Sunday’s readings celebrate John the Baptist and the sanctity of his life. They speak much of wombs; “The Lord called me…from my mother’s womb.” The Lord “formed me as his servant from the womb.” “(Y)ou knit me in my mother’s womb.” “When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the infant (John) leaped in her womb.” It is thus not surprising that Bible based self-titled Christians hold the life of the child in the womb as sacred. Do evangelicals also hold the life of a child born from the womb and the life of that child’s mother as equally sacred? Does the U.S. culture, which promotes abortion, also hold sacred such life?
Unlike truly pro-life folks, are self-titled Christians only anti-abortion and perhaps anti-child? Do they not primarily believe in the sanctity of life? A more primary belief may be in the sanctity of domination, patriarchal domination. Throughout history, women have been subjected to patriarchal domination. That includes its practice within institutional Christianity. Members have denied and in some cases still do deny women basic human rights such as speech, education, and work. Self titled Christian patriarchs have exercised control over women’s bodies to the point of denying women overall health care including services for family planning, pregnancy, and childcare. Patriarchs have also exercised control over women’s bodies through abortion. The abortion industry, like the war industry, has its foundation in the ancient religion of Militarism; a person asserts domination over another living being, believing they have the right to inflict suffering upon them, with the victim’s death perceived to be the means of their salvation. Women have never been saved by patriarchal domination. It includes our regularly being controlled, threatened, and violated by ridicule, discrimination, abuse, pornography, prostitution, rape, partner abandonment, and murder, a leading cause of death for pregnant women. Neither are women saved by the patriarchal domination inherent in abortion.
Our power as women includes being in communion with vulnerable life. It is an alternative life-giving power to Militarism dominating control. It is under assault from both Jeff Session anti-abortion types separating children from their mothers at the U.S. southern border and from Planned Parenthood pro-abortion types separating children from their mothers at U.S. abortion clinics. Both anti-abortionists and pro-abortionists reflect the same military value of domination. A woman’s power to bring forth life deserves consideration in a context free from these two sides of Militarism’s one same value of domination. A woman nurturing life within her places her in a unique and entirely intimate relationship. The power of love and life in pregnancy gives witness to a bond of communion unlike any other. As patriarchy’s practice of abortion demonstrates, our communion is a bond of vulnerable interdependence and wholeness rarely appreciated in a military culture that values domination.
Prayer: Spirit, empower us for life.
Question: What is my knowledge of and embrace of the consistent ethic of life?
June 24, 2018 Gospel Luke 1:57-66, 80 Feast of John the Baptist