Pastor's Corner

for Sunday Aug 23
What makes life valuable?
What makes you valuable as a person? What gives you the right to live? Does the amount you cost society make a difference? Does the impact you have on the environment make a difference? I ask this because there is steady effort to devalue human life at every level. Back in 2005 we had the Terri Schiavo case where her life was terminated because someone decided that her life was no longer important; that she didn’t matter anymore. Her death was the frightening yet logical result of a culture that has replaced God with moral relativism and so judge certain people to be "defective" and believe that their quality of life is not worth the effort or expense to preserve or maintain. It would be better, they say, for all involved if these “defective” (read old, sick, unproductive) people moved on quietly and peacefully. Just look at the new proposed Health program that would “ration” health care for evidence of this mindset. Now, a pair of scientists at Oregon State University, Paul A. Murtaugh and Michael G. Schlax, suggest that the answer to the environmental consequences of carbon emissions is to reduce the number of children born. They say that a child adds 9441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of an average female. Their theory is simple, having less children is the most effective way to reduce our “carbon foot-print”. What this means is that a person’s worth is reduced to the “quality” of their life, or cost effective criteria, or the size of their “carbon foot-print”. But here’s the truth, our significance and worth is given us by God. The bible says God breathed into Adam and he became a living being – we have God’s breath in us! God made us in His own image, nothing else in all of creation is created in the image of God, therefore, the world was made for us, not us for the world. We don’t dispose of people to enhance the planet. In fact, we use the planet to enhance the lives of people. EVERY PERSON is valuable and their life is significant and worth living simply because God gave them life and that’s enough reason for us do all that we can to improve the quality of their life and do what’s necessary to keep them alive.
Pastor Don.