Ben-Hur, Religious Liberty, Abortion, and Alcohol

The Garrett Ashley Mullet Show

In Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, set in the first century, the protagonist is a Jewish prince by the name of Judah Ben-Hur. Romans occupy Palestine, and a group called the Zealots plots their overthrow on the grounds of religious objection and national pride. Judah for his part wants to find a peaceful solution, and his conscience prevents him from joining with his countrymen planning an armed insurrection.

But when Judah is approached by his boyhood friend, the ambitious Roman officer Messala, and asked for help identifying the conspirators, here too his conscience prevents him from participating. And for this, Judah finds himself in short-order framed for the crime of trying to assassinate the Roman governor of Judea, and he and his mother and sister are together accused, convicted, and sentenced to be made examples of.

Yes, Ben-Hur is a revenge story after a fashion. But it's also a story about personal conviction and conscience resisting false choices; it's also a story of religious liberty.

As Yuval Levin writes in an article for First Things from 2016 titled 'The Perils of Religious Liberty,'

"Religious liberty, in this view, is therefore not quite a liberal liberty. It is not a freedom to do what you want, but a freedom to do what you must. It describes a duty of society to retreat and give its members space to act on what they deem essential; an acknowledgment not of a human liberty or right, but of a human obligation that precedes the social obligation and so shapes it."

Let's apply this mode of thinking to the abortion debate, then. It is not enough for someone to say that their religion or lack thereof is silent on the question of when life begins, or what life is worthy of living, or whether murder is always wrong. Rather, freedom of religion rightly conceived would ask whether we have an obligation before God to relate to the unborn by either aborting them or defending their right to life. All the while, the position of the Christian is that we will one day give an account for both our active and passive parts played in such matters.

With abortion, then, the Christian insistence on making illegal this particular kind of murder is predicated on the conviction that we will give an account to our Maker for how we treat men, women, and children of all ages who are made in His image and therefore ultimately belong to Him.

To give a counter-example, consider the question of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Ratified by the states on January 16, 1919 and taking effect on January 17, 1920, that law of the land said that both the production and sale of liquor was illegal. And doubtless its proponents held the view that the ends of less public drunkenness and more engaged husbands, fathers, employees, and parishioners justified whatever means necessary to ensure the public good.

Still today, among some of my relatives, the conviction is staunch and unwavering that where drunkenness and alcoholism are both physically and morally unacceptable, unhealthy, ungodly, and foolish, the only correct course for a person of upright and Christian character is to abstain entirely. Where God's Word tells us to not be drunk, we must not even have a drop. Therefore, anyone who does partake even in moderation is even sinning and should therefore be shunned.

Here too, however, the principle of religious liberty must come to bear. And the question ought to be whether we have an obligation before God to act in such a way as we will be able to give an honorable account to the Judge of all mankind concerning. The freedom to partake, abstain, or prohibit is not enough to go on.

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