Wrestling with Abortion, Shame, and the Imago Dei: A Mailbag Conversation

Voxology

Religion & Spirituality, Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.7 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 5 March 2019

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Deepening our collective understanding of how Christ calls his followers to navigate complex ethical and pastoral questions, this Voxology mailbag episode takes on listener questions around abortion, trauma, shame, and biblical interpretation. Mike Erre reflects thoughtfully on difficult circumstances—like when life-threatening pregnancies or birth defects are involved—and compassionately addresses real-life dilemmas that listeners are wrestling with across theological and relational lines.

With honesty and humility, Mike explores how the church can hold space for grace and truth without shaming, how biblical passages like Numbers 5 have been misunderstood in the abortion debate, and how Jesus invites us to lead with empathy rather than moral certainty, especially toward those facing agonizing decisions. This episode is grounded in the Imago Dei and the call to love well, even amidst deep disagreement.

Key Takeaways:
• Abortion and Nuance – Why one-size-fits-all moral arguments often fall short, especially in cases involving rape, incest, and life-threatening complications.
• Redemptive Engagement – How to counsel without coercion and approach tough conversations—both within marriage and the church—with grace, listening, and mutual discernment.
• Re-examining Numbers 5 – Understanding this controversial Old Testament passage as a protection for women in a patriarchal culture, not as a divine endorsement of abortion.
• The Role of Shame – Unpacking the difference between ancient honor-shame dynamics and modern uses of shame, and why Jesus models compassion for the vulnerable while reserving rebuke for the religiously self-righteous.
• Building a Church of Welcome – How shame-based activism may harm the gospel witness by barring people from the very place of healing and grace.

Resources Mentioned:
• Alastair Roberts’s blog: Adversaria – A deep dive into the cultural and theological interpretation of Numbers 5: alastairadversaria.com
• Scripture References: Numbers 5, Luke 7:36–50
• “Imago Dei” Theology – Exploring how recognizing every human as made in God's image should inform our response to abortion and pastoral care

Join the discussion with us as we journey together through difficult terrain, seeking truth, justice, and the heart of Jesus. Subscribe, leave a review, and follow us on social media to stay updated and be part of the Voxology community.

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Music by Timothy John Stafford
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Music in this episode by Timothy John Stafford

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Transcript

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0:00.0	So perhaps that's where Jesus' comment to the woman who comes in and washes his feet.
0:14.1	Those who see that they've been forgiven much will love much.
0:17.8	But those who think they've been forgiven little will love little. And perhaps
0:23.3	that's what it comes down to. Hey everybody. Welcome to the Vox podcast. Mike Erie here. So glad to be
0:32.1	with you and so glad to be a small part of whatever journey it is that you are on.
0:39.0	Thanks for tuning in.
0:44.6	The last three episodes we have been talking about the subject of abortion.
0:49.9	And that, not shockingly, has raised a number of questions in response.
1:04.4	One of the best things about doing this podcast has been to get to know and to hear from so many people from so many places asking so many different wonderful and challenging things.
1:13.1	And I feel like I get the most out of this simply because the questions are so excellent. I just printed off probably 30 questions more. We're already hundreds behind, but I wanted to take some time today to just
1:20.4	respond to several questions we got regarding abortion. And, you know, I, when I go back and listen to these things, there are all sorts of
1:31.6	things I'd want to clarify and nuance. But we want to honor the raw in kind of unedited nature of
1:40.0	what we do. And by unedited, I don't mean that we just release the raw audio. No, we have a guy,
1:47.7	Tim Stafford, who does an amazing job kind of cleaning it up and removing sneezes and
1:53.6	coughs and all those sorts of things. But, you know, when we interview people, we just tell them,
1:58.5	listen, we're not, unless there's something egregious, which has only happened one time, uh, in the history of the podcast, we don't, uh,
2:05.5	we don't chop it up. Uh, in the early days, Andy and I would re-record stuff. Uh, we'd get, you know,
2:12.1	half an hour in and just go, oh, this is awful and just re-record it. we don't edit it we don't edit content out so I love
2:21.1	when we get questions in that help clarify things that were said or implied that give us a
2:28.9	chance to revisit these conversations and so anyway we're going to do a mailbag episode
2:33.6	it's just me in the room and you and so anyway we're going to do a mailback episode it's just me in the room and you
2:36.8	and so um i think this will be great so here's uh here's an email from um a long time friend
	...

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