I am currently reading a good book by Daniel K. Williams entitled The 
Politics of the Cross: A Christian Alternative to Partisanship (Eerdmans, 2021).
I suspect that I will eventually post a more thorough review of this work at some point in the future. But given my recent encounters with several books and articles examining the lustful, nationalistic ties that have long bound American Christianity to the nation’s callous, military bloodletting around the world, I wanted to write a short note on Dr. Williams’ defense of the pro-life movement.
Williams looks at four political issues that tend to divide Americans along party lines: abortion, marriage and sexuality, race, and wealth and poverty.
His goal is to show that all four of these concerns should equally animate all Christians into a bipartisan – or better yet, nonpartisan – alliance that would work together towards a wholistic “politics of the cross.”
If you have read my book, I Pledge Allegiance, you won’t be surprised to
learn that I couldn’t help but notice that war and peace (unsurprisingly) don’t make it onto Dr. Williams’ list of important Christian political issues.
This absence was underscored as I read his biblical/theological arguments against abortion. He naturally begins with the early Christian apologists and church fathers who condemned abortion in the ancient world. Their arguments are important and powerful, laying the groundwork for Christianity’s longstanding opposition to abortion. [This point requires elaboration, but I won’t do that here.]
However, these same ancient, Christian leaders used similar arguments to oppose all Christian involvement with violence, warfare, and the military. The same men who condemned abortion and defended unborn children were equally adamant in insisting that all Christians must be pacifists who condemned all forms of violence.
Unfortunately, Dr. Williams continues the evangelical habit of cherry-picking the “prolife” evidence.
For the early Christians, the reasons we must oppose abortion (while simultaneously providing all the supportive social services required by a newborn) are the same reasons we must oppose war and refuse to be involved in violence.
You can’t claim one part of the argument while denying the other.
Ron Sider has produced an excellent book on this subject, gathering all the 
ancient evidence together for the modern reader. It’s called The Early Church on Killing: A Comprehensive Sourcebook on War, Abortion, and Capital Punishment (Baker Academic, 2012). It’s well worth reading.
So, if abortion is wrong, all violence and warfare are wrong, too. Yet, precious few Christians in either the Republican or the Democratic (yes, that is the proper adjective) party openly advocate for a national “peace/antiwar” policy in this country.
And that’s a tragedy.
For, if you believe that abortion-providers deserve to be picketed and closed down, then so do military bases, nuclear weapons facilities, war colleges, ROTC programs, weapons manufacturers, and the Pentagon.
As the earliest Christian teachers and apologists all insisted, IF Christians should not get abortions, THEN neither should they join the military, serve in the police force, or work in the judiciary, because all these roles demand an association with or the execution of violence and dehumanization.
We can’t cherry-pick the Biblical evidence, folks.
