Passively Pro-Choice: How Sin Kills the Pro-Life Mission
Christians talk a lot about sexual purity. We talk a lot about being pro-life. Yet we’ve ignored the chasm of understanding between these two issues – issues that are integrally connected not just in reality, but in our spiritual lives. We brandish our “pro-life” monikers as if it’s a given – we’re Christians, after all! – yet fail to understand what sanctity of life looks like day-to-day.
The truth is this: “Pro-life” is not just a political viewpoint. It is a lifestyle.
And the other truth is this: you can’t be truly pro-life and engaged in sexual sin.
How can we claim to uphold the sanctity of life when we simultaneously defile our lives and others’ with our eyes and bodies? How can we claim to be “pro-life” when we engage daily in spiritual death?
We can’t.
If we believe in the sanctity of life – that every human being is an image bearer of God – we have to embrace the connection between the intrinsic value of the unborn and the intrinsic value of the porn star. Both were created in the image of God. Both have sanctity of life. When Christians engage in sexual sin as a habit, they’ve relegated their “pro-life-ness” to a world outside themselves, never letting it influence their walk with God.
As I said in an article last week:
The babies being aborted in this nation are largely conceived in extramarital sex. Before we, as Christians, argue about pro-life issues on social media, we need to ask ourselves: “Am I so pro-life that I am honoring the sanctity of my own life, including the sanctity of my sexuality?” It is hypocritical to condemn women for pursuing abortions while simultaneously living in sexual sin. Yes, abortion is wrong because it ends a sacred life. Yet ALL sin is wrong because is dishonors a sacred life and separates us from God.
Your purity preaches the gospel louder than anything you say or type. Honor God with your body. Uphold his design for sexuality. Then love those who have transgressed it, and love the babies born from it, with the same grace that Jesus offers to all of us.
This applies to more than unrepentant pornography use. It applies to those disregarding purity in their dating relationships. It applies to those who allow sexual sin to characterize their lifestyle. It applies to self-indulgent believers, “dead even as they live” (1 Tim. 5:6). These lives are white-washed tombs: monuments to the social values of life, freedom, and godliness – yet filled with skeletons instead of the Spirit of God (Matt. 23:29).
Our purity preaches the gospel. We can tell our Facebook friends just how “pro-life” we are; we can march, protest, comment, and argue, but unless our lives reveal the very sanctity we claim to defend, who are we to talk about being “pro-life”? Some might say God can use our words no matter what our lives look like. Certainly, God can redeem even hypocrisy for His glory. But more often than not, hypocrisy unnecessarily hinders the gospel’s advance.
This is not just a political issue. This is not just a government issue. This is a personal, spiritual issue, and it affects every one of us. We need to ask ourselves, “Am I more concerned with being on the right side of the political arena than in aligning my mind with God’s priorities?” Ultimately, we do become better citizens and wiser voters when we align ourselves with the wisdom of God. But governments come and go, laws are passed and struck down, and the Law- and Life-Giver remains. We best defend life when we walk in step with the Source of it.
Thus, being pro-life starts with being pro-Jesus, pro-surrender, and pro-sanctity as defined by God. Because without submission to His ultimate standard, there IS no ultimate standard.
Without God, there is no moral code outside of man’s own will.
That’s why you can’t be truly pro-life and engaged in sexual sin, because you can’t be “pro-life” and living according to your own moral code. When that happens, you’re really saying: “This is my moral code. I invented it. Sanctity of life applies to the unborn; it does not apply to me, to porn stars, or to my boyfriend. I decide which lives are sacred; I decide which lives I treat as such.”
I decide.
I decide what to do with my body.
I decide what to do with my eyes.
My body.
My choice.
Each time we engage in sexual sin, we’re a quiet voice for the pro-choice movement – whether or not that action ever results in an abortion.
In reality, all sin has the power to separate us from God. This separation is why Jesus bridged the gap for those who believe. So how can any believer every claim to be “pro-life”? By daily walking in the influence and power of God’s Holy Spirit. It is only by God’s grace that we have eternal life. It is only by God’s grace that we have this present life. But to live contentedly in spiritual death belies the same mission that propels Planned Parenthood: I determine right and wrong. I answer to no one but myself. I am the measure of morality.
Death does not begin on an abortion table. Death is a spiritual separation before it ever becomes a physical one; a separation that begins with sin, but doesn’t have to end there. There is hope, redemption, and grace for those who surrender to God’s design.
To be truly pro-life, we must walk in step with the Life-Giver. We must let Him breathe life into a dying sexuality; breathe life into a wandering heart. We must align ourselves with the holiness He offers through Christ and live it out with dedication. The pro-life movement must find its birth in our being: our character, the pattern of our thoughts, and the goal of our days.
It must be more than words.
This article originally appeared on PhyliciaDelta.com. Used with permission.
Phylicia Masonheimer blogs at Phylicia Delta, where she teaches women how to preach the gospel with their lives: proclaiming Jesus in work, love and home. Her eBook Christian Cosmo launches March 1st, 2017.
Image courtesy: Unsplash.com
Publication date: February 7, 2017