In The Sacredness of Human Life, David Gushee traces “the history of Christian pro-life thinking—and our failure to live up to it.” David Neff identifies the “the linchpin of his argument”:
The sacredness of human life as portrayed in the Bible and the church fathers is not anchored in any particular human quality. Philosophers have tried to locate our human essence in various things, from our ability to reason to our capacity for relationship. But in biblical thinking, humans are sacred only because the Creator-Redeemer God ascribes such worth to them. This theocentric view is vital because infants, those with mental disabilities, and many elderly lack key capacities, yet are still of ultimate worth to God.
How did the church lose its radical commitment to life? One key factor, Gushee writes, was that the apocalyptic framework of Jesus’ teaching faded. Jesus promised to come back soon to establish his kingdom. But centuries passed, the Christian population grew, and the kingdom of God became associated with a church endowed with state power and a state blessed by church leaders. Belief in the sacred worth of all people does not serve the interests of power. War shifted from a necessary evil to a divine command. “The Christian glories in the death of the pagan,” wrote medieval mystic Bernard of Clairvaux, “because Christ is glorified.”
The Dish 