Consistently Pro-Life

The Ethics of Bloodshed in Ancient Christianity

Arner

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN: 9781621899952
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Consistently Pro-Life is a book about killing. Specifically, it takes up the question of when and under what circumstances is it morally justifiable for a Christian to take human life. The murder of abortionist Dr. George Tiller on Pentecost Sunday 2009 reignited the national debate over abortion by focusing attention on the seeming hypocrisy of those who would kill to defend life. But many times, those who would condemn the killing of Dr. Tiller would readily justify the killing of human beings in other circumstances. This leads to the question: What basis do we have to judge a specific act of violence as morally good or ethically justifiable in light of the gospel of Jesus Christ?Rob Arner explores these issues and argues that the deliberate killing of any human being is incompatible with the moral life of a follower of Jesus. Readers will discover in the witness of the ancient Christian church an example of how modern Christians might consistently apply gospel precepts toward questions of the taking of human life. Through a new taxonomy that categorizes the ancient Christian witnesses according to individual issues such as abortion/infanticide, killing in war, and the bloody Roman games, Consistently Pro-Life demonstrates that the early church consistently opposed the killing of human persons, and suggests that the discipline and moral clarity of the ancient Christians on issues of violence can show us a new way forward in a time of polarizing culture wars.

part one

Consistently Pro-Life?

1

Tragedy at Pentecost

Murder in Wichita

The Holy Spirit certainly never willed this.

* * *

On Pentecost Sunday, inside Reformation Lutheran Church of Wichita, Kansas, the ushers and greeters are busy preparing for the morning’s worship service. As on any other Sunday, there are hands to be shaken, church bulletins to be organized and handed out, visitors to be welcomed. But this is to be no ordinary Sunday.

Pentecost is the day that Christians commemorate the beginning of the church, the day when the Holy Spirit came upon the believers in power, as narrated in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. The sound of a roaring wind, tongues of fire, and the newfound ability to speak in many languages were among the signs and wonders that accompanied the pouring out of the Spirit, testifying to the church’s commission to spread the good news of what God had done through Jesus among the nations.

As the worship service begins in Wichita, one of the ushers, a bespectacled, grandfatherly-looking figure named George, takes up his place at the entrance, prepared to hand bulletins to any late-comers who might arrive. George is approached by a lone, middle-aged man who had been attending services at Reformation Lutheran for the past several weeks. As George smiles and prepares to offer the man the church bulletin, the visitor reaches down and draws a pistol. He calmly aims it at the startled George, and fires. George is killed instantly by a single bullet to the head. He collapses, scattering church bulletins everywhere. George’s assailant then turns and flees the scene, threatening two would-be heroes with the gun as he gets into his car and speeds off.

* * *

As shocking as this murder scene in a house of worship on Pentecost is, what separates this particular homicide from the over 10,000 murders that occur every year in the United States alone? It was not the setting or the timing, but the victim and the motive. “George” is Dr. George Tiller, the notorious or courageous (depending on your perspective) abortionist, famous for being one of the very few abortion providers in the country willing to offer that service as late as the end of the third trimester of pregnancy.

Known by many supporters and opponents as the “doctor of last resort”1 because of his willingness to perform abortions in some of the most extreme cases turned down by most other physicians, Tiller was a lightning rod of controversy. Frequently outspoken in his support for what he felt to be his life’s calling, Tiller had by his own admission performed over 60,000 abortions in his thirty-year career. In an indication of the controversy his profession continues to stir up among Christian churches, Tiller had been excommunicated by his previous church, a congregation of the strongly anti-abortion Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, for refusing to cease his practice.2 Reformation Lutheran Church, which had embraced Dr. Tiller and his profession, is a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The fact that such a polarizing figure could be excommunicated by one Christian group because of their belief that his occupation was incompatible with the life of Christian discipleship, while being welcomed with open arms by another Christian group with the same theological heritage is itself a sorry commentary on the schizophrenic nature of the modern American Christian church, pointing to deep discrepancies in theological and moral foundations in the church’s various expressions. Combating a similar sort of moral schizophrenia is the subject this book.

The “Spin” Begins

The reaction to George Tiller’s murder has been strong. Pro-abortion groups began the process of Tiller’s hagiography just as quickly as anti-abortion groups had demonized him. The website of the National Abortion Federation, for example, contains a star-spangled banner alongside Tiller’s portrait, bearing the inscription “Remembering an American Hero—Dr. George Tiller.”3 Likewise, Tiller’s colleague at his Wichita abortion clinic, Dr. LeRoy Carhart, speaking at a memorial service for his fallen friend, told the assembled mourners that Tiller’s assassination was “the equivalent of Martin Luther King being assassinated.” He continued: “This is the equivalent of Pearl Harbor, the sinking of the Lusitania and any other major historic event where we’ve tolerated the intolerable for too long.”4 The president of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, which boasted Dr. Tiller as a member, called him a “humble, courageous man who dedicated his life to justice, liberty and freedom” and “a true American hero.”5 Tiller has even been called “a religious martyr in the fullest classical sense,” killed because he acted in accord with his conscience, religious convictions, and moral choices.6

Even as the accolades by Tiller’s supporters and friends were pouring in, his many fierce critics and opponents were also expressing themselves. Troy Newman, current president of the anti-abortion activist group Operation Rescue which had in recent years relocated its national headquarters to Wichita in order to directly oppose Dr. Tiller’s practice, was filled with mixed emotions. In an interview with the New York Times (before it was announced that Tiller’s clinic would be closing permanently), Newman expressed his shock and fear that the murder would encourage similar violence around the country. Referring to Tiller’s alleged assailant, he lamented, “This idiot did more to damage the pro-life movement than you can imagine.”7 After Tiller’s family announced that the clinic would not reopen after the doctor’s assassination, Newman expressed his gratitude that the goal for which he and his organization had labored had finally been accomplished, but deplored the way it came about. “We are thankful that Tiller’s clinic will not reopen and thankful that Wichita is now abortion-free,” he said, but emphasized that “this is a bittersweet moment for us at Operation Rescue. We have worked very hard for this day, but we wish it would have come through the peaceful, legal channels that we were pursuing.”8

Some anti-abortion advocates were less regretful of Tiller’s murder. Randall Terry, the original high-profile founder of Operation Rescue, did not equivocate in his opinion of Tiller. While denouncing the “vigilante justice” of the murderer, Terry called Tiller “one of the most evil men on the planet; every bit as vile as the Nazi war criminals who were hunted down, tried, and sentenced after they participated in the ‘legal’ murder of the Jews that fell into their hands.”9 Though he personally denounced the way in which Tiller was stopped, he told the National Press Club that Tiller was “a mass murderer” who “reaped what he sowed.”10

These disparate reactions to the murder of such a polarizing figure rest on the interpretation of what Dr. Tiller did for a living. If, as his defenders claim, Tiller’s occupation was one of therapy and healing for women faced with unintended pregnancy, then Tiller can rightly be called a hero for facing the daily harassment and protests outside his workplace.11 But if, as his detractors assert, Tiller was guilty of deliberately taking thousands of human lives through legitimized, institutionalized murder, then the shock and horror of antiabortion advocates is justifiable.

Three Moments in the Cycle of Violence

As has been made clear in everything from domestic abuse to international wars, violence breeds more violence, and the slaying of Dr. Tiller, far from being an isolated case of killing, is itself part of a causal cycle of violence. It was preceded by human bloodshed, and additional human bloodshed may well follow it. This manifestation of the ubiquitous cycle of violence comprises three essential “moments” that can be isolated from one another:12

1. First, we have the killing of fetuses in utero via abortion. This was how Dr. Tiller made his living.
2. Second, Dr. Tiller is himself killed by an assassin in the shocking murder described above.
3. Third, Tiller’s alleged murderer may, upon conviction, be killed himself by the state through the violence of capital punishment, as Paul Hill was executed for the 1994 murder of abortionist John Britton and his clinic escort James Barrett.

Nobody is for killing, of course. Reasonable people would assert their opposition in principle to killing a human being in most cases. Yet with few exceptions, most people will admit certain circumstances or instances in which they believe deliberate killing can be justified, if not in fact being a positive moral good. For each of the three moments in this violence cycle, there are those who would justify one of the three specific instances of killing, while denouncing the other two. In what follows, I will analyze examples of such justifications by those who would rationalize killing in one of those three specific moments in order to better understand what happens when we drop our moral scruples against violating the imago Dei in another ...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Preface
• Part 1: Consistently Pro-Life?
• Chapter 1: Tragedy at Pentecost
• Chapter 2: Justifications for the Violence of Abortion
• Chapter 3: Justifications for Anti-Abortion Violence
• Chapter 4: Justifications for State-Sanctioned Violence
• Chapter 5: The Need for Consistency
• Part 2: The Ethics of Bloodshed in Ancient Christianity
• Chapter 6: Recovering an Ancient Church Teaching
• Chapter 7: Killing Our Children: Abortion and Infanticide
• Chapter 8: Killing for Fun: Roman Bloodsport and the “Spectacles”
• Chapter 9: Killing Ourselves: Suicide
• Chapter 10: Killing Our Enemies: War and Military Service
• Chapter 11: Faithful Christians Do Not Kill
• Chapter 12: The Virtue of Patience
• Chapter 13: Realized Eschatology
• Chapter 14: Martyrdom and the Way of the Cross
• Conclusion
• Appendix A: Reading List of Primary Source Documents
• Appendix B: A Lexicon of Esteem
• Appendix C: The Semantics of Oppression
• Modern Sources Cited