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“Parents and Doctors Together Should Be Able to Choose that the Child Should Not Live” – Dr. Peter Singer

Posted in commentary, Scripture on September 1, 2010| 4 Comments »

Dr. Peter Singer, in his own words, on infanticide and parents deciding the fate of their already-born children with disabilities (unfortunately, the audio and video get out of synch):

We should not quickly dismiss this man or his adherents.  He is an intelligent, well-spoken person, highly regarded for his philosophical integrity and his passionate commitment to animals.  He holds an important chair at Princeton, is widely sought out as a speaker, and frequently writes for influential publications like The New Times.

And in this short clip he is laying out a way of thinking that is very dangerous, most directly to children with disabilities but also to their families.

Under the guise of parental rights (who could be against that?), he allows parents and doctors together to make the best decision they can for a child with disabilities and their families.  He even believes they should go out and consult with other families raising children with similar disabilities.  It all sounds very reasonable, even humane.

But he is articulating an important and potentially deadly switch in how to think about children.

He is suggesting that parents will need to justify the existence of their child with disabilities AFTER the child is born.

There is no inherent dignity or personhood granted to this helpless, living baby – only if the parents choose to grant it, and really, only as long as whoever is powerful allows the parents to grant it.

And for those parents who choose to let their child live?  Society no longer has a responsibility for one of its members; it is left entirely to the family.

Sentimental arguments about the benefits we experience as parents of children with significant disabilities will not carry this day.  Dr. Singer has introduced the idea that everything is simply in the world of options and choices, with the powerful left to make those choices freely unencumbered by larger ideas or ideals of responsibility to the weaker.  If you choose to keep your child because of some perceived gain in happiness or satisfaction, other parents can equally decide to kill that child for the same reasons.  Every choice has equal standing, rather than every little human member, who has no standing until it is granted by some other human being.

Society is already training us in what we should do with a pre-born child when a disability is discovered.  With abortion rates as high as they are for children with certain kinds of disabilities, we know this includes couples who would call themselves Christians.

Parents are already finding they must justify their decision to let their child live when abortion was still an option.  Dr. Singer’s thinking about who gets to make important decisions about other human beings is winning in our culture, even if his specific ideas about infanticide are still considered abhorrent today.

Yesterday I quoted from Psalm 127 in which the Psalmist speaks of children as a reward.  Psalm 139 points to God’s sovereign work in ‘knitting together’ these children in the womb.  God himself shows us how to think about the most vulnerable amongst us.

So let us engage the right arguments for those who would kill these precious ones.  Peter Singer’s appeal to prideful, arrogant indulgence of the powerful against the weak is the real battleground.  Only Jesus will ultimately win that war.  That applies to my own heart as well as all its manifestations in society.

Let us not win a battle against infanticide only to lose the war against our children’s inherent dignity granted by a sovereign, loving God.

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Just a reminder – children are a reward. All of them.

Posted in commentary, Scripture on August 31, 2010| 1 Comment »

Here in Minnesota school begins this week for some, next week for the rest.

Our children with disabilities will be confronted with new therapists, teachers, bus aides and schedules.  Those of us who are parents will be confronted with IEP meetings and requests for updates on how the summer went for our children and any new complications in their lives.

I’m grateful for this reminder from Psalm 127 about how God wants us to think about all of our children.  And how he wants us to think about him.

1 Unless the Lord builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
the watchman stays awake in vain.
2 It is in vain that you rise up early
and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil;
for he gives to his beloved sleep.

3 Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
the fruit of the womb a reward.
4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
are the children of one’s youth.
5 Blessed is the man
who fills his quiver with them!
He shall not be put to shame
when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

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God breaks bones?

Posted in Scripture on August 26, 2010| 2 Comments »

I’m going to guess that this verse is familiar to you:

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Psalm 51:7

But the verse that immediately follows contains a surprising conclusion:

Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice.  Psalm 51:8

Bones God has broken should rejoice?  How is that helpful?

From Matthew Henry’s commentary:

Note, (1.) The pain of a heart truly broken for sin may well be compared to that of a broken bone; and it is the same Spirit who as a Spirit of bondage smites and wounds and as a Spirit of adoption heals and binds up.

(2.) The comfort and joy that arise from a sealed pardon to a penitent sinner are as refreshing as perfect ease from the most exquisite pain.

(3.) It is God’s work, not only to speak this joy and gladness, but to make us hear it and take the comfort of it.

Jesus himself said it was better for us to disable ourselves than have our sin send us to hell.  Anything that exposes the horror of sin and reveals the beauty and sufficiency of Jesus Christ, even God himself breaking bones, is an undeserved grace.

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Repost: The Big Bus Comes Again This Morning

Posted in commentary, Scripture on August 24, 2010| Leave a Comment »

This was first posted last September 8, 2009. Soon all our children will be off to school again.  And so yet another season trusting that God will help us and protect our boy begins.

For all of us with school-aged children, the day after Labor Day is when it all begins again.  An army of people, all listed on my son’s IEP with their official titles and the number of minutes each week he will work with them, will attempt to help him develop skills as much as he is able.

But his favorite part of the day is the enormous bus that will pull up directly in front of the house to transport him to his school, and then back again.  He loves the bus.  So it’s pretty easy to get him going in the morning – a reminder that the bus is coming is usually enough to have him pop up from his bed.

He’s been getting on that bus since he was three years old.  And every year I worry about the bus driver and the bus aides.  I won’t let him on the bus with a sole adult, even with credentials and a clean track record – my son is just too vulnerable.

So, every year I am confronted with my responsibilities to him as his dad, and the command to not be anxious:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:4-7

I must do both: carry out my fatherly responsibilities of protection; and not be anxious about anything. This is not a balancing act.

So, in a couple of hours, I’ll put him back on that bus.  And pray like crazy.

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Repost: Breathtaking reality of Jesus and Job

Posted in Scripture on August 23, 2010| 2 Comments »

First posted on March 11, 2010. Lord willing, our vacation is coming to an end and we’re on our way home as this is posted.  I am praying as I prepare this on Aug. 10 that I will have kept up the good and helpful discipline of devotions throughout my vacation. What a mistake it would have been to have all this ‘time’ and not spent it in his word for real help and refreshment!

I am using the One-Year Tract Bible Reading Plan to help me read through the Bible this year.

For March 9, there was this stunning, breathtaking reality right next to each other in the readings from Luke 23 and Job 38:

Luke 23:44 It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, 45 while the sun’s light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 46 Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last.

Job 38: Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:

2 “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
3 Dress for action like a man;
I will question you, and you make it known to me.

4 “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.”

We are as nothing before God.  How did we ever conceive of the idea that we could question God or his motives or his authority?  We were not there when he created all things, and we didn’t (and don’t) have the power to do what God can do.

But Jesus was there.

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

The Father gave us Jesus.  He who knew no sin became sin so that his righteousness could be given to us.  And that Jesus, knowing what he would experience in obedience to the Father, shouted at the most critical moment of all, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!”  Jesus knew he could trust his Father.

This is overwhelming.

We cannot compare to God on any level.  ’I do not do the good I want’ (Romans 7:19), while God “has distributed freely, he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever” (2 Corinthians 9:9).

And this God with that power to create out of nothing who grants us a savior we don’t deserve and a righteousness we could never, ever earn – this is the God we are ready to judge because he creates some who will live with a disability?

The One who has infinite knowledge, wisdom, power, authority, righteousness, holiness and justice should somehow subordinate himself to us because our puny, finite, limited sense of fairness says that God should only behave a certain way regarding disability?

We think we have that right to judge this God?  Based exactly on what?

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Repost: “I have a resolve to make Scripture verses part of Michael’s life.”

Posted in commentary, Scripture on August 22, 2010| Leave a Comment »

First posted on January 9, 2010:

A convicting and helpful guest post from my friend, Jan Lacher:

I have been incredibly inspired this week as I have listened to Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss.  The subject  over the past three days has been memorizing Scripture.

Usually, every morning, as I give Michael his medications and tube feeding, Revive Our Hearts blares across the radios in my home.  I typically listen to the program as I move from one room to another, going about my work getting Michael ready for the day. The  featured guest this week  has been a seasoned saint,  Nancy Epperson.

On Wednesday, the discussion between Nancy Leigh DeMoss and Nancy Epperson  peaked my interest, and I found myself nodding as they talked about all of the benefits of memorizing God’s Word. As a side note,  I have memorized some of our fighter verses over these past years.  I have had to learn them and relearn them.   I have taught my “normal” children fighter verses; although, I would argue that I did not teach them enough Scripture.  As Revive Our Hearts played, I contemplated how there has not been anything that I have done that has been more beneficial than memorizing the Word of God.  

My mind was swirling as I pondered the question that if memorizing parts of the Bible are so beneficial, why don’t I do more of it? Why am I not memorizing full chapters and possibly books? I certainly know the benefits and have experienced them.   Since Michael’s birth, I have been like a rock skipping across the lake as I have learned some verses and then having periods where I do not. For a variety of reasons, I have not been as consistent these past several years as I would like to be.   I sighed at the thought of the work that it would take to regain the momentum to do such a task as memorize verses and eventually chapters.

My attention was refocused on the program.  The two Nancys continued their discussion.   Then Nancy Epperson  said something that stopped me dead in the middle of Michael’s  feeding.  A segment from the January 6th transcript speaks for itself:

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Now, don’t go too fast past that because there are a lot of people who will say, “I can’t memorize Scripture.”

Nancy Epperson: They will say that, but can I tell you something? That is not true. It’s true people say it, but it truly is a lie hatched in the pit of hell that Satan loves us to think. The fact is, everybody can.

Now, listen. I’ll never forget this. About 35 years ago, I was at a church in Winston, Salem. They had a group of young adults who were very mentally deficient. They could barely articulate. They were severely retarded, severely. They got up in this church—I will never forget it as long as I live—they quoted verse after verse after verse with the reference—verse after verse.

I’m telling you, I knew exactly, exactly why they could do that, because some precious, dear saint had spent hundreds of hours with them. Those precious, severely retarded young adults just quoted and quoted and quoted. It was just such a blessing.

I realized then anybody honestly can quote Scripture if you’ll go over it enough times. Stop and think about it. Think of all the things you know from memory.

When I heard the story above, my heart jumped.  Michael falls into the severely to profoundly mentally retarded category. Plus, he is nonverbal.  We have no way of knowing what he understands and how he processes information.    We try to teach him simple commands that would aide in his care such as “lean forward” when bathing his back. And through the shear repetition of that command  and through physical prompting, he has learned to do so.   But, I must admit, I have not contemplated  teaching him  Bible verses.  Who knows what he could glean from the repetition of Scripture being spoken to him when he rises up and when he lies down?   Also who knows  how the Holy Spirit could  use it to strengthen and under-gird him in all of his difficulties?

After listening to this program,  I have come away with a renewed vision and a resolve to make Scripture verses part of Michael’s life.  He may never be able to quote the references and verses, but God’s Word does not return void. I am determined to get my hardhat on my head and do the heavy “work” of imparting Scripture to our sweet Fox.

(Note from John: Jan reported last week that she’s continuing to work with Michael on his verse.  What an encouragement to persevere!)

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Repost: Jesus is God-centered in why he heals

Posted in Scripture, Sermons on August 21, 2010| Leave a Comment »

First posted January 13, 2010:

I was blown away, again, by God’s purposes in healing the paralytic of his disability:

“But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic— “I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.” (Mark 2:10-11)

Do you feel the earth move at that statement?  Healing this man of his disability was certainly a good and kind thing, but it was not the main thing.  Jesus’ authority to forgive sins is the main thing.  And he healed him “that you may know” that Jesus has this authority.  This knowledge is a kindness extended to everyone, not just the one man who was healed.

So, it is good to fight the temptation to make physical healing the main thing in our relationship with Jesus.

And we see another example of this authority in John 5:1-18, the healing at the pool of Bethesda.  Pastor John helpfully provided this statement in a sermon on that passage:

Jesus seeks out the man in the temple and tells him the real issue in his healing. “Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, ‘See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.’” What’s the issue? The issue is holiness mainly, not health. “I have healed you to make you holy.”

I pray earnestly for my wife, that God would continue to hold her cancer at bay.  Praying for healing is a very good  and appropriate thing.  But it is a good thing only because it is subordinate to the main thing: Jesus Christ, my savior and my God.

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Repost: A ‘hermeneutic of suspicion’ because of disability?

Posted in Book Commentary, Scripture on August 19, 2010| Leave a Comment »

I love the word of God. This post from February came while I was reflecting on some very hard things about disability and the Bible.  I do not mean they were hard because they were difficult; they were hard because of how badly they treated God’s word. We must be ready to respond.

Hermeneutics is defined by Random House as:

  1. the science of interpretation, esp. of the Scriptures.
  2. the branch of theology that deals with the principles of Biblical exegesis.

A few years ago I was introduced to the term ‘hermeneutic of suspicion’ in the book, Copious Hosting, by Jeanie Weis Block:

“Therefore, scriptural exegesis of the disability passages begins with a “hermeneutic of suspicion,” asking a question not unlike the question posed by many feminist theologians when they inquire if Scripture, with its decidedly patriarchal bias, can be relevant and meaningful to women. Likewise, disability advocates must ask difficult questions such as: Do the Scriptures have an ‘ableist’ bias that ultimately oppresses people with disabilities?” p. 101

While it was buried 100 pages into the book, statements like that just jump off the page.  The arrogance that we have greater wisdom than the Scriptures is stunning – but very, very common.  And not new.

C.S. Lewis wrote a series of essays addressing the idea that we get to judge God and Scriptures rather than see ourselves as standing before God deserving his judgment.  He titled it, God in the Dock.   And he wrote those essays between 1940 and 1963.

We can keep going back into history.  I actually thought of the above quote from Weis Block’s book while reading Luke 6:

On another Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and was teaching, and a man was there whose right hand was withered. And the scribes and the Pharisees watched him, to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath, so that they might find a reason to accuse him.  Luke 6:6-7

The scribes and the Pharisees wanted to SEE A MIRACLE so they could accuse him.  Even observable evidence of omnipotent authority over creation only fueled their certainty that Jesus couldn’t be who he said he was. Talk about a hermeneutic of suspicion!

God does not fit into easy categories because only God is free and righteous and just and holy – all in infinite proportions.  When he says he creates some who are disabled,  he is speaking and acting out of his infinite depths of knowledge and righteousness, not our time-centered, sin-filled, finite perspective.

A ‘hermeneutic of suspicion’ of the Scriptures?  No, never.  Please, when certain passages are hard to understand, take the opportunity to dig deeper rather than become suspicious of the author and his authority to do whatever he wills with his creation.  For his glory and our good.

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Amazingly good news from the Psalms

Posted in Scripture on August 13, 2010| 1 Comment »

I was listening to another lecture on suffering and the lecturer paused on vs. 23 of this passage from Psalm 73:

21 When my soul was embittered,
when I was pricked in heart,
22 I was brutish and ignorant;
I was like a beast toward you.

23 Nevertheless, I am continually with you;
you hold my right hand.
 24 You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will receive me to glory.
25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.  Psalm 73:21-26

I remember acting like a beast toward God – NEVERTHELESS – God held my right hand.

I was using my son’s disabilities as an excuse for sinful bitterness and angry responses to God – NEVERTHELESS – God used this same boy and his disabilities to reveal how ugly and destructive that bitterness is in light of how beautiful Jesus is, and then planted in me the desire to lay down that bitterness forever.  He continues to help me when the seeds of bitterness start to grow again.

And because he holds me (and you if you are in Christ!), nothing can take me from him:

38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 8:38-39

Thank you, Jesus!

P.S.  The lecture I reference above was quite good, but it is part of a much longer series.  Before I recommend it, I’d like to make sure they continue to handle the scriptures well.

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Put to death things that some will say you deserve

Posted in Scripture on August 11, 2010| 2 Comments »

I was given the privilege of a few minutes with a man God has made into a great man of the faith.  Mitch Pearson lost his wife to cancer just a few months ago; God is sustaining and helping him.  God is his hope.  I am greatly encouraged when I see men standing on the promises of God.

He shared some of the bad advice he’s been given by well-meaning people.  Having experienced both cancer and disability in my family, some of it was familiar, such as people granting us a license to sin in bitterness or anger or selfishness or immorality because of the circumstances we live with.

Paul would have none of  that.  And he knew more than a little about suffering.

Yet he wrote boldly to the Colossians in how they should behave toward their sin and toward each other:

3 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. Colossians 3:3-11

Yes, disability is hard.  Yes, people don’t “get it” and say or do foolish, hurtful things.  Everywhere I look – church, home, school, work – something could be improved or people could behave better or . . . . .

Paul’s response:  all of this is true.  Now, kill your own sin.  Put away your anger and malice toward others.  Stop your grumbling.  And bear with one another.

My response:  that’s impossible.

Paul’s reply: of course it is impossible.

7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Romans 8:7-8

But with Christ, all things are possible:

9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. Romans 8:9-10

And we do not fight in our own wisdom or strength or ability.  We are God’s!

12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.  Colossians 3:12-17

Malice is my particular temptation out of that list above.  My antenna are acutely tuned to any sort of bad behavior against my boy on the part of others; I’m ready to assign bad motives immediately.  And I’ll nurse that malice, quietly feeding it while harboring murderous thoughts.  And that doesn’t make much of Christ, even if I ‘deserve’  better.  Which, of course, I don’t.

Ironically, when I ask God for help in killing my sin, I become a better advocate for my son and for changes I hope God would provide in the situations and institutions around me.

Thank you, Mitch, for standing on promises of God above your hard circumstances.  Thank you for encouraging me to kill my own sin.

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