Are painless and comfortable deaths possible?

 I can't help noticing that in the media, two separate but linked debates go on in parallel:

• Capital punishment: the trend of opinion in our Western culture is that this is always inhumane, and that no effective means exist for putting someone to death that are not degrading and unconscionably painful.
• Euthanasia: here, we are told that a painless and dignified death is medically and scientifically possible for everyone, and that the only reason why euthanasia isn't generally available is because of cruel and arbitrary legal hurdles, which should be removed.

I'm not, here, going to rehearse the arguments in favour of either one or the other (though, for the record, I believe that capital punishment can be justified and is the proper judicial response to certain crimes such as murder or rape; and that euthanasia defined as the deliberate application of procedures or substances (as distinguished from the contrary declining to apply them) to cause death is morally wrong).

Rather, I'd just like to point out what you've probably already spotted: the things said about the possibility of a painless and dignified death in the case of the two debates are mutually contradictory. If such a death is possible in the case of euthanasia, then it is also possible in the case of capital punishment. Conversely, if such a death is impossible in the case of judicial punishment, then it is also impossible in the case of someone's elective decision to end their own life. Or in other words, in at least one of these two debates on this particular point, the proponents of the arguments for the popular position (against capital punishment, for euthanasia), are lying. They say that a thing is both impossible in one case, and possible in the other, in a direct formal contradiction. A painless and dignified death is either available or non-existent depending on what is being argued for and nothing else. This is deception. People making either argument should have this contradiction pointed out to them, and be challenged as to which of the two they believe to be true: pick one side and then accept the implications, not both or neither depending upon your goal.

Note that here I'm not claiming that you have to either favour both capital punishment and euthanasia, or vice-versa be against both. Either, neither or both could be argued for despite conceding that death either can or cannot be dignified and painless. My point is that if the argument is being made based upon this supposed possibility or impossibility, then the argument has to be consistent; and currently, the arguments are being made based upon the possibility or impossibility of dignity as a central plank of the argument.

The question in general of whether death can or should be made dignified or not, and to what extent (and whether the answer to that depends upon whether the death is a penal infliction or not), is worth exploring. So are the ideas of personal choice and freedom and control in Western culture and how they relate to death. But that will all have to wait for another day.

Time for self-evaluation over Covid?

A little under 4 years ago, across the UK, churches closed their doors and ceased to meet for corporate worship, meekly accepting the UK government's announcement that the worship of Almighty God, unlike in-person food shopping or physical exercise, was a non-essential activity. Church services could, it appeared, be conducted over Zoom or Youtube - whereas everyone was allowed to exercise their own discretion over whether to buy their groceries online or in person.

Whatever you think of this, I hope that we might agree that what should have happened afterwards is that churches carried out an analysis and evaluation of their decisions and responses. When new announcements were being sprung by governments with rapid fire, it could be difficult to step back and think through the principles (though you might also say that there was plenty of time during the lockdowns, and in between the lockdowns, to catch up). But supposing that it was for some reason not possible to do at the time, there's now been a few years since. What are the principles, and how should they be put into practice?

I don't hear of churches or other organisations in the UK doing this. Why not? Do we have principles? What are they and how do they relate and get applied in the difficult cases? Was this event - the making of corporate worship to be illegal - big enough to matter enough that we need to think this through? I like to think that evangelicals have principles, and that they think it's important to think through how to apply them in events of this size. It's been nearly 4 years now... please can we hear something soon?

The year of our Lord, 2024

This year, the Father, Son and Spirit invite us to grow nearer to them. We are invited to have communion with the blessed and Eternal Trinity in prayer and personal worship, in meditating upon the Word, and in the corporate worship and fellowship of God's people.

The year will bring lots of duties of different kinds, according to the station that God has appointed us to in life. There will be a mixture of blessings, challenges, griefs, sorrows and joys, according to his good and perfect and loving will. But whatever else comes to pass, we are assured that there is nothing which need leave us further away from our God and Saviour. If anything does, then that is through our response to it, not through any lack of willingness or resources on God's side to draw us nearer.

It is always helpful at times of pause and reflection in the year to remember that a lot more is possible than we have yet experienced. The Bible teaches this clearly and repeatedly. "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!” - Luke 11:13. "Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures" - James 4:2-3. "But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly" -  Matthew 6:6. Christian history and experience teach us too. Currently I am reading "Island Aflame", perhaps the most historically rigorous account that we now have of the 1949-52 Lewis revival (https://www.christianfocus.com/products/3130/island-aflame). There are many people who have known and experienced more of God than we have, and every last one of them was a son or daughter of Adam with the same sinful propensities, and the same glorious Saviour and God of grace, as we have. At a time around 18 years ago I had the privilege of knowing a believer in our own locality who was in Lewis at the time of the revival, and it was such a thrill to hear from him about it and pray with him. The God of the Bible, and the God of all the advances of the Christian church in the past, is alive today. He invites us to know him and walk with him. There is a cost in doing so. But it is nothing compared to the price paid if we waste our lives doing something else.

May 2024 be a year in which God visits our souls, our churches, our prayer meetings, our missions, our families and our nations, to put us down in the dust and to lift up his own glorious name, through our Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.