President Jesus…Pro-life or Pro-choice?

Christian Right…Christian Left…Christian Somewhere in the Middle. Which political party comes closest to reflecting the teachings of Jesus? Hmmm…let’s just say there’s a slight difference of opinion on this.

I’m examining this question by pondering a Jesus Christ presidency, and taking candidate Pete Buttigieg as representative of the Christian Left as he has been the most vocal about Christianity and politics. He presents himself as a Christian whose faith guides him and supports his policies, contrasting it with the perceived inauthentic Christianity of those on the Right. He gets a lot of head-nods from those who agree with him, but of course those on the Right are eager to set him straight.

So I figured a good way to get some clarity on this question is to imagine what Jesus would do if he were president today. From what we know of him through the Scriptures, which Buttigieg is fond of referring to as backing him up, how would President Jesus govern? This would be assuming he could not or would choose not to solve any problems miraculously…like with just a word make a border wall appear or the deficit disappear.

Last time I argued that President Jesus would not support Buttigieg’s same-sex marriage. Today I want to consider whether he would agree with Pete that when it comes to unborn children, “No matter what you think about the cosmic question of how life begins, most Americans can get on board with the idea of, ‘I might draw the line here. You might draw the line there.’ The most important thing is the person who should be drawing the line is the woman making the decision.”

I don’t know, but I have a feeling the Author of life would disagree with Buttigieg on who should draw the line on when life begins. Can you picture the Creator of the human body appearing at a rally for abortion rights saying, “Though I designed this miraculous process of reproduction enabling a brand new human to begin life as a tiny cell needing only protection and nourishment to develop in just a short nine months into an incredibly complex “wonderfully made” little child…nevertheless it’s the woman’s decision whether or not the growing being within her is really a life.”

Yeah, right.

Or what would President Jesus say to Pete’s assertion that, “There’s a lot of parts of the Bible that talk about how life begins with breath”? I think he’d smack him upside the head and say, “That’s not how it works!” Well…maybe he’d smack him, maybe he wouldn’t. But he’d certainly correct this gross misinterpretation of Scripture.

First of all, it’s massively deceptive to claim that such a notion is throughout the text.  Secondly, those who claim that “life begins with breath” take a unique creative event and illegitimately apply it to creative events that are nothing like it.

Then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. – Genesis 2:7

God made Adam this way because the first human couldn’t have come from another human. Obviously. He also had to create the second human, Eve, in a unique way because Adam can’t reproduce on his own. After that, “nature” took over and new human life was created in a process no less incredible than breathing life into a man made of dust. But that’s where the similarity ends.

The fact that Buttigieg referenced this half-baked, unscientific, totally desperate argument for abortion on demand up to birth demonstrates how truly little he cares about life, and about God. I’m disgusted and repulsed by his self-serving claim to be a follower of Christ while sanctioning the killing of innocent, helpless, fully-formed humans.

I further address the biblical case against abortion here, as part of a series of posts I offered last year answering virtually all the arguments for abortion rights.

I’ve no doubt President Jesus would be a pro-life president. Pete Buttigieg would have to disagree. With all his talk about Scripture and his Christian faith, I wish someone would ask him to defend the position that the Word of God who said, “You shall not murder” would be a pro-choice president like he aspires to be.