Journal: Eikon
Volume: EIKON 05:1 (Spring 2023)
Article: Fully Prolife Or Partly Prolife?: A Response To Heidi R. Unruh And Ronald J. Sider, “Gender Equality And The Sanctity Of Life”
Author: J. Alan Branch

Eikon 5.1 (Spring 2023) p. 96

Fully Prolife Or Partly Prolife?: A Response To Heidi R. Unruh And Ronald J. Sider, “Gender Equality And The Sanctity Of Life”

J. Alan Branch

J. Alan Branch is Professor of Christian Ethics at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is the author of several books, including Affirming God’s Image: Addressing the Transgender Question with Science and Scripture (Lexham Press, 2019), and a former U.S. Army Reserve Chaplain.

Eikon 5.1 (Spring 2023) p. 97

In the most recent edition of Discovering Biblical Equality, Ronald Sider and Heidi Unruh offer an egalitarian perspective of the sanctity of human life and argue for a moral stance they call “fully prolife.” In the chapter titled “Gender Equality and the Sanctity of Life,” Sider and Unruh insist sanctity of life questions need to be stretched beyond the narrow focus of abortion and euthanasia to include other questions such as hunger, poverty, and racism. While they make some sound observations, their argument is substantively weak.

Ronald Sider (1939–2022) was a profoundly influential advocate for social justice. He earned his PhD in history from Yale in 1969 and taught for many years at Palmer Seminary (previously known as Eastern Baptist Seminary). He was the founder of Evangelicals for Social Action, a group which changed its name to Christians for Social Action in 2020. His most well-known book was Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger (1977), which he modified through six editions. Heidi R. Unruh is a graduate of Palmer Seminary, where she earned an MA in Theology and Public Policy (1996) and is now a ministry consultant living in Hutchinson, KS, where her husband is part of the ministerial staff at First Mennonite Church. Together, Sider and Unruh published several articles and books, including Churches That Make a Difference: Reaching Your Community With Good News and Good Works (2002) and Saving Souls, Serving Society: Understanding the Faith Factor in Church-Based Social Ministry (2005).

What does it mean to be “fully prolife”? Sider and Unruh say,

To be fully prolife means to intervene wherever the flourishing of human life is threatened. This threat may result

Eikon 5.1 (Spring 2023) p. 98

either from direct actions that degrade and destroy life, such as war, human trafficking, and capital punishment; from lack of access to food, health care, and other life-giving necessities; or from the ruin of the environment on which all of life depends (513).

Sider described this same view prior to the 2016 election in the Bruderhof journal Plough and said, “When we turn to the whole of Scripture, it quickly becomes clear that...