Kill Your Kids for Christ

Tough Questions for Christians #14—Kill Your Kids for Christ
Tough Question #14

What a wonderful insight! “If the age of accountability is true, then the best thing any Christian can do is to become an abortion doctor”. This is just beautiful reasoning.

AZ’s argument goes like this: If there is an age of accountability, then this means that any child who dies goes to God and lives with Him eternally. But wait too long, and they will be condemned sinners like the rest of us and the chances are good that they will go to hell. So why not kill them before they reach the age of accountability? That will guarantee their place in heaven, and if we really love our children we would be willing to sacrifice ourselves for them.

And the reason this isn’t right gets right at the heart of Christian anthropology. In the OT, children are owned by their parents and their fate are their parents fate until they become an adult, then their fate is dependent on their own actions (Ezekiel 18). Thus, the child (and wife) of a sinner is killed with the sinner, unless the child is an adult, at which point the child is only accountable for his or her own actions. Head of household is everything and everyone’s fate in the household is dependant on the actions of the household.

Jesus indicates that each person has their own fate before God. So a woman can be repentant and not face the same fate as her husband (Luke 17:33-34). But a child, so Paul says, is “made holy” through the believing parent (I Corinthians 7:14)—but so is the unbelieving spouse. In other words, Paul says, the whole family is sanctified through the one believing person. So this isn’t exactly age of accountability. It is the fate of the household being determined by one person.

Of course, almost no believers accept that today. This is why AZ said that it isn’t a biblical idea, but a theological one. So why is what AZ saying wrong?

First of all, we all know that killing IS wrong, and killing children is an abomination. It is a morally reprehensible act and if it is an emotional morality, so be it. Killing is to be in God’s hands, not humans’, and thus people’s fates are determined by God, not people. Well, at least, that’s the way it’s supposed to be. The fact is, a lot of humans DO kill, in God’s name or otherwise, and a lot of people kill children. And those people are going to be punished by God, whether they claim to be killing for God or Jesus or the American Way or whatever else people think is reasonable to kill others. They are taking upon themselves the act that God reserves for Himself. God created us so He has the right to kill us. We are all made in the image of God, so if we kill each other, we are killing God’s image, a form of deicide. Thus to kill any human is an affront not only to humanity, but to God himself.

Secondly, to kill a child is to steal their true future, whatever it may hold. To kill someone to save them is the worst form of taking away someone’s God-given sovereignty or freedom. To not trust someone with their own life is abominable.

Third, if a parent or guardian kills their own child, they are breaking their own God-given responsibility. The main task of any leader is to protect and keep from harm those under their care. And the most weak are to be given the most care. If we kill the weak under our care—whether children, elderly parents or helpless relatives of any sort—then we have betrayed their trust in us. We have acted in a way unfaithful to them, because we have harmed those we should have protected and cared for.

Overall, this is a heinous act, as we all know. And praise God, this is one of the few areas where people’s confused theology didn’t overcome the morality that is written on their hearts.