)

•                “You shall love your neighbor more than your own life. You shall not murder a child by abortion nor shall you kill a newborn.” (Barnabus)

•                [In a vision of Hell] “I saw…women…who produced children out of wedlock and who procured abortions.” (Apocalypse of Peter)

In fact, there exists no Biblical evidence that we should not regard the fetus as a human being created in the image of God.

If you have had an abortion, confess your sin to the Lord, and He will forgive and cleanse you of your sins (1 John 1:9) that you might find the healing you will never find by trying to convince yourself that you did what was right.

WHAT WE BELIEVE IS HOW WE ACT

Historian Richard Weikart argues that will follow our thoughts:

• Eric Harris, the co-conspirator behind the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, confided to his journal just a few months before his rampage, “I just love Hobbes and Nietzche [sic].” On the day of the shooting he wore a T-shirt that proclaimed “Natural Selection,” and in his journal he stated that he loved natural selection and thought we should return to a state of nature where everyone had to fend for themselves. He wanted the weak and sick to die; his solution was to “kill him, put him out of his misery.” He also expressed utter contempt for humanity and dreamed of exterminating the entire human population. Although Harris had personal reasons for his hatred of humanity—he felt belittled and left out socially—he had also absorbed ideas prominent in our society today. It seems clear from his musings that Harris thought life was meaningless and death was natural, so why worry about it? On the same day that he wrote in his journal, “I say, ‘KILL MANKIND’ no one should survive,” he also remarked, “theres no such thing as True Good or True Evil, its all relative to the observer. its just all nature, chemistry, and math. deal with it.” Earlier he had written, “just because your mommy and daddy told you blood and violence is bad, you think its a law of nature? wrong, only science and math are true, everything, and I mean everything else is man made.” ("The Death of Humanity: And the Case for Life")

Others had been social outcasts, but they did not kill. However, our secular society had virtually handed Harris a collection of deadly weapons:

1. The denial of a “true good or true evil”
2. “Natural Selection”
3. Survival of the Fittest
4. Denial of Human Exceptionalism
5. “Only science and math are true, everything, and I mean everything else [including God] is man made.”

When we kill God, only death remains. We are both dignified and destroyed by our beliefs. If we think of humans as mere animals, we will inevitably treat them accordingly. If we believe that there is no “true good and no true evil,” our behavior will eventually catch up with our beliefs, and the results will be costly.

Persecuted Christians and Christian Political Involvement

What is the calling of the church? How should we show off Christ to this world? Should we become political and speak out against injustice, namely the genocide against Christians? The jacket of The Global War on Christians by CNN writer John L. Allen Jr. gives us some idea of its extensiveness:

•  From Iraq and Egypt to Sudan and Nigeria, from Indonesia to the Indian subcontinent, Christians in the early twenty-first century are the world’s most persecuted religious group. According to the secular International Society for Human Rights, 80 percent of violations of religious freedom in the world today are directed against Christians.

•  The Open Doors Estimate, based on decades of tracking the realities of persecution in some of the darkest corners of the earth, is that roughly one hundred million Christians today suffer interrogation, arrest, and even death for their faith, with the bulk located in Asia and the Middle East. The overall total makes Christians the most at-risk group for violations of religious freedom. (37)

I don’t think that we can turn our back on such suffering, even if it is taking place over-seas. However, many evangelicals teach that any form of political engagement represents a betrayal of the Gospel. One wrote that:

• [Political engagement] is culturally impotent in dealing with the depraved hearts, minds and souls of a pagan world. Satan is pleased when any discourse designed for Christ and His gospel is turned into a political rally to pacify unsaved people in their sin while at the same time creating a superficial morality that is not based upon the salvific work of Christ alone! The tragic result is unredeemed people are left to feel comfortable and safe in a ‘Christian morality’—yet they are still lost, still dead in their sins.”

While many evangelicals would agree with these sentiments, others regard this stance as extreme, arguing that turning our back on our brothers, when we can do good, is sin (James 4:17). Instead of the model of “Gospel-in-opposition-to-politics,” they argue that the Gospel requires our involvement, even in politics – that the light of Christ should be reflected in all areas of life. At the least, we are called upon to be a light on a hill, exposing all forms of evil and oppression:

• Seek good, not evil, that you may live. Then the Lord God Almighty will be with you, just as you say he is. Hate evil, love good; maintain justice in the court (Amos 5:14-15)

• Cease to do evil, Learn to do good; Seek justice, rebuke the oppressor; defend the fatherless, plead for the widow. (Isaiah 1:16-17)

• Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. (Eph. 5:11)

Will this activity change the heart of the oppressor? Perhaps not, but this should not be our only concern. It is not God’s only concern. He is also concerned about restraining evil (Rom. 13:1-4), and so should we be!

Meanwhile, others claim, “You can’t legislate morality.” Perhaps not, but legislation can restrain evil, as Martin Luther King poignantly argued:

• “It may be true that a law can’t make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.”

In essence, the argument against engagement goes like this: “We have to trust in God and not political involvement.” However, this argument is neither biblical nor logical. It sets up an unbiblical distinction between God’s workings and ours. For instance, no one would say:

•  I am not going to see the doctor for my broken arm; I will just trust in God… I will not attempt to fix my toilet; I will just trust God to fix it… I will not dress my open wound; God will do it for me.

Instead of our efforts contradicting God’s efforts, they often work together. We trust that God will work through our efforts and the doctor’s medicine. The two are not in opposition! We therefore can entrust the welfare of the persecuted Christians to the Lord as we attempt to raise an outcry against the persecution.

Similarly, others argue:

• God prophesied that the Christians would be martyred. It’s also according to His will. Therefore, we should not oppose this martyrdom.

However, appealing this argument might be, this too it is neither logical nor biblical. Let’s demonstrate the incoherence of this argument:

• Everything that happens, our omnipotent God either causes or allows – even the evil. Consequently, everything that happens, is according to His knowledge and will, even those things that grieve Him (Eph. 1:11).  Therefore, we should never oppose anything – genocide, rape, kidnapping…

Of course, this is logically and biblically absurd! The Bible requires that we oppose many things, even knowing that God allows them to happen.

Evangelical, Michael Spencer, criticized his fellow evangelicals for neglecting the Gospel in pursuit of political activity:

• Christians have been so wrapped up in the political process and especially over the last couple of years…that we have ignored our number one mission, which is to tell the world about a loving and merciful God.

Of course, the political arena is filled with dangers. However, we cannot draw an impassable line between politics – the greater arena – and the rest of life. Politics and evangelism are not in opposition! It is possible to show Christ to the world through political involvement. William Wilberforce did this through his 30 year struggle in the British Parliament to abolish the evil of slavery. And he still speaks today of the Gospel!

Political involvement can be an expression of Christian love and oneness – one of the most potent forms of evangelism. Jesus prayed that all believers would be one in love:

• “I pray… that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—  I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. (John 17:20-23)

The world will be more inclined to believe when they see the reality of Christ in our midst. How are we to express this love for the brethren? Not through our silence regarding their genocide! In the Times of Israel, Michael Lumish writes:

•  One of the great tragedies and hypocrisies of the current moment is the Christian and western-left failure to speak out against the persecution of Christians throughout Muslim lands… What I find absolutely flabbergasting is the fact that while western progressives claim to care about universal human rights they show virtually no interest in the human rights of Christian minorities in the Middle East and much of Africa.  Western-left moral hypocrisy is, of course, nothing new to those of us who concern ourselves with such things.  I expect the progressive-left not to care when Muslims attack and murder other Muslims or when they attack and murder Christians or Jews.  What surprises me a tad, I suppose, is the fact that so few western Christians care either.

Lumish understandably interprets our silence as a lack of concern - a lack of love and unity. What kind of Christian witness is this?

Genocide, Moderate Islam and Western Silence

The gunman, with reported ties to al Qaeda, and suspected of killing seven people, including three children at a Jewish school, has seemingly confessed to the shootings. Understandably,

·        Dalil Boubakeur at the main mosque in Paris told Europe 1 radio that no one should link the Toulouse events and the Muslim religion, which is "99 percent peaceful, responsible, non-violent and well-integrated into the country".

This assertion raises several questions:

1. Are "99 percent peaceful, responsible, non-violent?”
2. If this is so, why are religious minorities in all Islamic nations either persecuted and/or diminished by Shariah law?
3. If Islam is a peaceful religion, why is the Islamic world so prone to violence and coercive attempts to impose Shariah?
4. Why aren’t there any examples of Islam coexisting as equals with religious minorities?

Sadly, the French assassin seems to be just one of many instances of Islamic terror. Muslim-turned-atheist, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, reports:

• Christians are being killed in the Islamic world because of their religion. It is a rising genocide that ought to provoke global alarm…In recent years the violent oppression of Christian minorities has become the norm in Muslim-majority nations stretching from West Africa and the Middle East to South Asia and Oceania. In some countries it is governments and their agents that have burned churches and imprisoned parishioners. In others, rebel groups and vigilantes have taken matters into their own hands, murdering Christians and driving them from regions where their roots go back centuries.

• But a fair-minded assessment of recent events and trends leads to the conclusion that the scale and severity of Islamophobia pales in comparison with the bloody Christophobia currently coursing through Muslim-majority nations from one end of the globe to the other. The conspiracy of silence surrounding this violent expression of religious intolerance has to stop. Nothing less than the fate of Christianity—and ultimately of all religious minorities—in the Islamic world is at stake.

• As Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, pointed out in an interview with Newsweek, Christian minorities in many majority-Muslim nations have “lost the protection of their societies.” This is especially so in countries with growing radical Islamist (Salafist) movements. In those nations, vigilantes often feel they can act with impunity—and government inaction often proves them right. The old idea of the Ottoman Turks—that non-Muslims in Muslim societies deserve protection (albeit as second-class citizens)—has all but vanished from wide swaths of the Islamic world, and increasingly the result is bloodshed and oppression.

As an example of what Christians are facing in Islamic territories, the latest issue of World Magazine (March 10) cites the 12 northern provinces of Nigeria, under Sharia law since 2000. Boko Haram, the terror organization, meaning “Western Education is Sinful,” intends to drive Christians out of the north and to impose Sharia on all of Nigeria:

• Christians throughout the Sharia states in the north faced post-election [April 2011] violence. In the Kaduna state [alone], Muslims destroyed 409 churches and pover 2,000 homes, killing 137. In Gombe state, they destroyed 39 churches and 74 homes, killing 20. (54)

• In a Jan. 25 video on YouTube, Boko Haram leader Imam Abubakar Shekau took responsibility for the Jan. 20 attacks and said: “I am not against anyone, but if Allah asks me to kill someone, I will kill him and I will enjoy killing him like I am killing a chicken”…A Boko Haram posting from late last year says…nine…Christian denominations in the north, “must be bombed and leveled.” It also cites eight pastors, most Muslim converts to Christianity, as targets “to be eliminated.” (52)

In light of the fact that the 12 northern districts are already under Sharia and Christians have been made to submit to Sharia, it is hard to understand why the terror would continue. Already:

• In those 12 states authorities prohibit Christians from holding office, discriminate against them in property and business activities, and subject them to Islamic law. Some districts in Kano state have Christian majorities, but district governments are run under the state’s Sharia system. That makes Christians subject to the Islamic court system and requires students to take Islamic courses.

Nevertheless, since the imposition of Sharia in 2000,

• Over 13,000 mostly Christian Nigerians have been killed in religious-related violence, according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom…”Boko Haram is not doing anything new,” said Peter Akinola, the retired archbishop of the Anglican Church of Nigeria. “More than terror attacks, this is part of an ongoing attempt to Islamize Nigeria. This country began as a democracy, but now in my own country I cannot live freely.” (52-53)

If world domination is the goal of Islam, perhaps we will soon be saying the same in the West. Even now, those who are doing ministry among the Muslims are facing intimidation and threats of violence. Consequently, if there are peace-loving Muslims who believe in a world where all religions can live at peace in equality, they need to speak up in a meaningful way. It is not enough to merely say, “Well, these terrorists aren’t really Muslim,” especially in light of the Islamic doctrine of “Taquiyya” which authorizes Muslims to lie to the non-believer on behalf of Islam. (See www.koranqa.com, fatwa 59879, where the Muslim can only have contempt for the non-believer). Therefore, we can’t help wondering if the claim to be peace-loving is merely a ploy.

We have not seen where peace-loving Muslims confront the extremists to insist that Sharia should allow religious freedom. Nor have we seen the Mainstream Western Media

confront those committing the atrocities done in the name of Islam. Mark Lipdo, director of the Stefanos Foundation, claims that,

• “They have misrepresented violence as a clash when it was an outright attack from the Muslim minority.” Lipdo himself was on hand in 2010 when Muslim gangs raided three predominantly Christian villages near Jos on March 7, slaughtering hundreds of mostly women, children, and the elderly.

Lipdo claims that the Western media – they derived their information from Muslim sources - has wrongly reported that the various attacks were in reprisal for the killing of 150 Muslims. However, none of the media outlets were “able to provide eyewitness accounts of the attacks that killed 150 Muslims.” Instead, Lipdo reports:

• “We were there when the whole conflict started. We saw the Muslim military commander release people caught carrying out the attacks with their weapons”…Local media reported police on the scene who did nothing to stop the Muslim attackers.” (56)

One victim had commented to the Daily Champion, “As they were killing and burning our homes, they were chanting, ‘Allahu Akbar,’ meaning ‘God is great.’” If this isn’t the real Islam, then the moderates have to publicly reclaim their religion, especially if we are to take them seriously. Likewise, the media, as well as the Western nations, have a responsibility to bring genocide to light. However:

• The reporting slant shows up in the U.S. policy, as well. The 2011 report of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom describes “sectarian violence” in Nigeria driven by “religiously motivated actions” without ever saying that the overwhelming number of deaths involve Christians. (56)

If we are really concerned about peace and deeply troubled by genocide, then we have to speak up and shed light on the evil. If we fail to do this, then our silence speaks in favor of approval.