Living with Death (March/ April 2007)
by
Viola Larson
The subject of the Presbyterian Women’s magazine _Horizons_, March/April
2007, is ‘Living with Death.” Among the articles which focus on death are
those which offer practical advice. One article about death is a faithful
proclamation of the gospel. However, other articles about death are
offensive to orthodox Christianity in both their content and their
intentions. This particular issue of _Horizons_ could just as easily have
been named ‘*Living with Deception*,” because of all the deception
occurring within its pages. In fact, ‘Unconventional Grace: Pushing Aside
Convention for God’s Will,” written by Bridgett A. Green, encourages
deception if it is used by a woman in her ‘attempt to be a vessel of God’s
will.”(31)
*Practical Matters*
Two authors, in particular, give helpful advice for those experiencing grief
or those who need general information about preparing for a future death.
Ann Weems in her poignant article about the death of her son twenty-five
years ago writes of the continuance of grief. Weems in her ‘Psalms of
Lament: The Passing Years,” makes an important point: that grief suffered
because of the death of a loved one never really goes away.
One of Weems’ very practical points is that those who are suffering grief do
not ‘need to attend a class on ’10 Steps to Correctly Grieve,”’ or to read
a ‘book outlining the correct order of the steps.” Nor should anyone ever
insist that it is time for them to accept the death and move on. As Weems
puts it, death ‘is unacceptable.”(12) An article by Cynthia J. O’Brien,
‘Preparing for a Death in the Family,” covers such issues as preparing for
a funeral, storing important papers and allowing your faith to be shared
during the funeral.
*Faithful Witness in the Time of Death*
‘Too Close for Comfort,” by Kathleen Long Bostrom, faithfully proclaims the
biblical message of Jesus’ death and resurrection. She also faithfully
connects the gospel to her readers’ needs. Writing of the imminent death of
both her father and members of her congregation she ends her article with
these words:
Tell me, what do I say to the dying mother and the grieving parents; what do
I say to my own broken heart and the congregation who looks to me for words
of hope?
I say listen to what Jesus had to say, ‘I am not alone because the Father is
with me. I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the
world you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!”
(John 16:32-33).
I say, ‘Christ is risen!”
You say, ‘Christ is risen indeed!”
We all say, ‘Amen.” (7)
Those are beautiful and faithful words indeed!
*Suicide and the Redefining Of Words *
An article on physician-assisted suicide is offered by Presbyterian Women
and the Editors of _Horizons _in the midst of a March conference which was
planned ‘with the hopes of presenting possible theological and pastoral
recommendations to the 218th General Assembly in 2008.”1 Their advocacy
places them in the midst of a culture of death that is spiraling downward
towards the unthinkable.
Anitra Kitts, ‘a former member of the Oregon House of Representatives,”
advocates for physician-assisted suicide. In her article, ‘Death with
Dignity,” Kitts, who uses an interview with the first Oregonian doctor to
help a patient die, never refers to such deaths as ‘physician-assisted
suicide.” Furthermore she seemingly uses illogical points to further her
views. But the illogical points are well planned along with the lack of the
term physician-assisted suicide. And Kitts is not alone in this deception.
Oregon has redefined the term physician-assisted suicide to
physician-assisted death. Likewise, the American Academy of Hospice and
Palliative Medicine on February 14th 2007 also redefined the term. They
write:
On occasion, however, severe suffering persists; in such a circumstance a
patient may ask his physician for assistance in ending his life by providing
Physician-assisted Death (PAD). PAD is defined as a physician providing, at
the patient’s request, a lethal medication that the patient can take by his
own hand to end otherwise intolerable suffering. The term PAD is utilized in
this document with the belief that it captures the essence of the process in
a more accurately descriptive fashion than the more emotionally charged
designation Physician-assisted Suicide. 2
Dick Walters, one of the founders of Death with Dignity Vermont, puts it
this way: ‘Suicide is a desperate act.” He continues, ‘It’s done in a back
alley, a barn. It destroys families.”3 In _Tikkun _magazine, a progressive
Jewish publication,Barbara Coombs Lee, past president of Compassion in
Dying, an off-shoot of the Hemlock Society, in her article, ‘Dying in the
Spirit: A Progressive View of Decision-Making at Life’s End,” takes this
all a step further. She suggests that those who oppose physician-assisted
suicide adhere to a despicable god. She writes:
Prevailing religious doctrine often portrays an externalized and
authoritarian God as sole arbiter of how and when we die. Images of a
jealous and powerful deity using death as the ultimate avenging act support
rigid notions of good and evil. In this narrative any human hand in death is
immoral.4
And so the attempt is made to make suicide the ugly word, which of course it
is. At the same time supporters of the term physician-assisted death hope it
will not be seen as ugly, but it also is!
*Twisting of Concepts and Ideas*
In a shameful twist Kitts implies that the law in Oregon has given
physicians a chance to talk with the elderly who are dying and thereby
prevent them from committing suicide. Something they allegedly would not do
without this law! Another illogical point is that not very many of the dying
use this method; they simply want to be assured that it is there if they
have need.
But the shameless ploy of community versus isolation that is pushed by the
Death with Dignity advocates is used by Kitts in a deplorable way. She uses
Scripture and the biblical idea of community. Kitts writes:
The apostle Paul claims the deep connection between the individual and the
community when he writes in _1 Corinthians 12:26, _’If one member suffers,
all suffer together with it. If one member is honored, all rejoice together
with it.” Dying under the Death and Dignity Act is no exception. (21)
One of the important but often unspoken issues connected to the Oregon law
which allows physician-assisted suicide is that it is a law promoted by the
white upper-middle class while it works against the poor. Wesley J. Smith,
author of _Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America_,
writes of how leadership in the disability communities ‘are almost
unanimously opposed to legalization” since ‘disabled people are both
devalued and overwhelmingly poor.” Smith goes on to write of the law in
Oregon ‘assisted suicide is covered as comfort care’ under Oregon’s Medicaid
health plan, which rations health care to the poor. Thus while Oregon will
pay for poor citizens to kill themselves, it sometimes will not pay for the
far more expensive treatment of some life-threatening conditions such as a
few late-stage cancers and premature birth.”5
Smith writes about two respected German academics, one a doctor, the other a
law professor, who wrote a book in the early part of 1920 that would start
Germany down the road to the final solution. The book, _Permission to
Destroy Life Unworthy of Life, _written by Karl Binding and Alferd Hoche,
singles out several human categories the authors felt were unworthy of life.
One of the categories consisted of those who ‘have been irretrievably lost
as a result of illness or injury, who fully understand their situation,
possess and have somehow expressed an urgent wish for release.”6 The ideas
in _Permission to Destroy Life Unworthy of Life_ were so well accepted by
the German people that by the1930s Hitler was able to use many of Germany’s
respected doctors in Nazi crimes against humanity.
Beyond the many ethical and technical issues involved in physician-assisted
suicide is the clear biblical mandate of not killing. Ignoring this
commandment eventually leads to the killing of the innocent, the killing of
the souls of those who allow killing and the killing of a nation whose
citizens no longer care for the weak and helpless. The doctor Kitts
interviewed expressed his perception of his first assisted suicide with the
chilling remark, ‘It’s so _crisp. _One moment we go from both of us talking
and then a few moments later one of us is dead.”(Italics mine)(21)
Hopefully those called by Jesus will shudder!
*From Evil to Foolishness*
John P. Ferre has written his article, ‘Animals Are People, Too: Pet Heaven
in Popular Books” in the post-modern style of simply reporting and not
making any theological or moral judgments. Ferre concludes his article with
an honest evaluation that the books he has written about mirror ‘American
religious faith:” make use of the Bible yet also contain ‘contradictory
traditions,” including spiritualism. What is perhaps the most troubling
part of this piece, which is filled with new age silliness, is the huge list
of books recommended at the end of the article. The books range from
scriptural with a bit of silliness thrown in to outright anti-Christian
bias. The author of _The Other Side of Death _writes:
my experience has shown me that whatever our ‘religion” iswhat we devoutly
believed inis what we’ll find. The Jew will find Moses, or a prophet of old.
The Christian will see Jesus; the Buddhist, Buddha, and so on.
the ‘theology” of heaven is universal; we can never be separated from God;
we are our own devil; there is no original sin; every soul is an incarnation
of God
One can only ask, what were the Editors of _Horizons_ thinking of when they
recommended those books?
*The Cruelty of Misrepresentation*
Joan Chittister’s writing on her web column was chosen as a means of
honoring the Amish and illuminating the terrible event of October 2006 when
a disturbed mankilled five young Amish girls and wounded five more. But once
again this is deception. Chittister’s article, ‘What Kind of People Are
These?’ does little to honor the Amish.
In writing about their faith she explains all of the Amish’s practical
Christianity, that is, their pacifism and all that entails. Chittister also
explains some of their history, their persecution, suffering and exile. But
she ties none of this to the very foundation of their Christianity, their
faith in Jesus Christ.
Chittister does not believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ; she
writes in one of her books, ”The tomb was empty,’ the Scriptures said
later, metaphorically perhaps but pointedly, nevertheless.” Continuing with
her subject of resurrection Chittister also destroys Jesus Christ by
dividing his person. She writes, ‘Where once they had known Jesus, in
retrospect people now saw the Christ, the anointed one of God for whom they
waited as well.”7 Chittister has not honored the Christianity of the Amish
because she does not honor Jesus Christ in his true being nor does she honor
his work of redemption.
Chittister is a pacifist as are the Amish. But a better and more faithful
witness for the Amish wrote on the web around the same time as Chittister.
Theologian Ben Witherington, also a pacifist, wrote of Marian Fisher, the
young Amish girl who attempted to buy time for the others by asking to be
killed first, and he wrote of the Amish as a people. I will quote a small
portion of what Witherington wrote here:
There is a deep, spiritual connection between Jesus and his people, like a
head attached to a body, such that what happens to us, in some mysterious
way, happens to him, though he be in heaven. I do not understand it, but I
know this is true for he said so.
So I stand with the Amish and I stand with Jesus. Not all the armies who
ever marched have had the power or effect on history of that one single and
solitary life, the life and death and resurrection of Jesus, on all of
humankind going on now for over 2,000 years.8
Jesus Christ has called us to faithfulness: faithful in life, faithful in
death. We are also called to be faithful to the body of Christ, the Church.
That faithfulness includes honesty in what we speak and write. When writing
about death, as Christians, we must also lift up life.
_For this is the will of My Father. That every one who beholds the Son and
believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on
the last day. (John 6: 40) For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we
also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform
the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by
the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to
Himself.” (Philippians 3:20-21) NASB_
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1 http://www.divinity.duke.edu:81/iceol/pcusa/index.html.
2 See http://www.aahpm.org/positions/suicide.html.
3 Terri Hallenbeck, ‘Is it Suicide? That’s at heart of Statehouse debate”
Burling Free Press, March 1, 2007, at burlingtonfreepress.com.
4 Barbara Coombs, ‘Dying in the Spirit: A Progressive View of
Decision-Making at Life’s End,” in March/April 2007 edition of _Tikkun
_found at http://www.compassionandchoices.org/news/index.php.
5 Wesley J Smith, _Culture of Death: the Assault on Medical Ethics in
America, _(San Francisco: Encounter Books 2000), 117.
6 Karl Binding and Alferd Hoche, _Permission to Destroy life Unworthy of
Life: Its extent and Form _(Leipzig: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1920), p.247, as
reprinted in _Issues in Law and Medicine _8, no. 2 (1992); found in Ibid,
37-38.
7 Joan Chittister, _In Search of Belief_, (Liguori, Missouri:
Liguori/Triumph1999), 132.
8Ben Witherington, ‘The Lessons From the Amish-the Power of Pacifism,” at
http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2006_10_01_archive.html.
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