Terri , God, and the culture war
Passion for Fairness has a fine entry on Terri's death that's well worth reading.
Depressingly, this is a crime the overwhelming majority of Americans approve of. It is indeed a turning point in "the culture war-" but only in the sense that those on the side of decency no longer have any excuse for illusions.
Christians have been in this situation before. We are in the same position as our forebears in the Faith under Nero and Diocletian; the main difference is that the culture only mocks us, rather than killing us, too. Whether gladiators in the arena or people like Terri are the victims, Christians are called to stand for life, for decency, and for truth; God will take care of the rest.
In Germany during the Hitler era, Christians fought this very same fight. Their opponents even used many of the same arguments Michael Schaivo's supporters are using now.
They were martyred, or sent to concentration camps; we are not yet called upon to pay such a price. Whether or not the advocates of death use the term "life unworthy of life," Christians are called upon to stand against them. God will take care of the rest.
We are still called to bear witness, as those did whom the Romans and the Nazis tortured and killed for doing so.
But we are not called upon to win. God is in charge of outcomes; we are not. We are called upon only to be faithful, as our forebears in this very struggle were.
Jesus warned that the day would come when people would fall in love with themselves, and close their ears to truth and their hearts to what is right. It is harder and harder to miss the point that the day He predicted has come.
Lutheranism would argue that we ought not to be surprised, but rather comforted. Where Jesus is, there His cross will be; He promised His followers, not the success and "victory" the spiritual charlatans of the age suggest, but rather persecution and unpopularity. Satan's fury will always be directed, Luther warned, at those who are Christ's, and certainly not at those who are his own.
But the comfort comes from the story we in the Church have just finished commemorating liturgically and hearing proclaimed once again. The greatest victory in all of human history was won by the apparent loser on Calvary. God, as Luther always reminded us, works by opposites. Life is hidden under death; salvation is hidden under apparent abandonment; victory is hidden under apparent defeat. God is always closest to us, not on the mountaintops of life, but in the depths.
The Theology of the Cross gives us the comfort of knowing, first, that in this hour of mourning and devastation, God is with us. He Who seemed to be defeated on Good Friday but turned the tables on death three days later, as the ancient Jews measured time, has left his fingerprint on this struggle. The battle for the soul of America has been marked, like a newly-baptized infant, with the mark of the Cross.
God is well able to bring Easter out of this Good Friday, too. More than that, nothing is more certain than that He will. It might still happen, somehow, by a miraculous reversal of public opinion, and the conversion of our society from the materialism and utilitarianism and selfishness that deifies the individual and turns us into "a culture of death." Or it may come when the King returns in glory to judge this society and to vindicate life and truth. But nothing is more certain than that it will come. And in God's mysterious yet wonderful way of doing things, the sign of the Cross under which we mourn this day is His guarantee of that.
Michael Schaivo stands under God's judgment- as do we all. The difference is that he has thus far chosen to stand there in impenitence and unbelief, and faces the prospect of having to answer to God's justice even if the secular authorities continue to neglect their duty to do human justice in this case.
Let it be our prayer, though, that he never has to face that judgment. Let our prayers for the conversion of our society include especially earnest petitions for Michael's conversion.
We have a duty, as citizens of God's Kingdom of the Left Hand, to become a little more sophisticated about this fight than we have been thus far. Cruzan v. Director, no less than Roe v. Wade, is foundational to the legal basis of the culture of death in this country. We must insist on its negation, whether through reversal or by Constitutional amendment, with utter implacabilitiy. It is the logically and morally silly argument that mere hydration and nourishment constitute artificial life support- the absurd "bottom line" of Cruzan- that formed the legal basis for the murder of Terri Schaivo. Cruzan must go. The struggle against euthanasia by starvation cannot succeed otherwise.
But we are not called to depend on political or cultural victory. This is where the fanatics and the confusers of the Two Kingdoms make their mistake. The outcome of our struggle is God's business, not ours. Our business is simply to continue to bear witness to God's Word of Law and Gospel.
We are called, most specifically, to continue to faithfully lift up the Fifth Commandment (the Sixth, for Protestants)- as well as the First- to a society which has fallen in love with death, and made a god of the individual. We are called to do that most of all because only when those who hear our witness repent for their sins against these commandments can they hear the word of forgiveness and healing and reconciliation for which it is the most important ministry of God's Law to prepare.
We are promised victory- but not necessarily in our own lifetimes, or even this side of the Second Coming. Nothing can be surer than that victory. But outcomes are God's business, not ours.
We are simply called upon to be faithful in a society that has lost its way. He will do the rest.
There are implications for this fact which go beyond the Culture War in its most obvious sense. The values of the corrupted culture have leached into the Church as well. Those in the Missouri Synod must deal with an administration in love with the Theology of Glory. Silly, presumptuous notions like the Ablaze (c) program also stand under the condemnation of the principle that outcomes are God's concern, whereas mere faithfulness is ours.
We pray that victory in the struggle against the culture of death will be on terms which will allow the Gospel to hold sway; that the culture's rebellion will not hold out to the last, and force Christ- much against His will- do deal with that culture as an Avenger bringing retribution, rather than as a Savior bringing forgiveness and healing. But beyond our prayer, that is in God's hands. We are commanded, not to be successful, but only to be faithful; to commend our culture into His hands, just as on this dark and sorry day we commend the soul of our sister, Terri.
May God have mercy on us all.
May the American people let Him have mercy on us all.
We can be sure that Terri is now in the hands of Someone far more merciful than those who were charged on Earth with the task of protecting her, from her "husband" to the courts- and who failed her so miserably.
Depressingly, this is a crime the overwhelming majority of Americans approve of. It is indeed a turning point in "the culture war-" but only in the sense that those on the side of decency no longer have any excuse for illusions.
Christians have been in this situation before. We are in the same position as our forebears in the Faith under Nero and Diocletian; the main difference is that the culture only mocks us, rather than killing us, too. Whether gladiators in the arena or people like Terri are the victims, Christians are called to stand for life, for decency, and for truth; God will take care of the rest.
In Germany during the Hitler era, Christians fought this very same fight. Their opponents even used many of the same arguments Michael Schaivo's supporters are using now.
They were martyred, or sent to concentration camps; we are not yet called upon to pay such a price. Whether or not the advocates of death use the term "life unworthy of life," Christians are called upon to stand against them. God will take care of the rest.
We are still called to bear witness, as those did whom the Romans and the Nazis tortured and killed for doing so.
But we are not called upon to win. God is in charge of outcomes; we are not. We are called upon only to be faithful, as our forebears in this very struggle were.
Jesus warned that the day would come when people would fall in love with themselves, and close their ears to truth and their hearts to what is right. It is harder and harder to miss the point that the day He predicted has come.
Lutheranism would argue that we ought not to be surprised, but rather comforted. Where Jesus is, there His cross will be; He promised His followers, not the success and "victory" the spiritual charlatans of the age suggest, but rather persecution and unpopularity. Satan's fury will always be directed, Luther warned, at those who are Christ's, and certainly not at those who are his own.
But the comfort comes from the story we in the Church have just finished commemorating liturgically and hearing proclaimed once again. The greatest victory in all of human history was won by the apparent loser on Calvary. God, as Luther always reminded us, works by opposites. Life is hidden under death; salvation is hidden under apparent abandonment; victory is hidden under apparent defeat. God is always closest to us, not on the mountaintops of life, but in the depths.
The Theology of the Cross gives us the comfort of knowing, first, that in this hour of mourning and devastation, God is with us. He Who seemed to be defeated on Good Friday but turned the tables on death three days later, as the ancient Jews measured time, has left his fingerprint on this struggle. The battle for the soul of America has been marked, like a newly-baptized infant, with the mark of the Cross.
God is well able to bring Easter out of this Good Friday, too. More than that, nothing is more certain than that He will. It might still happen, somehow, by a miraculous reversal of public opinion, and the conversion of our society from the materialism and utilitarianism and selfishness that deifies the individual and turns us into "a culture of death." Or it may come when the King returns in glory to judge this society and to vindicate life and truth. But nothing is more certain than that it will come. And in God's mysterious yet wonderful way of doing things, the sign of the Cross under which we mourn this day is His guarantee of that.
Michael Schaivo stands under God's judgment- as do we all. The difference is that he has thus far chosen to stand there in impenitence and unbelief, and faces the prospect of having to answer to God's justice even if the secular authorities continue to neglect their duty to do human justice in this case.
Let it be our prayer, though, that he never has to face that judgment. Let our prayers for the conversion of our society include especially earnest petitions for Michael's conversion.
We have a duty, as citizens of God's Kingdom of the Left Hand, to become a little more sophisticated about this fight than we have been thus far. Cruzan v. Director, no less than Roe v. Wade, is foundational to the legal basis of the culture of death in this country. We must insist on its negation, whether through reversal or by Constitutional amendment, with utter implacabilitiy. It is the logically and morally silly argument that mere hydration and nourishment constitute artificial life support- the absurd "bottom line" of Cruzan- that formed the legal basis for the murder of Terri Schaivo. Cruzan must go. The struggle against euthanasia by starvation cannot succeed otherwise.
But we are not called to depend on political or cultural victory. This is where the fanatics and the confusers of the Two Kingdoms make their mistake. The outcome of our struggle is God's business, not ours. Our business is simply to continue to bear witness to God's Word of Law and Gospel.
We are called, most specifically, to continue to faithfully lift up the Fifth Commandment (the Sixth, for Protestants)- as well as the First- to a society which has fallen in love with death, and made a god of the individual. We are called to do that most of all because only when those who hear our witness repent for their sins against these commandments can they hear the word of forgiveness and healing and reconciliation for which it is the most important ministry of God's Law to prepare.
We are promised victory- but not necessarily in our own lifetimes, or even this side of the Second Coming. Nothing can be surer than that victory. But outcomes are God's business, not ours.
We are simply called upon to be faithful in a society that has lost its way. He will do the rest.
There are implications for this fact which go beyond the Culture War in its most obvious sense. The values of the corrupted culture have leached into the Church as well. Those in the Missouri Synod must deal with an administration in love with the Theology of Glory. Silly, presumptuous notions like the Ablaze (c) program also stand under the condemnation of the principle that outcomes are God's concern, whereas mere faithfulness is ours.
We pray that victory in the struggle against the culture of death will be on terms which will allow the Gospel to hold sway; that the culture's rebellion will not hold out to the last, and force Christ- much against His will- do deal with that culture as an Avenger bringing retribution, rather than as a Savior bringing forgiveness and healing. But beyond our prayer, that is in God's hands. We are commanded, not to be successful, but only to be faithful; to commend our culture into His hands, just as on this dark and sorry day we commend the soul of our sister, Terri.
May God have mercy on us all.
May the American people let Him have mercy on us all.
We can be sure that Terri is now in the hands of Someone far more merciful than those who were charged on Earth with the task of protecting her, from her "husband" to the courts- and who failed her so miserably.
Comments