God is Pro-Life AND Pro-Choice

The memes and headlines, shouting voices and snide remarks making their way across my screen in recent weeks have taken me back to a mantra I recited to myself as a centering practice during the election campaigns of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton: “God is pro-life and pro-choice.” When I was particularly worked up, I would say to myself, “I’m going to write an article and submit it for publication. I’m going to show those Christians that these either/or absolutes are ridiculous.” The angst I felt when I thought about these conversations (or rather, non-conversations) often revolved around two things: a deep sense of the stupidity of everyone except me, and a sense that the world would be a better place if everyone thought exactly like me. Needless to say, these postures aren’t exactly conducive to constructive conversation. So the conversation stayed in my head, and gradually faded as other concerns demanded my emotional and mental energy.

Recently I’ve found myself returning to the same mantra, but now with tools to approach the conversation in descriptive ways with less automatic judgment and more curiosity. Ongoing learning about how our brains and bodies work has provided me with a more robust framework for examining how our wiring both equips us for those initial polarizing reactions and resources us for walking forward into more nuanced and mutually supportive ways of engaging with each other.

So, let me start by stating my core argument clearly:

I believe it is absurd to describe God as either pro-life or pro-choice.

When I google the definition of the word absurd, here is the first thing that comes up: “ab･surd: adjective: wildly unreasonable, illogical, or inappropriate.” So, to restate my argument, anytime one argues or implies that God is either pro-life or pro-choice as if these positions are mutually exclusive, I believe they are arguing or implying something that is unreasonable, illogical, or inappropriate. 

There are two foundational points I am assuming as a backdrop for my reflections: 1) God is mystery, and 2) Human flourishing and wellbeing depends on each of us taking responsibility for how we engage with ourselves, with each other, and with the world we inhabit.

When I say God is mystery I am not saying we cannot know anything about God, but rather that anyone who claims to know everything about God is no longer talking about God, but an idol. One of my fields of academic study is the Hebrew Bible and one of the assumptions of the poems and stories collected in the Hebrew Bible is that there are essentially two categories into which everything and everyone fits: the creator (YHWH), and the creation, including humanity and the world we inhabit. Humans claiming to fully understand or represent the will of God are essentially crossing boundaries or defying category limitations.

One of the more tragic ways we as humans have abnegated our responsibility to each other is by claiming that God is on our side and asserting or implying that God is therefore not on the side of another person or group. History provides ample evidence that the leap between saying God is on my side and not yours, and taking steps to dehumanize or even eradicate “you” is not far. Carl Wilkens, who was on the ground in Rwanda during the genocide, talks about how we must beware of any simple, singular solution. It is frighteningly easy to move from “the world would be a better place without you in it” to tremendous acts of violence.

When I consider why and how the statement “God is pro-life and pro-choice” has been important for me, I realize there are three particular arenas of thought that have fueled my reflections on this topic: story, attachment theory, and the Hebrew Bible concept of covenant love. In the following paragraphs I will briefly discuss each arena of thought and reflect a bit on how each has nuanced or added depth to my own thought processes connected to the pro-life/pro-choice conversation.

Story as an antidote to simple, singular solutions

For millennia, stories have been a way humans share wisdom. Telling stories allows us to pass on life-enriching and life-saving knowledge in memorable ways and also provides a framework for developing discernment. It was a story that pushed me several years ago to reconsider my own rather black-and-white views about the pro-life/pro-choice debates. I no longer remember the title of the book or the name of the main character, but I remember the impact her story had on me. As a young teen she found herself at “work” being taken to a room and told she needed to do whatever the man behind the door wanted because he was a high paying client and the income would be well worth it. Not long afterward she found herself in a dark and dingy hotel room undergoing an abortion. The procedure was performed without proper sanitation of the tools and without professional care or education about her rights or potential risks.

Before reading her story, I had been quite sure that if I were ever in that situation, I would not do what they do. I had perceived the life situations behind the public debates as simple and straight forward. And I had been quite certain that anyone making a decision different from what I would make was somehow other, an outsider. Somehow, in the thirty minutes it took me to read this young woman’s story, I caught sight of the complexity of the human situation. I realized that however different our life circumstances, this young woman and I shared the experience of internal tension, the excruciating sense that sometimes we must choose one need or value over another, that life is far from simple.

The flourishing of human life requires both relational connectedness and respect of agency 

The fact that we describe people as either pro-life or pro-choice and argue that God is on one particular side implies that at the very least we believe choice and life are separate things and we can choose which one to emphasize or prioritize. But the more I learn about human development, the more convinced I am that a sense of aliveness and flourishing and a sense of choice, agency, and self-efficacy are inextricably connected. Researchers who specialize in human development point out the delicate balance we navigate throughout our lives between individuation and connection, our sense of self and our sense of belonging and interrelatedness. Attachment Theory, first developed by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth in the years following World War II, provides a language for exploring the interplay between these facets of human experience. An infant whose primary caregiver is responsive to their needs is more likely to explore. Taking risks, trying things, re-connecting and trying again after failure—all of these are essential parts of learning how to walk and how to talk, skills that most humans develop in their early years. The relational resource of a primary caregiver who is there to offer a reassuring glance or a warm hug after a fall facilitates a child’s development toward independent functioning. Sara Ruddick, in her book Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace, describes the “maternal gaze” of a mother nurturing a child who is growing toward independence. She might stand at a distance looking with care as a child tries to walk, falls, and tries again. The middle way of a mother involves care without smothering, presence and protection alongside space for trial and error and development as a separate person. Choice, agency, and a sense of self-efficacy in being and becoming are essential parts of human growth toward maturity. And these aspects of human flourishing are not just essential to individual development. The right to be and to become, without having to sacrifice belonging, is also essential to caregivers, whose sense of agency and self-efficacy equips and resources them as they provide life-giving and developmentally appropriate support to those for whom they care. 

Covenant love in the Hebrew Bible: A model for mutual, emerging relationship

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks describes the Hebrew Bible as telling “the long and often tense story of the childhood of humanity under the parenthood of God.” Perfection in the Bible is growth toward maturity, not a finished or static set of propositions or actions. This can be a bit terrifying for our pattern-seeking, certainty-loving brains. But the covenant God of the biblical narratives is a God remarkably comfortable with the emergent nature of relationship.

Moses is a man saved from death by a cadre of courageous women (midwives who defy Pharoah’s orders, a creative and attentive sister, a princess who uses her voice and position to preserve life). When he is in exile in the wilderness after killing an Egyptian, he encounters God’s presence in a bush that is ablaze but not consumed. In the course of their conversation, God asserts “I will be who I will be.” This is the name of God as a verb. God, active, involved, present, in dynamic relationship. In the Hebrew language, the verbal system conveys whether an action is complete, or ongoing and incomplete, rather than classifying an action as past, present, or future. God will be who God will be. God is on board with being present in the emergent relational space created in divine-human interaction and in human-human interaction. The Hebrew word for mutual, dynamic relationship is ḥesed. Rabbi Sacks explains that ḥesed is intrinsically personal. It is about loving attention and care. Unlike justice, which is best administered without emotion, ḥesed is an act of radical engagement, “a relationship of face to face.” It “requires not detached rationality but emotional intelligence.”

For many months now, I have found myself considering the headline conversations where everyone seems to be pounding their stake farther into the ground against the backdrop of covenant love. It’s difficult for me to put my finger on exactly what it is about covenant love in the Hebrew Bible that compels me to think in fresh ways about pressing questions of today. But I think it has something to do with these two things: 1) as long as I am turning toward my fellow humans for face-to-face interaction it’s very difficult to make blanket statements or argue that a decision most fitting in one situation is most fitting in every situation, and 2) and as frightening as the uncertainty of emerging relationship space can be (especially since it’s co-created and the only part I have control over is the part I contribute!), that’s where life is.

Reflecting on the polarization around pro-life/pro-choice debates, I am struck by how we have essentially taken the summary phrase from the covenant renewal text in the book of Deuteronomy and chopped it in two. Moses said to the people, “Choose life.” And we are determined to say it is either choice or life, not both.

As I sit with students, read stories, walk and talk with friends, and reflect on how I might engage productively in my community, the mantra “God is pro-life and pro-choice” offers an invitation to me over and over again to avoid simple, singular solutions and to embrace the inherently relational nature of human existence.

What mantra has been helpful to you in these days of increasingly polarized rhetoric? What words or phrases help you face the nuance and complexity of real life with an eye for both human dignity and deep interconnectedness?

By Jody Washburn