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The Biblical Perspective on Assisted Suicide—Part I

2 Comments / Current Events, Death & Dying, People / By /

Washington, the state of my upbringing, passed an assisted-suicide law in 2008. The debate was vigorous—I heard about it from my Fuller students at the time—and ultimately the referendum passed. Most arguments in the public square were based on basic logic and emotion. An excellent set of arguments against physician-assisted suicide was presented by author Jane St. Clair in a series of thirty newspaper ads you can find here. Unmentioned in this list are the many spiritual reasons against assisted suicide. Since my blog’s theme is Bringing the Word to Life, what does the Word have to say about “death […]

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Suicide: When a Right Becomes an Obligation

4 Comments / Current Events, Death & Dying, People, The Pastoral Call / By /

[After two days of jury duty, during which I was not selected for a three-week trial, I am finally coming back to the topic of physician-assisted suicide. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers while I was otherwise occupied.] One of my deepest concerns, from a sociological and ethical point of view, about physician-assisted suicide (PAS) is the “slippery slope” argument. In a BreakPoint broadcast this week, Eric Metaxas addressed the broader issues with historical illustrations. The sociological equivalent of “give them an inch, and they take a mile” is a reality, as evidenced by the gradual acceptance and practice of

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Suicide and the Fear of a Diminished Self

5 Comments / Current Events, Death & Dying, Lung Cancer, Naegeli's Laws, People / By /

Suicides, particularly by those of celebrity status, make the headlines. In Robin Williams’ case this summer, the world mourned the loss of a man tormented but treated for mental illness and addiction. We will never know what drove him to his final act, but we suspect that deep psychic pain was at its root. The inelegance of his method suggests that he was as improvisational in death as he was on stage. For this we wept and wondered. In the 1990s, Jack Kevorkian helped approximately 130 people end their lives. Under Michigan law he was convicted for second-degree homicide and

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Two Women with Brain Tumors; Two Different Responses

3 Comments / Current Events, Death & Dying, People, Uncategorized / By /

One of my regular readers has asked me to comment here about the case of Brittany Maynard, a young woman who moved from San Francisco to Portland in order to organize an assisted suicide in the state of Oregon where it is legal. What I would like to do with this first post on the subject is simply to offer the different approaches of two women with brain tumors, Brittany Maynard herself and Maggie Karner. Since it is Sunday as I write this, I will not retell their stories but allow them to do so: Brittany’s story is told in

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Disillusionment of American Citizens

1 Comment / Citizenship, Current Events, History / By /

In the realm of American citizenship, a few things have tweaked my “blog spot” this week. The jury duty issue remains unresolved, and won’t be cleared up until at least next Tuesday. But as I have been thinking about my role as a citizen, and a Christian one at that, I have uncovered some reasons for disillusionment with our constitutional democracy. Don’t get all excited reading that statement: I am not critical of our system of government in theory, but disillusionment overshadows my optimism in practice. Some specific indicators: Many citizens show amazing enthusiasm for the privileges of American life,

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Can a Christian Be a Fair and Impartial Juror?

Leave a Comment / Citizenship, PCUSA, Personal, Theological Reflection / By /

My husband and I have been hugely entertained and encouraged by the messages received in response to yesterday’s non-rhetorical question: What if a trial attorney were to ask you, “Pastor, would you be willing to put aside your Christian faith in order to be a fair and impartial juror?” My blog today could quote them all and fill this page, and I may still before the day is over. But the question itself deserves and requires some consideration simply for what it says about our culture. Part 1: Would I be willing to put aside my Christian faith? I first

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Jury Service and Enduring Trials

6 Comments / Citizenship, Current Events, Personal, Spiritual Disciplines, Uncategorized / By /

After two postponements of my service for medical reasons, finally on October 1 I appeared at the county courthouse for jury duty. The long wait to be called into the courtroom was ameliorated by a pleasant, spacious jury assembly room and the discovery that a friend was also in my group. At 9:45 we were finally brought into the courtroom, “Department 8” to be exact, where we were given the standard civics lesson on the importance of jury service. And then I found out that the trial for which a jury was being selected was a three-week criminal trial. Oh,

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Discipline for Our Own Good

1 Comment / GAPJC Decisions, It All Started in the Garden, PCUSA, Personal, Spiritual Disciplines / By /

Quite often I find myself asking the question, “How did things get this way?” particularly in reference to my tribe, the PC(USA), but also to the culture developing around us all. It is safe to say that we are shaped over time, individually and corporately. The way things are now is the result of decades of shaping mechanisms at work in and among us. You could say the same for any culture anywhere in the world, but my experience limits my thinking to American culture. This weekend I had a chance to air my brains out as I breathed in

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Is There Anything “New” under the Sun?—Part II

2 Comments / It All Started in the Garden, PCUSA, Sermon on the Mount, Spiritual Disciplines, The Missional Church, Theological Reflection / By /

Yesterday we considered the human drive toward newness. The writer of Ecclesiastes helped us to see that “under the sun,” that is, in the realm of purely human experience, there is nothing really new. People think they’ve found something new to entertain, feed an addiction, or eat; but chances are pretty good that even a primitive form of that thing has been around for a very long time. To this restless searching, God—through the voice of Isaiah—asks the pertinent question: Why do we waste our money on stuff that does not satisfy (53:2)? God implanted in human DNA a yearning

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Is There Anything “New” under the Sun?—Part I

6 Comments / Death & Dying, It All Started in the Garden, PCUSA, Spiritual Disciplines, Teaching, Theological Reflection / By /

[Got sidetracked yesterday, first with Jury Duty and then with the Giants-Pirates wildcard match-up last night. Okay, I am back in focus!] In my last post, I suggested that just because something is new or experimental, it does not necessarily follow that it is good or orthodox. The catalyst for my comments was an “outside the box” worship service conducted during the last meeting of San Francisco Presbytery.  It makes sense now to explore whether the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and other historic mainline denominations have fallen off the deep end in their efforts to try something new. The motivation, it

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