January/February, 1998 Volume XII Number 10

Progressive blindness in Oregon

by Paul deParrie

Measure 51 failed.
You probably read the insert in the November/December issue describing that defeat.
The question I keep getting is, "What next?" My answer is simple, "Cannibalism."
Yes, I know I have likened (and still liken) organ transplants to cannibalism, but I'm talking about straight-out using humans as food here.
In case you wonder how this could happen, I suggest you review a little history -- even just the history of this country since the 1960s. Progressive blindness describes accurately what you will see. The more a people embrace an evil, the less they are able to see the evil results of the evil they have embraced.
Just as those who walk in the Light are better and better able to see as they go, so it is with evil.
A good example is sex education. The more the program has been cranked up, the higher "teen pregnancies" have gone. Yet, when teen pregnancies go up, what is the solution? More sex education. Abortion has worked the same way. The more abortions performed to stop "unwanted pregnancies" (and thus, child abuse), the more child abuse has increased. The solution: make abortions easier to obtain.
I see the same dynamic at work in euthanasia. Some have told me that they believe that when people see the "abuses" of physician-assisted suicide (as though that were not an abuse in itself), that they will turn away from it.
I don't think so.
I suspect that the more abuses that are reported, the more people will relegate those incidents to being an abberation and the call for less and less restriction on euthanasia will only get louder and more sustained.
This is how evil works when it is embraced.
God says, "Those who hate Me love death" and He is right. The only exit is clearly marked "Repent!" The only hope is that God will be merciful enough to grant us the vision to see and the unction to obey that sign. And as sure as I am writing to you, we -- pro-lifers -- must be the first to respond. Once having done that, we must point the way for others. It won't make us popular. The world (and the Church) won't like it, but if God is going to bless us with repentance, we must be the ones who assist those who follow us on to our knees.
Jesus said that the reason the world hated Him was because He testified to it that their deeds were evil. (John 7:7) He also said that the world cannot hate us, because it is too busy hating Him. If we take up His words, the world will hate our words too because they are from Him. We cannot do other than stand. We have to keep standing before the world on its evil spirit of death -- and we must also stand before the Church on the same score.
The world has completely slid into the deification of death -- the Church follows behind by about 10 years. Already I hear the sound of waffle irons opening in Churches across the land.
"Oh, we can't expect pagans to live up to God's laws."
"Even God can't object to someone who is dying in extreme pain ending his own life."
"Well, it wouldn't be nice to just tell these people that they are evil."
And so many more-compassionate-than-God responses. Hear God's:

"I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables."
-- 2 Timothy 4:1-4 (KJV)