From Radical Love to Righteous Control: Rethinking Christianity's Obsession with Abortion
Do you wanna talk about abortion? Is everyone relaxed now? Seriously though, as a man who is writing about abortion I want to be clear from the outset.
My only role in the abortion discussion is to listen to, learn from, and support women as best I can. Period. Full stop. To act in any other way is at best self-righteously ignorant and, at worst, dangerously oppressive.
But I can say a lot about religion, and religion is often central in our debates around abortion.
In the United States, the arguments to restrict or remove a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion are anchored, often unapologetically directly, in religious rhetoric and rationale. And, in the United States, that rationale and rhetoric are overwhelmingly Christian.
As someone who has studied and taught religion for over 20 years and whose expertise is the Historical Jesus and the history of the early church, my goal with this piece is to return to the very beginnings of the Christian church—the days when it was still the Jesus Movement or, more simply, the Way—and consider the early history of Christian teachings on abortion.
Christianity, as we understand it now, is not a monolithic structure. Rather, we have a wide variety of denominations, from Catholic to Orthodox to Protestant, with an infinite amount of personal permutations within (for example, some Christians make attending services an inviolable part of their week, while others do it only on Christmas and Easter). All fairly fall within the umbrella of “Christianity.”
This was just as true in the centuries before the Great Schism and Protestant Reformation. That’s what Paul was doing with his letters. He was giving advice to the Christ communities he founded on how to be Christian. Some communities stayed with his instruction while others, like the community at Galatia, went their own way.
This is why the study of history has always been essential to me in my own study of religion. There is no “unbroken” line of teachings within any religion, Christianity included.
It all evolves through time, alongside the community of believers, as their unique experience of the divine mixes with their history and culture. Even the teachings which authentically go back to a tradition’s founding prophet have been preserved and handed down because of how they speak to specific communities through time.
So, abortion.
When we look back at the earliest writings of the Christian church, we see almost no mention of abortion.
There is nothing about it in the Q Gospel (the earliest Gospel, comprised of Jesus’ sayings, which was first theorized nearly 200 years ago and “at least 90 percent of contemporary Gospel scholars” believe in today[1]) nor Paul’s genuine letters (I Thessalonians, Galatians, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Philemon, and Romans). Both Paul’s letters and Q are dated to the 50s CE, 20 years after Jesus’ execution at the hands of the Romans and 20 years before Mark, the oldest canonical gospel.
But it’s not just the earliest level of Christian scripture where we find this absence. Looking backward and forward from the 50s, we don’t see abortion mentioned anywhere in the entire Hebrew Bible or the rest of the Christian New Testament.
As Melanie A. Howard, Associate Professor of Biblical & Theological Studies at Fresno Pacific University, explains:
“Abortions were known and practiced in biblical times, although the methods differed significantly from modern ones. The second-century Greek physician Soranus, for example, recommended fasting, bloodletting, vigorous jumping, and carrying heavy loads as ways to end a pregnancy.
Soranus’ treatise on gynecology acknowledged different schools of thought on the topic. Some medical practitioners forbade the use of any abortive methods. Others permitted them, but not in cases in which they were intended to cover up an adulterous liaison or simply to preserve the mother’s good looks.
In other words, the Bible was written in a world in which abortion was practiced and viewed with nuance. Yet the Hebrew and Greek equivalents of the word “abortion” do not appear in either the Old or New Testament of the Bible. That is, the topic simply is not directly mentioned.[2]”
The only early Christian writing where abortion is mentioned is the Didache, a manual for instructing Gentile converts to the faith, also written sometime in the 50s CE.
Alongside what a convert must do to join the Jesus Movement, the text offers 45 behaviors they mustn’t do in “the second rule of training” (Didache 2:1). Of those, the eighth is, “you will not murder offspring by means of abortion” (Didache 2:2).[3]
That’s pretty direct. So, we see forbidding abortion was something discussed as part of joining the Jesus Movement. But the Didache was not a universally recognized text, hence it not being included in the canon of scripture when the church fathers set the New Testament.
We also see, from Q to Paul to the rest of the New Testament, Jesus didn’t preach about abortion. Paul didn’t write about it. None of the New Testament authors did. At all.
In fact, the biblical passages most regularly invoked to say abortion is wrong are passages condemning murder but they only fit if abortion is understood as murder. And, as biblical and Ancient Near East scholar Eric J. Harvey details, the question of personhood isn’t something clearly defined in the Bible.
“On the beginning of personhood, biblical literature is far from clear. Several texts concern prenatal development, but they do not offer clear guidance on the value or social/legal status of gestating fetuses (or even of children). Often, the metaphors used to describe prenatal development imply a gradual process (cf. Job 10:11–12; Ps 139:13–15). A lump of clay on a potter’s wheel is not a pot. Milk with rennet added is not cheese. A skein of yarn is not a garment. All of these things change in the process of their formation and achieve their full value only upon completion.
The passage with the clearest implications for fetal personhood [Exodus. 21:22–25] – which, it must be said, is not terribly clear in any absolute sense—implies that there is a strong legal distinction between fetuses in utero and adults, at the very least.[4]”
Now, this isn’t to say many early members of the Jesus movement didn’t reject abortion outright. Nor can we say with any certainty what Jesus or Paul’s personal views on abortion may’ve been.
We’ve simply no way to tell. We lack the historical data. All we know is the issue of abortion wasn’t one which Jesus or Paul covered in their preaching.
The teachings of both men—Jesus, with his Kingdom of God revolution, and Paul, whose writings were most responsible for making Christianity its own distinct religion—are filled with instructions on how to live to bring the Kingdom (if we’re talking about Jesus) and/or to be part of the Jesus Movement (if we’re talking Paul).
The behaviors advocated both upending established norms (like the purity system Jesus undermined with his inclusive table[5]) and reinforcing the Jewish way of life (as with the Shema[6] as the Greatest Commandment[7]). But expressly prohibiting abortion wasn’t a focus for either Jesus or Paul.
So what was?
Well just for starters, looking to both the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament, we see caring for those living in poverty mentioned over 2,100 times. Caring for those who’ve immigrated from another country is mentioned over 400 times, too.
Scripturally speaking, to authentically live “as a Christian” is to make wealth redistribution and open borders our main priority.
Of course, anyone is welcome to make abortion the deciding factor in the way they vote, the central issue in their personal faith, and/or the top moral issue they’re concerned with. But we can’t pretend it’s the Christian thing to do, not if we define Christian as following Christ.
An express forbiddance of abortion reflects what a segment of Christianity became over time, but it has little-to-nothing to do with the Christianity born from Jesus of Nazareth’s message nor Paul of Tarsus’ missionary activity.
Historically speaking, to live as a Christian is to devote all resources, public and personal, to aid the poor, as well as have open borders to welcome all immigrants. It is about creating a world of justice for all with no borders, boundaries, divisions, or hierarchies.[8]
It is to make building the Kingdom of God, a world radically transformed in God’s image, our primary concern. And that means living a world of unconditional love (Luke 6:27-36), nonviolence in all things (Matthew 5:38-45), total giving and no ownership (Mark 10:17-25), and no judgment (Matthew 7:1-5) into being through our actions, our communities, and our faith in God.[9]
Cynically but perhaps not unfairly, I believe a certain segment of Christianity has made abortion the centerpiece of all ethical and political issues because it’s easier to point a finger, to judge, to condemn, and to attempt to control women everywhere as opposed to loving with the radical inclusion Jesus preached or embracing the no ownership economies Paul set his Christ communities about building.
The latter is to let God transform our hearts and lives. The former is to pretend we have the right to play God and judge everyone else’s.
📚Want to dive deeper? Here are the studies and books that informed this article📚
[1] Marcus Borg, consulting editor, The Lost Gospel Q: The Original Sayings of Jesus (Berkley: Ulysses Press, 1996), 15.
[2] Melanie A. Howard, “What the Bible actually says about abortion may surprise you,” The Conversation. Published July 20, 2022. https://theconversation.com/what-the-bible-actually-says-about-abortion-may-surprise-you-186983#:~:text=In%20other%20words%2C%20the%20Bible,simply%20is%20not%20directly%20mentioned.
[3] Aaron Milavec, The Didache: Text, Translation, Analysis, and Commentary (Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2003), 5.
[4] Eric J. Harvey, “Teaching Abortion in Bible and Religious Studies Courses,” Ancient Jew Review. Published November 13, 2023. https://www.ancientjewreview.com/read?author=65522f462fcc0755983f35b2
[5] John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography, (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1994), 70.
[6] The Shema, the central prayer in Judaism and a bedrock of the faith, can be found in Deuteronomy 6:4-9:
4 Hear, O Israel!* The LORD is our God, the LORD alone!
5 Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with your whole heart, and with your whole being, and with your whole strength.
6 Take to heart these words which I command you today.
7 Keep repeating them to your children. Recite them when you are at home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you get up.
8 Bind them on your arm as a sign* and let them be as a pendant on your forehead.
9 Write them on the doorposts of your houses and on your gates.
[7] Milavec, 46.
[8] Crossan, 71.
[9] Note, the Bible passages I’ve cited above are just one example. Jesus’ teachings on these themes are recurring all through the Gospels and the entire New Testament.
