Picture this scene: A person is sitting in a room. A member of the clergy is with them, offering them communion, with the classic formulation: “The body of Christ (given for you). The blood of Christ (shed for you).” Some other prayers are said. A few moments later, a nurse or doctor administers a lethal injection, killing the person.
Is this a scene from some disturbing dystopian movie? Sadly, no—it is the disturbing reality of the state of the Anglican Church of Canada.
The Basics: Do Not Murder
Christians believe that it is always wrong to kill an innocent person. Another name for this is murder. It is clearly forbidden throughout the Bible, a violation of commandment number six found in Exodus 20:13, “You shall not murder.”
What if the government says that, in certain circumstances, it is legal to kill an innocent person? Would that make it permissible? No—in fact this makes the situation worse, not better. The government is called to uphold God’s moral order and to protect the innocent and weak from the powerful. Therefore, to kill an innocent life legally is even worse than merely killing an innocent life illegally, for it is both murder and a violation of the government’s calling.
What about if the person wants to be killed? From a counselling and pastoral perspective, this complicates next steps—how do we help such a person? And further, how do we deal with those urging the person to request being killed? But from a moral point of view, the situation is fundamentally unchanged. The one killing the innocent person who asked to be killed is still guilty of murder, and the person asking to be killed is committing suicide. The sixth commandment does not have a loophole saying that you cannot kill other innocent people but you have the right to kill yourself. Suicide is self-murder.
What if a national church body, after following its rules and procedures, and much public deliberation and prayer, formally authorizes a rite in which the church’s blessing is pronounced over a person minutes before a doctor kills them, while insisting it is blessing neither the killing nor the decision? Is the killing of the innocent now justified? No—far from it. The killing is still murder, and the church that made such a decision is acting in blatant defiance of the Triune God and the clear teaching of Scripture.
Celebrating Communion With Bread—and Lethal Injection
For those of you who are not aware, the Anglican Church of Canada, after a period of formal and public discussion, through its Council of General Synod, has recently released a 60-page document called “Pastoral Liturgies at the Time of Death in Contexts of Medically Assisted Dying” for “trial use, evaluation and feedback.”
On one hand, this document seems quite Christian. Bible reading is encouraged. Many Scripture texts are suggested to be used as a part of a visitation or communion service. The Lord’s Prayer is to be prayed. Prayer is encouraged. Other evidence of seemingly genuine Christianity could be provided.
However—and this is a hugely significant “however”—the reality is quite different. In the Communion Service provided, after people have received the bread and the wine, there is a pause so the person can be killed. Sadly, this is not the first time we’ve seen Canadian churches try to find ways to accommodate physician-assisted suicide.
In one of the discernment prayers provided, the person deciding whether or not to be killed is compared to Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane. The minister is given encouragement to replace terms like “Father” and “Lord” with language more acceptable (without limit) to those present. Those performing the killing can be present in the service and hear words of absolution spoken over them. The person about to be killed can make a private confession, and as part of that, is told to pray, “[…] that I may live and serve you in newness of life […] to the honour and glory of your name” (12).
Please note that their words are carefully chosen. As well, the issue is not one of sincerity; the Anglican Church of Canada (ACoC) sincerely believes that they are acting in a way that glorifies God.
How can this be?
At bottom, the Anglican Church of Canada now believes in a different religion than historic, orthodox, biblical Christianity. It uses the Bible and has many Christian words, but they are in service to a different religion with a different gospel. It is the juxtaposition of Christian words while being a different religion that makes it hard for Christians to get their minds around what the ACoC does.
Here are four ways the ACoC’s guidance inverts the truth.
Four Inversions
First, they turn revelation upside down. The ACoC, underneath the Christian-sounding language, follows a sort of “natural human religious instinct,” so that, if one chooses to be religious/spiritual, then the task is to reach up, to attain to the divine, using whatever words or symbols fit with one’s journey. The words and symbols are flexible in meaning, what matters is what they mean to you.
In biblical Christianity, God is unknowable by humans apart from revelation, and we are dependent on him to reveal the truth about himself to us. The Bible is God’s written Word, and the Lord Jesus Christ is the Word made flesh. Our role is humble, penitent, obedient, active listening and reception. Revelation comes from God, not from sincerely felt spiritual intuitions. We receive all of the Bible in light of Jesus Christ and receive Jesus Christ in light of all of the Bible.
Second, they get authority upside down. The ACoC waffles back and forth between the individual person being the chief authority and the religious institution as the chief authority. This indirectly reveals their view of the Triune God of Christianity—he cannot be the ultimate and chief authority over your life or over any institution. This idea is simply assumed to be unworthy of any authentic spiritual journey. This is what happens when God is small and people are big.
For biblical Christianity, in the real world, there is a real God who is the Creator, Sustainer, Finisher; a sovereign God who reigns over all that is, visible and invisible, earthly and heavenly. He alone is the source and ground of goodness, truth, justice, and beauty. For biblical Christianity, God is big and people are small.
Third, they get the gospel upside down. Once again, the ACoC follows a sort of “natural human religious instinct and imagination” that frames the religious journey. In this paradigm, it is natural that the weak surrender, suffer, or die so the strong will thrive. This is seen in the chilling liturgies connected to Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID). The weak are to die for the sake of the family or the state in order that the family or state might thrive after the weak person has been killed.
The gospel is implausible to the “natural human religious instinct.” The gospel is the good news from God to humans that, at great cost to himself, God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, has died for the weak so that the weak will thrive in him. The MAID communion service may contain the words of a Christian communion service, but its entire context reflects the anti-gospel of the weak dying for the strong.
Fourth, they get language upside down. The MAID document is an unending stream of “cloaking and dissembling” by way of euphemism and misrepresentation, to hide the fact that in MAID, it is the job of the medical professional to kill you quickly. For example, the killing of the patient is called “treatment” (31), “medical procedures” (19), or “the care of the medical team” (20), and the choice to receive euthanasia is referred to as a “health care decision” (3).
The discipline of medicine has always been understood as one of healing and mending the body unto life, going all the way back to the Hippocratic Oath (“I will do no harm, […] Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course”). The taking of life is precisely the opposite of the entire purpose of medicine as a discipline, which is why the deployment of medical, healing language—”treatment”, “procedures”, “care”, “health care”—is so dishonest and pernicious.
To be blunt: ambiguity and euphemism are from the devil’s toolbox, and they have been systematically deployed in recent decades to blur Scripture’s boundaries and undermine moral clarity. For biblical Christians, Jesus is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). The Truth draws us to clarity and plain, honest speaking. The Lord wants us to be people of the truth, not people of the euphemism and the lie.
Conclusion
The ACoC is without excuse. In a way, the existence of this very document condemns them. Why? Because one only produces a document like this if one assumes people can read a text, understand what it says, and follow the rules of the authority behind the text. If only they applied that most basic level of reading comprehension and obedience with regard to the Bible’s clear moral teaching—teaching which is universally shared by all small-o orthodox Christians from the earliest church to today.
But it is rather easy to criticize—we must beware of making our own compromises and excuses.
That is the warning for us. To speak clearly against MAID might cost you, and cost your church. Are you and I prepared to have people leave our church or cut off contact with us because we speak about MAID with clarity? Pray we will bear witness to the truth with humility, clarity, conviction, charity, and hope, even if it means losing members or friends.
The task follows from the warning. In a country like Canada, with an advanced capitalist welfare state, there are three relevant roles that we can have. The first is the gift of clarity of language in a fog of euphemism and dissembling. The second is to be a centre of life in a culture increasingly embracing death.
Thirdly and finally—the gospel still works! Let us go and share the good news that the strongest of all died for the weak so that we, the weak, might live and thrive in him.
