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.

Beloved

1 Timothy 6:2 - "And those who have believing masters, let them not despise them because they are brethren, but rather serve them because those who are benefited are believers and beloved. Teach and exhort these things."

It's often useful to notice not only what is said as the main/direct point in a verse, but also what is assumed.

The above verse is an instruction from Paul to Timothy about what should be taught to believing slaves about how to relate to their masters - in this verse, particularly, believing masters.

"[T]hose who are benefited are believers and beloved."

Because, it is implied, all believers are beloved. If you are a believer, and you meet a fellow believer, or work alongside them, or under them, or whatever, then this is your attitude to them: they are beloved, for Jesus' sake. The Beloved One counts them as beloved, and so, of course, do all of his brethren.

The Christmas inn-keeper is a fictional character

The few words about his birth in the Bible indicate that the Son of God was born in a poor family home, not in a community stable for travellers which a fictional inn-keeper sent them to. 

It's much better to teach children to study the Bible carefully, than to leave them believing a sentimental version that they later find out has the flimsiest basis in the actual text (really, a misunderstanding built upon a single word): https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/jesus-was-not-born-in-a-stable-and-it-really-matters/

The sometime fantasy land of paedobaptist apologetics

Baptists who are Baptists by conviction (i.e. not simply by default, but who have taken the time to seek to understand and analyse paedobaptist arguments), will be aware that a good number of paedobaptist arguments effectively exist in their separate universe. They convincingly refute arguments that either nobody made, or if they did, they are a representative not of a serious or representative attempt to argue that baptism is intended for those who profess faith, but of some off-the-cuff comment that nobody would mistake for a serious argument, of the kind dealt with when seeking to get the best version of an argument.

Of this sort are arguments like "Baptists are Baptists because they are hyper-individualists who see the kingdom of heaven as following the American dream, but we paedobaptists believe in the community of God's people", or "Baptists believe that the Old Testament is a failed plan, but paedobaptists believe in the continuity of God's plans and people throughout the ages" or "Baptists think the church began with revivalist preachers preaching in tents in the 19th century", and such like over-simplifications. Well, fine, if someone does believe that, then do refute it, but please can you do so without the "Baptists believe" prefix?

Of this ilk is Douglas Wilson's recent blog post, "The Grace of All Forgiveness".

It opens: "Some have argued that baptism should be withheld from infants and children because they think it a sign, not of inclusion in Christ, but rather as a sign of ordination—as a sign of taking on the mantle of service for Christ."

Really? Who argued that, and where? Baptism is not a sign of inclusion in Christ, but solely of being appointed to serve him? And this is a viewpoint found significantly amongst Baptists?

Again, perhaps "some" have indeed argued this. But the suggestion to people that this is a representative or common viewpoint, or that recognising that "Baptist is a sign of inclusion in Christ" is a belief that leads one towards paedobaptism, is absurd.

I invite my paedobaptist friends to leave the fantasy land of what they too often tell themselves round in circles concerning the strange things Baptists believe, and to read some serious works of Baptist apologetics instead. Then we can mutually discuss our beliefs, and endeavour together to understand which more accurately represents the mind of the Lord.

The biblical duty of exiting a denomination that tolerates false teachers

In my previous post, "Avoiding false teachers", I noted that the Bible does not simply instruct us to avoid false teaching, but to avoid false teachers.

And this inevitably implies the further duty to exit compromised churches, partnerships and associations. i.e. To depart from denominations or groupings of churches which do not discipline and ultimately excommunicate false teachers. False teachers will arise, but the question is what happens to them when a disciplinary case is lodged.

Believing brethren in, to pick an obvious example, the Church of England, generally seek to avoid false teaching via not teaching it themselves, and teaching against it, and telling them hearers not to go and listen to false teachers. (I've never actually heard of a brother who even tried to lodge a disciplinary case against any of them).

However, the Church of England in general tolerates and propagates false teaching. In a Biblical organisation, this could be dealt with via disciplinary cases against the false teachers - for example, those who deny that Christ's sacrifice on the cross was both penal (a punishment for sins) and substitutionary (a punishment endured in the place of others), those who deny that sin will ultimately be punished through eternal punishment in hell, or those who deny that the Scriptures in their entirety are God's inspired word, without error.

Once an organisation no longer disciplines false teachers, by ejecting them, the only way that remains to obey God by separating oneself from false teachers, is by oneself voluntarily departing.