Death with
Piety is Death with Dignity
Christopher Huckabay
In the last twenty years we have heard much of
"Death with Dignity," the idea people who have a terminal disease or
disability, are elderly and infirm, or suffer from severe mental or
emotional disorders, should have the right to end their own lives. Right to
Die proponents call for doctors to help their patients kill themselves.
A popular and vocal advocate of the Right to Die
movement is British born author and journalist Derek Humphrey. Humphrey
founded the Hemlock Society in 1980 to promote the legalization of physician
assisted suicide. The Hemlock Society claims 50,000 members and 90 chapters
in the United States. Mr. Humphrey is also the president of the
Euthanasia Research
and Guidance Organization
(ERGO), a sister group to the Hemlock Society.
Humphrey's most popular book "Final Exit: The
Practicalities of Self Deliverance and Assisted Suicide," is a
manual of suicide that describes in minute detail how to kill yourself and
assist others in killing themselves. It tells how to get around the legal
issues surrounding euthanasia and suicide. Published in 1991, the book spent
eight weeks at number one on the New York Times bestseller list.
"The right to choose to
die when in advanced terminal or hopeless illness is the ultimate civil
liberty" Humphrey writes. Here Humphrey unwittingly provides a clear
illustration of post-modern and atheistic thought. This simple statement
denies the sovereignty of God by assuming that man is in full understanding
of the ways of life and death and is the judge of his place in the universe.
Humphrey's statement is the ultimate credo for man to play God.
In another essay,
Humphrey discounts the idea that the euthanasia movement in Nazi Germany was
the beginning of a "slippery slope" that led to the Holocaust.
Humphrey's challenge has a false and hollow ring. He never addresses the
point that in societies where life is not held sacred, death grows cheap and
pervasive.
Orthodox Christianity stands against the Right to Die
movement. The Sixth Commandment is clear and unequivocal: Thou Shalt
Not Kill. This primary commandment of God shapes the moral teaching
of the Orthodox Christian faith that euthanasia is murder.
Archpriest Victor Potapov of the Russian Orthodox
Cathedral in Washington D.C. strongly defends the Church's stand against
euthanasia. In an article published at
Orthodoxy Today
Father Popatov writes:
"The deeply believing Christian must
be ready to accept any death, for his faith in the resurrection and in
the infinite goodness of God are measured by his acceptance of death."
Father Potapov does not say that a Christian must be
ready to accept a good, easy, convenient, painless, or timely death.
Rather, the Christian must be ready to meet any death as God decrees it.
How we meet the fear and
pain of death reflects our faith in the promises of God. Yet Orthodox
Christians undergoing the duress of watching a loved one suffer or suffering
themselves may be tempted to rationalize the teachings of the Right to Die
movement.
No one wants to suffer or watch his loved ones suffer
a painful illness. But instead of looking at suffering at the end of life
as useless and superfluous, Orthodox Christianity teaches that all things
have purpose under the will of God, even when that purpose is not
understood. Death is a mystery. We don't understand or know all about death
in this life. We must have faith in the goodness and mercy of the Lord.
In the manner of our death, as in the actions of our
life, we have the responsibility to set forth a Christian example for all of
those around us. To end suffering by killing is to play God by deciding
when life should end. We need to stand up to those who foster a utilitarian
and individualistic view of life and death.
Embracing euthanasia teaches our children, families,
and communities that it is okay to give up, that the sufferings of Jesus
Christ and the martyrs of the faith are worth nothing. Killing the infirm
is the embrace of darkness and the denial of the eternal light of God.
The Gospel teaches that we are to take up our cross
and follow Christ. This life is a race to be run and a fight to be fought
that can be painful, long, and often difficult.
As we face our own time of pain, sorrow, adversity,
and even death, a great gift to our children would be a manner of life and
death that inspired them to trust in God and to persevere in the face of
their own hardships. We may be able to help them say at the end of their
lives, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept
the faith."
This confidence and courage that brings blessing and
hope is stolen by the easy answers and painless death promised by
euthanasia. Death with piety is the real death with dignity.
Christopher Huckabay is a member of Annunciation
Greek Orthodox Church in Little Rock, Arkansas and a dedicated Orthodox
Christian. 9 Jul 06
Christian
Culture Redux (September 4th 2005)
Adapted from
John Kapsalis
Published by OrthodoxyToday.org, August 11, 2005
In Douglas
Coupland's, Life After God, he correctly observes Generation X is the
first to be raised without religion. Culture, even in its schizophrenic
breakdown, has replaced man's space for God. Yet today's culture is
driven by the vice-grip of consumerism and entertainment. Like the daily
schlock of marketing ads that assail us, contemporary culture is fleeting,
plastic, and dehumanizing. Even religion is Disney-fied to please
everyone and transform none.
There has been a tectonic shift in our
culture that mimics so much of everything else in our society. We want it
cheap, fast, and super-sized. Substance is as lasting as our need to
experiment with the latest Yoga technique. As a result, our culture has
become confused and impoverished. Pope John Paul II described ours as the
"culture of
death," devoid of any humanity. I
believe we are now on the fast track to becoming a
"culture of evil,"
devoid of any sanctity. A steady staple of heinous crimes and rapacious
sexual acts, intermingled with unrelenting hedonism is what defines
contemporary culture.
Malcolm Muggeridge, in his classic Christ and the
Media, commented television is "becoming
the greatest fabricator and conveyor of fantasy that has ever existed....
It is almost invariably eros rather than agape that provides all the
excitement; celebrity and success rather than a broken and contrite heart
that are held up as being permanently desirable; Jesus Christ in lights on
Broadway rather than Jesus Christ on the cross who gets a folk hero's
billing.... The transposition of good and evil in the world of fantasy
created by the media leaves us with no sense of any moral order in the
universe, and without this, no order whatsoever, social, political,
economic or any other is ultimately attainable." The tailspin
toward our own Sodom will, at last, lead us to self-destruction.
Christian culture has failed miserably to pickup the
shattered pieces of post-modern man. Gone is a sense of duty for cultural
stewardship. Either we're rejecting culture or being swallowed up by it.
What we are not doing is transforming it, because contemporary Christians
hang onto this world for dear life. Like Lot in the days of Sodom, we
have become of no benefit to the world. Though greatly distressed at the
societal depravity, Lot never boldly proclaimed an alternative. Sodom's
culture had such a profound influence on Lot and his family that his own
wife could not detach herself from it.
Today, we absorb the violence, immodesty, and sexual
decadence of contemporary culture so casually we can't even recognize
it's desecrating effect on our lives. Though grievously troubled by the
pornographic and vile nature of fashion, movies, magazines, books, songs
and dance, we too seem to have become captivated with our culture. We
"hesitate" like Lot, refusing to give up our quiet, comfortable lifestyle
to exert the sacrifice, money and work required to redeem the destructive
and tragic character of modern culture. We have become modern day Demas'
(2 Tim 4:9), lovers
of this present world and deserters of the truth.
As a result, a
disconnection between the Biblical message and our lifestyle has emerged. Christian
culture is ephemeral because it is no longer incarnational. ...
Faith
too has become so nakedly and shamelessly commercialized and gaudy it is
no wonder people shy away. Christian culture merely mirrors its secular
counter-part. Even a trip to a monastery will yield its requisite
bazaar-type cornucopia of decorative plates, cookbooks, greeting cards and
icon mugs. Lost is the culture of prayer, silence and ministry.
We are the consummate narcissists hungry for the
instant gratification of feel-good religion. God is only good so long as
He conforms to our image and serves as our genie, granting us the health,
wealth and comfort we demand. Social historian Dr. Stan Mattson reminds
us "There was a time when vital Christian
faith and a passionate love for learning and the arts were viewed as being
wholly compatible. In stark contrast, Christians now find themselves
largely isolated from the cultural mainstream and hard-pressed to
envision, let alone fulfill, any meaningful role within a society that
increasingly presses for the privatization of faith. The consequences
have been devastating not only for Christian scholars and artists, but
equally important, for all Christians and Society."
Church attendance throughout the western world is
hemorrhaging because the Church has ceased being a counter-culture. She
no longer vigorously engages culture in the radically transforming way of
the New Testament, and as a result, the Church stopped trying to share
some of the Kingdom come, now and here. Almost a century ago, J. Gresham
Machen lamented, "the Church is puzzled by
the world's indifference. She is trying to over-come it by adapting her
message to the fashions of the day. But if, instead, before the conflict,
she would descend into the secret place of meditation, if by the clear
light of the gospel she would seek an answer not merely to the questions
of the hour but, first of all, to the eternal problems of the spiritual
world, then perhaps, by God's grace, through His good Spirit, in His good
time, she might issue forth once more with power, and an age of doubt
might be followed by the dawn of an era of faith." (Princeton Theological Review)
Christians need to
return to their foreigner status among the world (1 Peter 1:1).
We are sojourners in a foreign land sent to transform it, not fall in love
with it. Our calling is not one of inertia or of personalized private
faith. When we stop living like carbon copies of the world and set our
whole lives apart from its ways, then our influence and our culture will
act as salt for the world, preserving it from its rotting nature. C. S
Lewis, in Mere Christianity, suggests a "Christian society is
not going to arrive until most of us really want it: and we are not going
to want it until we become fully Christian."
We need to be more
like Daniel and his three friends. Though immersed in the pagan culture
of ancient Babylon, Daniel "made up his mind" not to take part. Because
Daniel stayed close to God and His commandments, he was a visibly
different influence on the king. Father Alexander Elchaninov writes,
"our young people today make a great mistake in thinking that Christianity
is a system of philosophy.... No, Christianity is life."
Only when we fully comprehend what it means to be Christian can we share
the truth with others. Only when we anxiously anticipate the glorious
hope of life eternal will our light shine differently. Only when we live
in obedience will a radically different culture emerge. At last all
things will be made new.
STEP 3: LIVING AS
STRANGERS
The third step on our ascent
to God is
Exile -- a separation from
everything, so one may hold on totally to God. An exile is a fugitive,
running from all relations with his own relatives and with strangers.
These words remind us of St.
Peter's admonition:
Beloved, I beg you as
sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war
against the soul (1 Peter 2:11); this is mild compared to Christ:
He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy' of Me.
He who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me (Matthew
10:37f).
Family ties are good; so too
are our friends; marriage is honorable and sanctified. Even good things,
however, can get in the way of our ascent to God. This is true about
relations with those who do not pursue God. St. Paul writes:
Do not be deceived: "Evil
company corrupts good habits" (1 Corinthians 15:33).
To follow hard after God means
we must often endure insults of those around us who do not understand our
desire to find God and experience Him in our lives.
As Christians we do not belong
to the world; Jesus reminds us we are in the world; but of it,
never (John 15:19)! Thus we will often feel like strangers, who do not
fit into the rhythms of the world. This is exile. The virtue of exile
applies even to relations with fellow Orthodox. Orthodoxy insists they
not be neglected in advancing our spiritual lives; together we find
salvation. However, there is danger of substituting relations with
spiritual people for a relation with God.
During Lent, when we are
encouraged to practice silence and solitude, it is good to reorient
ourselves toward God alone. We do not stop pursuing healthy, positive
relations, but rather we determine these relations are important to us,
not because of how they make us feel, but rather because of how they help
us reach God.
St. John writes:
Let your father be
him who is able and willing to labor with you in bearing the burden of
your sins, and your mother the compunction strong enough to wash away
your filth. Let your brother be your companion and rival in the race
leading to heaven, and the constant thought of death be your spouse.
Let your longed-for offspring be the meanings of your heart. May your
body be your slave, and your friends the holy powers who can help you at
the hour of dying if they become your friends.
(Adapted from Father John Mack's Ascending
the Heights)
Respect for Life
In teaching on the
Last Judgment, the Lord emphasizes that whatever we do to the least of his
brethren, he counts as done to him. When explaining the Greatest
Commandments of the Law, he tells us we must love our neighbor as ourselves.
The message is clear:
the path to
salvation lies in the way we treat those with whom we come in contact:
human life—from the womb to the bed in the nursing home. Politeness, love
and protection for the less fortunate are ways we put our faith into
action.
And the good news
is this, whatever love we show or kindness we do to those we encounter, the
Lord accounts as done to him! Let us all the more eagerly show love and
respect for life, for our neighbor and for one another.
