Dignity and Death: Part I
In a landmark case on September 11, 2015, the California State Legislature approved a bill allowing for physician-assisted suicide. California Governor Jerry Brown signed the End of Life Option Act into law on October 5. The legislation now allows physicians to prescribe medicine for terminally ill patients to end their own lives. The political backdrop to this bill is interesting because the California...
Recommended Books (Winter 2016)
At the Helwys Society Forum we firmly believe that theology is for all of life. Leroy Forlines’s Biblical Ethics deftly explains how the four basic relationships (man with God, man with man, man with creation, and man with himself) are governed by the four basic values (holiness, love, wisdom, and ideals), bringing our entire life experience under God’s direction. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that many of our Winter 2016...
Recommended Books (Autumn 2015)
Orthodoxy (right teaching) and orthopraxy (right actions) are ever present concerns and topics of discussion for Christians. The New Testament is replete with pleas for the church to protect the sound doctrine that had been handed down to them and to live in accordance with the Scriptures. One generation later, Clement of Rome (ad 95) rebuked the Corinthian church: though they used to have “[t]he commandments and the ordinances of the...
Created in His Image: Ethical Concerns with Human Cloning
As Christians living in the 21st century, we face a number of issues for which Paul of Tarsus has no specific instruction. In the past few years, various biotechnologies have emerged from the realm of science fiction to everyday reality. This reality was pushed to the forefront when Ian Wilmut and the Roslin Institute announced that they had cloned the first large mammal (Dolly the sheep) in 1997.[1] That an adult sheep can be cloned...
Edmund Burke on Liberty and Virtue
Religion, law and morality interact with each other in ways that affect the church and culture. In scripture there are types of laws with each having their own purpose. What would happen though if ethics (morality) was no more than just personal choice and private sentiment? Edmund Burke (1729-1797), a leader in Great Britain during the time of the Revolutionary War, responds to this question: Men are qualified for civil liberty in...
Recent Comments