First Principles: The Sanctity of Life

This principle is often where I find myself clashing with my brothers and sisters.  Taken at face value, the sanctity of life seems like something all Christians should be completely on board with.  As with many things, it is in degrees of application.  As a bit of a disclaimer before I start, this is not in anyway meant to be a criticism of those who believe differently.  I mean no ill will to anyone who approaches any of these First Principles in a different way, in fact perhaps I could stand to learn from them.  This is, however, a place where I agree to disagree.  As is often the case, there are those for whom this is a logical argument and those for whom it is an emotional argument.  I tend towards the logical side.

What is life?

According to the Oxford English Dictionary (my favorite of all dictionaries) it is: "The condition or attribute of being alive; animate existence.  Opposed to death or inanimate existence."

Given this definition the major requirement is to be animate.  I would extend that to saying self animate.  To me, the moment of conception qualifies.  After that moment the cells begin to divide on their own.  From that very moment that life, self animation, begins life is precious.  To me, all human life is sacred.  Where I differ with many is that life in the womb isn't the only human life that is sacred or needs to be protected.  It is all life that is sacred.  The reason we fixate on life in the womb is because that is the life that is under attack at the moment, and it is life that cannot defend itself in any way.

How far do we take the sanctity of life then?

Because of my belief in the sanctity of life I am against the death penalty and most, if not all, war.

The death penalty is a much easier thing for me to explain than war, however they both share the same basic principal in my head; the moment you kill a man you've eliminated God's ability to deal with that man.

When a crime is egregious enough in this country we apply the death penalty as a means of deterrence.  It's a very Old Testament ideal.  If you murder then we kill you to serve as an example to others and satisfy the desire for vengeance/justice in the hearts of those left behind.  It is very integral to our system of justice.  If you commit the crime you must pay, and generally if you take a life you pay with your life.

I've never been able to square this with anything I find in the teachings of the New Testament.  We are called to be merciful, loving, forgiving, to cast all our cares and anxiety on the LORD and, above all, be concerned with eternal matters specifically bringing everyone to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.  So...at what point does capital punishment satisfy any of these things?

In my perception the only thing capital punishment does is satisfy the desires of our flesh.  If someone, God forbid, was to murder one of my children or my spouse the emotions that would spring up within me would not be remotely holy.  My response, my desires, would be of a purely animal nature.  My desire would be to crush the life out of the perpetrator.  Would those desires be wrong?  If I believe that all human life is sacred, yes, it would be wrong.  When Jesus calls us to forgive, or indeed when he calls us to anything higher in the scriptures, he is calling us to defy our animal and/or sin nature programming.

What Jesus calls us to is exactly what happened when a gunman shot up a school full of Amish children years ago.  The Amish community took the time to make sure who was dead or alive, and then immediately went to the family of the gunman.  They mourned together with that family, told them they forgave their son, insisted on taking care of them, and begged them not to move away because of that event.  Had the gunman not taken his own life, with that heart on display, I'm not sure that the Amish community would have even pressed charges.  They likely may have forgiven him and let the state do what it will and, again, taken care of the man's family.  THAT preaches volumes to my heart on many levels.

This isn't as simple as those who hold up signs that say, "Why do we kill people in order to show people that killing people is wrong?".  In the words of King's X, "I have trouble with the persons with the signs/ But sometimes I feel the need to make my own".  If all human life is sacred then is a convict's life sacred?  Or are we going to pick and choose whose lives are more or less sacred?  A fellow Christian was discussing this issue with me and he remarked, "Yeah, Will, but how much do we spend each year to keep them alive? It's cheaper to give them a lethal injection than to give them Life without the possibility of parole."  I was too stunned to even respond to that line of thinking.  Once that heart stops beating we have removed any shot at someone influencing their life for Christ.  There's no chance for God to work in them once we do that.  To that I've heard responses such as, "Well, if God really wants to save them He'll get it done before the execution."  How cheaply we regard life and capriciously we treat God's work.

If all human life is sacred then why do we support war?

This is where I'm the most shaky on this First Principle.  By our mere existence we reap the benefits of those who have died in wars since the dawn of time.  When I question how a Christian should feel about war the Revolutionary war gets thrown in my face about as much as the wars in the Old Testament.  I wouldn't have the freedoms guaranteed (although lately I feel like I should put quotation marks around that word) in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights if we had not gone to war.  Sadly, those arguments place the benefits we have as more important over what the words of Jesus actually are.  How do we wage war when we are to love our enemies?  Where do we find the justification to take another man's life when He specifically tells us not to stand in the way of a wicked man, but rather we are to turn the other cheek when beaten on one?

I do not look down on those who have served or think that military service is a sin or anything.  I would never want a military person or someone in the police force to think for a second that I am not grateful for what they do.  If the United States of America didn't get involved in World War II the slaughter would have continued.  I am merely saying that if all human life is sacred then what do we do with that?  I can't look at the scriptures and honestly say that it permits me to take a life...even in defense of my own person.

Now, in both of these concepts, capital punishment and war, I recognize their justifiable validity.  The world would not work "properly" without them.  The world outside the Church needs them.  God calls His people to crazy things.  As I've mentioned above he calls us to love our enemies.  This isn't someone you have a disagreement with.  He literally calls us to love those who despise us, ridicule us, and cause us physical harm (See St. Stephen and other disciples).  He doesn't call us to be polite.  He calls us to radical upside-down thinking on every level.  Jesus in our lives calls us to defy every programming that the world has done to us.

My brethren have asked, "Well, what are you going to do if ISIS storms our shores threatens your country and family?  Embrace them?  Feed them?  Forgive them when they take your daughter as spoils of war?" It's a hard question.  One I can't actually answer as well as I'd like.  I hope that I would find peace and a heart of forgiveness in the midst of persecution.  There are Christians encountering just this in Iraq every day.  There are more persecuted the world over.  We have a comfy faith, comparatively.  I don't know the answer to that question.  Did Peter or Paul try to take out as many Romans as they could before they were taken to jail or killed?  Did Peter try to get in one last punch before being hung upside down on a cross?  What shows the work of the LORD in our lives better?  Feeding our enemies or letting them starve?

It's a hard road to take seriously the inconvenient words of Christ when all of those around us would understand a moment of vengeance or justice, as the world would see it.    I'm not sure the man that I would be in that moment, which is all the more frightening.  Jesus...reduce me to love.

I'm reminded of the movie Kingdom of Heaven.  As historically inaccurate as it may be, there was one moment that spoke to me.  The King of Jerusalem tells Balian the following:

"A king may move a man, a father may claim a son, but that man can also move himself, and only then does that man truly begin his own game. Remember that howsoever you are played or by whom, your soul is in your keeping alone, even though those who presume to play you be kings or men of power. When you stand before God, you cannot say, "But I was told by others to do thus," or that virtue was not convenient at the time. This will not suffice. Remember that."