The country where death is now just a lifestyle choice. Holland, Daily Mail, Euthanasia v The Sanctity of Life

The country where death is now just a lifestyle choice: A mum with ringing ears. Babies whose parents don't want them to suffer. They've all been allowed to die by assisted suicide in Holland

·        Andre Verhoeven planned to retire at 65 to travel the world with wife Dora

·        He was diagnosed with acute leukaemia and was told there was no cure

·        He chose to end his life at 64 and died in January last year

·        Gaby Olthuis suffered ‘24-hour noise’ in her head, ‘like a train screeching'

·        To end her suffering, she was given a lethal potion to drink at her home

·        She left behind two teenage children, a boy of 13 and a girl aged 15

No one would have predicted that such a devoted husband and family man would one day choose to die by a lethal injection administered by his own GP.

Andre Verhoeven married in his local Catholic church, lived in an unpretentious town south of Amsterdam, and worked as a respected teacher at the nearby secondary school.

He had planned to retire at 65 to travel the world with his wife, Dora.

Instead, he was diagnosed with acute leukaemia, a cancer of the blood, for which he was told there was no cure. Because of complications from the cruel illness, he became paralysed from the neck down.

You might be entitled to think that what people do in Holland is their business and nothing to do with us in Britain. But you could not be more wrong.

If campaigners have their way, the law will be changed here, too, to allow those who wish to end their life to do so at a time of their choosing. For opponents of euthanasia, this raises grave moral questions, as well as concerns that unscrupulous relatives might take advantage of elderly family members — whose estates they might covet — by encouraging them to end their lives.

One of the most vociferous and courageous voices in the campaign to legalise assisted dying was Debbie Purdy, who passed away last week at the age of 51 after refusing food for a year. She had said her hunger strike was painful and difficult, but that her life with progressive multiple sclerosis was ‘unacceptable’.

News of her death came as 80 prominent public figures in the UK called for the legalising of euthanasia here, warning that already one Briton travels abroad every fortnight to euthanasia clinics even as the issue continues to be passionately debated.

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What does the Bible say about Euthanasia? Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry

by Matt Slick

The Bible does not specifically mention euthanasia, but it does address issues closely related to it.  Euthanasia is known by different terms such as mercy killing, assisted suicide, etc.  It is the act of assisting someone in his or her own death who is terminally ill, suffering, and in great pain.  The goal of the assisted suicide is to prevent the continuation of pain.

The Bible tells us that we are not to murder (Exodus 20:13).  Murder is the unlawful taking of life, and killing is the lawful taking of life.  Technically speaking, if a nation said that euthanasia was legal, then on a human level it would not be murder.  But as societies often legislate moral issues in contradiction to the Bible, just because a society might say that euthanasia is good does not mean that it is.  We are to obey God rather than men (Acts 5:29).

We are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26), and it is the Lord God who gives us life (Job 33:4) and who has numbered our days (Job 14:5).  This means that God is the sovereign Lord who determines the day that we die.  Therefore, we are not to usurp God's authority.

In the Bible . . .

In the book of Job, when Job is under great distress and in great pain, his wife says to him “'Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die!' 10 But he said to her, 'You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?' In all this Job did not sin with his lips.” (Job 2:9-10).  Basically, Job's wife wanted him to euthanize himself to avoid the pain of his life, but Job refused to do so, and in this he did not sin.

Heb. 9:27, “And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment.”

The Bible tells us that it is God who appoints people to die.  Essentially, assisted suicide is an attempt to deny God his sovereign right to appoint who dies when.  We must be careful not to take into our own hands the right that belongs to God.

There is nothing in the Bible that tells us we must do everything we can to keep someone alive for as long as possible.  So, we are not under obligation to prolong the life of someone who is suffering.  If someone is terminally ill and in great pain, we should make the person as comfortable as possible during this process of dying.  We should not hasten his death. Instead, we should let death take its natural course but make every effort to comfort those who are suffering.

Finally, like so many things in the world, when a small compromise is made, many injustices are eventually allowed. If euthanasia is permitted under the emotional and moral claim that it is best for the individual, what is to prevent the government from eventually stepping in and determining who else needs to be terminated?  Might the definition of euthanasia be expanded to include those who are suffering from chronic depression or just don’t like living--or are not productive in society?  We must ask that if the door to killing people in their old age is opened, can it ever be closed again?

Think about it.  The beginning of life is now open to destruction in abortion, and the end of life is now being considered for destruction as well.  Like a vise that closes from either end, how many of those in the middle will fall prey to the depravity of man's moral relativism and love affair with sin that always brings death?

Read more from  the Christian Institute on Euthanasia

Britain warned, as euthanasia rate in the Netherlands soars

The sanctity of life

Christians believe that there is something special about human beings.  Being human is not the same as being anything else in the cosmos - different in nature from being a rock, a tree, a spider or a chimpanzee.  Humans are 'in the image of God'.  That means we share something of the nature of God - we know the difference between good and evil, we have the ability to be creative, we have a capacity to love and seek justice, we have a responsibility toward everything with which we share the planet, and we have a nature which is in some way eternal (some people call this a soul).

Everything Christians believe about the sanctity of life follows on from this.  And the most wonderful of those facts is a belief that God knows every human individually - from the life in a womb that ends tragically early to the great-grandmother who celebrates her hundredth birthday.  Christians also believe that God has a total and unconditional love for every human.  (This is exhilarating but also challenging, because it means he must have loved Hitler as much as he loved Saint Francis of Assisi).  It means that God loves you, wherever in the world you are reading this right now.

Several things follow logically from this:

Human life has a purpose

Evolution has not just led us to an existence in which we are what we are because we were the species that is best at surviving, but because God willed it to be this way and wants us to do something with life.

Human life is very precious

In Christian ethics all humans should treat all humans with honour.  It is utterly unacceptable when people are abused mentally, physically or tyrannically.  It is all too clear that Christians (even Christian leaders) fail in this on some occasions.  This is shameful.

Humans need to respect themselves

That means Christians try to do something worthwhile with their lives.  For almost all Christians it means they try not to throw their one beautiful life away by viciously abusing drugs, alcohol, tobacco and so on.

Humans need to respect others

Out of this has come the laws that have made the UK civilized - about the death penalty, abortion, euthanasia, contraception, embryo experimentation and so on.  All these are controversial and Christians have differing views.  However, they try to have their debates about it in the context of seeking God's best for humankind.

Human life has absolute dignity

Perhaps the most important belief of all is that God himself has lived on earth in human form, and so he has conferred utter dignity on human flesh.  Christians believe that in Jesus God himself was walking and talking on this planet.

From Christianity.org

Ten ways to grow your church in 2015

Ten ways to grow your church in 2015

We’re all familiar with statistics that decry the declining UK Church, but many local churches are bucking the trend. Justin Brierley investigates what has made the difference for those whose churches are bursting at the seams.

Let’s be clear: there is no miracle formula for growing your church. If the magic ingredients could be bottled and sold, someone somewhere would be very rich by now. Nor is numerical growth the only mark of success. Discipleship, local engagement and longevity of commitment are also important. Megachurches in the US account for more than half of all church attendance, but critics point out that such congregations can often be a ‘mile wide and an inch deep’.

Equally, popular new churches that see ‘transfer growth’ from other local congregations (aka ‘sheep stealing’) could be accused of simply rearranging the deckchairs while the Titanic sinks. Planted in ‘hard soil’, some churches may be doing well to simply maintain their present numbers.

Even churches growing at a healthy rate have no cause to be complacent. Congregations that increase to a certain size and then 'plateau', failing to break a glass ceiling of 200 to 300 attendees, are a frequent phenomenon.

The Rise of the ‘Done With Church’ Population by Thom Schultz

 John is every pastor’s dream member. He’s a life-long believer, well-studied in the Bible, gives generously and leads others passionately.

But last year he dropped out of church. He didn’t switch to the other church down the road. He dropped out completely. His departure wasn’t the result of an ugly encounter with a staff person or another member. It wasn’t triggered by any single event.

John had come to a long-considered, thoughtful decision. He said, “I’m just done. I’m done with church.”

John is one in a growing multitude of ex-members. They’re sometimes called the de-churched. They have not abandoned their faith. They have not joined the also-growing legion of those with no religious affiliation—often called the Nones. Rather, John has joined the Dones.

At Group’s recent Future of the Church conference, sociologist Josh Packard shared some of his groundbreaking research on the Dones. He explained these de-churched were among the most dedicated and active people in their congregations. To an increasing degree, the church is losing its best.

For the church, this phenomenon sets up a growing danger. The very people on whom a church relies for lay leadership, service and financial support are going away. And the problem is compounded by the fact that younger people in the next generation, the Millennials, are not lining up to refill the emptying pews.

Why are the Dones done? Packard describes several factors in his upcoming book Church Refugees (Group). Among the reasons: After sitting through countless sermons and Bible studies, they feel they’ve heard it all. One of Packard’s interviewees said, “I’m tired of being lectured to. I’m just done with having some guy tell me what to do.”

The Dones are fatigued with the Sunday routine of plop, pray and pay. They want to play. They want to participate. But they feel spurned at every turn.

Will the Dones return? Not likely, according to the research. They’re done. Packard says it would be more fruitful if churches would focus on not losing these people in the first place. Preventing an exodus is far easier than attempting to convince refugees to return.

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10 Ways to Release God's Healing Power, Charisma Magazine

Healing is one of the most controversial subjects we can raise in the church. Yet there is no doubt that the Bible is filled with accounts of Jesus' healing miracles. It seems clear as well from the following three Scriptures that healing is a by-product of the stripes Jesus endured before going to the cross:

"But He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed" (Is. 53:5);

"They brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: 'He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses'" (Matt. 8:16-17);

"Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed" (1 Pet. 2:24).

Furthermore, the Christians in the early church experienced miracles of healing as well. In fact, health and prosperity were objects of prayer for the believers: "Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers," the apostle John wrote in 3 John 1:2.

When we look at the healing ministry of Jesus, we must also recognize the vital connection we have with it: We are His body on earth today (1 Cor. 3:16). Therefore, we must exhibit the same passion for healing that we have observed in Him.

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