Category Archives: Francis Schaeffer

Francis Schaeffer was prophetic about culture of death that Jack Kevorkian thrive in (Series on Jack Kevorkian’s legacy of death Part 7)

June 7, 2011 – 12:05 am
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What Ever Happened to the Human Race?

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Philosopher and Theologian, Francis A. Schaeffer has argued, “If there are no absolutes by which to judge society, then society is absolute.” Francis Schaeffer, How Shall We Then Live? (Old Tappan NJ: Fleming H Revell Company, 1976), p. 224.

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Francis Schaeffer had a big impact on many christians like me and gave us reasons to be prolife. Read the below article by Dr. Peter Lillback concerning the issue of assisted suicide (below is the last portion of the article).This is another subject that Francis Schaeffer discussed at length in his film series and books.

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Suffering Has A Point

If one adopts the biblical culture of life that flows from the concepts of the image of God and the sanctity of life, then one must also address the issue of human suffering. For euthanasia’s pragmatic appeal is in offering the “good death,” that is, a death that is without pain and suffering. What is a Christian to think of suffering since his rejection of euthanasia requires a commitment to face pain in a manner that glorifies God? The first thing to remember is that God is faithful (1 Corinthians 10:13). Suffering is never wasted in God’s economy, but always serves His purposes (Romans 8:28).

Professor William Edgar reminds us that suffering has a profound role in the Christian’s progress to the ultimate hope of the gospel of Christ. “In the school of suffering there are three great degrees, to be earned in sequence. The first is ‘perseverance’ (Romans 5:3). When we endure hardship for the sake of our Lord, we begin to learn what no other teacher can impart, the ability to endure. This virtue is notably absent from modern culture—we would rather have the easy pay-off and the pleasurable stimulus than the hard road of daily struggle. But as great athletes know, matches aren’t won in one move, but rather one point at a time. The second degree, once endurance is well in hand, is ‘character’ (Romans 5:4). The Greek word here signifies the ‘ability to pass a test.’ … Finally, the highest degree in the school of suffering is ‘hope’ (Romans 5:4-5). … when the New Testament speaks of hope, it means full assurance. And what is underscored in Romans 5 is a hope that does not have any shame or embarrassment attached to it. Furthermore, it is a hope that leads to the same kind of glad feelings that come with justification. ‘We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God’ (Romans 5:2).

The point here is that euthanasia sees pain as something to be avoided at any cost. For the Christian, pain is not to be sought, but when it comes it is to be grasped as a tool God has given to further restore the very image of God so tragically damaged in the fall of mankind. When hope triumphs over suffering, the first fruits of the resurrection and the eternal redemption of Christ have been tasted by the soul of faith.

The Problem of Pain

This understanding however, does not mean that physical pain is a goal to be sought or a required end to be endured without support. For example, C. S. Lewis wrote in The Problem of Pain, “I am not arguing that pain is not painful. Pain hurts. That is what the word means. I am only trying to show that the old Christian doctrine of being made ‘perfect through suffering’ (Hebrews 2:10) is not incredible. To prove it palatable is beyond my design.”

Although there are no easy ways to suffer, a Christian willingly embraces the blessings of the common grace gifts of medicine to address his pain and suffering. Yet he also learns to live by the apostle Paul’s words in Philippians 3:10-11 that describe his remarkable spiritual pursuit, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.”

Death With Dignity In Christ

Our conclusion can hardly surpass the wisdom of Dr. Leon Kass in his article “Death with Dignity and the Sanctity of Life,” written in 1990. Dr. John M. Templeton, Jr. summarizes Dr. Kass as follows: “‘We should reject the counsel of those who, seeking to drive a wedge between human dignity and the sanctity of life, argue for the need for active euthanasia, especially in the name of death with dignity. For it is precisely the setting of fixed limits on violating human life that makes possible our efforts at dignified relations with our fellow men, especially when their neediness and disability try our patience. We will never be able to relate, even decently to people, if we are entitled always to consider that one option before us is to make them dead. Thus, when the advocates of euthanasia press us with the most heartrending cases, we should be sympathetic but firm. Our response should neither be ‘Yes, for mercy sake,’ nor ‘Murder! Unthinkable!’ but ‘Sorry, no.’ Above all, we must not allow ourselves to become self deceived: we must never seek to relieve our own frustration and bitterness over the lingering deaths of other by pretending that we can kill them to sustain their dignity.”

As believers, we are called to entrust our lives and the lives of our loved ones into the strong and loving hands of the only One who knows the end from the beginning. When we live in Christ with trust and when we die in Christ with hope, we can proclaim with Paul, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). This alone is the “good death,” the only true “euthanasia.”

Dr. Peter A. Lillback is senior pastor of Proclamation Presbyterian Church (PCA) and president of Westminster Theological Seminary.

SEVEN ETHICAL PRINCIPLES FOR FACING DEATH AND DYING

While we cannot pursue the following ethical considerations with any length, it is helpful to identify some of the basic issues guiding a Christian’s thinking as they face the death process.

1. Prolonging life versus stretching life: “We observe once again how important it is to avoid the phrase absolute ‘reverence’ for human life. We must respect human life. If we can expect a medical procedure to extend life for a meaningful time, then we have an indication that such a treatment is desirable. But if not, then we have an indication that our task here on Earth is finished. Life can be prolonged, but need not be stretched” (J.Douma’s The Ten Commandments).

2. The issue of terminating life versus terminating treatment. “For this reason it is important to distinguish between terminating life and terminating treatment. Perhaps death will follow quickly after a treatment has been terminated, although that is by no means always the case. If a patient undergoes no further medical treatment, he must still be fed and cared for. That is not killing him, but giving him up” (J. Douma’s The Ten Commandments).

3. When it is right to let someone die? John Frame, in his Medical Ethics, writes, “When may we let a patient die? In general I would say that we may let a patient die when we lack, in some way, the resources to save his life, whether those resources be time, technology, or skill. When a person is under medical care, we may let him die … when he is ‘dying.’” Davis adds, “The collapse of the distinction between killing and letting die could also open the door to the deliberate killing of other categories of persons: the senile, the comatose, and the economically burdensome.”

4. The distinction between the ordinary and extraordinary means in saving a life. Davis continues, “Ordinary means are all those medicines, treatments, and operations which offer a reasonable hope of benefit and which can be obtained and used without excessive expense, pain, or other inconvenience. Extraordinary means are all medicines, treatments, and operations which cannot be obtained or used without excessive pain, or other inconvenience, or which, if used, would not offer a reasonable hope of benefit.”

5. The difference between sustaining life and prolonging dying. Davis writes, “There is no moral obligation to prolong artificially a truly terminal patient’s irreversible and imminent process of dying. This is sometimes called employing ‘useless means’ of treatment.”

6. The compassionate control of pain and provision of comfort. Davis writes, “When a disease has advanced to the point where no known therapy exists and death is imminent despite the means used, then forms of treatment that would secure ‘only a precarious and burdensome prolongation of life’ may be discontinued or not instituted. … Only palliative care is indicated. … ‘Palliative care’ means therapeutic measures designed to increase the patient’s comfort and control pain, to provide food and water and normal nursing care, and to minimize stress for the dying patient and the family. To say that in certain cases palliative care alone is indicated is not to abandon the patient.” The advent of advanced pain treatments has largely eliminated the need for patients to suffer. The idea of “mercy killing” thus has a false basis.

7. Open and honest communication. A final important ethical consideration is excellent communication between the patient (if possible), the family, and the healthcare professional. There needs to be a team approach to making these difficult decisions.

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Prolife | Comments (0)

Francis Schaeffer was prophetic about culture of death that Jack Kevorkian thrive in (Series on Jack Kevorkian’s legacy of death Part 6)

June 6, 2011 – 12:03 am
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What Ever Happened to the Human Race?

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Philosopher and Theologian, Francis A. Schaeffer has argued, “If there are no absolutes by which to judge society, then society is absolute.” Francis Schaeffer, How Shall We Then Live? (Old Tappan NJ: Fleming H Revell Company, 1976), p. 224.

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Francis Schaeffer had a big impact on many christians like me and gave us reasons to be prolife. Read the below article by Dr. Peter Lillback concerning the issue of assisted suicide (below is the first portion of the article).This is another subject that Francis Schaeffer discussed at length in his film series and books.

The Indecency of Assisted Suicide

Peter A. Lillback, Issue Number 10, August 2006

Death is universal. Apart from the intervention of the second advent of Christ, every human being will die. But how humans should die is a point of keen debate in the history of ethics.

Christians and non-Christians have deeply disagreed over the ethical validity of “non-natural” means of human death, namely suicide, abortion, infanticide, capital punishment, war, and euthanasia. And even among Christians there have been deep disagreements over whether these means of human death are ever legitimate. Specifically, then, what should a Christian think about the surging interest in euthanasia in our largely non-Christian culture?

For a host of reasons including advancements in medical technology, the aging of America, and the increasing impact of the secularization of our society, the concept of “quality of life” continues to supplant the concept of “sanctity of life.” Not surprisingly, the practice of euthanasia, simply translated as “the good death,” is a topic of increasing interest and concern.

The stories of Karen Ann Quinlan, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the Hemlock Society, and Terri Shiavo have filled the news. “Death with dignity,” “mercy killing,” “the right to die,” or “physician assisted suicide” identify some of the claims of the advocates of euthanasia.

To consider the issues surrounding euthanasia, or the alleged “good death,” it is essential to understand how we, as a society, have arrived at the point where legislators are discussing not how we are to live, but how we are to die.

The Advent of the Culture of Death

Euthanasia is not new. But its rise to the forefront of our social and political discussions can be seen as one outcome of the legalization of abortion in 1973. Claims by the critics of abortion that its legalization would naturally lead to infanticide and euthanasia were seen as scare tactics to keep women from exercising their “right to privacy” or “right to choose.” However, it was not long until these warnings were becoming realities. “Deformed” children were being starved to death or refused treatment and newborn infants were being discarded in trash bins.

Surgeon General of the U.S. Dr. C. Everett Koop responded to the euthanasia/infanticide by starvation of a Down syndrome child in a Bloomfield, Ind., hospital by writing an article in 1980 entitled “Slide to Auschwitz.” He explained that when the “quality of life” value system replaces the “sanctity of life” ethic, it is the first step to what the Nazi physicians at Auschwitz proclaimed—namely, that the unhealthy, the aged, the handicapped, the mentally incompetent, or the dying were lebensunwerten Lebens, or “life unworthy of life.”

Francis Schaeffer explained this emerging thinking when he described an article by author Charles Hartshorne in a 1981 article in The Christian Century entitled “Concerning Abortion, an Attempt at a Rational View.” Schaeffer wrote, “He [Hartshorne] begins by equating the fact that the human fetus is alive with the fact that mosquitoes and bacteria are also alive. That is, he begins by assuming that human life is not unique. He then continues by saying that even after the baby is born it is not fully human until its social relations develop (though he says the infant does have some primitive social relations an unborn fetus does not have). His conclusion is, ‘Nevertheless, I have little sympathy with the idea that infanticide is just another form of murder. Persons who are already functionally persons in the full sense have more important rights even than infants.’ He then, logically takes the next step: ‘Does this distinction apply to the killing of a hopelessly senile person or one in a permanent coma? For me it does.’ No atheistic humanist could say it with greater clarity.”

The high priest of mercy killing, Dr. Peter Singer of Princeton makes the thinking clear in his book Practical Ethics: “I do not deny that if one accepts abortion … the case for euthanasia … is strong. … euthanasia is not something to be regarded with horror. … On the contrary, once we abandon those doctrines about the sanctity of human life … it is the refusal to accept euthanasia which, in some cases, is horrific.” Thus the leaps from abortion to infanticide, to voluntary euthanasia, and ultimately to involuntary euthanasia are not leaps at all, but the natural consequence of stepping onto the slippery slope of morality apart from God.

The Unfolding Expression of the Culture of Death

To a society which no longer embraces the sanctity of human life, the natural extension of a woman’s “right to choose” is a person’s right to die at the time and under the conditions of their own choosing. Physician John M. Templeton, Jr., explains, “This right of personal autonomy regarding medical intervention can contribute to the concept of death with dignity. However, some persons have begun to try and push the concept of rights into extreme positions. In the words of Leon Kass, author of Death with Dignity and the Sanctity of Life, ‘We find people asserting a “right to die” grounded not in objective conditions regarding prognosis or the uselessness of treatment, but in the supremacy of choice itself. In the name of choice, people claim the right to choose to cease to be choosing beings. From such a right to refuse not only treatment, but life itself—that is, from a right to become dead—it is then a small step to the right to be made dead. From my right to die will follow your duty to assist me in dying, i.e., to become the agent of my death, if I am not able, or do not wish, to kill myself.’”

The ultimate expression of the culture of death is of course, the arbitrary killing of human beings based on some yet to be determined criteria, such as age, health, productivity, or cost to society. Philip E. Hughes writes, “given the evolutionist presupposition that the species is of far more consequence than the individual, that Man matters rather than man, it is far from fantastic to envisage the enactment of a law which, in the interest of mankind, would prescribe that on reaching, say, the age of 60, persons should be ‘put to sleep’—painlessly of course—by means of a pill, potion, or an injection.”

What role do physicians play in this new paradigm of the culture of death where they are called no longer to be life givers and sustainers, but instead to become managers of life and death? Templeton, in Death and Dying, writes, “The Dutch, in their research on euthanasia, found that many physicians acted with the initial intention of relieving pain and suffering, but also with the admitted ‘partial intention’ of hastening death. Now the Dutch parliament has lifted all restraints and has completely legalized active euthanasia, even in some cases without the patient’s consent.”

In the end, Peter Singer’s questions paint the road map for the culture of death. “For me, the relevant question is, what makes it so seriously wrong to take a life? Those of you who are not vegetarians are responsible for taking a life every time you eat. Species is no more relevant than race in making these judgments.” Singer posits the ultimate question, “But why should human life have special value?”

The Imago Dei

Why is human life precious and why is it wrong to take a life? For the Christian, the answer is clear. We are created by God; in fact, we are created in the image of God (Genesis 1:26-28.). But living out that answer is not always simple or easy. This understanding of the sanctity of life is undergirded by God’s moral law, summarized in the sixth commandment: “Thou shalt not kill.” J. Douma writes, “When we live and die in God’s presence, we do not exercise self-determination over ourselves. When God says that we may not kill, then we must not proceed stubbornly to put an end to our own lives. The wish for death can be a Christian desire, even outside of the dying stage of life (see Philippians 1:23). We may even pray for that; but that kind of praying itself presupposes that we must leave the realization thereof to God Himself.”

Professor J. J. Davis further clarifies how euthanasia is a violation of the sixth commandment: “Human life is sacred because God made man in his own image and likeness (Genesis 1:26-28). This canopy of sacredness extends throughout man’s life, and is not simply limited to those times and circumstances when man happens to be strong, independent, healthy, and fully conscious of his relationships to others. … The same God who lovingly is present in the womb can be present in the dying and comatose patient, for whom conscious human relationships are broken. The body of the dying can still be a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19), and hence sacred to God. The euthanasia mentality sees man as the lord of his own life; the Christian sees human life as a gift from God, to be held in trusteeship throughout man’s life on earth: ‘You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body’ (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Determining the moment of death is God’s prerogative, not man’s (Job 14:5). Man does not choose his own death, but acquiesces in the will of the heavenly Father, knowing that for the believer, death is both the last enemy, and the doorway to eternal life. Because man bears the image of God, his life is sacred in every state of its existence, in sickness or in health, in the womb, in infancy, in adolescence, in maturity, in old age, or even in the process of dying itself.”

In a culture of death, Christians are called to be shining lights of hope to a forlorn and fallen world. When Christians choose life for themselves and/or others—offering to the suffering not deadly poisons, but rather Christ’s life-giving love in word and deed—they reflect the gospel hope of the eternal life promised by Christ’s resurrection.

Dr. Peter A. Lillback is senior pastor of Proclamation Presbyterian Church (PCA) and president of Westminster Theological Seminary.

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Prolife | Comments (0)

Francis Schaeffer was prophetic about culture of death that Jack Kevorkian thrive in (Series on Jack Kevorkian’s legacy of death Part 5)

June 5, 2011 – 9:16 am
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What Ever Happened to the Human Race?

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Philosopher and Theologian, Francis A. Schaeffer has argued, “If there are no absolutes by which to judge society, then society is absolute.” Francis Schaeffer, How Shall We Then Live? (Old Tappan NJ: Fleming H Revell Company, 1976), p. 224.

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Francis Schaeffer was a prophet in many ways. His writings have turned out to be prophetic in this subject of euthanasia. Take a look at this article below:

Euthanasia is a term we hear more frequently today. The word is derived from two Greek words–one meaning “well” and the other meaning “death” — and so the word “euthanasia” has come to mean “an easy or painless death.” In current usage, euthanasia refers to the practice commonly called “mercy killing.” To painlessly put to death persons who suffer from incurable and extremely painful diseases seems like an act of mercy to many unthinking people.

The article, which follows, explains that “pulling the plug” is a common term used to indicate the withdrawal of all life support-’including mechanical ventilation, intravenous fluids, and tube feeding for nutritional support when there is no hope of recovery.”

Today there are increasing pressures on medical professionals, pastors, families, and individuals to hasten the death of those under their care. Such hastening sometimes takes the form of direct action (including lethal injection), or it may also take a passive form (the neglect or withdrawal of the necessary means of preserving life). Most of us hope that our death will come naturally. We generally prefer not to be kept alive on a machine when we are irreversibly dying, but neither is it ethical to hasten the end of physical life.

When “assisted suicide” once becomes acceptable for elderly dying patients on life support, it can quickly become acceptable to use the procedure for cases that do not fit that stereotype. When paralyzed 21 year old Roosevelt Dawson was released from a Michigan hospital in February, 1998 so that he could die at the hands of Jack Kevorkian, we were shown how easily active euthanasia can become a widespread practice.

Human life is a gift of God and only He has the right to terminate it. In the Bible, life is regarded as precious. The Scriptures have a different perspective on death and life–from that on which the modern euthanasia debate is usually based. The Bible consistently presents the hope of a life after death. The Scriptures repeatedly testify to the certainty of the world to come, with a guarantee of freedom from death for those who belong to God.

The writer of this article is a medical doctor, and in the following essay, he presents insights that are important for Christians to think about in this age of respirators, heart pumps, and feeding tubes. We must distinguish between treatments that preserve life and those that simply prolong death.

–Harold S. Martin

Pulling the Plug

The Christian’s Response to Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia

“Why don’t you just give me enough medicine to put me asleep forever?” asked Mary pathetically. Mary asked me that question one morning as I visited her in the hospital a few months ago just before she died a natural death from a painfully malignant tumor of the bowel.

But Mary is not the only patient asking that question and many who support assisted suicide and euthanasia are clamoring for legislation and court decisions to legalize this practice in the United States. Several developments have combined to open this once forbidden subject to current public debate. Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop, in a book co-authored 25 years ago entitled Whatever Happened to the Human Race, postulated that the legalization of abortion, which devalues human life prior to birth, would quickly usher in the legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia, which is the devaluation of life at the end of life. Abortion became legal in the United States in 1973 and many believe that the legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia is now imminent.

In order to understand the argument surrounding this controversy, a clear definition of terms is necessary. Euthanasia is the direct act of another person, usually a physician, administering lethal doses of medication to kill another person either with or without the person’s consent Assisted suicide is supplying patients who have voluntarily requested to end their lives, with the medications to kill themselves. “Pulling the plug” is a common term used to indicate the withdrawal of ail life support including mechanical ventilation, intravenous fluids, and tube feeding for nutritional support when there is no hope for meaningful recovery.

1. THE CURRENT SITUATION IN THE UNITED STATES IN 1998

The American Nurses Association also has a statement in their constitution asserting the incompatibility of assisted suicide with the role of healer. Yet in a survey of 1500 critical care nurses published in the March, 1996 New England Journal of Medicine, 20% of the 800 responders stated that they had actually killed a patient mercifully while taking care of them in an intensive care unit, without the patient’s consent.

Just as legal and medical opinions are divided, so is popular opinion. In an article published in the March, 1996 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association, 12% of physicians polled stated that they had received requests for assisted suicide and 4% stated they had received requests from patients for euthanasia. Many lay persons are sympathetic with the work of Jack Kevorkian, the retired Detroit pathologist who is no longer a practicing physician, but who has publicly acknowledged assisting with dozens of suicides in patients who have terminal or severely debilitating illnesses. Although Kevorkian has been arrested on several occasions, not once has he been successfully convicted of a criminal act. In addition, the Hemlock Society is an organization which actively promotes a patient’s taking his own life at any time, and has published materials giving details of the various methods to accomplish this. When patients are asked why they have requested assisted suicide or information regarding euthanasia, their stated reasons are often that they want the satisfaction of knowing how and when their life will end if faced with suffering or disability.

The promotion of mercy killing is born out of a rampant disrespect for the sanctity of human life in our society. This disrespect for human life is rooted in secular humanism which places man at the center of his existence rather than espousing a God centered existence. Society measures the value of a person’s life by its own standards and not by God’s. Society today wants to avoid suffering at all costs. Suffering is viewed as an extreme evil, so laws are created to help us avoid suffering. Now a mother can obtain an abortion rather than suffer the heartache of an unwanted child. Parents can obtain a late term abortion after it is discovered that a baby has a severely disabling condition rather than face the pain of raising a disabled child. And soon patients who are facing debilitating and terminal illnesses will be allowed to end their own suffering by assisted suicide and euthanasia.

Medical technology has advanced to the point where there is the ability to extend life almost indefinitely. The average age of death has increased from forty-five in 1900 to seventy-six for women and seventy-two for men in 1990. Vaccines and antibiotics fight infectious diseases that once meant an early death. Advance diagnostic procedures, surgical techniques, and even organ transplantation which once were considered experimental, are now treatments of choice for many heart, lung and kidney diseases, as well as for many cancers. The question now is when should life be allowed to end.

2. THE SANCTITY OF HUMAN LIFE

In considering the ethical questions surrounding assisted suicide and euthanasia the Christian must consider the biblical perspective on the sanctity of human life. Christians need to base their opinions not on judicial, medical, or popular opinion, but on God’s opinion, which is recorded in the Scripture. Although there is no chapter and verse which states thou shalt not commit assisted suicide or euthanasia,” the Scripture gives a high value to human life which is opposed to the value which society places on life .

This value to human life begins in the book of Genesis where it says God created man “in his own image.” It also states that God breathed into him “the breath of life”;’he became a living soul” and ‘God saw that it was very good.” The argument follows that if God created life, do human beings have the right to end it? The sixth commandment, “Thou shall not kill,” precludes premeditated murder. God does provide a system of capital punishment for specific sins but never is murder used for sickness or disability in either the Old or New Testament.

Jesus himself speaks to the sanctity of human life when he speaks of God’s knowledge of sparrows in the air and states that we are more important in God’s sight than these. Jesus also makes reference to the value of a person’s life with disabilities when he speaks of the purpose for the man born blind in John 9. Paul speaks to God’s authority and rule over our lives in Romans 14:7-9, “For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” Again in 1 Corinthians 6:19b-20, Paul speaks concerning the authority and rule of God in our lives: “Do you not know that … you are not your own? For you were bought with a price; therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.” The New Testament also states that it is appointed unto man once to die and after this the judgment. It should be noted that this is scheduled in God’s appointment book and it is not our own decision to make.

Even the psalmist David realized that God was in control of his life. In Psalm 31:10-12 David’s life was fast coming to an end as he wrote “For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away … I am like a dead man out of mind; I am like a broken vessel.” Doesn’t this remind us of a person who is coming to the end of life with ill health and being abandoned by his friends and family? Yet David did not ask for euthanasia, for in verse 15 he says, “My times are in Your hand.”

The Bible speaks of the sanctity of human life in God’s sight, and of the authority and rule of God in our lives. The Bible says that our times are in God’s hands and that He has appointed the day of our death. It also reveals to us the purpose of suffering in our lives as we study the lives of Job, Paul, and Jesus.

Because human life is sacred according to Biblical principles, we have no right to end life prematurely. Job stated that the Lord gives and the Lord takes away, and although this probably referred to his material possessions, it can also be assumed that since the Lord took away his entire family, that Job could be speaking about his own life. Joni Erickson Tada, the paraplegic who has a worldwide ministry to disabled persons, states that instead of making it easier for people with disabilities to die, the focus should be on making it easier for them to live. When making life and death decisions (such as pulling the plug or withholding medical support), we should not ask the question, “Does this life have value?”–or, “Is this life worth living?”–but rather, “Is this treatment worth giving?” There is a difference between prolonging life and preventing death in a hopeless situation, and causing premature death by euthanasia and assisted suicide.

3. SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEMS OF ASSISTED SUICIDE AND EUTHANASIA

As Christians we must understand that the most important part of preparing for death is not to be concerned about the advanced directives, medical technology or asking for assisted suicide in the face of disability and terminal illness. The most important part of living is preparing to meet the Lord. We must have the attitude of the Apostle Paul when he states, “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). We must take comfort in the words of the Lord Jesus, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live” (John 11:25). Not only do we need to prepare for our own deaths by accepting God’s plan of salvation, but we need to vigorously minister to others the Gospel message and the hope of life after death. God gives grace even in the midst of suffering.

In our congregations we need to make concerted efforts to minister to those who are suffering terminal illnesses. We need to treat the disabled with kindness and respect and try to meet their needs physically, emotionally, socially, and spiritually. We need to cultivate the attitude that if the patient can’t be cured, still others will care for their well being. Finally, we need to understand that there is no legal or moral obligation to accept life support or any type of medical technology. This does not mean that we have a fatalistic attitude when it comes to medical decision making, but it does mean that we should seriously and prayerfully evaluate what kinds of medical treatment are necessary and would be acceptable in fulfilling God’s plan for our life, rather than trying to orchestrate the circumstances of our death.

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Prolife | Comments (0)

Francis Schaeffer was prophetic about culture of death that Jack Kevorkian thrive in (Series on Jack Kevorkian’s legacy of death Part 4)

June 5, 2011 – 1:21 am
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What Ever Happened to the Human Race?

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Philosopher and Theologian, Francis A. Schaeffer has argued, “If there are no absolutes by which to judge society, then society is absolute.” Francis Schaeffer, How Shall We Then Live? (Old Tappan NJ: Fleming H Revell Company, 1976), p. 224.

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Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop could see that people like Jack Kevorkian would be coming down the road. Read Schaeffer’s words at the first of this article below. I put them in bold letters.

Below is a portion of an article from the Jeremiah Project:

The Slippery Slope

Once government begins to define life and humanity, there is no end to the possibilities for subjective and selective determination as to who will be allowed to live.

At one time, blacks were not recognized as human beings. This was the rationale behind the slave trade that brought black Africans to the United States. They were transported in slave ships that held them confined in the same manner that livestock is confined when shipped to the slaughter houses. In Nazi Germany, only the Aryan race was considered human, and we know the consequences of that thinking. The treatment of Jews and other non-Aryans was similar to that of animals. And the Nazi genetic experiments remain a source for horror stories even today.

Will a society which has assumed the right to kill infants in the womb – because they are unwanted, imperfect, or merely inconvenient – have difficulty in assuming the right to kill other human beings, especially older adults who are judged unwanted, deemed imperfect physically or mentally, or considered a possible social nuisance?

The next candidates for arbitrary reclassification as non-persons are the elderly. This will become increasingly so as the proportion of the old and weak in relation to the young and strong becomes abnormally large, due to the growing antifamily sentiment, the abortion rate, and medicine’s contribution to the lengthening of the normal life span. The imbalance will cause many of the young to perceive the old as a cramping nuisance in the hedonistic lifestyle they claim as their right. As the demand for affluence continues and the economic crunch gets greater, the amount of compassion that the legislature and the courts will have for the old does not seem likely to be significant considering the precedent of the non-protection given to the unborn and newborn. [Francis Schaeffer, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?]

Euthanasia
Joseph Fletcher, the popularizer of “situational ethics,” in his 1973 discussion of death with dignity gives this argument for euthanasia:

It is ridiculous to give ethical approval to the positive ending of sub-human life in utero as we do in therapeutic abortions for reasons of mercy and compassion but refuse to approve of positively ending a sub-human life in extremis. If we are morally obliged to put an end to a pregnancy when an amniocentesis reveals a terrible defective fetus, we are equally obliged to put an end to a patient’s hopeless misery when a brain scan reveals that a patient with cancer has advanced brain metastases. [Joseph Fletcher, “Ethics and Euthanasia,” American Journal of Nursing, 1973.]

One is reminded of the slave holders who devoutly espoused the theory that slavery was really for the good of the black man and that in the end he would be thankful for the opportunity to share in the white man’s culture, even from the distance of the garden shed. The Nazis also argued that their victims were being sacrificed for the high end of the general good of society. Many well-meaning people are attracted to what might seem to be the beneficial aspects of some sort of euthanasia program, because they think they can be free of the guilt of responsibility.

The “right-to-die” movement is not calling for a right to die, they’re mostly talking about a right to kill. The advocates of euthanasia are asking the government and courts to step aside and allow people who are feeble and elderly to be snuffed out.

Consider the people who were “assisted” in ending their lives by Dr. Jack Kevorkian. He wasn’t killing terminally ill patients – they had Alzheimer’s and were in a lot of pain, but they were alive and walking around. Dr. Kevorkian portrays another basic belief of humanist ideology – the extermination of the old, useless, and the infirm. Kervorkian believes that he has the right to help people out of their pain if they want to die. He claims to render “a medical service,” and his lawyer is clear that “he’s not going to stop … doing the right thing.” Already the suicide doctor has had an impact on our society’s views regarding suicide and euthanasia.

Language is an important tool in convincing others of your position. Euthanasia advocates have been skillful in masking their true intent with slogans like “death with dignity” and “a right to die.” These phrases easily capture people’s attention. Everyone believes in a death with dignity.

Though I’m sure the medical community is well intentioned, it is still a fact that their idea of mercy is increasingly to dehumanize their patients, to disguise the helpless person so that not even their family recognizes them. In time, the family’s love turns to pity, which turns to horror until, to our warped hearts, murder becomes mercy.

But these slogans take on new meaning when they are interpreted by our courts. The right to die may sound wonderful – until we realize that legally it means that you can kill yourself or someone can kill you, even if you don’t want to die. Language is powerful. But when it is interpreted by the courts it becomes much more than mere slogans. It becomes the law of the land, and often that interpretation is not at all what we expected.

  • Daily, senior citizens and accident victims are starved to death because their families have been convinced that even food and water are extraordinary means to preserve their life.
  • Over one-fifth of Medicare expenses are for persons in their last year of life. Thus in fiscal year 1978, $4.9 billion dollars was spent for such persons and if just one-quarter of those expenditures were avoided through adoption of living wills, the savings under Medicare alone would amount to $1.2 billion. [ WASHINGTON POST, June 22, 1977]
  • The drug company, Hoescht AG, has been granted the first patent for a euthanasia drug developed by Michigan State University. The drug is intended for use on animals but the patent is worded to include humans. (Source: UPI)

Critics of the U.S. Supreme Court’ Roe v. Wade decision have long claimed that legalized abortion would lead to legalized euthanasia. Supporters of Roe have often scoffed at the idea, insisting that decisions to eliminate a human fetus in no way devalue the lives of born persons. Yet recent court cases in Michigan and Washington have reversed the debate: Euthanasia supporters are openly citing Roe as precedent for a constitutional right to “rational” suicide. In the case of People v. Kevorkian, a trial judge has relied partly on Roe and the later abortion case, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, to find a consitutional right to assisted suicide. Jack Kevorkian’s attorney, Geoffrey Fieger argues that such a right is even better grounded than a right to abortion, because no unwilling ‘third party’ is involved.

Citing Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, on May 3, 1994, Washington U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Rothstein struck down the Washington state law that banned physician assisted suicide. Judge Rothstein stated that the terminally ill “have the same right to hasten death that they have to choose an abortion…” “Like the abortion decision, the decision of a terminally ill person to end his life involves the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime,” the judge wrote in her decision.

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Prolife | Comments (0)

Francis Schaeffer was prophetic about culture of death that Jack Kevorkian thrive in (Series on Jack Kevorkian’s legacy of death Part 3)

June 4, 2011 – 12:04 am
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What Ever Happened to the Human Race?

Philosopher and Theologian, Francis A. Schaeffer has argued, “If there are no absolutes by which to judge society, then society is absolute.” Francis Schaeffer, How Shall We Then Live? (Old Tappan NJ: Fleming H Revell Company, 1976), p. 224.

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 In 1979 I saw the film series “Whatever happened to the human race?” by Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop. I was so impacted by that film series that I asked my high school teacher Mr. Mark Brink to allow me to return to see that series again while I was in college. He did allow me to do that and Mr. Brink would inform his high school students, “Here is Everette Hatcher who is in college now, but he has returned to see this film series again because he knows how important it is!!!”

Mr. Brink was right about Francis Schaeffer. His predictions about the direction of the culture and the use of socialogical law were correct. Below is just more evidence of that. This article by Dr. Herb Ireland demonstrates that I am not the only one that has recognized the truth of Schaeffer’s predictions.

Abortion to Euthanasia: A Slippery Slope

 Dr. Herb Ireland

 Pastor

 Sparks Nazarene Church

 January 17, 1999 at Sparks Nazarene

 A true prophet is one who has the capacity to look into the future and accurately predict what will occur. Twenty years ago I was introduced to a number of true prophets such as essayist Malcolm Muggeridge, theologian Francis Schaeffer and physician C. Everett Koop. I became acquainted with these prophets at a seminar entitled “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” conducted in Seattle Washington.

At that time the United States Supreme Court decision to legalize abortion in all 50 states was only six years old. However, these prophets were already warning the public about the slippery slope from abortion to euthanasia. Personally, I had never really made the connection between abortion and putting to death a person suffering from an incurable and painful disease.

Today because of the actions of Jack Kevorkian we see the accuracy of these prophets’ predictions. This morning I want us to trace what happens to a society that embraces abortion and thereby devalues human life.

I. The Slippery Slope From Abortion To Euthanasia.

On January 23, 1973 the United States Supreme Court decided in Roe v. Wade to legalize abortion in all 50 states during all nine months of pregnancy, for any reason-medical, social, or otherwise.  This fateful decision pronounced that the fetus forming in the mother’s womb was not viable – capable of living, under normal conditions, outside the womb. This man-made ruling has had a devastating impact upon unborn children forming in the womb. Here are some of the consequences we face in 1999:

1. There is an abortion for every two live births.

2. This year thousands will hear boyfriends, school counselors, physicians, friends and even parents give advice that will lead to over 1,300,000 unborn children losing their lives.

3. Since 1973 Americans have aborted 36.5 million babies. This figure equals the population of Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Nevada, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming – 13 states in all.

Infanticide

Along with the terrible loss of life, there has been a devaluation of the sanctity of human life in American society. This devaluation of human life has given birth to increased infanticide-the killing of an infant.  For example, in the November 12th, 1973 issue of Newsweek Magazine, in the medicine section, there appeared an article titled “Shall this child die?” It was about the work of doctors Raymond Duff and A.G.M. Campbell at the Yale-New Haven Hospital of Yale University. The article reported that these doctors were permitting babies born with birth defects to die by deliberately withholding vital medical treatments: the doctors were convincing the parents of these children that they would be a financial burden; that they had “little or no hope of achieving meaningful “humanhood.” “The doctors recognized that they were breaking the law by doing away with these ‘vegetables’ as they chose to call these children, but they felt that the law should be changed to make it legal to let these children die.

Dr. C. Everett Koop, former Surgeon General of the United States documented the case of Baby Doe and Baby Jane Doe who had complex physical handicaps and were allowed to die even though he felt their lives could have been saved.  In his book, Koop-the Memoirs of America’s Family Doctor, he declares, “From the Baby Doe saga… I hope Americans learned about the pernicious practice of infanticide, which has been growing unnoticed in hospital nurseries across the country.”

Euthanasia

The next step in the slippery slope leads us to euthanasia. Listen to the prophetic words of Malcolm Muggeridge written in 1979.  ” Of course, it would be quite wrong to think that the offensive which is being mounted on our Christian way of life will stop at abortion, and already there are the rumblings of a new, strong push in the direction of euthanasia. I have absolutely no doubt that this will be the next great controversy that will arise. The fact is that because it’s so costly in money and personnel to keep alive people about whom the medical opinion is that their lives are worthless, the temptation to get rid of the burden by killing them off will be even greater, and this disposing of them will of course be dressed up in humanitarian terms as an act of humanity and compassion. Almost all of the things that have been done in the world in the last decades have been done in the name of justice, equality, compassion, etc.”

Physician Assisted Suicide. Do you know what PAS stands for? PAS is the title for physician-assisted suicide. Advocates of PAS have succeeded in only one state: Oregon. Already at least two assisted suicides have been performed there, but the explicit goal of PAS advocates is to go national, making the Oregon experiment the American way of Life.

Progressive euthanasia is on the horizon. It looks like this:

1. Dr. Jack Kevorkian has assisted 130 people who were suffering from incurable and painful diseases to commit suicide.

2. Dr. Jack Kevorkian killed a person suffering from a painful and incurable disease and recorded it on video to spark a national debate about the merits of “mercy killing.”

3. Those languishing in long tem commas are put to death.

4. Because the drastically handicapped have little or no hope of achieving meaningful ‘humanhood’ they are put to death.

5. The mentally ill are euthanized so the families don’t have to suffer any longer.

6. The old and senile are put to death in a humane way so limited money and resources can be used for others.

If you think this analysis is overblown, then you have not been reading the signs of the times! And it all started when we devaluated life before birth and now that devaluation of the sanctity of human life is seen from the preborn to the people suffering incurable diseases.

Is there an answer to this moral insanity? Yes there is and it is found in the Bible.

II Life Is Sacred Because God Created It.

Here are some of the passages that speak of the sanctity of human life.

Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

Psalms 139:13-18 “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, our eyes saw my unformed body.  All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.”

Isaiah 46:3 “Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all you who remain of the house of Israel, you whom I have upheld since you were conceived, and have carried since your birth. Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.”

Jeremiah 1:4 “The word of the LORD came to me, saying, ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.’”

Because God created human life, it is sacred and we must do everything we can to safeguard life.

Conclusion. The Irish statesman Edmund Burke once said, “all it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.” I am afraid that many disciple of Jesus Christ are guilty of this indictment. But now that you know that the acceptance of abortion leads to active euthanasia, I pray you will stand to your feet and fight for the sanctity of human life from the unborn to the physically and mentally handicapped to the aged and infirm.

Let me illustrate how one “vegetable” fought back. Do you remember the Newsweek Magazine article that highlighted the two doctors who were permitting babies born with birth defects to die because they had no hope of achieving “meaningful humanhood?”

Here is a letter to the editor of Newsweek magazine by Sandra Diamond who suffers from cerebral palsy.

“I’ll wager my entire root system and as much fertilizer as it would take to fill Yale University that you have never received a letter from a vegetable before this one, but, much as I resent the term, I must confess that I fit the description of a ‘vegetable’ as defined in the article “Shall This Child Die?” (Medicine, Nov. 12)

“Due to severe brain damage incurred at birth, I am unable to dress myself, toilet myself, or write; my secretary is typing this letter. Many thousands of dollars had to be spent on my rehabilitation and education in order for me to reach my present professional status as a Counseling Psychologist. My parents were also told, 35 years ago, that there was “little or no hope of achieving meaningful ‘humanhood’” for their daughter. Have I reached ‘humanhood’? Compared with Doctors Duff and Campbell I believe I have surpassed it!

 “Instead of changing the law to make it legal to week out us ‘vegetables,’ let us change the laws so that we may receive quality medical care, education, and freedom to live as full and productive lives as our potentials allow.”

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Prolife | Comments (0)

Francis Schaeffer was prophetic about culture of death that Jack Kevorkian thrived in (Series on Jack Kevorkian’s legacy of death Part 2)

June 3, 2011 – 2:29 pm
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Philosopher and Theologian, Francis A. Schaeffer has argued, “If there are no absolutes by which to judge society, then society is absolute.” Francis Schaeffer, How Shall We Then Live? (Old Tappan NJ: Fleming H Revell Company, 1976), p. 224.

____________________________________

Al Mohler wrote the article ,”FIRST-PERSON: They indeed were prophetic,” Jan 29, 2004, and in this great article he noted:   .

“We stand today on the edge of a great abyss,” they wrote. “At this crucial moment choices are being made and thrust on us that will for many years to come affect the way people are treated. We want to try to help tip the scales on the side of those who believe that individuals are unique and special and have great dignity.”

This year marks the 25th anniversary of “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” by Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop. The anniversary serves to remind us just how unaware and unawake most evangelicals really were 25 years ago — and how prophetic the voices of Schaeffer and Koop were.

Whatever Happened to the Human Race? was both a book project and a film series, the fruit of an unusual collaboration between Francis Schaeffer, one of the truly significant figures of 20th-century evangelicalism, and C. Everett Koop, one of the nation’s most illustrious pediatric surgeons. They were an odd couple of sorts, but on the crucial issues of human dignity and the threat of what would later be called the “Culture of Death,” they were absolutely united.

Francis Schaeffer, who died in 1984, was nothing less than a 20th-century prophet. He was a genuine eccentric, given to wearing leather breeches and sporting a goatee — then quite unusual for anyone in the evangelical establishment. Then again, Schaeffer was never really a member of any establishment, and that is partly why a generation of questioning young people made their way to his Swiss study center known as L’Abri.

Big ideas were Schaeffer’s business — and the Christian worldview was his consistent framework. Long before most evangelicals even knew they had a worldview, Schaeffer was taking alternative worldviews apart and inculcating in his students a love for the architecture of Christian truth and the dignity of ideas.

Key figures on the evangelical left wrote Schaeffer off as a crank, and he returned the favor by denying that they were evangelicals at all. They complained that he did not follow their rules for scholarly publication. He pointed out that people actually read his books — and young people frustrated with cultural Christianity read his books by the thousands. They were looking for someone with ideas big enough for the age, relevant for the questions of the times, and based without compromise in Christian truth. Francis Schaeffer — knee pants and all — became a prophet for the age.

Dr. C. Everett Koop, on the other hand, is a paragon of the American establishment — a former surgeon-in-chief at the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia and later surgeon general of the United States under President Reagan. In 1974 Koop catapulted to international attention by performing the first successful surgical separation of conjoined twins. A Presbyterian layman, Koop lives in quasi-retirement in Pennsylvania. His surgical procedures remain textbook cases for medical students today.

Whatever Happened to the Human Race? awakened American evangelicals to the anti-human technologies and ideologies that then threatened human dignity. Most urgently, the project put abortion unquestionably on the front burner of evangelical concern. The tenor of the times is seen in the fact that Schaeffer and Koop had to argue to evangelicals in the late 1970s that abortion was not just a “Catholic” issue. They taught many evangelicals a new and urgently needed vocabulary about embryo ethics, euthanasia and infanticide. They knew they were running out of time.

“Each era faces its own unique blend of problems,” they argued. “Our time is no exception. Those who regard individuals as expendable raw material — to be molded, exploited, and then discarded — do battle on many fronts with those who see each person as unique and special, worthwhile, and irreplaceable.”

Every age is marked by both the “thinkable” and the “unthinkable,” they asserted — and the “thinkable” of late-20th-century Western cultures was dangerously anti-human. The lessons of the century — with the Holocaust at its center — should be sufficient to drive the point home. The problem, as illustrated by those who worked in Hitler’s death camps, was the inevitable result of a loss of conscience and moral truth. They were “people just like all of us,” Koop and Schaeffer reminded. “We seem to be in danger of forgetting our seemingly unlimited capacities for evil, once boundaries to certain behavior are removed.”

By the last quarter of the century, life and death were treated as mere matters of choice. “The schizophrenic nature of our society became further evident as it became common practice for pediatricians to provide the maximum of resuscitative and supportive care in newborn intensive-care nurseries where premature infants were under their care — while obstetricians in the same medical centers were routinely destroying enormous numbers of unborn babies who were normal and frequently of larger size. Minors who could not legally purchase liquor and cigarettes could have an abortion-on-demand and without parental consent or knowledge.”

Schaeffer and Koop pointed to other examples of moral schizophrenia. Disabled persons were given new access to facilities and services in the name of human rights, while preborn infants diagnosed with the same disabilities were often aborted — with the advice that it would be “wrong” to bring such a baby into the world.

Long before the discovery of stem cells and calls for the use of human embryos for such experimentation, Schaeffer and Koop warned of attacks upon human life at its earliest stage. “Embryos ‘created’ in the biologist’s laboratory raise special questions because they have the potential for growth and development if planted in the womb. The disposal of these live embryos is a cause for ethical and moral concern.”

They also saw the specter of infanticide and euthanasia. Infanticide, including what is now called “partial-birth abortion,” is murder, they argued. “Infanticide is being practiced right now in this country, and the saddest thing about this is that it is being carried on by the very segment of the medical profession which has always stood in the role of advocate for the lives of children.” Long before the formal acceptance of euthanasia in countries like the Netherlands, Koop and Schaeffer saw the rise of a “duty to die” argument used against the old, the very sick and the unproductive. They rejected euthanasia in the case of a “so-called vegetative existence” and warned all humanity that disaster awaited a society that lusted for a “beautiful death.”

“Abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia are not only questions for women and other relatives directly involved — nor are they the prerogatives of a few people who have thought through the wider ramifications,” they declared. “They are life-and-death issues that concern the whole human race equally and should be addressed as such.”

How did this happen? This embrace of an anti-human “humanism” could only be explained by the rejection of the Christian worldview. “Judeo-Christian teaching was never perfectly applied,” they acknowledged, “but it did lay a foundation for a high view of human life in concept and practice.” Through the inculcation of biblical values, “people viewed human life as unique — to be protected and loved — because each individual is made in the image of God.”

Two great enemies of truth were blamed for this loss of biblical truth — modern secularism and theological liberalism. The secularists insist on the imposition of a “humanism” that defines humanity in terms of productivity, arbitrary standards of beauty and health, and an inverted system of value. Theological liberalism, denying the truthfulness of the Bible, robs the church and the society of any solid authority. The biblical concept of humanity made in the image of God is treated as poetry rather than as truth. But, “if people are not made in the image of God, the pessimistic, realistic humanist is right: The human race is indeed an abnormal wart on the smooth face of a silent and meaningless universe.”

Everything else simply follows. “In this setting, abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia … are completely logical. Any person can be obliterated for what society at one moment thinks of as its own social or economic good.” Once human life and human dignity are devalued to this degree, recovery is extremely difficult — if not impossible.

The past 25 years has been a period of even more rapid technological and moral change. We now face threats to human dignity unimaginable just a quarter-century ago. We must now deal with the ethical challenges of embryo research, human cloning, the Human Genome Project and the rise of transhuman technologies. Even with many Christians aware and active on these issues, we are losing ground.

Francis Schaeffer and Everett Koop ended their book with a call for action. “If, in this last part of the twentieth century, the Christian community does not take a prolonged and vocal stand for the dignity of the individual and each person’s right to life — for the right of each person to be treated as created in the image of God, rather than as a collection of molecules with no unique value — we feel that as Christians we have failed the greatest moral test to be put before us in this century.”

In this new century, that warning is even more threatening and more urgent. The challenges of the 21st century are even greater than those faced in the century before. This should make us even more thankful for the prophetic witness of Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop — and even more determined to contend for life. Humanity still stands on the brink of that abyss.
–30–
Adapted from the Crosswalk.com weblog of R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.

What Ever Happened to the Human Race?

 

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Prolife | Comments (0)

Jack Kevorkian dies, made no attempts to end his life early (Series on Jack Kevorkian’s legacy of death Part 1)

June 3, 2011 – 10:39 am

Report: Jack Kevorkian dies

I am starting a series today on the legacy of death that Jack Kevorkian had. He chose to lengthen his own life while ending the life of others (many were physically able to live much longer).

_________________________________

Bernie Woodall wrote the article, “Dr. Death” Jack Kevorkian dies, Reuters, June 3, 2011 and he noted: 

news-general-20110603-NEWS-US-KEVORKIAN  Assisted suicide advocate Jack Kevorkian, known as “Dr. Death” for helping more than 100 people end their lives, died early on Friday at age 83, his lawyer said.

Kevorkian died at Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Michigan, where he had been hospitalized for about two weeks with kidney and heart problems, said Mayer Morganroth, Kevorkian’s attorney and friend.

Kevorkian, a pathologist, was focused on death and dying long before he became a defiant advocate, crossing Michigan in the rusty Volkswagen van that carried his machine to help sick people end their lives.

He launched his assisted-suicide campaign in 1990, allowing an Alzheimer’s patient to kill herself using a machine he had devised. He beat Michigan prosecutors four times before his conviction for second-degree murder in 1999.

Kevorkian was imprisoned for eight years for second-degree murder and was paroled in 2007. As a condition of his parole, he vowed not to assist in any suicides.

He was convicted after a CBS News program aired showing a video of Kevorkian administering lethal drugs to a 52-year-old man suffering from debilitating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease.

The Armenian American Kevorkian did not leave the public eye after his exit from prison in 2007, giving occasional lectures and in 2008 running for Congress unsuccessfully.

An HBO documentary on his life “Kevorkian” and a movie “You Don’t Know Jack” starring Al Pacino brought him back into the news last year.

In a June 2010 interview with Reuters Television, the right-to-die activist said he was afraid of death as much as anyone else and said the world had a hypocritical attitude toward voluntary euthanasia, or assisted suicide.

“Now we’ve avoided death because we don’t like death. Religion says that’s a big enemy, leave it alone. But we went beyond birth, into conception. Now we’re dabbling in that,” he said.

“If we can aid people into coming into the world, why can’t we aid them in exiting the world?”

(Reporting by Mike Miller; Editing by Greg McCune)

(This article has been modified to correct the seventh paragraph to make clear Dr. Kevorian was Armenian American, not born in Armenia)

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Mark Heard in his article in March of 1997 in Christianity Today sums up Francis Schaeffer’s view of the world and how it held true 13 years after Schaeffer’s 1984 death:

some critics have recently allowed that his big picture has proven durable. The conceptual centerpiece of Schaeffer’s historical view is the triumph of relativism in the modern post-Christian world: “Modern men, in the absence of absolutes, have polluted all aspects of morality, making standards completely hedonistic and relativistic.” He would not have been surprised by the advent of “postmodern” thought, which has built countless altars to relativism across the intellectual landscape. Nor would he have been surprised by the resultant moral vacuum that characterizes much contemporary academic thinking. In a recent issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, anthropologist Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban agonized over the fact that her discipline’s prime directive—cultural relativism—left her with no rationale for opposing rape or racial genocide in other cultures. One can almost hear Francis Schaeffer saying, “I told you so.”

In particular, he appears to have been prescient on the issue of human life. In 1976 he observed that “in regard to the fetus, the courts have arbitrarily separated ‘aliveness’ from ‘personhood,’ and if this is so, why not arbitrarily do the same with the aged? So the steps move along, and euthanasia may well become increasingly acceptable. And if so, why not keep alive the bodies of … persons in whom the brain wave is flat to harvest from them body parts and blood?” Schaeffer’s bleak vision is now daily news. “Cadaver Jack” Kevorkian has already killed more people than Ted Bundy, but the state of Michigan cannot muster the political will to stop him. A federal court has forbidden the state of Washington to pass laws preventing doctors from killing their patients, while the University of Washington is permitted to scavenge and sell the body parts of thousands of aborted children every year.

What Ever Happened to the Human Race?

By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Current Events, Prolife | Comments (0)

Francis Schaeffer predicted people like Jack Kevorkian would come

May 20, 2011 – 3:46 pm
 
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Mark Heard in his article in March of 1997 in Christianity Today sums up Francis Schaeffer’s view of the world and how it held true 13 years after Schaeffer’s 1984 death:

some critics have recently allowed that his big picture has proven durable. The conceptual centerpiece of Schaeffer’s historical view is the triumph of relativism in the modern post-Christian world: “Modern men, in the absence of absolutes, have polluted all aspects of morality, making standards completely hedonistic and relativistic.” He would not have been surprised by the advent of “postmodern” thought, which has built countless altars to relativism across the intellectual landscape. Nor would he have been surprised by the resultant moral vacuum that characterizes much contemporary academic thinking. In a recent issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, anthropologist Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban agonized over the fact that her discipline’s prime directive—cultural relativism—left her with no rationale for opposing rape or racial genocide in other cultures. One can almost hear Francis Schaeffer saying, “I told you so.”

In particular, he appears to have been prescient on the issue of human life. In 1976 he observed that “in regard to the fetus, the courts have arbitrarily separated ‘aliveness’ from ‘personhood,’ and if this is so, why not arbitrarily do the same with the aged? So the steps move along, and euthanasia may well become increasingly acceptable. And if so, why not keep alive the bodies of … persons in whom the brain wave is flat to harvest from them body parts and blood?” Schaeffer’s bleak vision is now daily news. “Cadaver Jack” Kevorkian has already killed more people than Ted Bundy, but the state of Michigan cannot muster the political will to stop him. A federal court has forbidden the state of Washington to pass laws preventing doctors from killing their patients, while the University of Washington is permitted to scavenge and sell the body parts of thousands of aborted children every year.

Al Mohler wrote the article ,”FIRST-PERSON: They indeed were prophetic,” Jan 29, 2004, and in this great article he noted:   .

“We stand today on the edge of a great abyss,” they wrote. “At this crucial moment choices are being made and thrust on us that will for many years to come affect the way people are treated. We want to try to help tip the scales on the side of those who believe that individuals are unique and special and have great dignity.”

This year marks the 25th anniversary of “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” by Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop. The anniversary serves to remind us just how unaware and unawake most evangelicals really were 25 years ago — and how prophetic the voices of Schaeffer and Koop were.

Whatever Happened to the Human Race? was both a book project and a film series, the fruit of an unusual collaboration between Francis Schaeffer, one of the truly significant figures of 20th-century evangelicalism, and C. Everett Koop, one of the nation’s most illustrious pediatric surgeons. They were an odd couple of sorts, but on the crucial issues of human dignity and the threat of what would later be called the “Culture of Death,” they were absolutely united.

Francis Schaeffer, who died in 1984, was nothing less than a 20th-century prophet. He was a genuine eccentric, given to wearing leather breeches and sporting a goatee — then quite unusual for anyone in the evangelical establishment. Then again, Schaeffer was never really a member of any establishment, and that is partly why a generation of questioning young people made their way to his Swiss study center known as L’Abri.

Big ideas were Schaeffer’s business — and the Christian worldview was his consistent framework. Long before most evangelicals even knew they had a worldview, Schaeffer was taking alternative worldviews apart and inculcating in his students a love for the architecture of Christian truth and the dignity of ideas.

Key figures on the evangelical left wrote Schaeffer off as a crank, and he returned the favor by denying that they were evangelicals at all. They complained that he did not follow their rules for scholarly publication. He pointed out that people actually read his books — and young people frustrated with cultural Christianity read his books by the thousands. They were looking for someone with ideas big enough for the age, relevant for the questions of the times, and based without compromise in Christian truth. Francis Schaeffer — knee pants and all — became a prophet for the age.

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Philosopher and Theologian, Francis A. Schaeffer has argued, “If there are no absolutes by which to judge society, then society is absolute.” Francis Schaeffer, How Shall We Then Live? (Old Tappan NJ: Fleming H Revell Company, 1976), p. 224.

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Dr. C. Everett Koop, on the other hand, is a paragon of the American establishment — a former surgeon-in-chief at the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia and later surgeon general of the United States under President Reagan. In 1974 Koop catapulted to international attention by performing the first successful surgical separation of conjoined twins. A Presbyterian layman, Koop lives in quasi-retirement in Pennsylvania. His surgical procedures remain textbook cases for medical students today.

Whatever Happened to the Human Race? awakened American evangelicals to the anti-human technologies and ideologies that then threatened human dignity. Most urgently, the project put abortion unquestionably on the front burner of evangelical concern. The tenor of the times is seen in the fact that Schaeffer and Koop had to argue to evangelicals in the late 1970s that abortion was not just a “Catholic” issue. They taught many evangelicals a new and urgently needed vocabulary about embryo ethics, euthanasia and infanticide. They knew they were running out of time.

“Each era faces its own unique blend of problems,” they argued. “Our time is no exception. Those who regard individuals as expendable raw material — to be molded, exploited, and then discarded — do battle on many fronts with those who see each person as unique and special, worthwhile, and irreplaceable.”

Every age is marked by both the “thinkable” and the “unthinkable,” they asserted — and the “thinkable” of late-20th-century Western cultures was dangerously anti-human. The lessons of the century — with the Holocaust at its center — should be sufficient to drive the point home. The problem, as illustrated by those who worked in Hitler’s death camps, was the inevitable result of a loss of conscience and moral truth. They were “people just like all of us,” Koop and Schaeffer reminded. “We seem to be in danger of forgetting our seemingly unlimited capacities for evil, once boundaries to certain behavior are removed.”

By the last quarter of the century, life and death were treated as mere matters of choice. “The schizophrenic nature of our society became further evident as it became common practice for pediatricians to provide the maximum of resuscitative and supportive care in newborn intensive-care nurseries where premature infants were under their care — while obstetricians in the same medical centers were routinely destroying enormous numbers of unborn babies who were normal and frequently of larger size. Minors who could not legally purchase liquor and cigarettes could have an abortion-on-demand and without parental consent or knowledge.”

Schaeffer and Koop pointed to other examples of moral schizophrenia. Disabled persons were given new access to facilities and services in the name of human rights, while preborn infants diagnosed with the same disabilities were often aborted — with the advice that it would be “wrong” to bring such a baby into the world.

Long before the discovery of stem cells and calls for the use of human embryos for such experimentation, Schaeffer and Koop warned of attacks upon human life at its earliest stage. “Embryos ‘created’ in the biologist’s laboratory raise special questions because they have the potential for growth and development if planted in the womb. The disposal of these live embryos is a cause for ethical and moral concern.”

They also saw the specter of infanticide and euthanasia. Infanticide, including what is now called “partial-birth abortion,” is murder, they argued. “Infanticide is being practiced right now in this country, and the saddest thing about this is that it is being carried on by the very segment of the medical profession which has always stood in the role of advocate for the lives of children.” Long before the formal acceptance of euthanasia in countries like the Netherlands, Koop and Schaeffer saw the rise of a “duty to die” argument used against the old, the very sick and the unproductive. They rejected euthanasia in the case of a “so-called vegetative existence” and warned all humanity that disaster awaited a society that lusted for a “beautiful death.”

“Abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia are not only questions for women and other relatives directly involved — nor are they the prerogatives of a few people who have thought through the wider ramifications,” they declared. “They are life-and-death issues that concern the whole human race equally and should be addressed as such.”

How did this happen? This embrace of an anti-human “humanism” could only be explained by the rejection of the Christian worldview. “Judeo-Christian teaching was never perfectly applied,” they acknowledged, “but it did lay a foundation for a high view of human life in concept and practice.” Through the inculcation of biblical values, “people viewed human life as unique — to be protected and loved — because each individual is made in the image of God.”

Two great enemies of truth were blamed for this loss of biblical truth — modern secularism and theological liberalism. The secularists insist on the imposition of a “humanism” that defines humanity in terms of productivity, arbitrary standards of beauty and health, and an inverted system of value. Theological liberalism, denying the truthfulness of the Bible, robs the church and the society of any solid authority. The biblical concept of humanity made in the image of God is treated as poetry rather than as truth. But, “if people are not made in the image of God, the pessimistic, realistic humanist is right: The human race is indeed an abnormal wart on the smooth face of a silent and meaningless universe.”

Everything else simply follows. “In this setting, abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia … are completely logical. Any person can be obliterated for what society at one moment thinks of as its own social or economic good.” Once human life and human dignity are devalued to this degree, recovery is extremely difficult — if not impossible.

The past 25 years has been a period of even more rapid technological and moral change. We now face threats to human dignity unimaginable just a quarter-century ago. We must now deal with the ethical challenges of embryo research, human cloning, the Human Genome Project and the rise of transhuman technologies. Even with many Christians aware and active on these issues, we are losing ground.

Francis Schaeffer and Everett Koop ended their book with a call for action. “If, in this last part of the twentieth century, the Christian community does not take a prolonged and vocal stand for the dignity of the individual and each person’s right to life — for the right of each person to be treated as created in the image of God, rather than as a collection of molecules with no unique value — we feel that as Christians we have failed the greatest moral test to be put before us in this century.”

In this new century, that warning is even more threatening and more urgent. The challenges of the 21st century are even greater than those faced in the century before. This should make us even more thankful for the prophetic witness of Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop — and even more determined to contend for life. Humanity still stands on the brink of that abyss.
–30–
Adapted from the Crosswalk.com weblog of R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.

What Ever Happened to the Human Race?

By Everette Hatcher III | Comments (1)

Jim Lendall makes comparison:”Let them Pay” (French Revolution)v Tea Party (American Revolution)

April 18, 2011 – 3:59 pm

Dr. Francis Schaeffer examines the Revolutionary Age

Perhaps without knowing the deeper meaning that could be attached to his comparison, the liberal Jim Lendall compared his “Let them Pay” movement to the French Revolution.

Jason Tolbert wrote today:

A liberal group had a “Make Them Pay Rally” today on the steps of the Arkansas state capitol meant to counter the anti-tax Tea Party protest from April 15.  Around 30 people gathered hold signs that called for taxing the rich and eliminating what they felt are unfair special tax rules for corporations.

However, the rhetoric soon turned violent, much more so than any Tea Party rally I have ever attended.

“While whistling on their way to their offshore banks, (corporations) have destroyed more Americans than Al Qaeda,” said former state representative and 2010 Green Party Gubernatorial nominee Jim Lendall. “Corporations have become the fat aristocracy that dictates our government.”

“The French, inspired by our American Revolution, knew how to deal with the wealthy arrogant aristocrats. The French people built guillotines. Maybe we can park a guillotine in front of every chamber of commerce, corporate headquarters, bank, investment house, and Republican Party headquarters to remind them that democracy is about people not profits. We need to tell them in one clear voice, ‘no more greed’.”

Francis Schaeffer has rightly compared the French Revolution to the Communist take over of Russia and the American Revolution to the British Bloodless Revolution.

What was Enlightenment? Human-reason centered, basis of modernism (rejected by post-modernism).

Contrast the “Bloodless Revolution” with the horrible French Revolution [irony=secularists accuse religion of bloody persecution and intolerance. French Revolution was secular and had both!

The French desired a perfect society! (Utopia – remake the world.) How? By torture and killing! Crazy? Communists are still trying!

Key people of Enlightenment and French Revolution

Background for French Revolution:

Voltaire – saw church as source of problems, felt it should be crushed. He was impressed with England’s greater freedoms and felt France could do as well. A crucial difference:

England had Reformation base, France had Voltaire’s secular humanism, [the few French who were religious were deists].

Rousseau – felt people were naturally good and civilization produced evils. Talked of “noble savage” – need to get back to nature (like today!) and discover man’s original goodness. Need freedom from restraint, don’t suppress the person. Applications:

1. Social contract – government based on agreement of majority, others forced to agree.

2. Emile – book on permissive child rearing (his kids were real terrors – sent them away to orphanages.)

3. Education – little or none needed. Let child discover self and world, never force, letting the “beautiful flower bloom”. Still an influence today. [Planting without cultivating produces weeds!]

What was the French Revolution? (Enlightenment idealistically applied).

1789-1792 Key slogan “Liberty, equality, fraternity.” (brotherhood)

“Imagine”

Issued “Declaration of Rights of Man.” It stated the Supreme Being was the general will of the people (majority = God).

They worked on a constitution for 2 years, and felt they were beginning a new age (even new calendar – called 1792 “year one.”)

They proclaimed Reason as their goddess.

People were excited about this new world. Willing to do anything, even murder, to have the perfect society. This was secular humanism at its purest.

Result: “Reign of Terror” (1792-1794)

40,000 executed – many of them peasants. The bloodbath – distinct from other bloodbaths.

1. Desired to be perfect

2. Came from within, not outsiders

3. Terrible inflation also occurred

example – pound of candles

1790 – $.18 1795 – $8 1796 – $40

Anarchy reigned (Freedom without form)

Like just before Julius Caesar in Rome

Why did Napoleon take power?

By 1799 people had gotten their fill, and Napoleon takes charge.

Napoleon then took on the rest of Europe. He had read Machiavelli’s Prince and felt he could commit no crime. He was very brutal. He finally met his waterloo in Belgium.

(1815)

Similarities between French Revolution and Communist Revolution

Schaeffer compares communism with French Revolution and Napoleon.

1. Lenin took charge in Russia much as Napoleon took charge in France – when people get desperate enough, they’ll take a dictator.

Other examples: Hitler, Julius Caesar. It could happen again.

2. Communism is very repressive, stifling political and artistic freedom. Even allies have to be coerced. (Poland).

Communists say repression is temporary until utopia can be reached – yet there is no evidence of progress in that direction. Dictatorship appears to be permanent.

3. No ultimate basis for morality (right and wrong) – materialist base of communism is just as humanistic as French. Only have “arbitrary absolutes” no final basis for right and wrong.

How is Christianity different from both French Revolution and Communism?

Contrast N.T. Christianity – very positive government reform and great strides against injustice. (especially under Wesleyan revival).

Bible gives absolutes – standards of right and wrong. It shows the problems and why they exist (man’s fall and rebellion against God).

Is Christianity at all like Communism?

Sometimes Communism sounds very “Christian” – desirable goals of equality, justice, etc. Schaeffer elsewhere explains by saying Marxism is a Christian heresy – Karl Marx

borrowed some of the ideals of N.T.

By Everette Hatcher III | Comments (0)

On eve of Shutdown Republicans cave on demand concerning eliminating Planned Parenthood Funding

April 9, 2011 – 5:21 am

The pro-life position is very important to a great many of the freshmen members of the House of Representatives. As you can see above in the clip from the film series Whatever Happened to the Human Race? by Francis Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop, the unborn baby is a child, but we are treating many of them like a caged animal that we run tests on and dispose of. Technology has brought many like Bernard Nathanson and more recently Donald Trump to realize the unborn baby feels pain. Therefore, many because of technology have joined the pro-life view. I have written about this many times before.

On Thursday I got to hear Congressman Mike Pence tell the listeners of the show “Today’s Issues” on American Family Radio that the Republicans were not going to back down on the issue of defunding Planned Parenthood from the federal government. Therefore, since I am very much pro-life, I wanted to follow the developments of this story very closely.

I am little perplexed by this development concerning the CR and I did stay up late in the night to try to get to the bottom of this mess. Evidently the Republicans caved on their demand that Planned Parenthood should be defunded by the federal government and passed a temporary CR. At least there will be another debate next week before the April 14th CR is finalized. However, I am not very hopeful that the Planned Parenthood issue will be revisited.

Mike Pence released this statement on April 8, 2011:

4-8-2011 – Statement from Pence Press Office Regarding Continuing Resolution and Pence Amendment PDF Print
Washington, D.C.— The following statement was issued by Matt Lloyd, Communications Director for U.S. Congressman Mike Pence, today regarding the Pence Amendment that would deny any and all federal funding to Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its affiliates: 

“It has been erroneously reported in the media that Congressman Pence has signaled a willingness to accept a compromise on the Pence Amendment in the negotiations over a long-term Continuing Resolution. These reports are inaccurate. Congressman Pence has made no statement concerning the ongoing negotiations and remains committed to the Pence Amendment and will continue to work with colleagues to include this measure in any final legislation.”

Rep. Mike Pence defended his amendment to defund Planned Parenthood in order to reach a budget cut compromise. He also claims troops will still be funded if a government shutdown takes place.

According to Wikipedia:

7th Continuing Resolution, funding through April 14, 2011, passed on April 8, 2011. This continuing resolution followed a deal on the full annual budget which was made with just hours remaining before a government shutdown.[6] It itself contains an additional $2 billion in cuts.[7] The previous day, the House had passed a Republican-backed resolution which would fund the government for another week and cut an additional $12 billion from 2010 levels, which was rejected by Democrats and not taken up by the Senate.[22]

Deal curbs D.C. abortions, includes other social issues

Carrie Brown in her article “Deal curbs D.C. abortions, includes other social issues,” Politico, April 9, 2011 reported:

President Barack Obama said the budget negotiations weren’t the place to deal with contentious social issues — but the agreement doesn’t completely sidestep abortion.

Democrats beat back Republican attempts to cut funding for women’s health services, including for organizations like Planned Parenthood.

But Democrats did agree to ban the District of Columbia from using federal and local taxpayer funds on abortions — a move already being cheered by abortion opponents as a noteworthy victory.

The deal also includes a guarantee that the Senate will vote on bill that would end federal funding for Planned Parenthood, according to a House Republican summary.

Such a bill is unlikely to make it through the Senate, but the vote will put moderate Democrats and Republicans, particularly those facing tough reelections next year, on the spot.

“The Speaker said repeatedly he was going to fight for the most policy provisions – and most spending cuts – possible and he did,” said Brendan Buck, spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).

Speaking from the White House late Friday, Obama suggested the agreement didn’t deal with abortion.

“We also made sure that at the end of the day, this was a debate about spending cuts, not social issues like women’s health and the protection of our air and water,” Obama said. “These are important issues that deserve discussion, just not during a debate about our budget.”

In fact, the deal is filled with several non-budget policy “riders” that bring some of the House Republicans’ favored causes into the budget agreement. Here is a list provided by the House Republicans:

— Guarantees Senate debate and vote on repeal of Obama’s health reform law. The House passed such a bill in January.

— Requires numerous studies of health reform that Republicans say “will force the Obama administration to reveal the true impact of the law’s mandates,” including studies on the law’s affect on premiums, the number and cost of contractors hired to implement the law and “a full audit of the waivers that the Obama administration has given to firms and organizations – including unions – that can’t meet the new annual coverage limits.”

— Denies additional funding to hire more IRS agents.

— Requires mandatory annual audits of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, created by the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, by both the private sector and the Government Accountability Office. The audits will examine the effects of the agency’s actions on the economy, including its impact on jobs.

 
By Everette Hatcher III | Also posted in Prolife | Comments (0)