John Coulter challenges the concept of "assisted suicide" in one of his regular Irish Daily Star columns.
Any so-called Christians who support the devilish practice of Assisted Suicide are guilty of Biblical heresy.
It is a very sad day for Christianity when clerics from the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion give their blessing to Assisted Dying.
You can put whatever fancy, politically correct label on it you choose, but Assisted Dying is murder by the back door and should be emphatically condemned by all right-thinking Bible-believing Christians.
And shame! Shame! SHAME! on former Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey after he publicly abandoned his long-standing opposition to legalising Assisted Dying.
The time has come for the island’s largest Protestant denomination, the Church of Ireland, to quit the Anglican Communion in protest at this ant-Christian stance.
Nowhere in the Bible do we read of Jesus Christ killing off the sick.
Carey’s heretical stance on Assisted Dying is akin to giving the two-fingered salute to the Christian belief and practice in Divine Healing, where people are cured of seemingly incurable illnesses and conditions through the power of prayer.
If an assisted death law comes on the books, healing shrines, such as Lourdes and Knock, might as well be demolished.
What about the hundreds of churches across Ireland who regularly hold healing services for people?
Will they be ordered to stop holding such vital meetings? And who decides the people who live and who dies?
If Christian churches and clerics give their blessings to Assisted Dying, how long will it be before we hear the excuse during a court case – “But God told me I was to smother granny with a pillow to put her out of her pain!”
If so-called Christian Churches support an assisted death law, society will be one step away from Stalinist Russia where communist tyrant Joe Stalin had 20 million of his own citizens massacred though Assisted Dying because he considered them undesirable.
Supporters of Assisted Dying will no doubt boast about the safeguards which will be in place to prevent ‘accidents’.
But at some point, someone will find a legal loophole whereby they can make decisions for people they believe should no longer have the right to live.
I make no secret of my passionate belief in Divine Healing as someone who has benefited from such a practice on at least two occasions in my life.
As a teenage cross country runner, I developed a very serious eye infection to the point where doctors thought I would lose the sight in that eye.
A devout Christian with the gift of Divine Healing prayed for me and my eye got better. One-nil to Divine Healing.
Years later, I was hospitalised with a tummy virus which the doctors could not identify. A faith healer prayed with me and my stomach got better. Two-nil to Divine Healing!
And don’t tell me faith healing is purely the money-making ploy of American-style tele-evangelists who invented events such as the notorious Toronto Blessing and Florida Outpouring.
All Churches in Ireland must unite to launch a 21st century crusade to combat this heresy of Assisted Dying.
And any cleric who supports Assisted Suicide should hang up their dog collar.
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Dear John Coulter
ReplyDeleteI fully agree with and share your fear of the potential for unscrupulous people to abuse their vulnerable relatives. It's difficult to see how any law could totally prevent this and the prospect of such abuse is indeed truly chilling. On the other hand, using the bible to justify your stance seems a little strange to me. Considering that the bible was written in the 1st century, surely we can't take it all literally? If so, you'd have to agree, for example, to have a family member stoned to death for adultery? I raise this point because so many people from Christian backgrounds seem so eager to condemn "others" for adhering to religious teachings that they view as outdated, cruel, un-G-dly and inhumane, and so quick to point out that their holy books ware written for a different time, a different age, and what may have been socially acceptable then is certainly not now. (I'm refering in the main to Muslims and Orthodox Jews.) By exhorting your fellow Christians to adhere literally to the teachings of the bible, aren't you just as guilty as those we condemn for their otherness?
Perhaps the answer is for everyone who cares about people to do more to promote basic kindness and decency within our own families and communities. We could also learn a lesson from the way most Asian communities care for their families from cradle to grave. Just a thought.
Best wishes.
@ Sarah Well thought out response… God’s word (G-d – I am assuming u r Jewish orthodox believer?) states the Lord gives and the Lord takes away… But this does not mean that those suffering with terminal illness should be condemned to protracted hellish and pointless suffering. When the quality of life is reduced to a zero it is compassion to ease the person’s suffering into the next world. We would put down an animal such as a loved dog with bone cancer for lesser levels of suffering…
ReplyDeleteJohn is a lightweight on the matter at hand and does little to address the complexities…. I worked in terminal care for over six years and it is stock standard practice for doses of opiates and such to be administered in staggered doses to terminally ill… Essentially it is overdosing the disease racked body so the suffering ceases and there is a death with a degree of dignity. It allows fam and loved ones to say their goodbyes prior to cessation of life etc. Beware the obsession with keeping the suffering alive when it well may be the patient is a medical guinea pig experiment… Also have your will drawn up whether terminally ill or not is what I say.
Re Asian culture The practice of caring for fam and relatives cradle to the grave has been well eroded… Irish culture holds the same belief as do many cultures…. The world has changed – globalization, wars, displacement, emigration etc – and with it came fragmenting of family ties. My own personal belief is that you can pull the pin on me when quality of life is gone and if u don’t I will seek a way to exact it… whilst I have cognition… Abuse of assisted dying is a real issue but nominal cases of it although the one I think is most sinister is assisted dying granted to those suffering with mental illness…. I think that is utterly unethical - understandable why a person would request it when suffering with mental illness but those who encourage death as a solution are evilly wrong. I would like to see all documentation of help, medications etc that failed Screeds of it besides the person’s experiential statement for seeking death.
PS Sarah spend all your money in this life then when u are dying only those who truly love you will be at yer bedside as you cark it!
@ John C. I believe in the power of God to heal... I am pcr- from hep c after years seriously ill with it. I went and got prayer but u know I was at peace because I just said God if u let me live great and if u don't great too... I had a spiritual healing definitely Holy Spirit stuff. Not something to speak of lightly... My question to God is why so many are not healed I have had loved ones die who were truly lovely. A friend died recently from lupus and it is this world's loss.. there seems no rhyme or reason... Death is your friend when you are seriously ill. U no longer fear death when you have smelt it on yourself... been ill and close to it... That much I know. Death has a distinctive smell John I am the person who used to have a liedown on my work breaks on the trolley in the morgue room ready for the next corpse. I am very nervous re some Christians accessing terminally ill people It is truly a cruel thing to tell someone ill they will be healed when it is grossly apparent they are dying. I have seen this done and it is appalling stuff. I kicked a group of Christians out of a place I worked in for doing this to a patient and the relatives there thanked me... And I am a Christian but I don't sell God parcelled up like a santa claus God nor engage in pressuring people to produce levels of belief that are not there... U should know better that to do such an impoverished rant on such a serious topic but then again it be your MO
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