Anti-Christian adversaries like to define Christians by what they think Christianity stands against. But Christians must define themselves by their position for.
Now is a particularly important time to remember this axiom.
As Americans celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday last week, geopolitical ally Britain crossed the Rubicon and embraced death, legalizing so-called “assisted suicide” in England and Wales. Currently, Britons over the age of 18 who have been diagnosed with a “terminal illness” and are estimated to have less than six months to live can receive approval from two doctors and a judge to self-administer lethal drugs.
Supporters of assisted suicide argue that it is a compassionate means of ending suffering. Peter Princely, a member of the British Parliament from the Labor Party, said: claimed In support of the bill, he said, “We're not shortening patients' lives, we're shortening their deaths. This isn't life or death, it's death or death.”
(I don't want readers to forget that this justification helps reduce the burden of the deceased on the UK welfare state and National Health Service.)
The culture of death that celebrates “assisted suicide” has succeeded in Western culture because, in the view of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler, Jr., “moral absolutes” have been eroded. [that] It is clearly based on Christian foundations. ”
In a world that increasingly prescribes death for undesirable people, such as the unborn, the sick, and the elderly, Christians must hold fast to their core values of protecting life.
In this context, the most important moral absolute is that each human being is inherently valuable because he is an imago Dei, created in the image of God, the Creator of life.
“A society that respects this fundamental truth cannot contemplate the destruction of human life and human dignity through assisted suicide. A society that denies this important truth cannot, given time and motivation, “We'll rationalize everything,” Moeller said. observe.
Once the moral absolutes of the Imago Dei are abandoned, the terminally ill no longer have value, and humans no longer limit God's power to give and give life. In such cultures, the state becomes like a god, deciding whose lives are valuable and whose lives are worth protecting.
In 2012, theologian Stanley Hauerwas made a prophecy about Christianity and the culture of death that turned out to be quite prescient.
he said:
I say that in 100 years, if Christians are known as a strange group of people who don't kill children and don't kill old people, then we've done a great thing. It may not sound like a big deal, but I think this is the ultimate politics. So, if we can become a well-disciplined community that, through the worship of God, has found itself ready to welcome new and suffering lives, then in reality it is a political That means it's a great option. Otherwise the world wouldn't have it.
Of course, this is what Christians have always done.
Christians cared for widows and orphans. Christians cared for the sick. Christians cared for unwanted children. Christians cared for those whom society considered a burden. christian essentially invented the hospital. Christianity embraces all human life because all lives have intrinsic value.
In a world that increasingly prescribes death for undesirable people, such as the unborn, the sick, and the elderly, Christians must hold fast to their core values of protecting life. Simply put, Christians care about people who are in a weak position and protect their lives. It is the core of Christian identity.
Christian institutionalized philanthropy transformed the ancient world, and it can renew our world.
In a culture that celebrates death, Christians must be an odd group of people to protect life, no matter the cost.
May Christians continue to be, in Hauerwas's words, a “political alternative” that does not exist in this world, as it has always been.
