What does the Bible say about abortion? (With link)

[Associate Justice PiT]

From what I remember discussion of abortion in the Bible is pretty vague and ambiguous. What's more interesting is that there was a strong and almost universal moral prohibition against abortion early in the Christian tradition, from at least the Didache (so likely 1st century).

     This is a good, concise summary. One of the biggest falsehoods that gets passed around about Christianity today is that Christian opposition to abortion did not exist until the 1970s. The thing is that this talking point is targeted at Evangelicals, who as a rule do not put significant emphasis on extrabiblical writings. American thought tends to take the Evangelical tradition as the "normal" form of Christianity, to the point that they really don't know how to talk to people who come from churches that put weight on historical as well as scriptural evidence.

[Associate Justice PiT]

From what I remember discussion of abortion in the Bible is pretty vague and ambiguous. What's more interesting is that there was a strong and almost universal moral prohibition against abortion early in the Christian tradition, from at least the Didache (so likely 1st century).

     This is a good, concise summary. One of the biggest falsehoods that gets passed around about Christianity today is that Christian opposition to abortion did not exist until the 1970s. The thing is that this talking point is targeted at Evangelicals, who as a rule do not put significant emphasis on extrabiblical writings. American thought tends to take the Evangelical tradition as the "normal" form of Christianity, to the point that they really don't know how to talk to people who come from churches that put weight on historical as well as scriptural evidence.

Very true, though admittedly St. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, and Aquinas (among other early Christians) came to their conclusions about abortion more through their understanding of human philosophy and not from a reasoning from the scriptures. Yet, the churches that are the most anti-abortion generally are the ones that claim that their only authority are the scriptures (which are vague at best regarding the beginning of life, and totally silent about the actual practice of abortion), and want nothing to do with church history predating Luther.

     I think the important thing to understand is that the Church Fathers were not averse to knowing human philosophy. St. Basil the Great writes on the value of pagan literature, and he says that there are fruitful things in them that Christians can benefit from. Indeed St. Basil the Great makes as clear a reference to pagan philosophy as anyone in his condemnation of abortion, rejecting the Aristotelian standard of formation as a proper demarcation of the sanctity of life and calling the killing of the unformed baby murder.

     As for saying Evangelicals are more anti-abortion, it might be that they are more political generally. Orthodoxy by its nature is very anti-abortion and there is no defensible basis within our tradition for thinking it is acceptable. Yet we don't often talk about politics in general, and so we probably talk about abortion much less than Evangelicals do.

[Associate Justice PiT]

From what I remember discussion of abortion in the Bible is pretty vague and ambiguous. What's more interesting is that there was a strong and almost universal moral prohibition against abortion early in the Christian tradition, from at least the Didache (so likely 1st century).

     This is a good, concise summary. One of the biggest falsehoods that gets passed around about Christianity today is that Christian opposition to abortion did not exist until the 1970s. The thing is that this talking point is targeted at Evangelicals, who as a rule do not put significant emphasis on extrabiblical writings. American thought tends to take the Evangelical tradition as the "normal" form of Christianity, to the point that they really don't know how to talk to people who come from churches that put weight on historical as well as scriptural evidence.

Very true, though admittedly St. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, and Aquinas (among other early Christians) came to their conclusions about abortion more through their understanding of human philosophy and not from a reasoning from the scriptures. Yet, the churches that are the most anti-abortion generally are the ones that claim that their only authority are the scriptures (which are vague at best regarding the beginning of life, and totally silent about the actual practice of abortion), and want nothing to do with church history predating Luther.

     I think the important thing to understand is that the Church Fathers were not averse to knowing human philosophy. St. Basil the Great writes on the value of pagan literature, and he says that there are fruitful things in them that Christians can benefit from. Indeed St. Basil the Great makes as clear a reference to pagan philosophy as anyone in his condemnation of abortion, rejecting the Aristotelian standard of formation as a proper demarcation of the sanctity of life and calling the killing of the unformed baby murder.

     As for saying Evangelicals are more anti-abortion, it might be that they are more political generally. Orthodoxy by its nature is very anti-abortion and there is no defensible basis within our tradition for thinking it is acceptable. Yet we don't often talk about politics in general, and so we probably talk about abortion much less than Evangelicals do.

Do you think this has something to do with Orthodox churches' traditional relationship with their "home" nations' governments? (ROC in Russia, for example)

     There are definitely cases where that has been true, e.g. in the USSR where public criticism of abortion was forbidden and so the Moscow Patriarchate remained tragically silent on the matter. In today's world, I think it is more a factor of salvation in the Orthodox paradigm is seen as being primarily a result of practicing the authentic spiritual life and coming into union with God thereby. The concept of the social gospel never took off in the East as it did in the West, and so political matters are naturally seen as less relevant to the message of the Church (though neither are they off-limits).

[Associate Justice PiT]

From what I remember discussion of abortion in the Bible is pretty vague and ambiguous. What's more interesting is that there was a strong and almost universal moral prohibition against abortion early in the Christian tradition, from at least the Didache (so likely 1st century).

     This is a good, concise summary. One of the biggest falsehoods that gets passed around about Christianity today is that Christian opposition to abortion did not exist until the 1970s. The thing is that this talking point is targeted at Evangelicals, who as a rule do not put significant emphasis on extrabiblical writings. American thought tends to take the Evangelical tradition as the "normal" form of Christianity, to the point that they really don't know how to talk to people who come from churches that put weight on historical as well as scriptural evidence.

Very true, though admittedly St. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, and Aquinas (among other early Christians) came to their conclusions about abortion more through their understanding of human philosophy and not from a reasoning from the scriptures. Yet, the churches that are the most anti-abortion generally are the ones that claim that their only authority are the scriptures (which are vague at best regarding the beginning of life, and totally silent about the actual practice of abortion), and want nothing to do with church history predating Luther.

     I think the important thing to understand is that the Church Fathers were not averse to knowing human philosophy. St. Basil the Great writes on the value of pagan literature, and he says that there are fruitful things in them that Christians can benefit from. Indeed St. Basil the Great makes as clear a reference to pagan philosophy as anyone in his condemnation of abortion, rejecting the Aristotelian standard of formation as a proper demarcation of the sanctity of life and calling the killing of the unformed baby murder.

     As for saying Evangelicals are more anti-abortion, it might be that they are more political generally. Orthodoxy by its nature is very anti-abortion and there is no defensible basis within our tradition for thinking it is acceptable. Yet we don't often talk about politics in general, and so we probably talk about abortion much less than Evangelicals do.

Do you think this has something to do with Orthodox churches' traditional relationship with their "home" nations' governments? (ROC in Russia, for example)

     There are definitely cases where that has been true, e.g. in the USSR where public criticism of abortion was forbidden and so the Moscow Patriarchate remained tragically silent on the matter. In today's world, I think it is more a factor of salvation in the Orthodox paradigm is seen as being primarily a result of practicing the authentic spiritual life and coming into union with God thereby. The concept of the social gospel never took off in the East as it did in the West, and so political matters are naturally seen as less relevant to the message of the Church (though neither are they off-limits).

Would the traditional relationship of, say, the ROC to the Russian state (pre-1917, post-1991) also play a role in the Church's hesitance to concern itself with "wordly" affairs, or its lack of a social gospel [e.g., either (a) the Church had restricted room to maneuver and was not in a position to promote activism, or (b) concerns of the temporal world could simply be entrusted to a separate institution, the state]?

     I would say that some of both (a) and (b) are accurate, but I am not nearly read enough on Russian history to speak to the topic in the detail that it deserves.