A Consistent Ethic of Life — Nathan Zook — Ep. 056

Hello everybody, welcome back to another episode of Anabaptist Perspectives. I'm here with Nathan Zook, and we're in Washington, D.C. right now. It's a very interesting time because right now the March for Life was just this weekend. Capitol Building's right behind us here. You live here in the city. And something I've had a lot of questions about over the years is a consistent ethic of life. This is a phrase used by different scholars that would identify with different parts of the Anabaptist values. Can you just go into that a little? Where if we want a consistent ethic of life, how does that apply when it comes to capital punishment, the death penalty? The idea of the consistent ethic of life came about because there was strong opposition to abortion, and people, evangelical Christians, began speaking out against abortion, but not so much against war or capital punishment.

And so Pope John Paul II, when he was alive in the '80s and '90s, really pushed the idea of being consistent across all forms of killing. Opposing killing, whether it's the government in war, or the government in capital punishment, or an individual in abortion. And saying, if we're going to be opposed to abortion on the grounds that it is against human life, what about these other factors? Euthanasia would be another example too. So my question then for you, you're a pastor, and as a conservative Anabaptist, how do you respond to this teaching of a consistent ethic of life? We ourselves are called to love our neighbors, love our enemies. That encompasses everybody. And so we as Anabaptists, we as believers in Christ, or followers of Christ and His kingdom, we are not to take up arms.

This is not to say that God Himself is non-resistant. There have been times where force and war have been condoned, if not ordered, in the Bible. But we now have been called to love our neighbors and love our enemies. And so on one hand, that means we will be consistently, as individuals, not committing these acts of killing.

However, the Bible does give governments, other kingdoms, leeway to carry out social justice and retribution for wrongdoing and so forth. But that is not our calling as people in Christ's kingdom. This is not something we individually could be involved in. Right, exactly. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. So how did the early thinkers of Anabaptists, the people who would have started this hundreds of years ago, how did they feel about capital punishment? And did they address things like abortion? What did they say? I'm not as familiar with the Anabaptist perspective on the early Anabaptist perspective on abortion. I have read some about their discussions on the capital punishment. And because I'm not sure how much abortion was a factor back then.

It still would have taken place in some ways, but not to the degree it has today. But Felix Matz, one of the charges against him, considered the first Swiss Anabaptist martyr in Zurich, Switzerland, one of the charges brought against him before he was executed was that he had opposed the government's use of capital punishment. Interesting. And the other person who wrote extensively about this was Menno Simons. He mentioned that if a transgressor has repented of their sins and confessed their sins and apologized, then why would we kill somebody who has moved in that direction?

The other thing, the flip side though, what if they have not apologized? What if they have not repented of their sins as, let's say, a murderer, then we're putting someone to death who no longer has a chance to repent of their sins and cutting off their chance to confess their sins to God. So those are two very high-profile Anabaptists who took that stance. Of course, at the time they're living, there's a lot of capital punishment being used against kingdom Christians and early Anabaptists. And so they're not talking as much--Felix Mats might not have been talking as much about murderers, but Menno Simons talked about it in the context of the transgressor, somebody who was doing something that was wrong, not just being a heretic or something.

And that's interesting because violence, execution, things like that would have been very common in that day. And especially even other church groups would have been doing that for them to, wow, that was bold for them to say that. That hasn't necessarily followed through into all of modern Anabaptist thought, but that was a stance taken during that time period.

Did that stance remain fairly consistent throughout Anabaptist history, or was that something more right at the beginning? I think for some people that remained more consistent. For others, it sort of became a pressure. Once you come to a country like the United States with separation of church and state, still the idea that there was religious freedom and acknowledging Romans 13 that talks about the power of the sword that God has ordained the ministers of the law to carry this out. And so these are not church ministers. These are people in the greater society. And so acknowledging that the government has that right has led some to then advocate in favor of the use of capital punishment.

Where I would say, just because the government has that right doesn't mean that we as the church vocally support it in that way. We don't necessarily condemn it or speak out against it, perhaps, but we don't regress with it. We can't really agree with it. Yeah, yeah. It's almost like war too. That's something that's pretty clear in the Book of Romans. That's part of the government's job is to defend itself or that whole thing. But we know as kingdom Christians, that's not something we can be a part of. It's not like we can get out there and cheer for something like that. Right. And the other thing to consider is that if you have--if we believe it is wrong to kill, if we believe we would be in sin, if we committed abortion, if we were part of the machine that carries out capital punishment or part of the war, the military, if that's sin for us, then it's sin for others as well.

And so we as followers of Christ's kingdom, we may not focus on the powers of this world and their responsibilities and rights, but we do focus on the individual. So we as individuals call other individuals to repentance. And so if that means there's no one left to put in the needle for lethal injection or to strap somebody down in the direction of a chair, all the better for the kingdom of God because we now have people being called to repentance. And so if we knew an executioner, if we knew a soldier, if we knew a woman making a decision about abortion, instead of pushing for political legislation, that's not our business. But what we would do is call that individual to repentance.

In 1 Corinthians 5, it talks about the idea that what takes place in this world, we're not called to judge this world. We're called to judge matters inside the church with other believers.

But calling people to repentance is part of our great commission. So what scriptures might be used for these views that you're expressing here? Well, yeah. So the end of 1 Corinthians 5 emphasizes that we as part of Christ's church don't get involved in the things of this world, making judgments. But on the other hand, you have Christ's call to love our enemies and to turn the other cheek. And so if someone attacks us or our family or abuses their authority to execute somebody, then we would want to forgive. And so just the Sermon on the Mount basically is how we are to live, how we are called to live. And if we are calling other people to that call as well, as individuals, not as governments, but as individuals, then that's a strong scriptural reference there.

So then how have you viewed the Anabaptist church? Are they still holding to these values that the early Anabaptists would have had? Has there been some deviance from that? I definitely feel that Anabaptists today would be pretty conservative Anabaptists would be pretty uniform in their idea that it would be wrong to engage in euthanasia, abortion, be part of the military, or capital punishment.

Where I do see some difference is people sometimes get so focused on government has this right that they almost come across as if they're cheerleaders for war or for capital punishment. And just like we can't, we're not called to maybe oppose policies. We're also not called to support those policies. That sounds kind of challenging, trying to navigate that. Yeah. Yeah. And I think part of the reason we wanted to do this episode is there is a lot of confusion. People are like, "I don't know how to respond to these things." I think it's almost more difficult. What we are called to do is almost more difficult than protesting. I spoke to a pacifist book study.

This was in Wisconsin a number of years ago. And they were talking about the war with Iraq, the U.S. involvement in Iraq, and they were really opposed to that. And they wanted me to give a non-resistant perspective. And so I said, "Now, have you talked to your nephews, your cousins, your sons, and so forth, or your grandchildren who are joining the military during the war on terror and so forth?" Well, that was almost more difficult. That was a new thought for them. They were focused on protesting, on protesting government structures and policies. But to actually tell your nephew or your cousin, "You know what? We're called to a different calling." It's hard to tell our friend and neighbor, "No, don't sign up for the military.

You can join our church instead." Do like John the Baptist and say, "Do violence to no man." I mean, John the Baptist doesn't tell the soldiers who talk to him, "Get out of the military." He doesn't say, "Rome is the evil empire." No, he says, "Do violence to no man." And so that's why I think it's a consistent Anabaptist perspective. We focus on the individual, calling them to repentance, calling them to holiness without getting involved in the governments of this world. You've kind of already touched on this a little, but how would you say the current-day Anabaptist church would view matters of life? I think it depends where you are on the Anabaptist spectrum.

There's people who are very strongly have sort of gotten indoctrinated into the political parties of this country. And so you will find some who would view themselves more as pacifists than non-resistant. They'll focus a lot more on war and capital punishment, not as much on abortion. Interesting. You'll get Republican sympathizing Anabaptists who will focus a lot on abortion and not speak up so much about capital punishment or war. Both sides are shaping their agendas, perhaps more by political parties than by what are we called to do as scripture-following believers. And so as scripture-following believers, we can take the stance that all of these are wrong. And we're not caught up in the Republican agenda or the Democratic agenda in saying so.

We are going to take a stand and say, "This is my calling to follow Christ." And as part of His church, we call you to that as well. And so I think there's been times where people who get so focused on the next presidential election or the next Supreme Court appointment, then it becomes easy to choose and prioritize, "Well, this is more important than that." But in reality, we don't see that prioritization in scripture. What we see is that we are to love our neighbors, love our enemies, take care of the vulnerable and the oppressed, whether that's the infant in the womb, whether that's a prisoner on death row, whoever is being where to visit people in prison.

This is our calling as believers. So I think if we take that stance and remove ourselves from the political party agendas, then we will be more likely to really be consistent. I think the world will respect that more. They may not agree with us.

But a big sticking point for secular society is to say, "Well, Christians only speak out against abortion. Therefore, they're inconsistent. And therefore, Christians are being hypocrites and so forth." But I think we as Anabaptists can be removed from that criticism to some degree because we ourselves will not participate in these activities. Does our opposition to abortion connect with capital punishment and how so?

How does that work? And are Anabaptists making that connection well? I see them as being the same on one hand and different on the other. On one hand, you have innocent babies in the womb who have not had a chance to be a transgressor. On the other hand, you have people on death row, many of whom may be transgressors. But it is not our responsibility to decide when a human life ends.

And that's where we can be consistent. Whether they are a transgressor or not, that's in God's determination. And we can determine in the church when somebody has done things wrong outside the church. That's really in God's judgment. We definitely can look at actions and say, "These are wrong. These are sinful." But we definitely are called to love.

And there's no restrictions on that. We're to love our enemies, pray for those who persecuted us. And so if our persecutor is on death row, then we'll be praying for him. I had the chance in 2001 to be outside the prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, where inside Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City federal building bomber, was being executed that night.

And I saw people protesting on both sides, strongly in favor of his execution, strongly opposed to his execution. And what struck me the most was hearing about a man who had lost an adult child in the bombing. And he said, "Now I no longer have a chance to face the transgressor, face Timothy McVeigh, and forgive him or hear his apology."

Wow. In contrast, John Paul II, the previous pope, when there was an assassination attempt on his life in 1981, he went to the prison where the attempted assassin was being held and forgave him face to face. And people don't have that chance once the death penalty is enacted. So even if a person is a transgressor, there's still the hope that somebody will seek reconciliation and apologize to the family of their victims or to have a chance to be forgiven by them. And I think that's an important part to consider. Yes, they're not innocent like the baby, the person in the womb, but it's still not our call to cause a life to cease. It's a human life either way.

Yeah. God will call them to His judgment seat someday. It's not our turn to say, "Okay, now's when you're going to enter His presence." Well, thank you so much for taking the time to be on this episode and letting us come here to Washington, DC, and do this interview. This has been really good. And blessings as you continue to pastor your church and study these things out. And yeah, I appreciate your time. Thank you. Yeah.