The Secular, Progressive Religion of the 21st Century (4/4) - Lord of Life and Death

In the second part, I showed how the new religion redefines who man is - degrading him from a being created in God’s image to an advanced animal. In the third part, we examined the new commandments of this religion - what you must eat, what you must think, what you must accept.

Now we come to the last, darkest claim of the new religion: the right to decide who lives and who dies.

Dogma - “Do Not Reproduce”

What culture says

The earth is overpopulated. Having children is selfish. Every new child is an additional carbon footprint, an additional burden on the planet, an additional consumer of resources. The childfree movement is not a lifestyle - it is a moral virtue. Childlessness is celebrated as responsibility toward the planet.

Antinatalism goes further still: “It is not worth bringing children into this world at all. Life is suffering. The best thing you can do for your future child is not to let it be born.”

What the Bible says

The first commandment God gave to man reads:

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.”

- Gen 1:28 (ESV)

The first commandment. Not “if you want to.” Not “if resources allow.” Be fruitful. Multiply. Fill the earth. This is a blessing, not a burden. A command, not an option.

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them!

- Ps 127:3-5 (ESV)

Children as a heritage. As a reward. As arrows in the hand of a warrior - not as a burden, obligation, or threat to the planet. Blessed - happy - the one who has many.

Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots around your table. Behold, thus shall the man be blessed who fears the Lord.

- Ps 128:3-4 (ESV)

Fruitfulness is a sign of blessing. Children compared to olive shoots - a symbol of peace, abundance, endurance. This is how God sees the family.

And how was childlessness viewed?

When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister. She said to Jacob, “Give me children, or I shall die!”

- Gen 30:1 (ESV)

“Give me children, or I shall die!” Childlessness in the Bible is a cause of suffering and tears - not celebration. Sarah, Rachel, Hannah, Elizabeth - all suffered because of childlessness. None celebrated “freedom from motherhood."

"Blessed are the barren” - context

Defenders of antinatalism sometimes invoke the words of Jesus:

For behold, the days are coming when they will say, “Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!”

- Luke 23:29 (ESV)

Modern culture loves this verse. Ripped from context, it sounds like an endorsement of childlessness. But look at it carefully - Jesus is not saying “blessed are the childless, for they chose well.” He is prophesying that times will come when people will say such things. And that is exactly what is happening. Antinatalism, the childfree movement, the glorification of childlessness - Jesus predicted that this mentality would arrive.

Moreover, Jesus does not present this as progress, but as a sign of decline. This is a prophecy about times so dark that people will turn away from God’s very first blessing - fruitfulness. They will call a burden what God called a gift. They will avoid what God commanded.

Children as blessing, not burden

God’s first commandment is “be fruitful and multiply” - not “limit the population.” The Bible consistently, from Genesis to the Psalms, treats children as a gift and a blessing. Childlessness is a cause of sorrow - never celebration.

Modern culture has turned this upside down. What God called a blessing, culture calls a burden. What God called a gift, culture calls a threat to the planet. What God commanded, culture forbids.

Dogma - “My Body, My Choice”

What culture says

Abortion is a fundamental right. Bodily autonomy is sacred. “My body, my choice” - this is the slogan that ends discussion. Whoever questions it is a “controller of women’s bodies,” a “fanatic,” an “enemy of freedom.”

What the Bible says

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

- Ps 139:13-16 (ESV)

“You knitted me together.” “Your eyes saw my unformed substance.” “The days that were formed for me.” God is not describing a “clump of cells” here. He is describing a person - someone He knows, someone He sees, someone whose days were determined before any of them existed.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

- Jer 1:5 (ESV)

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.” God knew Jeremiah before conception. Not from birth. Not from “the moment he acquired consciousness.” Before conception. And already then He appointed him a calling.

And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.”

- Luke 1:41-44 (ESV)

John the Baptist - still in his mother’s womb - recognizes the Messiah. An unborn child responds to the presence of Jesus. This is not a “mass of cells.” This is a person who recognizes his Lord.

”My body” - really?

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

- 1 Cor 6:19-20 (ESV)

“You are not your own.” The Bible plainly rejects the idea of absolute bodily autonomy. Your body is not “yours” in the sense that you can do whatever you want with it. It is a temple. It belongs to God. It was purchased at the cost of Christ’s blood.

And the body within you? That is another person, formed by God. David - “knitted” in the womb. Jeremiah - called before birth. John - recognizes the Messiah in utero.

These are not “clumps of cells.” These are people whom God personally shaped.

Dogma - “The Right to a Dignified Death”

What culture says

Euthanasia is “mercy killing.” The right to decide the end of your own life. “Dignified death” - that is what they call it. If you suffer unbearably, you should have the right to go. Whoever denies this is cruel, wanting you to suffer.

What the Bible says

See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.

- Deut 32:39 (ESV)

“I kill and I make alive.” The right to give and take life belongs exclusively to God. Not to doctors. Not to the state. Not to the individual. To God.

The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.

- Job 1:21 (ESV)

“The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away.” Life is not your property that you can discard when you are bored with it or when it becomes difficult. It is a gift that you can return only to the One who gave it.

And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.

- Gen 9:5-6 (ESV)

The prohibition against shedding human blood - why? Because man is made in the image of God. Imago Dei - again. That is why human life is sacred. Not because we are useful. Not because we are happy. Not because we are free from suffering. Because we bear the image of God.

For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.

- Rom 14:7-8 (ESV)

Who has the right to decide?

“Mercy killing” assumes that we know when suffering is “unbearable.” That we can assess when life is “not worth living.” That we have the competence to decide the moment of death.

But should man really have such power?

When Jairus’ daughter was dying, people came and said: “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?” (Mark 5:35). People made the diagnosis. People pronounced the verdict. People said: it is over. And Jesus?

And when he had entered, he said to them, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. But he put them all outside and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was. Taking her by the hand he said to her, “Talitha cumi,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” And immediately the girl got up and began walking.

- Mark 5:39-42 (ESV)

People said “she is dead.” Jesus said “she is sleeping.” People laughed at Him. And then the girl got up.

And here is the crucial question: should man have authoritative power over when human life is still worth living and when it is not? This is an enormous danger. Because if you give man the right to decide who “deserves” to live - who guarantees that this power will not be seized by someone with entirely different motives? Hitler decided that the lives of the disabled were “not worth living” - the Aktion T4 program. Stalin decided that millions of “enemies of the people” did not deserve to exist. Every time man claimed the right to determine the value of human life - it ended in mass murder.

The culture of euthanasia says: “There is no hope. Suffering is pointless. The only thing we can do is end it.” Jesus says: “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). Not “I will give you a dignified death” - but “I am life.”

Culmination - Rom 1:18-32: The Bible predicted this 2,000 years ago

Everything I have described in this series was described by the apostle Paul in one of the most prophetic passages of the New Testament. Read this slowly, step by step:

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools.

- Rom 1:19-22 (ESV)

Step by step:

1. They knew God (vv. 19-20) - the evidence is visible in creation. No one has an excuse.
2. They did not honor Him or give thanks (v. 21) - rejection of God does not begin with the intellect. It begins with the will. With the refusal to submit.
3. They became futile in their thinking (v. 21) - rejection of God leads to darkening of the mind. Thinking becomes futile.
4. “Claiming to be wise, they became fools” (v. 22) - the more they claim to be wise and “scientific,” the deeper they fall into absurdities.

They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

- Rom 1:25 (ESV)

5. They exchanged the Creator for creation (v. 25) - ecology as religion. Nature worship. Planet worship. Exactly what we observe.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. (…) Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

- Rom 1:28,32 (ESV)

6. God gave them up (v. 28) - this is not God actively punishing. He lets go - He allows people to go in the direction they chose. And this is the most terrifying punishment - when God says “fine, have it your way.”
7. They not only do them but give approval (v. 32) - the final stage of decline is not sin. It is the celebration of sin. Parades. Prides. Festivals. Awards for what God calls evil. They do not merely “refrain from condemning” - they applaud.

This is a precise description of the trajectory of Western civilization. Paul wrote it nearly two thousand years ago - and it reads like a commentary on today’s culture.

”Choose this day whom you will serve”

Everyone worships something. Everyone serves something. The atheist, the agnostic, the “spiritual but not religious” - everyone has their absolutes, their values, their “sacred.” The question is not whether you have a religion. The question is whether your religion is true.

And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

- Josh 24:15 (ESV)

Joshua presents a clear choice. He does not say “all paths are good.” He does not say “we respect every option.” He says: choose. And I have already chosen.

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

- Matt 24:35 (ESV)

Ideologies come and go. Today’s dogmas will be tomorrow’s embarrassments. What is “progressive” today will be archaic in a generation. What is “scientific” today will be questioned in a decade. What is “obvious” today will soon become shameful.

Eugenics fascinated the “greatest minds” of the 20th century. Lobotomy won a Nobel Prize. Thalidomide was prescribed by the best doctors. “Science” and “progress” change their minds every generation.

The Word of God endures forever.

Not because it is conservative. Not because it is traditional. Because it is true. And truth has no expiration date.