The Next Domino to Fall? Part I

Riding the Tsunami of Secularism

In Proverbs 8: 35-36 we read:

For whoever finds me finds life
    and obtains favour from the Lord,
but he who fails to find me injures himself;
    all who hate me love death.

The extended context is one of Wisdom being personified.  It speaks of how God's wisdom is immanent throughout the creation.  Consequently, those who "dismiss" God from their lives end up hating life and loving death.  Proverbs 8: 35-36 is a fearful condemnation, for it indicts the smart and intelligent as well as the ignorant and the brutish.

In the West we have seen how this works out at the extreme end of the spectrum.  Literally.  Abortion is a love affair with death and a hatred of new, innocent life.  It deploys an entire infrastructure and industry devoted to death in the name of human rights.  It is celebrated by those who hate God's wisdom as a profound respect for life (the "mother's").  It loves the death of the child.  It cheers and celebrates the murder of the defenceless, innocent child.  Surely our culture hates God.  Surely it loves death.

In New Zealand we are about to debate (and probably legislate) another preference for death over life.  "Assisted dying" is likely to be approved by our Parliament, and made the law of the land.  One can see the logic.
 If killing the unborn is made a human right, assisted dying also demands the same status.  It would only be inconsistent special pleading which endorsed the one, and denied the other.

But Christians--and in the end it will only be the Christians--will stand opposed.  Why?  Because reifying the will to die is suicide, and suicide is self-willed rebellion against He Who commands, "Thou shalt not murder".  For everyone else it will be a case of worshipping Man and his "rights".  It will inevitably reflect our society's profound respect for an individual's love of death.

Of course Christians don't deny the reality of death.  Christians are the only group in society who view death as a divine judgment for sin--as a universal divine judgement for universal human rebellion against God, from the acts of our first parents, Adam and Eve, onwards.  The Unbeliever, however, has convinced himself that death is as natural as sneezing.  If someone wants to sneeze; let him sneeze.  If someone wants to die, let him die.  In this sense, too, Unbelievers love death.  As the poet has it:

Hello darkness, my old friend.
I've come to talk with you again.

Nor do Christians deny the mandate for the best palliative care possible.  In fact, they insist upon it.  Just as they insist upon ameliorating all the consequences of  sin.  They devote their lives to rolling back the fruits and consequences of sin--as far as the curse is found.  And the curse is always found on the death bed.  When death is painful and excruciatingly difficult, the Christian will do all that possibly can be done to ease the passing into eternity.  But to act positively to terminate a life before God's appointed time is another matter entirely.  To consent to a person commanding the time of his own death is to participate in one final act of rebellion against God Himself.  We Christians want no part of such rebellion--even as we want no part of aiding and abetting the murder of an unborn child.

But, it gets worse.  "Assisted dying" never occurs in a social vacuum.  People have an "interest" in a death.  The dying person can think and act out of depression, fear, doubt, and a belief they are a hateful burden to others.  In doubt and confusion and guilt they can desire an early, assisted suicide.  The immediate family can desire release from their "burden"; they can be busy mentally spending whatever inheritance they anticipate and wish things would hurry up; they can want to get on with their lives.  The State can want relief from more spending, bigger deficits, and see a benefit in pre-natural, early termination.  Medical authorities can believe they have more important things to do--focusing upon the living, not the dying.  And so it rolls.   "All who hate me love death."

All of these attendant deeds of darkness have come to pass in those Western societies which have made assisted dying a human right, protected in law.

We fervently hope that assisted dying will be roundly and soundly rejected by the NZ Parliament--even as it was recently in the British House of Commons.  But we also acknowledge that the prognosis is not good.  New Zealand prides itself that it has always surfed the leading edge of the secularist tsunami.

Tomorrow we will publish a piece on an involuntary "assisted death", and its successful termination.