Biologically, an individual human life begins at conception, with the formation of a new human organism with his or her own unique genetic code, and programmed to develop, be born, and live life.
Although completely dependent on the mother, the unborn child is never part of a woman’s own body.
New Zealand law only recognises a baby as legally a “human being” when “born live”.
Morally and legally, many societies (including New Zealand) have seen unborn children as deserving of at least some legal protection.
Many people and societies have felt that unborn children who capable of being viable if born are deserving of the highest degree of legal protection.
If a society decides however that an unborn baby has no human rights until “born live”, unborn children are left without any foundational legal status and protection and are vulnerable to legislation permitting abortion at any stage of gestation.
There is no mention of abortion in the Bible, but there are many biblical passages and principles that we should take into account.
The Bible…
points to the great value of human beings, created by God
(Ps.100:3 – “it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves”; Isa.64:8 – “We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand”), made in God’s image (Gen.1:27a), breathed life by God (Gen. 2:7), crowned by God with honour and glory (Ps. 8:5), and greatly loved by God (e.g. John 3:16)
is very positive about human procreation
(Gen. 1:28; Ps. 127:3)
speaks reverentially of God beautifully forming us in the womb, and seeing and knowing us before birth
13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.[
tells of God calling people before they were born
(Jer. 1:5; Gal.1:15)
does not address the issue whether life begins at conception or at birth, but does recognise the obvious continuity between the life that is conceived and the baby that is born
speaks warmly of unborn lives in the womb, in relation to both Jesus and John
(Luke 1:39-45)
in the Mosaic law, in one instance places a greater value upon the life of a mother than that of her unborn child (Ex. 21:22-25)
22“Now suppose two men are fighting, and in the process they accidentally strike a pregnant woman so she gives birth prematurely. If no further injury results, the man who struck the woman must pay the amount of compensation the woman’s husband demands and the judges approve.23But if there is further injury, the punishment must match the injury: a life for a life,24an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot,25a burn for a burn, a wound for a wound, a bruise for a bruise.
recounts Jesus’ welcome to childrenand his warning against causing them harm
(Matt. 18:5-6)
speaks often of God’s love for the weak and defenceless
(e.g. Ps. 32:13, 82:3-4)
shows God’s love for the disabled
(e.g. Ex. 4:11, Matt. 15:31, Lk. 14:13)
declares God’s love for the broken-hearted
(Ps. 34:18)
declares God’s grace and forgiveness for those who have done wrong
A number of media have recently carried a story about a survey seeking to measure which religions in New Zealand are the most-trusted, and which are the least trusted, in the aftermath of the 15 March terrorist attacks in Christchurch. The survey, conducted by the Institute for Governance and Policy Studies at Victoria University of Wellington, was based on a sample of one thousand people. Respondents were asked to indicate their trust in the following “religions”: Catholics, Protestants, Evangelical Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, atheists or agnostics, and Jews.
The summary that was headlined was “BUDDHISTS MOST TRUSTED, EVANGELICALS LEAST”. Respondents to the survey awarded Buddhists the most trust (35%) and the least distrust (15%). “Evangelical Christians” attracted the least trust (21%) and the most distrust (38%). All other “religions” were in a statistically indistinguishable clump in the middle.
source: business.scoop.co.nz
The summary that was headlined was “BUDDHISTS MOST TRUSTED, EVANGELICALS LEAST”. Respondents to the survey awarded Buddhists the most trust (35%) and the least distrust (15%). “Evangelical Christians” attracted the least trust (21%) and the most distrust (38%). All other “religions” were in a statistically indistinguishable clump in the middle.
Kiwis’ trust in members of different faiths. Photo credit: Institute for Governance and Policy Studies/Colmar Brunton
It is not surprising that Buddhists, with their reputation for peacefulness and for harmony with nature, were the most trusted religion in a society where many secular people (now over 40% of New Zealanders) are at least faintly drawn to the sort of diffused spirituality perceived to be associated with eastern religion. Also, Buddhists do not have a reputation for being out to convert anyone.
Given the way the survey was framed, it was perhaps inevitable that respondents would indicate the lowest degree of trust in “evangelicals”.
A number of comments can be made about the survey…
1
Most people in New Zealand – especially secular people, but also probably the majority of church-going Christians –have little or no idea what the term “evangelical” means (i.e. that it is a theological category, denoting a strong emphasis on the Gospel and the Bible).
2
The majority of people who are evangelical in New Zealand (and in most other countries), do not usually explicitly identify themselves as “evangelical”, but more often primarily identify themselves as “Christian” or by the name of their church or denomination, or by some other theological descriptor such as “Pentecostal”. Many New Zealand “Evangelicals” are in so-called mainstream churches, and many others in denominations such as the Baptists, or in independent churches. It is erroneous to assume that because only a mere 15,000 people explicitly identified themselves in the 2013 Census as “Evangelical”, they are the only people in New Zealand who are evangelical.
3
It was odd and confusing that the survey singled out “Evangelical” as one of the options, and “Protestant” as another. “Evangelical” and “Protestant” are not in fact separate or competing “religions”. The reality is, the majority of “Evangelical” Christians are also “Protestant”, and about half of New Zealand’s church-going Protestants are also evangelical in theology and practice. One term is essentially a subset of the other. So comparing one with the other is rather like comparing apples with fruit.
4
For many respondents, the word “evangelical” was probably misunderstood to mean “evangelistic”. For many people the word conjures up feelings about in-your-face, bible-bashing proselytism, something which many secular people find annoying (and which many Christian people are also uncomfortable with).
5
It is also highly likely that quite a number of respondents were also influenced by the American media’s highlighting of “evangelical” support for the Republican Party and especially for Donald Trump. The word “Evangelical” thus invokes some negative stereotypes, and for the survey to single out “evangelicals” at this time was almost to invite such a response. In our greatly different New Zealand context, however, it is fallacious to suppose that all New Zealand “Evangelicals” must be Trump-supporting, Muslim-hating bigots and xenophobes. Notwithstanding the current linkage in the United States between some evangelicals and political views, in almost every other country in the world the word “evangelical” carries no political meaning at all.
For all these reasons, it is questionable whether the survey offers us any useful new insights. Indirectly, however, the outcomes of the survey are consistent with what many of us already knew: that the term “evangelical” is currently not well known or understood within wider New Zealand society, nor even within many New Zealand churches.
But, as indicated in another article posted today (see here), the true taonga in the word “evangelical” lies not in the word itself but in what it points to, the Good News of Jesus.
To be evangelical means to believe and live for Christ in the spirit of the New Testament Gospel, celebrating God’s great love and grace, through faith in Christ as Lord and Saviour.
Evangelical Christianity is about spiritual conversion, and Christian consecration and discipleship.
It is about believing that salvation is found in Christ alone, and that believers should share the good news of Christ both in word and in action.
It places much emphasis on the saving work of Christ on the Cross, and the critical importance of Christ’s resurrection.
Being evangelical is about devotion to Christ, and prayerfulness.
It involves a high level of commitment to Christian fellowship and the church.
To be evangelical means to recognise the divine inspiration and authority of the Bible, and to make much use of it in preaching, teaching, study and devotion.
Evangelical Christianity is about holding to historic biblical Christianity, and to safeguard that many evangelical churches and organisations have a statement of faith.
Evangelical Christianity varies greatly in its practices and tone.
At its best, evangelical Christianity transcends denominational distinctives, and cultural divides, and many differences over secondary matters. Evangelical Christianity shares many of its characteristics with various other Christian streams, especially with regard to the basics of Christian faith and life, but nevertheless it has its own distinctive flavour. At its core, evangelical Christianity has a spiritual Gospel dynamic which transforms individual lives, and then flows over into relationships, family, churches, and society.
At its core, evangelical Christianity has a spiritual Gospel dynamic which transforms individual lives, and then flows over into relationships, family, churches, and society.
The word “evangelical” points us to the heart of the New Testament message. The word is derived from the New Testament Greek word for “Gospel” (euangelion), which means “good news”: the good news that the living God has sent his Son into the world, to reveal God, to die for our sins, and to rise from the dead, and that when people place their faith in Christ they receive forgiveness, newness of life, the presence of the Holy Spirit, and confidence for eternity.
The word “evangelical” was used during the Reformation, to indicate an emphasis on the Gospel of grace and on the authority and use of the Bible. It was very much associated with the eighteenth century revivals in Britain and America, and the nineteenth century humanitarian improvements in British society, and the nineteenth and twentieth century global expansion of Protestant Christianity – and not least the background to New Zealand’s Treaty of the Waitangi.
Within the church, the word “evangelical” serves primarily an in-house theological term. Outside the church, the word “evangelical” is less useful, because it is so often misunderstood. It is often best to express its meaning using other words.
The New Zealand Christian Network is associated with the World Evangelical Alliance, which seeks to express the faith of about some 600 million evangelical Christians worldwide, across a vast diversity of different nations, cultures and denominations. In some 130 countries, there is a national evangelical alliance affiliated to the WEA. From time to time, the WEA calls a General Assembly. The last one was in 2008. The next one is in November 2019, and it will be attended by several representatives from New Zealand.
“Who are these atheists, anyway?” is the fourth and final part in the Atheism is not all it’s cracked up to be series by Gavan O’ Farrell, who works as a public sector lawyer.
This final Part on the series on atheism is less concerned with argument and more focused on who we’re talking about (and to).
“Non-theists” vary
I’ve decided now to refer to “non-theists”, as non-belief in God ranges from frank atheism (“There is no God”) to agnosticism (“I don’t know”) with each position having its own spectrum and labels not being applied consistently. Non-theists sometimes describe themselves as “rationalists”, “realists”, “sceptics”, “humanists” or “secularists”. However, they all reside in the “empiricist box” (see Part 1).
Needless to say, non-theists vary because they are human beings with myriad characteristics and experiences. I can mention some.
The most serious non-theists are those atheists who are intellectually attached to the evidence argument: if there were a God, it would have been proved by now. Their demeanour varies: some triumphalist and rude, some civil.
Ordinarily, atheists are a smallish subset of non-theists but, in this era of maximum self-expression, the number is probably artificially inflated.
The most visible non-theists are those who have a strong dislike of religion, especially Christianity.
This dislike may arise from their understanding of the general and historical conduct of the Church – sometimes a genuine misunderstanding that can be treated with information.
Illumination is not effective when the misunderstanding is deliberate – due to prejudice or even organised enmity. Socialists, for example, oppose Christianity as a matter of ideology, will contradict and abuse it at every opportunity and intend to bring it down. This stance can be found in many places, people and discussions: it doesn’t always call itself Socialism but, on the other hand, the Socialism brand is being laundered and relaunched despite its appallingly murderous history.
Or the dislike may be the result of bad experiences within the Church – a story which needs to be seriously listened to before mentioning “babies and bathwater”. Many are angry: mere indignation for some, while for others it is real hurt.
This anger is sometimes directed at God, not at religion. If a believer is angry with God, and doesn’t address the situation properly, the anger can take them far away – eg I might “punish God” by proclaiming that I don’t believe in Him.
Determined personal sovereignty and autonomy is another path to non-theism: “I don’t need a God to feel significant or secure”. Or, “I’m very clever and educated, I’ll take it from here”. Or simply, “No-one’s the boss of me!” More attitude than rationale.
Others were raised as non-theists and, like some Christians, think habitually and speak by rote.
Some non-theists call themselves “sceptics”, but I have found that they are typically half-sceptics – sceptical about God and the supernatural but not about their own claims about rationality and evidence (or the social and moral positions put forward by the Left).
Most non-theists are agnostics. This position is more understandable than a dogmatic “Ain’t no God”.
On the other hand, “I don’t know” is often a cover for “I don’t care”. It seems strange not to care that there might be Someone who made the cosmos and is in touch with humanity, but we continue to hear “I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it”.
For some, “I’ll cross that bridge” is another pretext for avoiding a difficult issue. We should recognise that delaying consideration (and the “risk” of believing) is understandable, just like not wanting God to exist.
Some people prefer agnosticism because they believe it can accommodate spirituality. (Oddly, even some atheists are into this.) Of course, this “spirituality” falls short of belief in a God who is a Person – especially, a Person with, shall we say, “strong opinions” (who needs that?!). I think they’re trying to have their cake and eat it:
A yearning for “the spiritual” is extremely common and entirely natural (a hint at the real yearning for God).
However, with no connection with God or the supernatural, “spirituality” is just a species of strong emotion.
True atheism – “truth is about reason and evidence” – is hard to market. No-one wants to think of themselves as a left hemisphere on a stick, so no wonder non-theist advocates use hard-sell. Enhancing non-theism with “spirituality” is smart marketing, but that’s all it is.
At risk of stating the obvious, a conversation with a non-theist is not a conversation with the embodiment of some ideas but with a fabulously complex and unique human being who is in God’s image and likeness, is loved by God, is in humanity’s shared predicament and has an irrefutable claim on everyone’s love.
Atheism and politics
Visiting an atheist site, I once asked “Are there any conservative atheists or are you all Lefties?”. I was told, “If you’re smart enough to be an atheist, you’re probably smart enough to be progressive”.
Like much of academia, the media, the education system,much of government and parts of the Church, popular non-theism seems to have been infiltrated and largely taken over by “progressives” – to be politically allied with third-wave feminism, the LGBTIQ lobby and other “diversity” lobbies, and united with these in protecting Islam from criticism.
It is strange that such independent thinkers (a claim which non-theists often make to distinguish themselves from Christians) should all of a sudden be of one mind about such difficult and complex issues, especially when you consider that –
trans activists ignore and often oppose the “factuality” of science, which serious non-theists ordinarily value; and
in an Islamic theocracy, non-theists would fare as badly as feminists and LGBTIQ folk.
As far as I can tell, all these groups have in common is a, shall we say, “warm dislike” of Christianity. I don’t know how else to make sense of this outlandish alliance.
Some non-theists are seriously dedicated to reality and reason and have avoided being ensnared by these movements. It is possible to have positive ethical and political conversations with these more independent non-theists. There is likely to be mutual acceptance of the starting proposition that human beings are highly, and equally, valuable – if the non-theists don’t deride our “deluded” reasons for believing this and we don’t berate them for having no reason at all to believe it (see Part 2). From that starting-point, a lot of positive discussion and common action are possible.
Some very good books
Before closing, I must bring to your attention four excellent myth-busting books that together respond to most charges laid at the door of Christianity:
In these times of rising geopolitical chaos, the need for mutual understanding between cultures has never been more urgent. Religious differences are seen as fuel for violence and warfare. In these pages, one of our greatest writers on religion, Karen Armstrong, amasses a sweeping history of humankind to explore the perceived connection between war and the world’s great creeds—and to issue a passionate defense of the peaceful nature of faith.
With unprecedented scope, Armstrong looks at the whole history of each tradition—not only Christianity and Islam, but also Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Daoism, and Judaism. Religions, in their earliest days, endowed every aspect of life with meaning, and warfare became bound up with observances of the sacred. Modernity has ushered in an epoch of spectacular violence, although, as Armstrong shows, little of it can be ascribed directly to religion. Nevertheless, she shows us how and in what measure religions came to absorb modern belligerence—and what hope there might be for peace among believers of different faiths in our time.
A recent string of popular-level books written by the New Atheists have leveled the accusation that the God of the Old Testament is nothing but a bully, a murderer, and a cosmic child abuser. This viewpoint is even making inroads into the church. How are Christians to respond to such accusations? And how are we to reconcile the seemingly disconnected natures of God portrayed in the two testaments?
In this timely and readable book, apologist Paul Copan takes on some of the most vexing accusations of our time, including:
God is arrogant and jealous God punishes people too harshly God is guilty of ethnic cleansing God oppresses women God endorses slavery Christianity causes violence and more
Copan not only answers God’s critics, he also shows how to read both the Old and New Testaments faithfully, seeing an unchanging, righteous, and loving God in both.
The “marvelous” (Reza Aslan, bestselling author of Zealot), New York Times bestselling story of how Christianity became the dominant religion in the West.
How did a religion whose first believers were twenty or so illiterate day laborers in a remote part of the empire became the official religion of Rome, converting some thirty million people in just four centuries? In The Triumph of Christianity, early Christian historian Bart D. Ehrman weaves the rigorously-researched answer to this question “into a vivid, nuanced, and enormously readable narrative” (Elaine Pagels, National Book Award-winning author of The Gnostic Gospels), showing how a handful of charismatic characters used a brilliant social strategy and an irresistible message to win over hearts and minds one at a time.
This “humane, thoughtful and intelligent” book (The New York Times Book Review) upends the way we think about the single most important cultural transformation our world has ever seen—one that revolutionized art, music, literature, philosophy, ethics, economics, and law.
Among all the great transitions that have marked Western history, only one—the triumph of Christianity—can be called in the fullest sense a “revolution”
In this provocative book one of the most brilliant scholars of religion today dismantles distorted religious “histories” offered up by Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and other contemporary critics of religion and advocates of atheism. David Bentley Hart provides a bold correction of the New Atheists’s misrepresentations of the Christian past, countering their polemics with a brilliant account of Christianity and its message of human charity as the most revolutionary movement in all of Western history.
Hart outlines how Christianity transformed the ancient world in ways we may have forgotten: bringing liberation from fatalism, conferring great dignity on human beings, subverting the cruelest aspects of pagan society, and elevating charity above all virtues. He then argues that what we term the “Age of Reason” was in fact the beginning of the eclipse of reason’s authority as a cultural value. Hart closes the book in the present, delineating the ominous consequences of the decline of Christendom in a culture that is built upon its moral and spiritual values.
The following article by Alex Penk, first appears appeared on Maxim Institute’s website and is republished here with permission.
Stick it to the man – source brainlesstales.com
Rage against the machine. Stick it to the man. If you’re not for us, you’re against us. They’re familiar sayings, and sometimes comforting ones, especially when our nation is in the thick of debate about issues that really fire people up—euthanasia, cannabis, and most recently, abortion. But while it’s right to feel passionate about these issues, it’s also possible to go too far. In fact, there are signs that we already have. So it’s time to make a—hopefully not too earnest—plea for civility.
Rage against the machine. Stick it to the man. If you’re not for us, you’re against us.
Let me give a couple of examples of the problem. Recently the Labour MP Kieran McAnulty tweeted that he’d been called a Nazi, a liar, a prick, and a bastard after he’d announced that he would support the Abortion Legislation Bill. The Abortion Law Reform Association has a page titled “Email Your Rage!”, urging people to email MPs about reform. There’s even a button to “Blast Them All!” by sending one email to all MPs. But while engaging in abuse and fostering rage might provide a short-term high, they do a lot of long-term damage and they’re wrong—if you want proof, just look at America under President Trump. The antidote is what legal philosopher Jeremy Waldron has called the “chilly virtue” of civility.
He says that civility involves respect for others, even and especially for people you disagree with deeply. It’s a “chilly virtue” because it’s about “formality,” not feelings. It means being committed to certain rules of engagement, binding ourselves to a procedure for dispute resolution, and accepting the outcome because we know we’ll never reach consensus on these issues. Like all virtues, it has to be practised to become part of who we are.
Civility involves respect for others, even and especially for people you disagree with deeply.
Practising it means striving, as Waldron has also said, for a society where “everyone tries to answer the best, not the worst, that can be made of their opponents’ positions,” and “consider that they might be mistaken and to imagine at any rate what it must be like to hold another view”. It means recognising that the “other side” aren’t monsters, they’re people like us with competing views of what’s good and right, and competing judgments about how to prioritise the goods we do agree on.
So, for example, if you oppose euthanasia, you should recognise that supporters genuinely believe we need this practice to prevent needless suffering and to uphold freedom of choice. If you support euthanasia, you should recognise that opponents are genuinely concerned that it would create a risk of wrongful death, especially for the most vulnerable. To return to Waldron, it means recognising that people we disagree with might be our opponents, but they are not our enemies.
So we should contest these big, divisive issues, and all the others that politics brings our way. We should argue vigorously for our view, and that the other side is wrong, and debate the facts. But we can’t afford to stoop to abuse or rage. We have to be better than that. After all, we still have to live together when these debates are over.
Alex Penk leads the work and mission of Maxim Institute, representing their work in public, and speaking and writing about public leadership – a topic he studied during his time as a Visiting Fellow at the McDonald Centre at Oxford University in Trinity Term 2016. His previous study includes a Master of Laws from Cambridge University and degrees in law and science from the University of Auckland.
Maxim Institute is an independent think tank, working to promote the dignity of every person in New Zealand, by standing for freedom, justice, and compassion.
I’ve decided now to refer to “non-theists”, as non-belief in God ranges from frank atheism (“There is no God”) to agnosticism (“I don’t know”) with each position having its own spectrum and labels not being applied consistently. Non-theists sometimes describe themselves as “rationalists”, “realists”, “sceptics”, “humanists” or “secularists”. However, they all reside in the “empiricist box” (
On the other hand, “I don’t know” is often a cover for “I don’t care”. It seems strange not to care that there might be Someone who made the cosmos and is in touch with humanity, but we continue to hear “I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it”.
At risk of stating the obvious, a conversation with a non-theist is not a conversation with the embodiment of some ideas but with a fabulously complex and unique human being who is in God’s image and likeness, is loved by God, is in humanity’s shared predicament and has an irrefutable claim on everyone’s love.
