Jesus' Message

But what gives us the motivation to do good? They say that Jesus' message was the kingdom of God. They then explain that the kingdom of God is a just society where the poor are fed and everyone is equal. Some say that the Cross is almost a distraction from that. That we need to get back to doing all the good that Jesus talked about.

But why would we, as humans, decide to do good, even after a really good teaching about doing good? And could we on our own, do all this good?

Are we going to do good even if Jesus Christ Himself appeared on our doorstep and said, 'Feed the poor'? No. I wouldn't. I may try for a while, but I'd give up eventually, after a bout with selfishness, slothfulness, or when I'm too absorbed in seeking my own pleasure. When I'm too busy trying to meet my own needs through addictions to consider the needs of others.

Jesus came with a message that His kingdom, one that was not of this world, is at hand. I don't know if He's talking about Heaven. I don't know if He's talking about the new earth He'll create sometime after His return. I don't know if He's talking about the way to live the Christian life. Nor do I know what He means by His kingdom being 'at hand'. Does that mean it's coming soon or it's here for the taking? God hasn't given me a clear answer yet of what His kingdom actually is in my studies of the Bible.

But I do know, that there is no way that I'm going to do the good Jesus speaks of as being a part of His kingdom on my own. The message Jesus gave me a few years ago was that I needed to be saved. That I was lost in sin. I was a slave to it. I couldn't do any good even if I wanted to. I had to obey my sin and selfish desire over any desire I may have had to help others.

He kindly and mercifully, though intensely, left me in the kind of desperation that led me to repentance and agreement with Him that I needed Him. He pointed me to the work of the Cross through which He then saved me. He is changing me and making me someone brand new. He is giving me His grace and His power to do the good He has called me to. I do good not because doing good is the Gospel. I do good because I've been transformed by the Gospel into someone who can and wants to do good.

Jesus' message is that we need to be saved. (John 3:17) We need to be set free. (Galatians 3:22) It is for freedom that God has set us free. (Galatians 5:1) And we are to use that freedom to serve one another in love. (Galatians 5:13) How else could we do it, serve one another, other than through the freedom of the Cross? "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there." (Galatians 5:24)

Gay Rights

No, not really. More on Washington's assisted suicide initiative. But, gay rights seem to capture more attention.

From Fox News, Dying Wish

Physician Assisted Suicide

"No person who is suffering is a problem to be solved. They're a person to be loved." -Rev Paul R. Smith

I-1000 is a proposed initiative to legalize physician assisted suicide in the state of Washington.


Part One Death with Dignity: A Dangerous Deception


Part Two Death with Dignity: A Dangerous Deception

Assisted suicide. It would be hard to argue with the fact that anyone receiving the news that s/he had a terminal illness would be depressed. One cannot deny that depression would play a major role in one's choice to commit suicide. When doctors begin setting a precedent of assisted depressed people in committing suicide, can you imagine the consequences for depressed people everywhere?

Looking at assisted suicide, we can see how such a legalized action would create a feeling of a duty to die for those with illnesses, as well as the feeling by the rest of us that those with terminal illnesses have a duty to die. In Oregon's first years with legalized physician assisted suicide, a large number of people who committed suicide did so out of fear of becoming a burden to their family. With limited financial resources, or at least claims of limited financial resources, the rest of us might indeed feel that those who were 'dying anyway' had a duty to die, especially if the person is old or poor or has a severe cognitive disability. The kind of people who have 'used their share' of public or private health care, the kind of people we deem to have a 'low quality of life', after all.

Another factor in a person choosing suicide is a fear of disability. In the first two years of Oregon's assisted suicide law, those who committed suicide did so out of fear of being unable to pursue enjoyable life activities, fear of needing personal assistance with daily living, and worries about being a burden on their families. Disability Rights activist Paul Longmore spoke about this aspect of Oregon's experience:

Fear of disability typically underlies assisted suicide... The advocates play on that horror of "dependency." ...If needing help is undignified and death is better than dependency, there is no reason to deny assisted suicide to people who will have to put up with it for six or sixteen years, rather than just six months. Not that we favor assisted suicide if it is limited to terminally ill people. We simply want to ask, has this country gotten to the point that we will abet suicide because people can't wipe their own behinds?

Lastly, physician assisted suicide will lead to euthanasia. After all, what about those with disabilities who can't take their lethal prescription on their own? Isn't that discrimination? They'll need someone to feed the pills to them. Once we become accustomed to the idea of physicians practicing death, we will begin to tolerate more extreme versions, more extreme that a doctor 'simply' assisting a person who is dying, more than a physician who is providing a 'good death' to people who can't do it themselves. How far could this go?

From the Coalation Against Assisted Suicide's website:

"Pressure for improved palliative care appears to have evaporated [in the Netherlands]," according to Herbert Hendin, M.D. Dr. Hendin is a Director of Suicide Prevention International and was formerly the Medical Director of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

"Over the past two decades," Hendin continued, "the Netherlands has moved from assisted suicide to euthanasia, from euthanasia for the terminally ill to euthanasia for the chronically ill, from euthanasia for physical illness to euthanasia for psychological distress and from voluntary euthanasia to nonvoluntary and involuntary euthanasia.

"Once the Dutch accepted assisted suicide it was not possible legally or morally to deny more active medical (assistance to die), i.e. euthanasia, to those who could not effect their own deaths. Nor could they deny assisted suicide or euthanasia to the chronically ill who have longer to suffer than the terminally ill or to those who have psychological pain not associated with physical disease. To do so would be a form of discrimination.

Involuntary euthanasia has been justified as necessitated by the need to make decisions for patients not [medically] competent to choose for themselves."

Doctors can help people in severe pain due to a terminal illness with palliative care. The rest of can meet the need of someone alone with the fear of being abandoned in their illness, in their fear of being a 'burden'. Though we don't do it well, right now. How else could something like physician assisted suicide gain so much popularity?

There are other options besides sanctioning the suicide of people dying.

For more information, visit the Coalition Against Assisted Suicide at http://noassistedsuicide.com/.

Respect

Africa

My uncle is in Africa right now on a short term missions trip. He's gone a couple of times before, and he always comes home with stories of how hungry the people of Tanzenia and the other places he goes are for the Word of God. A man from his team came home a little early and told of the experience the team is having now.

The team meets in a central location with the purpose to train native pastors and others in the Word and how to teach it. The men aand women of the country come from up to 180 miles away, walking or biking. When they get there, usually a two day journey, they sleep on the floor. They don't eat because they have no food with them. The team teaches for 3 hours at a time, and when they stop the people beg them to continue. They want to hear more.

Many missionaries come to their area, give them the Gospel, and go home. The people are left without the opportunity to mature out of spiritual infancy. They don't own Bibles; they have to share them. They love the teaching of the Word.

The man from my uncle's team who came home early told that on this trip, the leader of the particular area they are in wanted to meet them. She told my uncle's team that not long ago another white preacher like them was in their area. That preacher told the people that to be saved, they must sell all their worldy possessions and give the profits to him. Then, they were to go to a particular location to wait for Jesus' return. 10 people did as the preacher told them. The area's leader wanted to make sure that my uncle's team was not going to do what this preacher had done.

This story breaks my heart. In the name of Jesus, this man came to the poorest of the poor and stole what little material worth they had. More importantly, he taught them a false gospel, he blasphemed God, no doubt doing great harm to their faith and abusing their souls.

How can we do that to people?

I've been praying for my uncle and for the entire continent of Africa. My prayerr is that the Word of God will permeate so deeply into people's hearts that change will happen. When they know the Word, those committing genocide will stop the killing. When they know the Word, the spread of AIDS will cease because people will stop the behavior that is leading to it. When they know the Word, perhaps they can come and teach it to the West. We seem to have forgotten it.

Thoughts On a Couple of Books

I've been reading again. Not very fast and not very much, but I am very much enjoying having this gift of reading back.

I've read two very different books this past month and a half, Vintage Jesus by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears andCulture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America by Wesley J. Smith.

Book One

Vintage Jesus: Timeless Answers to Timely Questions (Relit Theology)

I chose Vintage Jesus because it promised to give a sort of 'theology lesson' in response to today's lack of basic Bible knowledge. I've been acquiring a taste for theology and doctrine again. The prospect of studying those things has been scary for me considering how much spiritual abuse I endured as a child in the name of both.

In addition, God spent about two years knocking out most of the legalism in me disguised as theology and doctrine to get to the 'heart' stuff and to establish a relationship between the two of us and His community. So, I have a worry that studying theology and doctrine will take me back into legalism.

But the book Vintage Jesus seemed 'light' enough according to various reviews I read of it. More importantly, after watching Mark Driscoll's teachings online, he seemed truthful enough. In addition, Mark Driscoll is a Reformed pastor, and I was curious about Reformed theology. However, the book didn't get too much into Reformedtheology as much as it did basic theology.

Still, it felt very good to read basic theology again. I had not really done so, except where it pertained to areas of inner healing, since I was in elementary school. I loved theology as a kid, the real, truthful theology, because it felt like history and the reasons for the history. I loved history and true stories as a kid, as well as, 'the reason for it all'. Still do.

However, this book didn't go beyond much of the basics, and I was left asking a lot of questions. The book, I think, addressed of lot of 'Who', 'what', 'where', and 'when' questions, like Who was/is Jesus?, what did/does He do?, and when/where did/will it all take place?, but I found myself asking a lot of why and how questions. Not a bad thing, I guess. Just leaves me curious for more theology.

I was put off at first by author Mark Driscoll's sophomoric humor and his sureness in making rude, and even crude, comments. He makes a lot of off color remarks (such as referring to 'liberals' as 'limp wristed') and made a lot of 'he's crazy' and 'he needs to take his medication' jokes, doing what a lot of us do, using 'crazy' and 'sinful' interchangeably.

But beyond the offensive jokes, his love of Jesus shone brightly and the glimpses he gave of his own testimony gave a lot of glory to God. So, I stuck out reading the book, and I'd recommend it, but with caution because of the rude and crude humor.

Book Two

The Culture of Death: The Assault on Medical Ethics in America

Wesley J. Smith

Wesley J. Smith's book Culture of Death, though, I recommend even though I'm sure any reader with any kind of heart will be offended. As in the the subtitle, the book addresses the assault on medical ethics.

The relatively new field of bioethics is on its way to taking over the medical field and is becoming an ideology in itself. "Where medical ethics deals with the behavior of doctors in their professional lives vis-a-vis their patients, bioethics... focuses on the relationship between medicine, health, and society", pages 4-5. This means that the Hippocratic method of doctors doing what is best for their patients first (in fact many, if not most, doctors do not even take the Hippocratic oath anymore) is being abandoned for the bioethical ideals of what is 'best for society'.

The implications of this leads to things like legalized assisted suicide and euthanasia (for reasons such as easing the burden of family members who have a very sick family member or a family member with a severe cognitive disability). In addition, Futile Care Theory, where medicine is rationed, leaving the most sick and vulnerable medically neglected, is being practiced so that 'limited' resources can go to those with the best possibility for the greatest 'quality of life'.

The book addresses that society is abandoning the 'equality of life' ethic and actually valuing some lives as unworthy of life. Those designated 'unfit' in eugenics theory and 'useless eaters' during the Third Reich are now being termed 'nonpersons' in contemporary bioethics.

Smith sums us this book with this paragraph:

Whatever our moral future- whether based on life's inherent equality or upon subjective judgments of quality- that which we sow through our public policies and ethics protocols, we surely shall reap in the way in which we and those we love are treated in our individual lives. We all age. We fall ill. We grow weak. We become disabled. A day comes when our need to receive from our fellows adds up to far more than our ability to give in return. When we reach that stage of life, will we still be cherished, cared for, valued? Will we still be deemed persons, entitled to equal protection under the law? These are the questions that hang in the balance as we enter the new century.

This is a must read, or even a must 'skim through', not just for those in the field of medicine or healthcare, but for all of us. These are society's responsibilities. We need to know these things to be informed voters. More importantly, though, as Christians (this was not a Christian book) we need to informed pray-ers.

That's it?

So, that's it for my summer reading... But, I think I'd like to read something else. Any suggestions?

Tod Bentley and the Use of Words

Crippled People

As I watch the revival unfold on various video clips, I am continuously awestruck by Mr. Bentley's mockery and overall disrespect of people with disabilities. This disrespect is evidenced not only by his physical assaults on those with illnesses and disabilities or the way he has people do dangerous things to their bodies (having people with back problems twist and turn) by also by his use of the phrase, 'crippled people'.

I do not expect every church leader to keep up with the ever changing list of words used to describe disabilities and how to refer to people who have them. However, I would appreciate it if they at least understood the some of the words they do use in the context of the word's history and how much it has offended and hurt people with disabilities. I asked my mother, who has a physical disability, how she would feel is someone referred to her as a crippled person, and just the question hurt her feelings.

The word 'crippled' is not necessarily a bad word. However, it is an old word, one that connotes past images of how we used to see those with disabilities- helpless, useless, and a drain on society. Yet, many in the Church have been throwing it around a lot, including Todd Bentley, his followers, and the media covering this revival. Why? Who is not aware that referring to people with disabilities as 'crippled people' offensive to many with disabilities these days?

My own thoughts is that it is evidence that much of the Church, not just those who are a part of this revival, has ignored the struggles of those with disabilities. Their whole struggles, struggles of not just physical pain, but the emotional toll of having a disability, the loneliness associated with it, the abuse and rejection many with disabilities face.

Paul wrote about being all things to all people, including becoming weak with those who are weak for the sake of the Gospel, to share the blessing of it (1 Corinthians 9:22-23). To be disabled with those who are disabled means to understand that referring to people as 'crippled people' these days means that those with disabilities will not want to hear the message of the Gospel if they those preaching it to them are hurting their feelings.

For more information on language and disability, visit Disability is Natural's webpage on People FirstLanguage. Also, for a personal perspective on society and disability, read Degree of Disability from the blog Wheelie Catholic.