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EMS graduate writes on pro-life ethics
By Laura Lehman Amstutz Eastern Mennonite UniversityHARRISONBURG, Va. — “This is a book about killing.”
That’s the opening line in Eastern Mennonite Seminary graduate Rob Arner’s new book.
Arner, of Holland, Pa., is a 2007 master of arts in religion graduate of EMS. His recently published Consistently Pro-Life: The Ethics of Bloodshed in Ancient Christianity is an extension of his master of arts in religion thesis at EMS. The book is published by Pickwick Publications, a division of Wipf and Stock.
Arner, who grew up United Methodist, came to EMS hoping to better understand pacifism.
“I chose EMS because I wanted to explore the peace church trajectory as a faithful calling of Christian discipleship,” he said. “During Christian Tradition class my first semester, I heard about the Constantinian shift. I learned that one of many changes during this time was that the ancient Christian church changed from being pacifist and opposed to war to embracing violence. This intrigued me, and I began reading the works of the ancient Christian church to find out more.
“A theory began to suggest itself to me: No matter which century in the early church, or which part of the empire, every early Christian author that I encountered denounced human bloodshed in a variety of contexts — from abortion, to killing in war, and everything in between.
“In this book I want to challenge both liberal and conservative readers on their assumptions about the taking of human life. The gospel of Jesus is neither liberal nor conservative, and I make the case in this book that the Christians of the first three centuries consistently maintained that all killing is incompatible with the teaching and example of Jesus.”
Arner is an adjunct instructor at Chestnut Hill College and EMS’s Lancaster, Pa., campus.
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