Why do we believe the things we believe?
We are tempted to believe things the people we look up to believe. We are tempted to believe things our culture tells us to believe. We are tempted to believe things that are easy to believe. We are tempted to believe things we want to believe. We are tempted to believe things our preferred political partisans believe.
I think we must be wary of these temptations.
As a Christian, my conscience is bound by the Word of God. In the pages of holy Scripture, God makes both himself and his intentions known. At the heart of the Christian confession is that we are creatures created by a Creator. This Creator has all knowledge, all authority, and all credibility. He is the source of all truth and the standard by which all truth claims are measured.
Christians don’t just randomly believe a set of arbitrary facts. Christians are committed to thinking about all of life in light of who God is and who God says we are.
In this cultural moment, it is important to consider why so many Christians took part in what came to be known as the pro-life movement in response to the initial Roe v. Wade decision. Let me first acknowledge the obvious: Has Christian activism been manipulated by the religious right? You bet. But does that negate the doctrinal commitments that caused Protestant, Orthodox, and Catholic Christians to unite against abortion? No. Because Christians have not been united by shared politics or a shared political catchphrase, but by a shared body of Scripture and a (largely) shared interpretation and application thereof.
Christian opposition to abortion rises from our theology (God is sovereign creator), our christology (Christ became incarnate), our anthropology (humanity is created with dignity), and our sexuality (sex as God-given gift within God-ordained relationships). Much can be and much has been written about each of these doctrines and how they lead to what we may call a “pro-life” position. Allow me, however, to take a more personal angle.
I don’t know where I’d be without church history. And honestly, I am somewhat indebted to Rome here. That will get me torn to shreds by some, and one can certainly maintain a biblical position without engaging Rome, but the rootedness, clarity, and veracity of Catholic social doctrine has proven a helpful guide in the last several years of cultural strife. It has simply challenged me to think theologically first, and politically only after, when I think my inherited tendency was to conflate theological and political thinking.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church is very clear: “Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable.” But Mason… You’re not Roman Catholic. This is true. (Sorry, Nick Chancey, my RC friend). But I am catholic in the sense that I am an heir of the fathers, medieval doctors, and great theologians of the Christian past. And, until the 20th Century, they have spoken with one voice.
The Didache, a first and second century summary of Christian teaching, states, “thou shalt not murder a child by abortion nor ill that which is begotten.” References to Christian opposition of abortion can be found in Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Hippolytus of Rome, the Apostolic Constitution, Basil of Caesarea, Ambrose, and Augustine. Such references can also be found in divines like Thomas Aquinas, reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin, and early evangelicals like John Wesley.
Christian theology, at its best, honors and protects life from its natural beginning to its natural end. God compels us to care for the vulnerable. Pure and undefiled religion is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. James 1:27. I might even argue that many critiques of pro-life activism (or broader Christian engagement with culture) are unwittingly drawing from the Christian tradition to make their critiques. It is Christian theology that defines for us such things as love, justice, and righteousness. From the Christian tradition we learn of such things as agency, autonomy, and dignity. I am not here litigating all that lies ahead in the abortion debates. It is clear that “pro-life” states must work to make clear & appropriate laws that protect mothers and their doctors in the cases of miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy. I am simply here encouraging Christians to think Christianly.
(Back to the personal angle.) In many ways, I too, am a jaded millennial. It is painfully obvious that Christians have not always thought Christianly, and they have not always lived Christianly. I grew up a Republican but left the party in 2016 because of its embrace of Trumpism and its inability to clearly denounce racism and nativism. It would be tempting, then, to make a home on the left – to allow my resentment of the “right” to drive my thinking, to frame every issue as a sort of liberation from an oppressive status quo, and to treat every problem as symptomatic of the evangelical zeitgeist. But I knew I must not let these impulses chart the course of my life. Not because I want to be moderate, or equally offend “both sides,” but because I want to be driven by a commitment to the faith delivered once & for all to the saints – because I want to be driven by what I know to be true about God and his world. I want my approach to all of life to be framed and informed by the Scriptures, even if my approach will be imperfect. And I want to be a faithful member of one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.
You see, I know Christians aren’t always consistent because I am one. I see the ways my confession and my life do not always line up. But I will hold fast to that confession, nonetheless, because, despite my failures, despite my sin, and despite my fickleness, Christ has called me his own. I understand I will be misunderstood. Christians are often met with condescension (i.e., if only you were smarter & not beholden to your biases), rejection (i.e., your beliefs are an affront to human rights, you must be silenced), and ostracization (i.e., you are cringe).
Please know I am committed both to religious freedom and robust pluralism in the public square. I cannot, nor do I have any desire, to coerce anyone to believe anything. I simply invite you to consider why you believe what you believe, how you got there, and where you may be going.
MB
