A Cup of Water for Terri: Part I

VisionForum ^ | 3/30/2005 | Doug Phillips

[XR7]

If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? (James 2:15-16)

When you sit down for dinner tonight and enjoy a nice meal with your family, please remember that Terri Schiavo, though hanging onto life by a thread, is still starving to death. Please remember that, at this precise moment, her body hungers terribly, and she is suffering from gross dehydration. Remember that she is starving to death by court order. Remember that the court ordered her to die even though she breathes freely without life support and smiles and responds to human interaction.

Remember also that 59% of evangelical Christians told TIME Magazine that they believed it was acceptable for her to be starved and dehydrated.[i] When you remember this, consider also the words of the Author of our Faith, the Lord Jesus Christ who said:

And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a disciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his reward. (Matt. 10:42)

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. (Matt. 25:40)

On Our Watch

Our generation is presiding over the single greatest legal and cultural attack on the biblical family in the history of Christendom. One out of four Americans are not here. They were aborted by their parents.[ii] For the first time in the recorded history of the West, a generation of children is emerging which may never know a world in which marriage is recognized as one man and one woman for life. The ethical chaos and war on the family seems to know no boundaries. We are now told that it is merciful and dignified to starve women and children even our very parents simply because they are dependent, infirm, disabled, or handicapped. Before our very eyes, we are daily confronted with ever-more horrifying legal and cultural triumphs of the proponents of the culture of death and their relentless war on the weak. All of this is happening on our watch.

My thesis is this: Whether or not the present war on the weak blossoms into a full-blown, irreversible culture of death has more to do with the ethics and character of the Church of Jesus Christ than it does with the rise of humanism, post-modernism, or any other ism. The Church is the centerpiece of history, the salt of the earth, and the primary means for restraining evil and blessing nations. When the people of God are faithful, focused, and unified, nations prosper because we are not, chaos reigns. (Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people, Proverbs 14:34.)

There are few significant statistical variances between the behavior of professing Christians and non-Christians on issues of family and life. A recent Barna report indicates that there are no fundamental differences in the training of children between Christians and non-Christians within our society.[iii] In the thirty-two-year wake of Roe v. Wade, we have witnessed the widespread acceptance by Christians of the belief that children are a burden, as well as the related acceptance of the use of abortifacient contraceptives. (No one knows the millions of souls that have been aborted by Christians simply through their use of the Pill.) Not surprisingly, TIME Magazine now reports that a majority of evangelicals support the forced dehydration and starvation of Terri Schiavo.[iv]

How this generation of pastors and parents respond to the murder of Terri may be one of the most important legacies we leave to our posterity. We must confront these issues head on, or we will risk searing the collective conscience of American Christians regarding the sanctity of life, thus opening a philosophical and legal floodgate of euthanasia, assisted suicide, and privatized eugenics in the form of ruthless killing of the disabled, the handicapped, the elderly, and the unwanted members of our society. The purpose of this report is to help believers sort through the relevant ethical issues.

Deciphering the Terri Schiavo Case

There are five things you must know about the crime which is ongoing in Pinellas Park, Florida: First, an innocent woman is being cruelly tortured and murdered contrary to the law of God, the law of the land, and the law of the state. Second, those individuals most complicit in the torture and murder of Terri have diabolical agendas. Third, there is an immediately available biblical, constitutional, and legal remedy. Fourth, the inability of Christian attorneys and leaders to reach a biblical consensus on the meaning of the rule of law has rendered our efforts to save Terri impotent, has spread confusion within the body of Christ, and will be the undoing of our legal and political efforts in the future unless it is resolved. Fifth, they are coming next for you.

Stay Tuned for Part II

Footnotes
[i] The TIME Magazine Poll asked this question of evangelical Christians: "Do you agree with the decision to remove Schiavo's feeding tube?" Fifty-nine percent said yes.

[ii] According to National Right to Life, more than forty-six million abortions have been performed since the Roe v. Wade decision. During this same period, the Center for Disease Control reports 120 million live births (see www.cdc.gov). Thus, 27% of American children have been aborted.

[iii] Barna Update, February 28, 2005, Parents Describe How They Raise Their Children. In this report, George Barna notes that the faith commitment of parents made surprisingly little difference in how children were raised: You might expect that parents who are born again Christians would take a different approach to raising their children than did parents who have not committed their life to Christ but that was rarely the case, Barna explained. For instance, we found that the qualities born again parents say an effective parent must possess, the outcomes they hope to facilitate in the lives of their children, and the media monitoring process in the household was indistinguishable from the approach taken by parents who are not born again.

[iv] See endnote [i] above. In addition to 59% of evangelical Christians supporting the removal of Terri Schiavo's feeding tube, a startling 69% indicate that they would want their guardian to remove their feeding tube if they were in this same condition as Terri

[XR7]

My heart aches.

Where do we, as a culture, go from here?

[reformjoy]

What can we do?

"Stop Hillary"

Clinton-appointed judges created this monster.

And a President Hillary Clinton will surely clone
the creation.

**Clinton Term 3 = The TERRORS Begin**

[dino1955]

Awesome post!!

[Outland]

"Where do we, as a culture, go from here?"

Well, one may prefer to sit on their hands and say, "Just pray... God will fix everything."  But why would God help those who don't help themselves?

 

And one who says, "Who cares?  It's someone else's problem".... until it's their problem and they wonder why any effort to fix things is too little, too late.

 

And one who complains, "There are more important issues to deal with."... until those non-important issues smack them in the face.

 

And the one who says nothing at all as they tune out the world's problems in their closed little worlds...  until their world is next.

 

The few who care are aware.

 

Most likely, where we'll go from here is further down that slippery slope because of all the ones who won't join the few to be part of a many.

Good post, XR7.

[Outland]

Sorry.. I have no idea how I posted that to dino1955.
My apologies.

[schmelvin]

...a startling 69% [of evangelical Christians] indicate that they would want their guardian to remove their feeding tube if they were in this same condition as Terri.

I couldn't help but think this:

guardian = God

feeding tube = life

same condition as Terri = minimally conscious (spiritually)

People need to be really careful what they ask for.

[TheCrusader]

"The ethical chaos and war on the family seems to know no boundaries."

There's no doubting it, all hell has been loosed on earth, and America has become so secularized that most folks don't even know what's going on yet. We have government sanctioned and enforced starvation of a disabled woman and people are saying, "I don't see anything wrong here". This is scarey.

Every time the Courts have trashed our culture and our moral traditions with some vile ruling, like legalized abortion or homosexual 'marriage', or ruling in favor of terrorists in Guantanamo, or banning the Ten Commandments, I have said, "it can't get any worse than this, there's no where to go but up". But it keeps getting worse, and worse, and worse, and ..........

[Aussie Dasher]

My thoughts and prayers are constantly with Terri.

What's happening is a crime against man and God!

[devolve]

Personal Injury - Disabled - Hospice Care - Accidents
Medical MacPractice - Wills - Trusts - Whack & Fall
Mediscare - Criminal Defense - Tax Shelters
Spontaneous Comas - Estate Scamming

FELON & FELON - LLC

LET U$ GIVE YOU INNER PEACE

[PhilDragoo]

[runtrunt19]

i think the judges should turn all legal matters over to Treei's parents because her husband is with another woman and has kids by her it's like he doesn't love her and he wants her to die may God be with Terri and her husband will get what he diservies

[Zechariah_8_13]

XR7, thanks for the post.

Bruck, thought you might be interested.

[VoiceOfBruck]

Thanks, this is just sickening; I'm praying for a miracle here.

[Zechariah_8_13]

Remember also that 59% of evangelical Christians told TIME Magazine that they believed it was acceptable for her to be starved and dehydrated.

Correction: 59% of SELF-DESCRIBED evangelical Christians.

[XR7]

Correction: 59% of SELF-DESCRIBED evangelical Christians.

i.e.: CINOs?