By Williams\u2019s estimation, our societal disregard for God\u2019s image in mothers and children has a far-reaching impact. It means that we see pregnancy as a sickness to be prevented or solved by means of birth control or abortion. It means we reduce our children\u2019s existence to an \u201cassembly-line life,\u201d obsessing over educational achievement and resisting the reality that \u201cchildren, like all people, are unpredictable individuals and are not made for the convenience of their parents.\u201d It means we force new moms back to work too early, pitting their careers against their children.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic <\/em>begins by describing contemporary problems. But disdain for mothers and children, Williams demonstrates, was also characteristic of antiquity. Drawing on myths, literature, and histories from Greek and Roman writers, she describes a past in which women were sexually exploited, infants were left \u201cexposed\u201d on \u201cvillage dung heaps,\u201d and anyone who couldn\u2019t achieve military victory on the battlefield was a second-class citizen by default. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s Christianity, she argues, that changed all of this\u2014that gave us the human rights we take for granted, that blessed the meek and lowly instead of kowtowing to the powerful. \u201cIt is because of two millennia of Christian valuing of human life,\u201d she states forcefully, that \u201cwe do not delight in the suffering of the weak.\u201d Both the life of Christ and the writings of the church fathers demonstrate that \u201cthe church is responsible for caring for the bodies and souls of the neglected and the abandoned at all ages and life stages, because their lives are priceless.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read it all<\/a>.<\/p> In western post-Christian society, humans are treated more like commodities than image bearers.
In \u2018Mothers, Children, and the Body Politic,\u2019 @NadyaWilliams81<\/a> uses ancient and modern sources to show how Christians can value life amidst an empire that seeks to dehumanize it. pic.twitter.com\/ErT36b1P0n<\/a><\/p>— IVP Academic (@ivpacademic) October 15, 2024<\/a><\/blockquote>