The Bible teaches not only opposition to death but celebration of life
BY DAVID GURETZKI
Republished with permission from Faith Today, May/Jun 2018. Photo illustration by Janice Van Eck.
When you hear the term pro-life, what do you think of? It’s amazing how it has become associated primarily with abortion.
However, being pro-life means more than opposing abortions. For Christians, being pro-life should be all about promoting the goodness of the full extent of created human life and existence against what the late Pope John Paul II appropriately called the culture of death.
Although it may be difficult to change the terms of reference, perhaps we should be calling ourselves whole-lifers to signal our positive support of life from conception through natural death.
Let’s take a biblical look at what it means for Christians to be pro-life and whole-life. What’s the point?
More than anti-abortion
Christians and non-Christians alike know that God commands, "You shall not murder" (Exodus 20:13), and many Christians draw a straight line from that verse to our positions in debates around life issues such as abortion and euthanasia.
But when we think a little longer, we realize a biblical definition of murder is not simply ending creaturely life. If that were the case, the Old Testament law itself would be contradictory by calling for animal blood sacrifices or the death penalty for various crimes. In the biblical context, murder is more specifically the vengeful action of taking the life of God’s own image bearers – humans (Genesis 9:6).
The problem is, if being pro-life simply means opposing murder – whether in the form of homicide, infanticide, abortion, genocide or euthanasia – this way of being pro-life ends up defining us primarily by what we are against instead of what we are for.
The prefix pro- means for – and surely we would be wiser to broaden our understanding of why we are pro-life beyond a stance against abortion or even against murder itself.
The commandments of life
The prohibition against murder in Exodus 20 is the sixth of the Ten Commandments, and we can actually understand it better when we think about it in context with the other nine.
The first five commandments speak of our relationship to God the Creator, and our status and place in creation, while the second five speak of our relationships to our fellow image bearers. Let’s unpack that a bit more.
The first three tell us how we ought to relate to God – reserve your dedication to the Creator alone, don’t worship anything in creation other than the Creator, and don’t name anything in creation as a kind of proxy for God.
The fourth commandment tells us we are to act as co-participants with the Creator, working and resting after His own pattern.
Finally, the fifth reminds us to honour our parents. Why? No matter how well or poorly they do as parents, we honour them as living instruments through which God gave us life and brought us into the world.
This larger context helps us get a broader understanding of why we ought to be wholly pro-life. It’s because God is the author and sustainer of life. He is not just the watchmaker who gets each life started. He alone continues to create and enable the whole of human life as each of us develops from conception to adulthood, and as we work out His call on us to worship, work, rest, rule and procreate.
So it’s not enough to oppose the ending of human life. We need to dedicate ourselves to helping all God’s image bearers (everyone) enjoy all the life God is giving to them.
Rebellion against the life giver
In Genesis we find brothers began to kill each other in the very first family (Cain and Abel). It’s sad the prohibition against taking the lives of other bearers of God’s image was even necessary. If people had followed the first five commandments, the second five would not even have been needed.
The sixth commandment is not merely an isolated legal prohibition imposed by God, but represents a warning of what humans will do when they rebel against both the Lord of creation and the order of creation as a whole.
Murder is not simply the illegitimate ending of life, but also the expected outworking of those who rebel against the Creator and obliterate the proper distinction between the created and the Creator – the one who sustains life and decides when it should end. Murder, in other words, is the clearest instance of humans’ attempt to be and act as their own gods.
What pro-life really means
Given this biblical background, let me suggest being pro-life or whole-life means being mindfully reverent toward God, consciously humble about our created state and attentively thankful for God’s gifts of life, work, parenthood, sexuality, faithfulness and family.
In contrast, the culture of death which surrounds us (and sometimes works in us) is overtly rebellious toward God, excessively proud of its accomplishments, and shamefully dishonours such gifts from God.
So, as urgent and important as it is to resist movements that legislate, promote and revel in death – whether that means abortion based on the sex or genetic condition of the unborn, early, late or partial-birth abortion, or euthanasia, suicide and assisted suicide – let’s keep working against these movements and toward legislation the helps everyone as much as possible to enjoy the life God is giving them.
Being wholly pro-life is not just making a statement about things we are against, but also celebrating our status as God’s creatures and image bearers in this world.
Here’s what these three aspects of being wholly pro-life mean to me.
PERHAPS WE SHOULD BE CALLING OURSELVES WHOLE-LIFERS TO SIGNAL OUR POSITIVE SUPPORT OF LIFE FROM CONCEPTION THROUGH NATURAL DEATH.
Mindfully reverent
Being wholly pro-life means first of all being mindfully reverent of God, being pro-Creator. Although there are atheists and agnostics who self-identify as pro-life (and we applaud them), we see being wholly pro-life as engaging in the celebration, praise and worship Of the Author and Lord of life itself.
For the same Creator who uttered, "Let there be light" (Genesis 1:3) is also the one who breathed into us the breath of life (Genesis 2:7). We can learn much on this topic from the Psalms, which demonstrate not only worship of God for His deliverance and salvation from captivity, but also worship of God the Creator of heaven and earth and all its creatures (such as in Psalm 104).
Consciously humble, creative image bearers
Second, being wholly pro-life means being consciously humble in carrying out our role in this world as stewards of God’s living creatures, both human image bearers and other earthly creatures made by God. God created us and covenanted with us to be trustees in this world as His representatives. That’s what it means to "be fruitful, to increase in number, and to rule and have dominion over the world" (Genesis 1:28).
WHOLE-LIFE PEOPLE ARE CONCERNED ABOUT PROTECTING THOSE WHO ARE ABUSED, TRAFFICKED, IMPRISONED UNDER INHUMANE CONDITIONS, DESTITUTE OR DESPISED.
That can’t mean, therefore, doing the opposite – which would be to do nothing, to create nothing, and to tyrannize and destroy the world.
This is practically where we who are pro-life need to broaden our horizons of thought and activity. In no way do I undermine the dedication and sacrifice so many vocal pro-life people demonstrate in the battles against abortion, and the new scourges of euthanasia and assisted suicide. But pro-life people can and must value so much more.
Wholly pro-life people, in other words, procreate, craft, invent and design; they organize, protect and nurture; they sing, speak and (yes) protest injustice. Moreover, whole-life people celebrate beauty, practise virtue, encourage procreation, protect against harm, order the disorderly, and actively resist those who seek to destroy and annihilate.
Wholly pro-life people even concern themselves with proper and humane treatment of animals and plants, both of which have been given to humans for consumption and care. Whenever and whatever we eat, we must do so respecting that creaturely life is often ended for our benefit. Consequently, we can demonstrate virtue by eating and drinking with hearts and words of gratitude, and by advocating for sustainable food practices and humane treatment of animals.
Even more broadly understood, being whole-life means encouraging creative endeavours such as the production of music and art, gardening and building, writing and poetry, all of which are not only in service to God, developing the gifts He is continually giving us, but also as a means of resisting the culture of death. The world needs more beauty, truth and justice, all of which reflect God’s character and creative intent, overtly and subversively undermine the deathly strategies of the evil one, and are the purview of all wholly pro-life people.
Moreover, whole-life people should also be concerned about protecting those living under the threat of death. Protecting those who are abused, trafficked, imprisoned under inhumane conditions, destitute, and those invisible or even despised, such as the untouchables in India or the prostituted women and youth in the dark corners of every major city in the world. These are all outworkings of a whole-life appreciation of God and His purposes for creation.
Attentively thankful
Third, whole-life people are attentively thankful both for our life here and now, and for the eternal life we have begun to experience and will fully experience in the resurrection. Whole-lifers are not simply pessimists who see nothing beyond this life, nor are they optimists who think everything will simply pan out in the end regardless of what happens in the here and now.
Rather, pro-life people are resurrectional realists who know people are destined to die once, after which comes resurrection to judgment (Hebrews 9:27). They know the life lived here and now is meaningful and will be accounted for in the life to come. Whole-life people affirm and rest in the knowledge the deeds done in this body will count and will be judged in the life to come.
Being wholly pro-life means living with hope – hope this life is not all there is; hope God will, with our co-operation, right the injustices and evils of the world we live in today; hope God will deal graciously and mercifully with those who lost their health, abilities or their entire earthly lives through no fault of their own.
Whole-life people need not despair when their efforts for life fail, but nevertheless work hard in light of the blessed hope which is to come – the glorious appearing of the greatest pro-life person who ever lived, our great God and Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. For it is He who will rescue those baptized into His death into the glorious resurrection of our bodies to eternal life.
David Guretzki of Ottawa is the EFC’s resident theologian and executive vice-president. Read more articles like these with a subscription to the EFC magazine Faith Today.
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David Guretzki