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Wesley J. Smith: A Dark Mirror on Society

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Kervorkian and his death machine

The death of Jack Kevorkian by natural causes has a certain irony, but it is not surprising. His driving motive was always obsession with death. Indeed, as he described in his book Prescription Medicide, Kevorkian’s overriding purpose in his assisted-suicide campaign was pure quackery, e.g., to obtain a societal license to engage in what he called “obitiatry,” that is, the right to experiment on the brains and spinal cords of “living human bodies” being euthanized to “pinpoint the exact onset of extinction of an unknown cognitive mechanism that energizes life.”

So, now that he is gone, what is Kevorkian’s legacy? He assisted the suicides of 130 or so people and lethally injected at least two by his own admission (his first and his last); as a consequence of the latter, he served nearly ten years in prison for murder. But I think his more important place in contemporary history was as a dark mirror that reflected how powerful the avoidance of suffering has become as a driving force in society, and indeed, how that excuse seems to justify nearly any excess.

Thus, while the media continually described him as the “retired” doctor who helped “the terminally ill” to commit suicide, at least 70 percent of his assisted suicides were not dying, and five weren’t ill at all according to their autopsies. It. Didn’t. Matter. Kevorkian advocated tying assisted suicide in with organ harvesting, and even stripped the kidneys from the body of one of his cases, offering them at a press conference, “first come, first served.” It. Didn’t. Matter. And as noted above, he wanted to engage in ghoulish experiments. It. Didn’t. Matter. He was fawned over by the media (Time invited him as an honored guest to its 75th anniversary gala, and he had carte blanche on 60 Minutes), enjoyed high opinion polls, and after his release from prison was transformed by sheer revisionism into an eccentric Muppet. He was even played by Al Pacino in an HBO hagiography.

Kevorkian was disturbingly prophetic. He called for the creation of euthanasia clinics where people could go who didn’t want to live anymore. They now exist in Switzerland and were recently overwhelmingly supported by the voters of Zurich in an initiative intended to stop what is called “suicide tourism.” Belgian doctors have now explicitly tied euthanasia and organ harvesting. In the U.S., mobile suicide clinics run by Final Exit Network zealots continue unabated despite two prosecutions, as voters in two states legalized Kevorkianism as a medical treatment.

Time will tell whether Kevorkian will be remembered merely as a kook who captured the temporary zeitgeist of the times, or whether he was a harbinger of a society that, in the words of Canadian journalist Andrew Coyne, “believes in nothing [and] can offer no argument even against death.“

Wesley J. Smith is a senior fellow in the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism, and a legal consultant for the Patient’s Rights Council.

An Open Letter To Orthodox Anglicans

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Source: Journey to Orthodoxy Highlight:

Years ago, my search for historic, English Christianity led me to read the Ecclesiastical History of the English Church by the Venerable Bede. What did I find? An early encounter between the evangelist Saint Augustine, and English king Ethelbert struck me as somehow strange: Augustine’s companions carried images of Christ, painted on boards – (icons) as they are commonly known.

That’s strange, I thought – that’s what Greeks and Russians do, not English Christians.

The reasons soon became clear. Until the eleventh century, the English Church shared more than a love of icons with the whole body of the Church: they shared a communion of beliefs, moral practice, and liturgical life with the Church throughout the world. This lasted for centuries, but it was not to last forever.

I was born and raised a proud Anglican. For generations, my family were patrons of churches, ardent monarchists, and defenders of all things English and Christian. So why did I leave Anglicanism nearly two decades ago, to travel a slow but sure path to the historic, Orthodox Church?

Years ago, my search for historic, English Christianity led me to read the Ecclesiastical History of the English Church by the Venerable Bede. What did I find? An early encounter between the evangelist Saint Augustine, and English king Ethelbert struck me as somehow strange: Augustine’s companions carried images of Christ, painted on boards – (icons) as they are commonly known.

That’s strange, I thought – that’s what Greeks and Russians do, not English Christians.

The reasons soon became clear. Until the eleventh century, the English Church shared more than a love of icons with the whole body of the Church: they shared a communion of beliefs, moral practice, and liturgical life with the Church throughout the world. This lasted for centuries, but it was not to last forever.

Even after the Schism of 1054 – the division between Rome and the rest of the Christian world – England remained in communion with the Eastern Orthodox. In 1066, the Norman Invasion, with backing from the pope of Rome, forced the submission to Frankish Rome of all English churchmen. Rome had already broken communion with the Orthodox East, and changed the Creed and the Conciliar tradition of the Church by elevating one bishop – the Bishop of Rome – above all others.

Why did the English remain in communion with the Orthodox East? Not because the English (and the Irish, Scots, and Welsh, as we would call them today) disliked Rome. The English church was part of the Orthodox church, from its beginnings, until ?he purge of Orthodox bishops following the Battle of Hastings.

The English were Orthodox, I realized.

So, why am I not?

Centuries later, by the time of the Reformation in the sixteenth century, England was ready for another division over the question of the national sovereignty of its religious life.

The English knew almost instinctively that something was not right with the idea of a single, Roman bishop claiming to rule the whole of Christendom, yet this issue became entangled with the desire of one English king -Henry VIII – to have a male heir. When the dust settled, England had a new religion, one which was no longer under Rome, one which was in communion with no one else in Christendom, one which had not returned to the Eternal wells of Christ’s historic Church.

Why does all this matter? It matters because the Church is the Bride of Christ. Since the Lord has only one Bride, it is not possible to come and go from the mystical union of the Church, and still be part of Her. Divisions are not simply matters of working out local issues and personal opinions: they are questions of eternal importance, questions of whether one is part of the Bride of Christ – His Church – or part of some other body that pretends to be so, based on certain reinterpretations of history, and personal slants on theology or moral questions.

It sometimes comes as a shock to people, that Orthodox Christianity doesn’t recognize rites and sacraments of Rome or of the Anglicans. Why is this? It arises out of the fact that when communion is broken, and beliefs are changed, new religions are formed. One African Anglican bishop recently suggested that North American Anglicans are not simply accepting diverse beliefs as they consider blessing same-sex unions: they are in fact creating a new religion. This is precisely the way historic Orthodoxy views the Schism of 1054, when Rome left the historic Church, and the further splintering of the Reformation.

Ironically, both Roman Catholics and Anglicans recognize the legitimacy of the Orthodox Church, the integrity of its teachings, its preservation of the eternal mysteries of ancient Christianity. Yet in the name of diversity, any western Christians simply ignore this fact, since it raises difficult questions, such as where is the Church? and why am I not in it?

The Orthodox Church recognizes that liturgical life forms beliefs, as well as reflecting them. The old Christian axiom, “lex orandi, lex credendi” holds true: the law (or rule) of worship is the law of belief. The two cannot be divided. When the Orthodox see liturgical revisions in Rome and among Anglicans, it is seen as inevitable that these both reflect and shape new beliefs. The outcome of this is clear to many faithful Anglicans and Roman Catholics: innovations in theology, as well as moral teachings, such as the questions of the priesthood, sexual morality, capital punishment, divorce, cremation, and the definition of marriage.

Queen Elizabeth the first prided herself on not inquiring into men’s hearts, opting instead for unity of communion over unity of belief. The Anglican faith has spent five centuries in this mode. Rome is essentially this way today. Orthodox Christianity is not, and never has been. It preserves unity of doctrine, practice, and belief with those in the Church today, as well as all the saints throughout the ages, because the Orthodox Church exists eternally, outside time, and is not just an anachronism.

Conversely, Anglicanism is built on the tradition of change, which cannot protect her from innovation. Traditional-minded Anglicans, fleeing redefined marriage or the ordination of women, cannot expect to find a safe harbour among so-called “continuing Anglicans”, or in the modern Church of England itself: they are based on the same revolutionary spirit of the Reformation. The only safe harbour for those who in their hearts seeks the historic Church is to return to the historic Church: the Orthodox Church.

Orthodoxy has been preserved in the face of centuries of persecution at the hands of pagan Rome, Islam, and Communism , and has faced down heresies for twenty centuries. Its Biblically- rooted worship preserves the same spirit as the earliest centuries of its existence. The same faith that brought the world the Holy Scriptures and defended its truth against heresies continues to run through its veins. It is unchanging and eternal, because it is the Bride of an Unchanging and Eternal Husband. It cannot recreate the early Church, because it is the same Church, alive and struggling, and giving life to our troubled and changing times.

The English tradition is Orthodox. The true roots of Anglicanism can only be found in Orthodox Christianity. Augustine of Hippo told the faithful that we will never find rest, until we find rest in Christ; likewise, restless Anglicans will never find rest from the ever-changing storms of modernity until they return to the historic, Orthodox Faith. Canadian and American Anglicans in particular know the insecurity of spiritual lives lived in the shadow of modern pop culture, ever changing with the tides of popular opinion, fad, and fashion. Where can we find Christ, eternal and unchanging, the Alpha and the Omega?

The fact is, the historical reality of Christ’s Church remains undivided and unchanging, waiting with quiet patience for those who would return to Her for rest, stability, the fullness of Truth and joy. How long will those who are thirsty for this continue to visit empty wells, and remain restless and unsatisfied? The search for the Eternal cannot find satisfaction in hundreds of man-made sects, all reflections of the temporary world of our century, or centuries past. Christ has given His historic Church to the world, to preserve her in this sinful generation, and it is only in Her that the fullness of Christianity can be found.

Father Geoffrey Korz is priest of All Saints of North America Orthodox Church, an English-language mission parish of the Orthodox Church in America.

Met. Hilarion: The Problem of Religious Intolerance. What Can We Do Together?

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Metropolitan Hilarion

Source: Department for External Church Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church

Highlight:

At present we are experiencing a new era of persecution against Christians, which some compare to the time of the Roman emperors of the first three centuries. People in problem-free countries know nothing or do not want to know anything about it. Only a handful of public and human rights organizations are trying to draw public attention to this disastrous situation.

Paper by Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, Chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations, at the International Conference on Christian-Jewish-Muslim Inter-confessional Dialogue (Budapest, 2 June 2011)

Distinguished Participants in the Conference,

Allow me to present to you my remarks concerning problems of the free confession of faith in the world and in some of its parts and on religious cooperation in this area.

The freedom of conscience is a fundamental and commonly accepted human right affirmed in all the international human rights conventions without exception. Any persecution of a person on the grounds of faith is not only inadmissible but also utterly immoral. Precisely for this reason the European community and international organizations have long exerted every effort to oppose the spreading of such phenomena as Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. This stand is aimed to assert justice and rule of law in society so that believers may feel protected. This attitude is even more relevant in the light of intensive migration processes resulting in a change in the religious and ethnic picture in Europe. Thus, in 1992 in Western Europe there were over 7 million Muslims; in 2004 in the European Union there were already 15 million Muslim residents. At present there are up to 24 million Muslims living in Europe. And we can see that the authorities in European countries are doing a lot to make newcomers and native Europeans of Islamic background to feel not social outcasts or second-rate people but people enjoying equal rights and freedoms with all the others, including in the religious sphere.

However, this situation is not prevailing in each country and region in the world. In the 21^st century we have come to face cases of persecution against Christians, beginning from infringement on their civil rights to physical violence and killing. According to the data published in this mid-May, today at least 100 million Christians are subjected to persecution and discrimination in the world. At least one million of them are children. This cannot but raise our profound concern.

At present we are experiencing a new era of persecution against Christians, which some compare to the time of the Roman emperors of the first three centuries. People in problem-free countries know nothing or do not want to know anything about it. Only a handful of public and human rights organizations are trying to draw public attention to this disastrous situation.

I will remind you that about 1, 5 million Christians used to live in Iraq until 2003. Now they are no more than a half of this number, while those who have remained in the country fear for their life every day. Since last October when terrorists burst into a Syrian Catholic cathedral in Baghdad killing 52 people, the Christian community in Iraq have lived in constant fear of new attacks and terrorist actions.

Reports about the oppression of Christians come from Egypt, Sudan, Afghanistan and other countries. The notorious legislation ‘on blasphemy’ enacted in Pakistan is sometimes used to doom Christians to death or to put them in prison.

The idea of violence and disrespect for other religions is alien to Islam, which is a peaceful religion. The Quran clearly states that the existence of other religions of biblical tradition along with Islam is Allah’s will. The Islamic Holy Book affirms that every religious community is tested in what it was granted from above. These communities are called to compete in good works, while a deep sense of their differences will be revealed only in the eschatological perspective (Quran 5:48). The Quran points to the need to respect ‘the people of Scriptures’ – both Christians and Jews.

There is another aspect of the problem of persecution against Christians, which must be mentioned. It is linked with the idea of Christianity generated in the Islamic world by ill-considered and sometimes even ill-intended actions by extremists and various charismatic sects. Let us remember the pastor from Florida who committed sacrilege towards the Quran. There are also sectarian movements engaged in aggressive activity disrespectful to local traditions among Muslims. All this leads to a distortion of the image of Christianity, just as the actions of Islamic sects present a corrupted image of Islam.

Noticeably, the cases of persecution against believers do not involve only Christians but also Muslims and Jews. The undeclared war against muftis in Russia’s Northern Caucasus has become a real tragedy. I will remind you that among its recent victims is the chairman of the Muslim Board for Kabardino-Balkaria, Anas-haji Pshihachev. We cannot but recall the death of Shiah Muslims in Iraq and numerous victims of terrorist actions in Israeli cities.

Today we can ever more clearly see that there are forces in the world which are interested in fomenting interreligious strife and creating hotbeds of instability. For these purposes, modern information technologies, social networks and indoctrination methods are used. We can oppose to this evil will our endeavour for peaceful coexistence and resolution of conflicts on religious grounds.

Now as never before it is important to enter into intensive interreligious dialogue for enabling each community to bear witness to its faith and tradition and to strengthen good-neighbourly relations and mutual understanding. I believe this dialogue should not be limited to general statements and calls not committing anyone to anything but should become a real contribution to relieving the situation of believers. Religious leaders should oppose intolerance towards Christians, Muslims and Jews. No such case should remain unnoticed in the flow of daily news and events. We all in our places are called to do all that depends on us. Only in this case the voice of people of faith will become a convincing and powerful voice of truth. I am aware of the active position taken by the Conference of European Churches and the Council of Bishops’ Conferences in Europe who have called the EU countries to resolute actions against discrimination of Christians on the globe. During the Passion Week, Catholics around the world prayed for the persecuted Pakistani Christians.

There are a number of human rights organizations based and successfully functioning in Europe. They specialize in monitoring the situation with regard to intolerance on the grounds of faith including the situation of Christians and in giving material and legal aid to those who have been subjected to persecution.

I cannot but note the position taken by the Republic of Hungary. Hungary is among those countries which have repeatedly drawn attention of the European community to the act of aggression committed against the Copts in Egypt on the 1^st of January 2011. It was during the chairmanship of Hungary in the European Union that the EU Committee of Ministers instructed the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Ms Catherine Ashton, to report on the steps taken by the EU for protecting the freedom of faith. It is my conviction that Hungary will continue to initiate and support the adoption of documents for protecting Christians on European and global levels. Among the already adopted documents is the European Parliament’s Resolution of January 20, 2011, on the Situation of Christians in the Context of Freedom of Religion and the similar resolution adopted by the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly.

In my view, Russia’s experience can prove helpful in opposing intolerance on religious grounds. In our country, Christians, Muslims and Jews have lived as good neighbours for centuries. In the history of Russia there have been no wars on religious grounds. In today’s Russian Federation, Muslims, who are a religious minority, enjoy no lesser rights than the Orthodox Christians who are a majority. In addition, the state in a number of cases gives Muslim communities more assistance than other religious organizations. For instance, there are programs of the state’s financing the Islamic education and pilgrimages to Mecca.

It is gratifying that it is in Hungary that we discuss so an important and sensitive task as protection of freedom of religion in the world. The people of this country set an example of commitment to their own historical religious and ethical tradition while recognising and respecting others. An important testimony to this is Hungary’s new Constitution adopted by the parliament in April 2011, stating that the Hungarian people are united by ‘God and Christianity’ and sealing the principal ethical postulates shared by the society.

In conclusion of my remarks I would like to underscore once again that a pro-active position of religious leaders and their moral authority in society and among believers can help reverse the alarming tendency in the sphere of freedom of religion in a number of countries in the world and serve as a testimony to the lofty ideals of good, justice and love for both those who are near and who are far.

Medved: Does It Matter if only 1.4% of People are Gay?

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Source: USA Today | Michael Medved

The nation’s increasingly visible and influential gay community embraces the notion of sexual orientation as an innate, immutable characteristic, like left-handedness or eye color. But a major federal sex survey suggests a far more fluid, varied life experience for those who acknowledge same-sex attraction.

The results of this scientific research shouldn’t undermine the hard-won respect recently achieved by gay Americans, but they do suggest that choice and change play larger roles in sexual identity than commonly assumed. The prestigious study in question (released in March by the National Center for Health Statistics and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) discovered a much smaller number of “gays, lesbians and homosexuals” than generally reported by the news media. While pop-culture frequently cites the figure of one in 10 (based on 60-year-old, widely discredited conclusions from pioneering sex researcher Alfred Kinsey) the new study finds only 1.4% of the population identifying with same-sex orientation.

Moreover, even among those who describe themselves as homosexual or bisexual (a grand total of 3.7% of the 18-44 age group), overwhelming majorities (81%) say they’ve experienced sex with partners of the opposite gender. Among those who call themselves heterosexual, on the other hand, only a tiny minority (6%) ever engaged in physical intimacy of any kind with a member of the same sex These figure indicate that 94% of those living heterosexual lives felt no physical attraction to members of the same sex, but the great bulk of self-identified homosexuals and bisexuals feel enough intimate interest in the opposite gender to engage in erotic contact at some stage in their development.

A One-Way Street

Gay pride advocates applaud the courage of those who “come out,” discovering their true nature as homosexual after many years of heterosexual experience. But enlightened opinion denies a similar possibility of change in the other direction, deriding anyone who claims straight orientation after even the briefest interlude of homosexual behavior and insisting they are phony and self-deluding. By this logic, heterosexual orientation among those with past gay relationships is always the product of repression and denial, but homosexual commitment after a straight background is invariably natural and healthy. In fact, numbers show huge majorities of those who “ever had same sex sexual contact” do not identify long-term as gay. Among women 18-44, for instance, 12.5% report some form of same sex contact at some point in their lives, but among the older segment of that group (35-44), only 0.7% identify as homosexual and 1.1% as bisexual.

In other words, for the minority who may have experimented with gay relationships at some juncture in their lives, well over 80% explicitly renounced homosexual (or even bisexual) self-identification by age of 35. For the clear majority of males (as well as women) who report gay encounters, homosexual activity appears to represent a passing phase, or even a fleeting episode, rather than an unshakable, genetically pre-determined orientation.

The once popular phrase “sexual preference” has been indignantly replaced with the term “sexual orientation” because political correctness now insists there is no factor of willfulness or volition in the development of erotic identity. This may well be the case for the 94% of males and 87% of females (ages 18-44) who have never experienced same-sex contact of any kind and may never have questioned their unwavering straight outlook — an outlook deemed “normal” in an earlier age.

‘Let Go’ of One in 10

For the less than 2% of men and women who see themselves as gay, however, the issue of sexual orientation remains vastly more complicated. Within a month of the release of the CDC/NCHS report, one of the world’s most respected think tanks on gay life confirmed some of its most surprising findings, without specifically referencing the recent government study. UCLA’s Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy offered a new estimate of homosexual identification: concluding that 1.7% of Americans say they’re gay, and a slightly larger group (1.8%) identified as bisexual — by definition attracted to both genders and shaping their sexual behavior through some mixture of inclination and preference.

Brad Sears of the Williams Institute defended the accuracy of these numbers, suggesting gay leaders “let go” of previous, unrealistic estimates of homosexual orientation. He told the Associated Press that “with other populations of a similar size of 2% to 4%, we don’t question whether there are too many or too few.” For instance, no one suggests Jewish Americans should be treated with contempt or dismissed as irrelevant to the Christian majority because they number below 2% of the U.S. population. Nor would the news media shy away from reporting that in an age of religious conversion, choice plays a role in adding to and subtracting from the Jewish community.

Religious identity arises from birth, upbringing, instinct, even destiny, but the fact that it almost always includes some element of choice doesn’t entitle the believer to less respect. By the same token, it’s no sign of hostility or homophobia to point to recent data suggesting that life experience and personal decisions play roles alongside inborn inclination in the complex, sometimes inconclusive, emergence of the gay and lesbian identity.

Michael Medved, author of The 5 Big Lies About American Business, hosts a daily, nationally syndicated radio talk show.

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