The recent discussions about Russell Brand’s conviction has got me thinking further. One of the ways I make use of AI tools Is to run articles through a first pass test for critique. You can trust Chat GPT et al not to hold back for fear of causing offense.
Well, recently I picked up on the striking comparison between how people had responded to the question of the impact on Brand’s family from his incarceration and the lesser concern I’ve detected from fellow Christians to women convicted for late term abortions. Chat GPT suggested that I might want to emphasise the two forms of offense should not be treated as equivalent. I resisted changing the article for two reasons. First, I don’t think I need to cover every nuance and potential pushback in an article.
Secondly, I am not convinced that I want to immediately accept the premise. On the one hand, yes we do tend to acknowledge a gradient when it comes to sin and to crime, on the other I am not sure which way Chat GPT’s modelling was pushing it to lean. Was the model presuming that Evangelical Christians would see abortion as the greater evil. Certainly, there is a tendency to argue such. Indeed, some Christian organisations such as Brephos have made this their single issue seeing it as the greatest evil of secular liberalism. What would those people think if I challenged their assumption?
Or were the algorithms telling my AI friend that abortion should be seen as a matter of personal choice. Our secular age might see the overriding of consent as the greater evil. We might pause to ask, how a rape victim reading my article might feel if they heard me suggesting that abortion was the greater evil. Would they see that as trivialising what had been done to them?
So, in fact we need to think carefully. Where does a Biblical worldview take us. How are these things treated by God. Yes, there is a sense in which sin is treated differently and yet it’s interconnected, its similar and it has the same devastating consequence. Some have argued that all sin is both murder and theft. We seek to kill God, we seek to rob him of his honour and glory. But we also take from each other, we destroy life, we steal dignity and worth.
Therefore, I thought it might be helpful to compare the two issues through the prism of two biblical/theological categories, death and defilement. It is important to say up front that in terms of abortion, I’m focusing specifically here on the role, responsibility and culpability of third-party actors who are instrumental in an abortion be that a backstreet illegal practitioner, a medic or the supplier or medication for the purpose of affecting the abortion. I am not talking about the mother herself. I recognise that there is a larger debate about where moral responsibility sits and that reflects the reality that a mother may be responding to coercion, societal pressure and horrific experiences such as abuse and rape. UK Law now makes it clear that a woman is not held criminally responsible in regards to the abortion of her own child[1] This is a change form the prior position where the Abortion Act 1967 in effect provided exceptions and specific justifications but still held the mother and third parties criminally responsible. [2]
When we talk about “Death” as a theological category, we are not just thinking about physical death. The Old Testament narrative including banishment from Eden, slavery in Egypt and exile to Babylon treats banishment and exile as a form of death. Criminals were therefore excluded along with those with unclean diseases
The clean/unclean distinction is relevant to our consideration of “defilement”. You see, defilement is a category tat relates not to Holy v Profane and mot to sin v righteousness but rather to clean v unclean. The best way of understanding this distinction is as recognition that we live in a fallen world and so the mess, pain and weakness of this world brings dirt, contamination into our lives. I would link defilement to “theft”. A perpetrator defiles someone and robs them of cleanness, or purity, of wholeness. So, as we will see a little bit later, the Old Testament talked in terms of offenders defiling people and places. Now, for some people, the language will be hard. Isn’t there the risk that I end up adding to, piling up shame on the victim. I think it is helpful at this stage to remember first that this is not a statement about the victim. It is not accusing them of culpability. It’s not a statement on guilt. Furthermore, it is a word that actually seeks to do justice to the very experience described by many victims who talk exacrtly about that, about feeling defiled, feeling dirty. The aim is to indicate the seriousness of what the offender does.
So, within those categories, abortion might be considered as the defiling of a mother’s womb by a medic who is meant to save life. They intrude with poison into a place that is meant to be one of sanctuary. It is the killing of a vulnerable baby. It’s the exile, the banishing of that child from the safety and security of that womb. Meanwhile, rape involves the defiling of a woman by her attacker, violent acts that often are about power and subjugation. She is left experiencing that sense of defilement, not because of anything wrong she has done but because of what her attacker did. That’s why people talk about “feeling dirty”. They result in pain and trauma, in effect the woman is also banished, exiled as she experiences shame and isolation. This, theological may be seen as a form of death and so a form of murder.
And this brings me to the first point in my thinking. Why is it that Christian campaign groups can focus on doing whatever it takes on abortion including picketing, prayer walking and even the display of graphic images to get their point across whilst remaining largely silent on sexual violence against women. Why is it that it takes religious and ethnic factors to get some people to say anything about grooming, abuse and rape at all?
Here’s my second and related thought. What is it that street preachers tend to list when they talk about sin? It’s generally about sexual immorality. And what is it that they tend to get into trouble for, it’s often their focus on same-sex acts. It is perhaps ironic then that some have been pushing to put a criminal offence of sodomy (their choice of language) back on the statute books but at the very point when someone is convicted relating to that very activity they rush not to the victim’s defence but the perpetrator. Where though in those list of sins is condemnation of rape?
The thing is that actually this would give them a much richer, deeper and wider critique of our culture and indeed of personal sin. It strikes me that we can see how marches and rhetoric can give credibility and so create space for violent racist attacks. In the same way, surely we have seen that the indulgence of sexual liberation and moreover of t licentious lifestyle s of cebreities whether in the 70s or early 200s similarly created space for grievous criminality. We become like our idols and our idols are hideous and grotesque.
Furthermore, tellingly the Bible gets to the heart of the nature of sexual violence that goes beyond the expectations of our culture. Consider the account of Davd’s sin against Bathsheba. Traditionally, this was often treated as “sin with…” It’s treated as adultery. However, recently commentators have suggested that this is a misreading of the case. David sees Bathsheba not when she is bathing to get attention but when she is bathing to purify herself. She is brought to him, she has no agency in the face of a powerful king. Nathan likens David to a man who steaks, takes, kills and devours his neighbour’s lamb. Scripture doesn’t discuss consent but it very clearly treats David as culpable. David has defiled Bathsheba. We might observe that in Biblical terms, absence of consent is enough to make an act wrong but presence of consent does not necessarily make it right. Perhaps Scripture gets better what it has taken a long time for our laws to recognise. The surface of surface level consent does not legitimise the actions of the perpetrator who abuses another for his gratification.
And not only does this give us a sharper critique of human fallenness but it also widens and enriches our ability to speak love, hope and restoration to people. Yes, we are all sinners but also we are sinned against. Jesus brings forgiveness to the vilest of sinners but he offers cleansing to the one who has been left feeling dirty and defiled, healing for those who have been harmed and broken by the abuse of others, wholeness to those whose lives have been shattered into pieces by betrayal.
How does this work? Well, I think that we are used in western thought to thinking narrowly in terms of guilt and punishment. This is important but treated narrowly on its own can cause us to focus on technicalities, was their consent, what is the evidence, have they been punished enough. That is central to the criminal law consideration. However, as Christians we want to go a bit further in our thinking.
Other cultures talk in terms of honour and shame. This recognises the deeper impact on a person and on the wider community. However, it has its risks. Sometimes it leaves the victim treated as equally one who brings shame instead of honour. They are then treated as the problem, they are defiled and vbring contamination, they must be removed. That leads to further banishment and in some contexts the horror of honour killing.
A biblical approach recognises that defilement has occurred, that the victim has been robbed of honour. It recognises that the community should share in that. However, it is the perpetrator who brings the shame. The victim’s need is prioritised, they need shame to be removed, shame that they should not have had imposed on them. They need to be honoured again, Where there has been robbery, restitution is vital, they need to receive back and more.
A Gospel approach to sin should offer a better story, better hope, better conclusion to what the world offers.
[1] Crime and Policing Act 2026, sections 241 and 242.
[2] See Offences Against the Person Act 1861, S58, S59. Also Infant Life (Preservation) Act 1929, section 1.
