Standing for Life in a Culture of Death
Trinity Evangelical Church stands solidly and passionately in the long tradition of the Christian church in respecting the sanctity of human life. Scripture is clear in its teaching that all humans have value because they bear the image of God. One of the most odious sins in the Old Testament was shedding innocent blood. To allow innocent blood to be shed in the land was to pollute the whole nation.
Our modern western culture is permeated with the shedding of innocent blood. Both science and scripture agree that when humans conceive, they conceive a human being. Yet, each day we witness the killing of these humans on the basis of convenience, arbitrary standards of achievement, or utility. To remain silent is not an option; we must work to eliminate these practices by whatever means are ethically proper.
In our understanding of the scripture’s prohibition of murder by abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia we stand in the unwavering tradition of the Christian church. In the early centuries of the church, believers laid their lives on the line over this issue by rescuing babies that had been abandoned. In Roman law, if the father determined that a baby was unwanted, he had the absolute right to abandon the baby, leaving it to die of exposure. Christians interfered with this “right”, and because of their understanding of human value they rescued these abandoned and unwanted infants, often facing severe penalties when caught.
From the earliest Christian writings, the Christian tradition clearly and unequivocally stands opposed to infanticide and abortion. The Didache, one of the earliest instructional books of the late first or early second century, teaches:
Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not corrupt boys, do not fornicate, do not steal; do not practice magic, do not go in for sorcery, do not murder a child by abortion or kill a newborn infant.
To this can be added many other Christian voices such as Caesarius of Arles, Athenagoras, Clement of Alexander, Tertullian, Origen, Cyprian, Ambrose, Jerome, Chrysostom, and Augustine.
Unfortunately, in our day we have seen the fall of this Christian principle as our country has reduced the value of human life to utility. Abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia are commonplace and to be human is to be as disposable as fast food trash.
We hold that every Bible-believing Christian has a duty under God to stand opposed to this shedding of innocent blood. We encourage our members to become informed, to speak out against the slaughter, to write letters, to pray, to vote pro-life, to protest, to dissuade those entering abortion clinics, and perhaps even to consider non-violent civil disobedience. To remain silent or uninvolved would be to commit sin in the face of the great atrocity of our age.