Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Not With My Life
Back in Spetember, Al Mohler looked at an interview at Baroness Warnock in the UK on end of life issues. IT'S HORRIFYING!
Mohler strikes at the heart of the matter here:
(Brief aside: I am growing increasingly disenchanted with the term, and underlying concept of, "secular worldview." It is quite useful as it is presented and used here, but it is often extended into other areas improperly and erroneously to extremely detrimental effect. But that is another post for another time.)
We tend to fight the religious v secular worldview battles in the court of public opinion. Court rulings, laws, regulation and elections are the order of the day. But I wonder of that is counter-productive?
Great military commanders talk about "shaping the battlefield," and they always work so that engagements with the enemy are on the most advantageous ground with the best conditions. Strategically, I think it is very fair to ask if the court of public opinion, courts, and politics is the most advantageous battleground for our war with a 'secular worldview.'
Think about it, we have a decided disadvantage in such an engagement. The arbiters involved are overwhelmingly sided with the opposition, whether they be the media, the courts, or sadly these days, the greater American public. The rules of engagement, as defined by our society and constitution tend to favor the opposition as well, particularly in light of the last several decades of established precedent.
You know, it seems to me that if we shaped the battleground by slowly, but relentlessly, one at a time, bringing the American public back to a majority of religious worldview holders we might have a better battle of this. But come to think of it. most Americans, really do hold a vague religious worldview, just not so much so that they are willing to support our side in these sorts of challenges.
So maybe we need more than just evangelism. Maybe we need discipleship.
Hmmmm....
Even slower, even harder work. I might have to examine myself as well. The church might have to question many of its more fundamental assumptions.
What am I thinking? It's much better to just keep doing what we're doing. Of sure, we'll lose in the end, but the pews will be full and the bills will be paid. Yeah, that's the ticket.
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"I'm absolutely, fully in agreement with the argument that if pain is insufferable, then someone should be given help to die, but I feel there's a wider argument that if somebody absolutely, desperately wants to die because they're a burden to their family, or the state, then I think they too should be allowed to die," she said.Look, we routinely put others in charge of our care in the event of our incapacity, so in one sense this is a natural extension.
Those words, frightening enough in their own right, seem to suggest that this decision to end life would be made by the individual suffering the dementia -- presumably through an advance directive that would set the plan in motion when the sufferer still possesses mental capacity.
But, in another statement, Warnock goes on to put this decision into the hands of others:
"If you've an advance directive, appointing someone else to act on your behalf, if you become incapacitated, then I think there is a hope that your advocate may say that you would not wish to live in this condition so please try to help her die.
"I think that's the way the future will go, putting it rather brutally, you'd be licensing people to put others down."
Mohler strikes at the heart of the matter here:
Before long, the secular worldview devolves into a cost/benefit analysis. Some lives are simply more important and more valuable than others, this worldview implies. Like the medical motto taken up by Nazi Germany asserts, some people represent "life unworthy of life." Baroness Mary Warnock now extends that argument to the mentally incapacitated.The title of this post proclaims my initial reaction to this whole idea, but in the end that is pretty simplistic. The essential question is "What to do about the 'secular worldview?'"
(Brief aside: I am growing increasingly disenchanted with the term, and underlying concept of, "secular worldview." It is quite useful as it is presented and used here, but it is often extended into other areas improperly and erroneously to extremely detrimental effect. But that is another post for another time.)
We tend to fight the religious v secular worldview battles in the court of public opinion. Court rulings, laws, regulation and elections are the order of the day. But I wonder of that is counter-productive?
Great military commanders talk about "shaping the battlefield," and they always work so that engagements with the enemy are on the most advantageous ground with the best conditions. Strategically, I think it is very fair to ask if the court of public opinion, courts, and politics is the most advantageous battleground for our war with a 'secular worldview.'
Think about it, we have a decided disadvantage in such an engagement. The arbiters involved are overwhelmingly sided with the opposition, whether they be the media, the courts, or sadly these days, the greater American public. The rules of engagement, as defined by our society and constitution tend to favor the opposition as well, particularly in light of the last several decades of established precedent.
You know, it seems to me that if we shaped the battleground by slowly, but relentlessly, one at a time, bringing the American public back to a majority of religious worldview holders we might have a better battle of this. But come to think of it. most Americans, really do hold a vague religious worldview, just not so much so that they are willing to support our side in these sorts of challenges.
So maybe we need more than just evangelism. Maybe we need discipleship.
Hmmmm....
Even slower, even harder work. I might have to examine myself as well. The church might have to question many of its more fundamental assumptions.
What am I thinking? It's much better to just keep doing what we're doing. Of sure, we'll lose in the end, but the pews will be full and the bills will be paid. Yeah, that's the ticket.
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