Church of England opposes euthanasia

I don't know if this is a new stand or not, other Christian communions have come out against euthanasia and medically assisted suicide long ago. But it is nice to hear some good news about the Church of England.

Click here to learn more. I was interested to read over the principles that form the base of this postion. It seems to me that these same principles apply to opposition to abortion in most cases as well:

Principles behind this position
• Personal autonomy and the protection of life are both important principles that are often complementary but sometimes compete.
• Personal autonomy must be principled and not without regard to others.
• Protection of life should take priority when there is a conflict between the two.
• When protection of life is impossible that does not undermine these principles.
• Every human being is uniquely and equally valuable, hence human rights are built on the foundation of the ‘right to life’, as is much of the criminal code.
• An obligation on society, doctors and nurses, to take life or to assist in the taking of life would create a new and unwelcome role for society.

A Scientist's case for God

I recently heard that Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project, and author of the book The Language of God, has been appointed by President Obama as head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (I know, I must have been under a rock).

Not surprisingly, some of the "new atheists" - such as Sam Harris in a New York Times editorial - have criticised this move, suggesting that Collins, because he is a believer in God, is by that very fact disqualified from holding this position of leadership in the scientific/medical community. I think that critique is very interesting since it seems to be the case that behind what Sam Harris is saying is this: unless a person thinks as he thinks on this question of God's existence, then that person should have no place in the scientific conversation. It looks to me like an ideological power-grab, the very kind of dialogue-squelching that religious institutions have too often been guilty of in the past (the Galileo affair comes to mind).

Naturally, I believe that in so far as scientific discoveries and Christian faith both give insight into various aspects of the real world as it truly is, there is no necessary incompatibility between the two. All Truth is God's Truth, however it is discovered or revealed. Unfortunately, too many narrative crafters in American society (both in the media, the academy, and in the Church) have endlessly spoken of the "conflict" between "religion" and "science" (whatever those terms mean in the abstract).

I think that narrative needs to be vigorously challenged by Christian (and other) intellectuals and culture-shapers. To that end, I am happy to share this radio interview in which Francis Collins speaks of his own faith as one who is both a moderate Evangelical Protestant Christian and also an emminent scientist.

On the substance of the interview - I thought it was very good. I would love to have heard a little bit about the different sorts of "evidences" that are used in different disciplines (the criteria for evidence used to support a claim is quite different depending on whether one is an historian or a physicist, for example). Christian belief can be supported from various disciplines - the historical investigation (using rigorous standards of historical evidence) of the event of the Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth seems to me to be the most straight-forward (and N.T. Wright's book The Resurrection of the Son of God is among the most significant statements of the historical case for the Resurrection).

Is health care a "right"?

I ran across an interesting article this morning about using the language of "rights" to talk about health care access. I noticed last week that NPR was doing this in exploring healthcare systems in other developed nations - all of which (except for the US according to NPR's narrative) have decided that health care is a basic human "right."

I wondered how this could be the case. There is something about health care that does not at all seem to be like freedom of speech or freedom from arbitrary imprisonment. It seems further away from the basics of what it is to be a human creature. I felt a nagging suspicion that there was a category mistake being made - perhaps similar to the category mistake that is made when people talk about the "right" of this or that person or group to be ordained in the Church, which misses the point that ordination is a gift from God, not a right that any of us can demand and that true Justice, by the nature of things, must give (for that is what a right is).

So check out these thought-provoking quotes from this post (and read the whole article too!):

Since his [Thomas Jefferson's] day, and certainly preceding it, the historic American understanding of human rights is the exercise of individual freedom, especially in the political realm, for both public and personal good. We have historically never understood our rights as encompassing access to services or commodities...

It does sound all high minded to say that, like rights, health care should be equal for everybody, which I suppose is why clergy are so susceptible to claim it. It's more than obvious that no one in the Congress or the White House believes it, though...

(While the post begins by pointing out that The United Methodist Church's Social Principles call health care a right, it goes on to point out the differently nuanced position of the Roman Catholic Church:)

[T]he Catholic Church does not teach that “health care” as such, without distinction, is a natural right.The “natural right” of health care is the divine bounty of food, water, and air without which all of us quickly die. This bounty comes from God directly. None of us own it, and none of us can morally withhold it from others. The remainder of health care is a political, not a natural, right, because it comes from our human efforts, creativity, and compassion.

Check it out for your pondering pleasure. I should point out that I certainly favor affordable, high-quality, and universally available health care, and as a society we should work to make this a reality. I believe that a society in which that kind of care is available is, so far, a better one than a society in which that is not available, all other things being equal.
But that would also be true for universally available, high-quality, and low-priced homes, but this doesn't therefore mean that home-ownership is a basic human right, only that such a society would be a better one (I think). Likewise, I'm just not so sure that health care is therefore a natural "right" just because it is good for society. Yet we really can promote something as a positive good for society even if we don't believe it falls into the category of a natural human right (because it fails to meet the criteria belonging to that category).

But I would be interested to see a good solid argument that health-care is a right of nature for all humans, if anyone runs across a good one (keep in mind that an argument gives reasons for a position, not merely assertions of that position).

How simple should Christianity be?

That is the question asked by this post over at "Glory to God for all things" - and one that I have asked before.

There is in parts of the catholic Church, especially in American Protestantism I think, an impulse that wants to simplify everything, to reduce everything to its most basic elements - including our worship, our theology, our preaching and so on. That which is complex or difficult is labelled "irrelevant" and that which is simple or easy is "accessible" and no other justification is then even needed to jetison the complex in favor of the simple. The assumption seems to be that if it doesn't reach the broadest possible audience it therefore must not be true - or not the truth that we want, anyway. It seems to me that this is one reason why proposed changes in the life of the church can be made - even significant ones - without particularly deep or rigorous theological reflection or forethought.

People like simple and easy, therefore they might actually grab hold if that is what we have to offer.

But the more I think about this - the more I think that real life is not simple and real life is not easy. And a grown-up faith that takes real life seriously must not be either. Of course, the complex is difficult to reduce to a slogan or a formula in any sort of useful way. Try reducing the wonderful sacramental theology of the classical tradition to 4 Spiritual Laws. Thinking about it this way has made "presenting the gospel" (in the classical evangelical sense) in my preaching a bit more difficult, because, when I've presented the basics, I always feel that I am only scratching the surface and need to say alot more. I talk about relationship with Jesus, but feel the need to go back and say quite abit more about covenant since it is none other than a covenant relationship that we are invited to, and so on.

Anyways, that was a definite ramble - the original post I linke to is very good. You should read it.