Monday, October 19, 2015
A Closer Look At Obama And Hillary Social Justice
– racial or religious discrimination
– neglect of our elderly
– child abuse
– neglect of the disabled
– the sex trade
– abortion
These are just a few examples of the types of social injustices that have pervaded throughout history and throughout the world. Christians have made heartfelt attempts to combat these injustices and attempted to use biblical principles to do so. Some of their efforts were well-meaning, but not necessarily biblically-literate, so let’s take a look at some of the Biblical principles Christian movements have used to combat social injustices.
*Social Gospel*
The Social Gospel was formed as a reaction against the deplorable conditions that were prevalent during the early 1990s throughout Canada and the US. The movement rose to prominence during the Third Great Awakening.
During this time, Christian principles were applied as a remedy to an infected culture that bred apathy and indifference. The Social Gospel movement was noteworthy in helping to establish family support facilities, public health measures, and humane labor conditions. Ultimately, a major motivator that drove the Social Gospel movement was a belief, grounded in a type of man-induced postmillennialism, that Jesus’ return hinged upon human efforts to eradicate worldly evils.
Social Gospel Advocate and Author Shirley Jackson wrote:
“Postmillennialists do not look for early relief through the sudden coming of Christ. On the contrary, they expect a gradual and increasing success of Christianity in the present world until ideal conditions are finally realized. Then will follow the millennium” – The Millennial Hope (1918)
Faithful acts of kindness and mercy as declared by our Lord and Savior (Matthew 25:31–41) propels the Christian’s quest for social justice. Many Christian activists are overcome, almost obsessed, with the idea of social justice. But what exactly are we fighting for, and what are we willing to do to achieve it?
*The Quest For Justice*
Often in the quest to make the world a better place, our efforts become more about us. It may start out well; but ultimately, we wind up leaving God (the Ultimate Provider) behind and go it alone. When done right, ’social justice’ becomes a natural consequence of our influence in society and how we engage with our fellow man.
Reformed writer John A. Battles makes it clear when he speaks of the social benefits of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit upon society:
The Christian is to grow in grace, and by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit seek to obey the commandments of God. These commandments have personal and social applications. Where people are Christians, there will be less crime, more humanity and compassion, more public honesty, better human relations, and more reliable public trust. As well, unjust or wicked social customs and traditions will decrease and even disappear. These social benefits result from the preaching and living out of gospel truth, but they are not the gospel itself. Attempts to improve society apart from the gospel often fall apart or are led astray by a false view of humanity or of what is right and wrong in social relations. Communism and Nazism provide examples of the terrible consequences that such attempts may cause.When we join the world, and our efforts merge with secular agendas and ideologies grounded in a Biblically unfounded quest for earthly utopia, we have ventured into unsteady territory.
God demands we help the poor, but no poor person can come to me and demand my money; he can only ask for it. On the other hand, if I have stolen from him, he can demand justice from me (or if I won’t give it, from the government).
By calling the fight against poverty a matter of social justice, we are, in the use of this terminology, framing this in a manner in which those who are hurting or in trouble can demand help rather than ask for it. I would offer that this is one of the pressing problems with social justice. That desire to help the poor is admirable, but many seem to want to do it in a way that makes it not even recognized as help. And if it is not help, but merely fulfilling an obligation, then there is less reason for gratitude. This is where it turns to socialism – you have, I want; therefore, you must give it to me. What type of message are we sending to those in need? A false security is being conveyed to those who are made to feel they are owed something.
When we throw our lot with those who continue to promote the forced distribution of the fruits of one’s labor, we have aligned ourselves with an unGodly, man-centered approach toward charity. Are we truly honoring God when we do this? Are we showing proper charity to the downtrodden? Or are we forcing the hand of our government to do our bidding?
*A Godly Response*
The church should once again assume its rightful place providing for those in need. Rather than using the government to obtain a desired outcome, the church must once again increase in the battle against poverty.
According to Theologian Ron Gleason,
The biblical answer to poverty involves more than throwing money at the problem….rather than having the government get more involved in the war on poverty they need to get out of the way.Gleason applies a scriptural perspective that shines a heavenly light at the root of the problem:
Regeneration is the foundation of social stability…poverty is not merely a monetary problem, but has much deeper roots into the spiritual condition of man. The Church knows better from Scripture and must attempt to minister to the whole man or woman. That will include speaking clearly about the gospel, teaching the virtues and values inherent in a disciplined work ethic.We must trust in the necessity to remain diligent and steadfast in our vocations. The Church, called to perform acts of mercy, should be ready to act in the hour of need, when all our own efforts are exhausted. Offering up humble supplications and praise to God, we allow grace to replace entitlement.
Let us guard against embracing the entitlement culture that is so prevalent today, even in Christian circles, where government-sanctioned wealth equality efforts are championed in the name of ‘Social Justice.’
This quest for ‘justice’ can never be fully realized in this life. When we look to government to facilitate and legislate acts of mercy, we are straying from the Biblical mandate laid upon the individual and the church as a whole to do for the least of these, in God’s Name, Amen.
http://www.westernjournalism.com/a-closer-look-at-social-justice/
Here’s Why Obama REALLY Hates Center Right Christianity, many of the teachings of Jesus Christ directly contradict what Obama believes in.
It’s no secret that Obama has a strong anti-Christian agenda. Since becoming president six years ago, Obama has been doing everything he can to make life difficult for Christians all across America.
Many have wondered why Obama hates Christianity so much, and a new video has revealed the surprising reason why.
In the end, the reason Obama is anti-Christian is surprisingly simple. If you think about it, you’ll realize that many of the teachings of Jesus Christ directly contradict what Obama believes in.
For example, Jesus promoted the idea of “servant leadership,” meaning that anyone who wishes to lead the people must first serve their needs. “But whoever would be great among you must first be your servant,” he says in the Bible, Mark 10:43.
Obama hasn’t served the needs of the American people at all during his years as president. Instead, he has focused completely on serving himself and the federal government. He fueled racial tensions in order to justify a federal takeover of U.S. police. He also constantly goes around congress by writing his own legislation into laws as executive orders.
Jesus’s believe that we are all equal in the eyes of God led directly to our founding father’s writing in the Declaration of Independence that we are all equal in the eyes of the law. Obama has contradicted this with his socialist tendencies that give his minions more freedom and prosperity than the average American.
In the end, when you take a closer look at the teachings of Jesus, it quickly becomes very clear why Obama hates Christianity so much. Christians are dangerous to Obama because we see right through him, thanks to the fact that we were raised with the teachings of Jesus.
Because of this, Obama sees it as crucial that he gets rid of Christianity and everyone who adheres to the faith as soon as possible. Unfortunately for him, however, we aren’t going anywhere!
http://mrconservative.com/2015/05/59690-heres-why-obama-really-hates-christianity/
Obama a Christian? – A Closer Look, Obama says he is a Christian “by choice.” True Christian faith is based on God’s Word in the Bible. Yet, Barack Obama has mocked the Bible by saying that parts of it are “obscure” and should essentially be disregarded.
Obama a Christian? Millions of Christians pray nightly – “If only it were so.” Not just for the country, but for the man. God’s grace and mercy through Jesus Christ is the greatest of life’s blessings on all who profess Him as their Lord and Savior in adherence to God’s Word in the Bible. Less than that is a deception to self and others about being Christian. God’s Word warns of that deception. True
Christians may prefer a president be Christian, knowing that such a person will strive to live by the Godly principles upon which this nation was founded, but they do not require that a President be Christian.
President Obama says he is a Christian “by choice.” True Christian faith is based on God’s Word in the Bible. Yet, Barack Obama has mocked the Bible by saying that parts of it are “obscure” and should essentially be disregarded. A true Christian does not pick and choose God’s word to serve his own agenda and then disregard it as being obscure when it does not. The Word of God speaks clearly on taking the life of the unborn, homosexuality, mocking the faith, serving false gods, and manipulating biblical scripture to deceive others. As mentioned in a previous article: “Christian Purge – The Obama Factor,” found at www.DarwinsRacists.com, Obama’s demand for “redistribution of wealth” is a blatant affront to the 10th Commandment of God that declares no Christian is to covet their neighbors’ goods or property. In a vehemently anti-Christian act, the White House is pressuring clergy to preach Obama’s policies displacing the Word of God with the word of Obama in the pulpit. Our founders warned against the church ever again becoming a tool for government.
The President can pray to anyone or anything he wants, but unless he prays to and openly declares that “Jesus Christ is his personal Lord and Savior,” then his claim to being Christian is just words. Does this President bow to the God of the Bible as the Creator God of the universe? The White House signaled mere weeks prior to a critical election that the President prays daily, but to whom? I met a lovely Muslim woman who happily told me that Muslims pray to Jesus. She said Muslims consider Jesus to be a great prophet, a good man, and an example of how to live your life, but that Jesus is not God to Muslims. They admire him along with many other “good prophets” whose precepts they want to follow. Obama told a backyard audience in Albuquerque, “The precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead by being my brothers’ and sisters’ keeper, treating others as they would treat me.” During that backyard photo-op, however, he chose not to again mock Christians for “clinging to their religion.” Nor did he repeat what he reportedly told Newsweek in 2008, that he had “found Christ,” then reportedly countered, “But, I leave open the possibility that I’m entirely wrong.”
Obama did say that, “I think my public service is part of that effort to express my Christian faith.” There is great tragedy or delusion in that statement since most of his public actions have been an affront to Christianity. Does Obama misrepresent Christianity through ignorance or as a purposeful attempt to conform Christianity to his own agenda and motives? By his own actions and words, Barack Obama has assaulted the Christian faith and condescendingly rendered asunder Biblical doctrine. President Barack Obama reportedly laid claim to the Christian faith through 20 years of Black Liberation Theology which began as a communist movement in South America, which devised its own “radical faith,” then labeled it Christianity to bolster its cause. Today, it is viewed as a politically infused counterfeit claim to Christianity. Barack Obama’s primary White House spiritual advisor is reported self-avowed Communist, Rev. Jim Wallis, an anti-capitalist who is inculcating the Bible into Obama’s transformative “wealth redistribution” socialistic political strategy. Wallis declares the Bible is all about “social justice,” which is a core tenet of Socialism. Social justice is not biblical. In effect, it is an attempt to deny what the Bible is unquestionably all about – Christ’s sacrifice on the cross for all who call Him Lord.
One cannot declare himself Christian if he advocates taking the life of the unborn, discarding newborns to die if one survives an abortion, mocking God’s word as “obscure” or without significance regarding homosexuality, advocating covetousness of your neighbors’ goods and property, or scoffing Christians as “clinging to their religion” in a blatant effort to secure votes.
The most tragic “reveal” about Obama’s claims to be Christian is that he declares he can only be saved through “collective salvation” – a socialist attempt at twisting and changing scripture. The Bible, God’s Word, irrefutably teaches the Christian doctrine of “individual salvation,” through a personal, one-on-one relationship with Christ alone. “Collective salvation” represents the antithesis of Christianity as it rewrites the whole of scripture from a socialistic perspective that mocks Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. Only when you stand before Christ, humbled, repentant, and alone, accepting Him as your God, can you only then truly call yourself Christian. Anyone who does not believe this biblical tenet may call themselves anything they want, but not Christian. Mr. President, for all who bow before the God of the Bible, His Word demands that we display our faith by actions, in accordance to His will, and not our own.
Saturday, October 17, 2015
The atheist case against ‘assisted dying’, A licence to kill - the slippery slope of 'assisted dying'
A couple of years ago I contacted Holland’s top pro-euthanasia organisation. Our House of Lords looks likely to approve a bill legalising euthanasia here, I told them. ‘Very exciting!’ came the reply.
Next month Parliament will again be discussing ‘assisted dying’, and although the tone of the British debate is not yet quite like the Dutch one, a shift in tone has undoubtedly occurred. In the past few years euthanasia has been renamed ‘assisted dying’ and become part of the ‘progressive’ cause. As two assisted dying bills, including Lord Falconer’s, come back to Parliament, the onus seems to have moved away from supporters having to explain why people should be killed before nature takes its often-ugly course on to opponents of euthanasia explaining why they could conceivably wish to prolong anybody’s suffering. As Dignity in Dying puts it in one of their advertisements, this is about letting people safely control ‘the manner and timing of their death’.
This week the Labour leadership candidate Liz Kendall backed assisted dying, telling an interviewer, ‘I believe in giving people as much power and control over what happens to them as possible.’
The House of Lords has proved an especially good place to debate this. Many members have friends or spouses who have experienced the miracles of modern medicine and endured the prolonged indignities that can be a side-product of that blessing. Most lords belong to a lucky generation, having won the full panoply of rights. The right to education and welfare were followed by sexual liberation, which from the 1960s onwards came with the idea of having total rights over one’s own body, including the right to abort unwanted fetuses. It is partly in this language that Lord Falconer’s bill comes wrapped: the baby-boomers awarding themselves one last right — the ‘right to die’. Press commentators have taken up the cry: ‘Nobody can tell me what to do with my body.’
Of course there are religious objections to this. ‘I have set before you life and death,’ God says in Deuteronomy, ‘therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live.’ For centuries that edict — ‘choose life’ — defined the ethics of our people. Along with ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Many euthanasia enthusiasts see themselves as bringing the law into line with a post-religious society. But those who are not religious can still have many philosophical objections to euthanasia. If society comprises, as Edmund Burke said, a contract between the dead, the living and those not yet born, should it not disturb us to sever that contract at both ends? There is, after all, the greatest difference between deciding to take your own life and having the law help you do so. We do not live on islands of absolute solitude. What you choose to do with your body might very well have an effect on what someone else does with theirs.
The principal objection to euthanasia is a slippery-slope argument — and many people profess to disdain such arguments. Nevertheless, anyone doubting the slipperiness of this slope should consider the places where euthanasia is already legal.
As with today’s debate, the movement for reform of the abortion laws 50 years ago was driven by attempts to avoid heart-breaking personal tragedies. Yet, as Mary Wakefield once wrote here, the tone has so shifted that the aborting of unborn children is now generally presented — far from the infinitely sad and rare necessity that the 1967 Act accepted it to be — as a kind of triumph. Not to mention a matter of convenience. Today almost one in five conceptions in Britain end in an abortion.
Meanwhile, anyone who decides that aborting fetuses is slippery while killing off elderly people is not has clearly not studied those places where euthanasia has been legalised. The Falconer bill is based on legislation passed in the American state of Oregon 20 years ago, but its timing could hardly be worse. Just this week, one of Oregon’s most senior doctors, Professor William Toffler, declared the legislation a ‘disaster’ which has, among other things, led to ‘a profound shift in attitude toward medical care’ and fundamentally changed the relationship between doctors and patients. But perhaps Lord Falconer’s supporters are fond of citing Oregon because they know that the precedents geographically and culturally closer to home do not assist their argument.
Holland’s euthanasia debate really started in the 1980s, when members of the medical profession were bolstered by legal verdicts supporting the practice in very specific circumstances. Early advocates had a list of ambitions, including the ‘mercy killing’ of disabled people, though in time the arguments came packaged in more humanitarian language. But as one lifelong Dutch critic of euthanasia tells me, ‘They always have a next step.’
In retrospect, Holland’s next steps look inevitable. Doctors who helped kill their patients were tried, but even when found guilty often went unsentenced. Judges asked for guidance and the public prosecutor developed guidelines (no further treatment possible, must be voluntary) within which there would be no prosecution. By the 1990s, parliament began considering a bill to clarify the matter. But already, tied up with the dementia and cancer sufferers who constituted the majority of those wishing to die, there were harder cases. There was the case of a depressed woman in Haarlem who received the assistance of her psychiatrist in helping her to die. In 2001, the Dutch parliament signed euthanasia into law. On its passing, the former health minister, Els Borst, who had steered the bill through parliament, quoted Jesus’s last words: ‘Het is volbracht’ (‘It is finished’).
Dutch doctors could now legally assist the deaths of terminally ill patients (usually using an injection of barbiturate followed by poison). But demand continued to stretch the law. In 2002 the main pro–euthanasia group in Holland, the NVVE, ‘started operating’. With a network of professionals and volunteers across the country, this four–decade-old group (145,000 members ‘and growing’) now deals with around 4,000 cases a year where ‘the normal procedure via the doctor cannot be achieved’. This includes advice on which drugs to take.
The problem, an NVVE press officer told me, is that a doctor can say no. Those who are turned down by doctors can apply to other clinics. Does NVVE ever say no? Yes, if the criteria aren’t met or patients refuse to hand over medical files. And what cases mainly come through their doors? Terminal cancer, obviously. People with ME. Older people are most common. Their oldest patient was 100. Their youngest? ‘In his thirties.’
Though ‘a lot has been achieved’, there is ‘still work to do’. Like most euthanasia advocates, NVVE remains concerned with advancing the borderline cases. Dementia is a problem. People can be locked into an agreement if they sign a form which replaces the oral ‘OK’ when the patient is no longer able to speak. In 2011, 49 people with dementia were euthanised. But the timing is difficult. People might have decided they do not want to die after all, but be unable to speak. Yes, I was told, some people may have ‘died before they really wanted to’.
Then, of course, there is mental illness. Dutch law now blurs any difference between physical and mental illness. In 2011, 12 people with psychiatric problems were helped to die, being ‘firm in their wish to die, and lucky’. Why ‘lucky’? ‘Because they may be locked up in an asylum if they say they want to die.’ By 2013 the numbers had swollen; 42 people with psychiatric problems and 97 people with dementia were euthanised or assisted in their suicide. The line between being suicidal and wishing for euthanasia is ‘very hard to decide’.
And then there are the people with ‘tired of life’ syndrome. This is euthanasia for those who are ‘not necessarily ill, but they suffer from being old and having done everything they want to. And they see society is changing around them.’ A number of groups I spoke to in Holland are campaigning for a single pill to be made available for people with this condition. Some want it available for all ages. One tells me the age limit should be 18. Others won’t set an age. Next door in Belgium, the parliament last year passed a bill to extend euthanasia to children, with no age limit, if the child is terminally ill. Belgium passed its first euthanasia bill a year after Holland, and people who are ‘suicidal’ can also now apply for euthanasia there. Two years ago a female-to-male transsexual whose sex change operations left scarring was euthanised by the same Belgian health service that tried to make him a man.
Regarding possible pressure on old people, who may feel they have become a burden, NVVE tells me: ‘We don’t know how to make specific rules for this.’ Prevention of profit from a death is already written into law. A doctor told me that, because Britain does not have euthanasia, he notices his British colleagues can provide far better palliative care than the Dutch now do.
Having been told about the ‘tired of life’ pill, it began to interest me. Could I see one? What would happen if I did? Would I have that sensation you sometimes get on a balcony or cliff edge? Might I feel tempted to snatch it from the doctor’s palm and gobble it down? I hoped to find out at the coastal clinic of Dr Sutorius, a likeable and laid-back man. Did he register my disappointment that his waiting room and surgery were so like any other? We went back to his house, where the grouting is new, and I met his beautiful family. His wife brought drinks.
‘You just meet the problem,’ he tells me. ‘As a doctor it comes to you.’ When he began working in the 1980s, he felt that doctors were on their own. Opponents of euthanasia tell me doctors hate doing it because it so fundamentally alters their relationship with their patients: bringing death not life. Is this the case? Dr Sutorius is still upset by his own experience. In the 1990s, when the law was still fuzzy, he assisted a patient in a ‘tired of life’ case. ‘Suffering doesn’t mean you have a disease that is lethal,’ he says. The doctor was prosecuted, though his practice supported him through a legal battle that lasted nearly five years. He said he never had any sense of stepping over any line. Like other doctors he had considered earlier cases — like the depressed lady in Haarlem — as precedents. Nevertheless he was worn down by the trial: ‘Medicine is about trust, law is about distrust.’
‘All of the cases cause difficulty,’ he told me. Though many more patients want to talk about it than go through with it, it is an option. On those rare occasions — perhaps now no more than once a year — when he heads by arrangement to a patient’s house, ‘You feel like the loneliest person in the world.’ Nevertheless, he said, ‘I like my job. I like to help people ease their suffering. And I always hope the patient dies naturally.’ Are families a problem? He finds that children often object when told of their parents’ decision. He prefers the family to know in advance. Since the law changed, he feels there is better support for the profession. And the practice may yet be booming. ‘Now we have all the 1960s people coming towards us.’ It is in tune with their philosophy, he said: ‘The right to live your life as you like it.’
I think continually about this. Perhaps this will become the dominant vision of life in Britain, as it has in Holland and Belgium. But I cannot wish for it. There’s the slippery slope, the uncertain old who may feel pressured, the pathetic cases of depressed teenagers choosing death, and the shift in meaning it brings to life as well as death. Also, a line keeps recurring to me: the penultimate scene of Lear, at the darkest midnight of the play. Blinded and already having failed to kill himself once, Gloucester insists he can go no further. It falls to Edgar to urge his father on:
‘Men must endure
Their going hence even as their coming hither.
Ripeness is all.’
Gloucester lives for only a few more minutes. But the moments he has left, after he is persuaded to get up, turn out to include the moment in which he discovers everything.
http://new.spectator.co.uk/2015/08/the-atheist-case-against-assisted-dying/
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