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Have you ever felt like the decisions were killing you?
Have you ever been confronted by an issue with which you just did
not know how to deal? Of course you have. We all have.
Let me give you some "for instances." Example: your unwed
teenage daughter (still in high school) comes home with the news
that she is pregnant. She wants to have an abortion. What do
you do? Example: you are on a jury in a murder case. The
defendant is found guilty. Do you vote for the death penalty or
not? Example: your wife has just given birth to a seriously
deformed child. With surgery and constant care, the child may
live for twenty or so years, but they will be painful for all
concerned and will, no doubt, bankrupt the family. Do you tell
the doctors to perform the surgery or not? Serious questions,
everyone of them, questions not just of what would be most
convenient but questions of what is RIGHT, questions of ethics.
How do we handle things like that? Those are tougher than
sorting the potatoes. This morning I am going to give you some
guidelines, six steps you can follow when confronted by a really
difficult ethical decision. I will give you the six steps first
and then use one example to show you how they work.
Here are the steps. First, what does the scripture say
about the problem, if anything? The Presbyterian Church has
historically insisted that the Bible is our primary rule for
faith and practice. Thus, the Bible should be our first resource
for finding solutions to ethical dilemmas.
But, on some issues, the Bible does not provide any clear
answers. So the second step is to consider what the church
universal has historically said. For example, most Christians
agree that gambling is a problem, and controversy explodes in
North Carolina anytime someone proposes a state lottery, but the
Bible has little to say on the subject. However, the church
recognized early on that gambling was wrong and has fought it for
centuries. We should take that seriously.
Third, what has your own denomination said? There are some
situations on which the Bible has not spoken clearly and which
the church through the centuries has NOT spoken with one mind.
Abortion is an example. Some churches are violently opposed to
abortion (and the violence of the rhetoric has spilled over into
violent attacks on abortion clinics and healthcare
professionals). They say abortion is nothing short of murder of
the unborn, and the Bible clearly says THOU SHALT NOT KILL!
Other churches would agree that abortion is not an option to be
considered willy-nilly, but that the choice should remain with
the woman; the government has no business interfering. If you
are a Presbyterian and being Presbyterian matters to you, were
not quite sure what to think on this question of abortion, you
would be well served to see if your own church has a position to
provide you guidance.
Fourth, common sense. There are some issues which are so
individualized or so new that neither the Bible nor the church
universal nor particular denominations have provided clear
direction. For example, it was reported a few days ago that Dr.
Jack Kevorkian had just assisted in his 100th suicide. Should
the doctor have been charged with murder? He has been, several
times, but never convicted. Our sense of compassion might want
to say, if these people were so miserable that they saw suicide
as the only way out, who are we to judge? But common sense would
caution us against coming to such a quick conclusion since, with
questions about inheritance, rights of survivors, and the
possibilities of undue pressure, there is a terrible potential
for abuse here. Common sense tells us to BE CAREFUL!
Fifth, Christian concern. If we take seriously Christ's
commandment to love God and neighbor, and if we have no specific
guidelines from any other source, a good approach to an ethical
question would be to ask, "What is the most loving response in
this situation?" Christian concern will sometimes prevent us
from coming up with a too hasty moralistic answer to some
questions.
For example, this past year we have seen a good deal in the
news about cloning - some folks are horrified at the prospects,
others are excited about the potential good to be done. A few
years ago, there was a real-life story that had some of the
cloning elements. Do you remember the Ayala family?(1) Abe and
Mary Ayala were the parents of Anissa, a lovely young teenager
who had leukemia. Anissa's only hope was a bone marrow
transplant, but no donor could be found to match. So Anissa's
parents decided to have another baby with the idea of providing a
tissue match for the transplant. Little Marissa was the result
of that decision and at age 14-months, the operation took place.
Anissa's life was saved. Neither the Bible nor the church has
ever said anything about the moral acceptability of parents
conceiving a child in order to obtain an organ or tissue that
could save the life of another one of their children. The
technology is too new. Does our Christian concern tell us
anything about this subject or, for that matter, any other issue
that is not covered in Christian tradition? The Lord's law of
love must be considered in the decision-making process.
The sixth and final step is a request for guidance. As our
scripture says, "If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who
gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given
you." If you want to know how to sort those ethical potatoes but
have not been able to get any clear answer through any of the
other five steps, this is the court of last resort. Six
guidelines to help in coming up with a Christian framework for
making tough decisions.
Now, let us test them out with something that is currently
the focus of national debate...what to do about Saddam Hussein.
The question is a bit less urgent this morning than it was two
weeks ago, but two weeks from now, who knows? If Saddam goes
back on his word to Kofi Annan, after all the promises he has
made and broken before, should we say enough is enough and bomb
Baghdad back to the Stone Age to get this international outlaw to
shape up? OR...should we back off all together and let the
diplomats handle everything, no matter what? I realize that this
is a subject on which most everyone of you have an opinion - I do
too, and I will share it with you presently. But my purpose this
morning is not to argue the merits of the case, but simply to use
the topic to test our guidelines and their ability to help with
Christian decision-making.
Consider the guidelines now. First, what does the Bible say
about the subject? Obviously, nothing - Saddam was not around
when the Bible was written. The Bible does deal with the general
topic WAR. Throughout the Old Testament we find story after
story of war conducted, not only on God's behalf, but with active
divine participation. To be sure, this may have been simply a
reflection of primitive understanding, but the message surely
comes through that war is an acceptable option to fulfill
national aspirations, particularly if they are seen as being in
concert with the will of God. The New Testament is relatively
neutral on the subject of war. There is the realistic view that
war is a fact of life: "There will be wars and rumors of wars."(2)
There is no call for soldiers to lay down their arms, simply to
be fair and just in the performance of their duties.(3) (By the
way, passages about turning the other cheek which have been used
to justify a pacifist position are a misunderstanding of the
context(4) - those texts are about response to personal insult, not
national defense.)
What then can we conclude about war, against Saddam or
anyone else, from what the Bible has to say? Not a great deal,
actually. Scripture is not as definitive as we might wish.
We turn then to our second guideline. What has the church
universal historically said on the subject? Well, depending on
the times, it has spoken out of three sides of its mouth. There
have been times when the church has advocated all-out war, as for
example, during the Crusades when anything and everything that
belonged to the enemy was a ripe target for destruction. There
have been times when a pacifist position has been advocated - no
participation at all in armed conflict. But, for the most part,
the church has allowed for what have been termed "just" wars - a
last resort by a government to confront a real danger in which
the issues are so great as to justify killing and whose object is
peace, not conquest: the damage to be inflicted and the cost
involved are proportional to the good that can result and non-combatants are not to be harmed. The church has generally said
that kind of war is reluctantly acceptable.
The question we have to deal with in the 1990's, of course,
is whether or not, in light of modern weaponry, such a "just" war
is even possible anymore. Ever since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we
know that damage can now be caused on such a catastrophic scale
that there is no way non-combatants can be spared and that the
ultimate cost might be the destruction of the planet. The Gulf
War, even with the precise targeting of the smartest of "smart
bombs," still resulted in death and injury to thousands of
civilians. Thus, the historic position of the church in allowing
for a "just war" is called into question. Concerning Saddam,
statements in recent days from a World Council of Churches
delegation to Iraq, the National Council of Churches, the
International Policy Committee of the US Catholic Conference and
the Middle East Council of Churches all have called for a
humanitarian, not a military response, to the situation.(5) The
voice of the Church Universal is saying NO.
Move to the third guideline - the position of our own
denomination. To be sure, the Presbyterian Church in this nation
has, for the most part, reflected the views of the majority of
its members. During the Revolution, Presbyterian pulpits were
generally supportive of the Independence effort. The only
minister to sign the Declaration of Independence was a
Presbyterian - John Witherspoon. During the War Between the
States, Presbyterian churches in the South supported the
Confederacy while Presbyterian churches in the North supported
the Union. During Vietnam, along with the rest of the country,
our denomination was generally supportive of US policy in the
early days of the conflict, but reversed itself once it became
obvious that a grave mistake had been made. The Presbyterian
Church's position on Iraq is to deplore the regime of Saddam
Hussein but to focus concern on the suffering of the Iraqi people
brought on by the international trade sanctions and the loss of
innocent life that would inevitably result from bombing attacks.
In a letter to Presbyterians last year, General Assembly
Moderator John Buchanan called on us
The fourth guideline - common sense. Common sense tells us
that international bullies must be kept in check. Common sense
would say that sometimes war is necessary.
But there is another side to common sense. Story after
story, picture after picture, have come to us detailing the
awfulness of armed combat. And people DIE in the process!!! We
are only now beginning to learn of the health problems being
faced by veterans of the Gulf War - were they exposed to chemical
weapons or not? This week it was announced that all our troops
in the Middle East will be vaccinated against anthrax
poisoning...just in case. THAT side of common sense would say
that war is to be avoided.
What then does common sense tell us for certain about
dealing with Saddam? Our only conclusion must be that sometimes
common sense is not nearly so common as we might wish.
The fifth guideline - Christian concern. Again, this will
not be as definitive as we might hope. Our Lord's command to
love our neighbors might seem like an obvious demand for us to
protect and defend those who are in danger. On the other hand,
love for the neighbor might also be understood as an absolute
prohibition against ever taking up arms against anyone - after
all, even the most unlovable enemy is our neighbor too.
Christian concern on the one hand will be muted by an equally
strong Christian concern on the other.
Where does all this lead? On the basis of the guidelines,
it would seem that we are forced, as per our investigation, to
conclude that armed intervention in Iraq right now is not the way
to go - it might FEEL GOOD, but it would be WRONG. My personal
conclusion is that, in light of the realities - that Saddam would
not be harmed, that his ability to make mischief would not be
eliminated, that the only certainty is that civilians by the
boatload would be killed - we should shut our national mouth and
let the diplomats do as much as they can. If Saddam attacks,
that is another matter, but until then, let us keep our bombs to
ourselves. You may or may not agree with me, but this is the
position to which I come by following the guidelines.
The sixth and final step is the prayer for wisdom. The
ethical questions raised by war or abortion or capital punishment
or any of the other difficult issues faced by modern Christians
sometimes boggle the mind. The first five guidelines might
provide enough of an answer for you to sort those potatoes, but
there will be times when even a faithful trip through that
process will fail to bring you to a satisfactory conclusion. It
would be nice to think that wisdom will finally come with time,
but there are moments when we do not HAVE time - the decision we
make must be immediate. Fortunately, we have God's promise.
When we NEED wisdom, God will give it to us...just for the
asking.
Six steps to making tough decisions - First, what does the
Bible say? Second, what has the church universal historically
said? Third, what has our own denomination said? Fourth, what
does our common sense say? Fifth, what does our Christian
concern say? And sixth, what does the Holy Spirit say when we
come in prayer with a request for wisdom?
There is no guarantee that each of us will come to exactly
the same conclusions once we have gone through the steps. But if
we go through the process, at least we CAN be certain that we
have been faithful in seeking divine guidance as scripture
instructs us to do. "If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask
God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be
given you" - one more gift of a gracious and loving Lord.
Let us pray.
O God, we confess that some of the issues which confront us,
these hot potatoes, are almost too much to bear. We would rather
avoid them if at all possible rather than be forced to make any
decision. But we realize that sometimes the issues canNOT be
avoided. Help us in those hours to make decisions which would be
honoring to you and would be loving to those around us. For we
pray it in Jesus' name. Amen!
1. A motion picture relates the details of the story, "For the Love of My Child: The Anissa
Ayala Story (1993) 2. Matthew 24:6 3. Luke 3:14 4. Matthew 5:38-41 5. Alexa Smith, "Church Leaders Call for Alternatives to Military Attack on Iraq,"
Presbyterian News Service, via Internet, 3/1/98 6. John Buchanan, "Moderator's Letter to the Church on Iraq," Presbyterian News
Service," via Internet, 3/11/97
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