When we NEED Better Language

I've managed to be awfully restrained about writing about one of my favourite topics recently, the Image of God. But a news story that has really broken this week has wound me up enough to write this post. Because I think it is important.

You might now that I am very wary of talking on this blog, and indeed generally, about abortion. Unless it is about the surreal 'post-birth' variety'. But today I'm going to, partly because I was provoked by Christina Odone's great piece over on the Telegraph. She asks the question "Why are Feminists Silent on the Deliberate Abortion of Girls?", and its a good question. This question is asked in response to the chilling news that, actually, and perhaps against all common sense, it turns out that it is perfectly legal to abort a baby simply because of its sex.

Let me repeat that.

In a society where choice is everything, where everyone is meant to be equal, and where anything goes; 

'There may be circumstances, in which termination of pregnancy on grounds of fetal sex would be lawful'

You can read a little more about that here and here. Shockingly, it is quite hard to find an article about the topic on the BBC website, the best you can get after a google search is something about Jeremy Hunt being 'concerned'.

Concerned.

Without wishing to go all 'Christian Concern' or too ranty, it is shocking, to my mind, that it is possible to have an abortion on the grounds of sex. What is it about a female baby that is less valuable than a male baby? Reading this story as it unfolded made the video that the BBC produced about the rights and prospects of women today even more poignant. Watch that here, and then reflect with me on the fact that sex selection abortions are possible, nay legal, in England today.

This barbaric fact, to my mind, reveals something more about what I've written about before, the Crisis of Human-Hood that our culture is facing. We don't really know what a human being is, we don't know what male and female are, or how sex works, or why relationships might be important. And part of the human cost of this is seen in the Abortion debate.

I am willing, some of the time, to fairly clearly define myself as a feminist, not because I'm reactionary, but because people are people, who are people, who are people. And that includes women. Definitely. Totally. I want to live the kind of feminism that Jesus lived, or better yet, live the kind of life that values humanity in all its forms, because that is what I see when I look at Jesus. A friend of mine wrote a powerful post about 'Jesus the Feminist'. But I think we need that kind of feminism. That kind of Christianity. One that speaks against the injustice of life denied, and that speaks for those with no voice. We need to challenge worldviews that give an incoherent account of what it means to be human, and to articulate the vision of creation that God seems to give us in Scripture.

In a recent, and reasonably popular post, 'When the Image of God is Broken, Damaged', I wrote about all sorts of things, including abortion. I would encourage you to read that post, but close with some words from it. Because when I talk about every human being bearing and being the Image of God, I believe it, and it is true and powerful;

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Two thousand years ago the Image of God was doubly so, in an Israeli man that history calls Jesus Christ. One of the many titles that the Bible gave him was 'Son'. The Son of God, the Son of Man. Jesus, God incarnate. In Colossians 1:15 the Apostle Paul wrote a short sentence that goes right to the heart of the damage and brokenness I have been writing about today;

"The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation"

The image of God. The firstborn. God himself identified with us, and identifies with us, in tying the ultimate means of salvation and revelation, Jesus Christ, with the language and basic human experiences essential to our human existence. Jesus was born. Grew up. Was educated. Tempted. Made sad. Made hungry. Mocked. Beaten. Whipped. Bled. Cried. Died.

This Image of God, this Jesus, in dying for the world, for every Image-bearer who would recognise him, started as a baby born to a virgin, mocked even then. Jesus died alongside thieves, in human terms unjustly executed. The Image of God, The Son, hung on a cross. Reduced. Damaged. Broken. Bleeding like the LGBT protestors in Russia. Crying like the teenagers in the ex-gay ministry. Grown up, even as the boys in that camp will one day grow up. Made of the same stuff, the same genetic map, as the Royal Baby and the millions of babies never born.

I find this hard to write. Harder still to know. But I believe it is true. The Image of God matters. Recognising that, recognising the worth and value of human beings, does not instantly validate everything they do. I don't think Jesus would whole-heartedly endorse any of the stories and perspectives I've alluded to above. But he would welcome the people. The Image Bearers

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I'd really recommend John Wyatt's excellent book, 'Matters of Life and Death', for some good medical Christian thinking on this sort of thing. Otherwise, please do follow the inter-linked articles throughout this post, as I believe they will give you a fuller view of what we might want to say in this area.