My name is Aaron Taylor and I’m a pro-life Christian.

What I mean by
calling myself pro-life is to say that I believe life begins at conception
and no human being has the right to take another life. Period. If you ask
me whether I believe abortion is a sin I’ll give you an unequivocal yes,
and then I’ll be sure to point you to the cross of Jesus Christ if I sense
you’re struggling with guilt over a dark past. On the other hand, if you
ask me whether I think Christians should try to outlaw abortion, I’m not
going to give you a straight answer. That doesn’t necessarily mean I’m
pro-abortion, and neither does it mean I’m pro-choice. It simply means
that I can’t give you a straight answer, and the funny thing is, it’s
precisely because of my Christian faith that I can’t come right out and
say that Christians are obligated to pass laws to declare abortions illegal.

As a Christian and as a citizen I would love to see the abortion rate in the
United States of America reduced to zero. But the question is how do we
make that happen? Is it simply a matter of passing a law declaring
abortion illegal? My conservative Christian background would answer with
an immediate yes to this question, but these days my heart is telling me
that passing a law outlawing abortion doesn’t quite solve the problem.
For starters, we know that before Roe Vs Wade there were countless
backyard abortions taking place. And given that little has changed in the
past 30 years to address the root causes of systemic poverty in our
nation, there’s little reason to believe this would change if abortion
would be outlawed tomorrow.

Then there’s the question of rape and abuse. I think female rape victims
that choose to keep their babies are saints, but as a man I have to
wonder if I really understand the pain female rape victims that choose to
deliver their babies full term goes through—even if they give them up for
adoption later. And what about women—or young girls—in abusive
situations? There’s been a lot of media attention lately about Vice
Presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s 17 year-old daughter’s unplanned
pregnancy and, make no mistake about it, I’m thrilled that Todd and
Sarah Palin have chosen to love and support their daughter to guide her
in the right direction to keep her baby. But let’s get real for a moment.
Does anybody seriously think that every teenage girl has loving parents to
come home to that can guide them through an unplanned pregnancy?

What about the girl who’s father molested her when she was young and
fears bringing the child up under the same roof? Or what about the girl
whose parents would kill them—literally—if they found out she had sex
outside of marriage? Or how about the financially struggling woman that
fears the father of her baby will abuse both her and the child if she
decides to keep her baby? Even in these extreme cases, my Christian
ethic on the sanctity of human life still demands that I could never
counsel a woman to have an abortion, but the question is: Do I have an
obligation as a Christian to take the further step and impose my view of
morality on others by forcing them to do so?

The question isn’t just a moral one. It’s also a Biblical one. If the Bible
commands Christians to implement God’s law over society through
systems of laws and penalties, then by all means, Christians are obligated
to declare anything that contradicts God’s law illegal. While we’re at it,
if we’re going to be consistent, we might want to consider the death
penalty for the 16- year old girl that takes the morning after pill. After
all, life begins at conception and murder is murder. If, on the other hand,
it can be sufficiently proven that Christians are not obligated to pursue
political power to control other people’s behavior, then the question
becomes how should followers of Jesus be salt and light in a world that’s
gone mad?

I’m going to simplify this by answering my own question with a question.

What would the Church look like if there were a universal consensus that
our only moral agenda is to imitate Jesus? Throughout the three years of
Christ’s ministry on earth, Jesus displayed the sum total of zero interest
in pursuing political power to control other people’s behavior. Jesus was
offered political power three times—once by Satan—and He turned it
down each and every time. In the Roman culture of Jesus’ day, they had
something worse than abortion. People could legally kill their children up
until age two, but strangely we never see Jesus leading a campaign to
outlaw this barbaric practice. Perhaps more surprising is the fact that the
Apostle Paul could care less about how people outside the church
behaved. His sole concern was for the moral lives of those inside the
church. Those inside the church guilty of gross immorality were judged
by excommunication, but those outside the Church, Paul made it very
clear that Christians are to have nothing to do with judging them (I
Corinthians 5:12).

I realize that what I’ve written so far challenges a deeply held notion in
many Christian circles that God has called Bible believing Christians to be
the moral guardians of society, but frankly, I don’t give a rip about
offending religious people. What matters is what the Bible actually says,
not the opinions of man. I ask the question again. What would
Christianity look like if followers of Jesus decided that their only moral
agenda in this life is to imitate Jesus? Would we condemn the sinner with
a sword or would we serve the sinner with a towel?