Everyone a Treasure

¹³  For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.

–Psalm 139: 13-14 (ESV)

I’ve said a couple of times now that each person is individually created by God, and that no one exists apart from a specific, deliberate, divine, creative action.  This has been the Christian testimony for two thousand years, preached first into a world that viewed only certain people as important, and preached now into a world that views nothing as important.  What does it mean for us though?

The Scripture I quoted first–“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5a, ESV)–is most commonly leveled against the practice of abortion, which is fair.  The Christian belief in individual creation renders abortion inevitably, irrevocably, incontrovertibly, and entirely repugnant.  No…