RE: some news

[Judy Redman]

Title: Message

 

 

Meeting told support for euthanasia growing
A Melbourne Uniting Church minister has told a public meeting in Adelaide that high numbers of people from all religious denominations support the idea of voluntary euthanasia. READ ON

What McNab is not reported as saying (which is not the same as 'did not say') is that most thoughtful religious people would want to be very careful about how voluntary euthanasia was permitted, but I think he's right - most Christians who have had to stand by and watch someone they care about die in great pain when their suffering might have been relieved are not keen on a blanket ban on voluntary euthanasia.

I, too, get cross when a very conservative Christian stance which is held by a very small number of Christians is presented as 'the Christian position'.  A colleague and I seem to have won on this one with the Monash Bioethics people.  We attended an intensive which they run every year where a Catholic moral theologian was presented as providing 'the Christian position' on abortion and euthanasia.  Since we were both there in our roles as ministers of religion on research ethics committees, we said on a number of occasions "excuse me, but we're Christians, too, and we have come to a different position on this issue, also on the basis of our reading of Scripture". 

I was pleased to notice that on the programme for this year's intensive, there was acknowledgement that there is no one Christian position on biomedical ethical issues.  So, at least in some areas, it is worth protesting!

Judy

--
"There is no socially and politically neutral theology; in the struggle for life and death, theology must take sides." - Miguez Bomino

Rev Judy Redman
Uniting Church Chaplain
University of New England
Armidale 2351
ph:  +61 2 6773 3739
fax: +61 2 6773 3749
web:  http://www.une.edu.au/campus/chaplaincy/uniting/
email:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]