What pro-life means

NPR Morning Edition host Rachel Martin talked to Gena Thomas and her new book Separated by the Border. Julia was about 5 years old when she was separated from her step-father at the border. Thomas served as a foster mother for Julia until she could be reunited with her mother back in Honduras. As touching as the story is I was caught by something else that Thomas said.

Thomas is an evangelical Christian. Martin asks if Thomas thinks evangelicals have fallen short on family separation. Thomas replied:

Absolutely. I think that falling short actually comes from this idea that pro-life is antiabortion. And I believe that if the evangelical leadership is going to get in the right place when it comes to immigration, it's got to start with really recognizing what pro-life means in a robust manner.

And I believe that it's really a fault of our theology that really stems back to this idea that we are pro-life if, you know, death is right in front of it. But if we're not pro-life when other people are pulling families apart - you know, we talk a lot about family values as evangelical Christians. And if we are going to be for family values, then we need to be for family reunification.

As part of her closing message Thomas said:

One of the other things that I talk about a lot in the book is this idea that salvation is individual. We don't really seek shalom, which is really more of a communal salvation, so a salvation of a whole community. And I think that we need to focus more on that.