On Dec. 28, the Christian calendar marks the Feast of the Holy Innocents. It commemorates that most horrid biblical episode recorded in Matthew 2:13-18—King Herod’s slaughter of baby boys in the region of Bethlehem. Today, this event is often used as an opportunity for pastors in traditionalist Protestant pulpits to preach against the heinous evil of legalized abortion and its supporting regime, which, like Herod, murderously takes the lives of many innocents. But a high body count of babies is not the only thing Herod and abortion advocates have in common. They both share an undergirding logic and worldview.
To understand the paranoid violence of the Herodian dynasty, one must understand its unstable situation, tasked by the Roman Empire to keep peace in a region seething with political and religious discontent. The Jews and their neighbors were hard to manage, and a half-Edomite-half-Jewish regime did not represent the greatest political legitimacy. The Herods called themselves the King of Jews, and yet they murderously eliminated any threats to their position—including fellow family members. Caesar Augustus himself reportedly quipped that it was safer to be a pig rather than a son in Herod’s household. The New Testament presents a dynasty that kept up appearances for fear of the people but had few qualms with gross immorality, including murder, family-betraying adultery (Matthew 14:3-5), and the reception of blasphemous worship (Acts 12:22). In Matthew 2, King Herod functions like Pharaoh, ordering a genocidal purge of Hebrew baby boys. Herodian ethics trample down the innocent to secure an insubstantial, unrealized, hypothetical future of power and wealth, in desperate terms.
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St. Jude's Anglican Church
We are a parish of the Reformed Episcopal Church. We have been worshiping together in the greater Richmond area for over a decade. We’d love to have you join us for Christian worship in the rich Anglican tradition.
