Blessing evil

The New York Times recently reported on an event where religious leaders—two liberal Protestant ministers (a Baptist and a Presbyterian) and a Jewish cantor came together to bless a Maryland abortion business in an effort “to show that religion could be a source of support for abortion rights.” As usual, the wickedness being perpetrated is couched in the language of piety. The article quotes Katey Zeh, the Baptist minister, as telling the staff, “You all are blessings to those who come to you for care during some of their most vulnerable and sometimes painful moments.”

There is a sense in which she speaks the truth. Women going to such places are often desperate and vulnerable. But the idea that abortion is the way—indeed, the Christian way—to respond to this is chilling. Not only is there the obvious issue of the preservation of the life of the child. But from a theological point, there is the broader question of the underlying anthropology that abortion represents. It involves a basic denial of the Biblical teaching about what it means to be human. Human beings are made in the image of God. That means that they have an end. In the words of the Westminster Shorter Catechism, they are to “Glorify God and enjoy him forever.” From the moment the egg is fertilized, the direction toward that end is set, and anybody who interferes with that is not simply disrupting a clump of cells but frustrating a human being in achieving their God-given purpose. Children in the womb are not potential persons. They are persons of potential.

Yes, there are emotionally terrifying cases associated with abortion, particularly those involving rape and incest. And pastors need to handle such cases when they cross their paths with extreme sensitivity and compassion. But human personhood is not the result of the circumstances of, or the intention behind, the moment of conception. And the pro-abortion movement knows that. It may use such difficult cases in its rhetorical strategy to shape public opinion, but it demands abortion, period. Even if there were never to be another pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, Planned Parenthood would still exist. Abortion is a “reproductive right” now, not a last resort in tragic situations.

This is where these religious leaders fail so catastrophically. They are right to see these women as vulnerable and desperate. But they have allowed that to annihilate any consideration of the child in the womb, even weaker than the mother and, when carried into a facility focused upon his or her destruction, in an even more desperate situation. The Christian response should be care and support for the mother, not complicity in evil.

And then there is the religious significance of all this. The destruction of the child in the womb involves the destruction of the divine image. To bless such an act is not therefore simply to call evil good. We are not dealing here with run-of-the-mill immorality. This is blasphemy. The churches to which these ministers belong may turn a blind eye to this, may not care, or may even support them in such. But these pastors will one day answer to a higher authority than an ecclesiastical court.

There is, however, one other lesson from this story. The temptation is to see this blasphemous pantomime and thank the Lord that it is not us, or our churches, who are involved. But this specific event is only an extreme and obvious example of that perennial temptation we all have toward selling our souls by baptizing the values of the world and speciously rationalizing our own sin as righteousness. As we start a new year, events like this should not simply provoke us to righteous indignation. They should also cause us to examine our own souls to seek out those areas where we too perhaps may need to repent of using the gospel to bless evil.