Cascadia Journal

I have been watching an ongoing case in Oregon City, Oregon that involves a couple who let their 16-year-old child die.  In this case, the couple cites the fact that they are members of the Followers of Christ Church in Oregon City, which practices faith healing, as an excuse for killing their child.

While I do understand that there are quite a number of believers of quite a number of different sects of Christianity, it surprises me a bit that the beliefs of these groups can be so disparate.

A couple of years ago, we went through the Terry Schiavo case. This was the case of a lady in Florida who was being kept on life support, despite the wishes of her and her husband, because other family members claimed that their Christian religious beliefs forbade them from “pulling the plug.”  It became national news when the US Congress stepped in to get involved in the situation. The moral of the story there was that an ethical Christian would do everything possible, including some steps of questionable medical value, to prolong a person’s life for as long as humanly possible.

In Washington State, voters will be facing in the upcoming election Initiative 1000, which would allow for assisted suicide to be legal in Washington.  The major source of funding for the measure are Christian organizations and those who are making faith-based arguments against the measure.

However, in this case, Marci & Jeffrey Beagley, the parents, are arguing that it is exactly their Christian beliefs that should permit them to deny their son Neil the medical procedure he needed to save his life.  According to The Oregonian, an autopsy determined that Neil Beagley died from a blockage in his urinary tract, an intensely painful condition that caused his kidneys to stop extracting urea from his bloodstream and triggered heart failure. The medical examiner concluded that the blockage, which may have been congenital, easily could have been treated.

In this case, we are learning that an ethical Christian will, despite the fact that a simple medical treatment can prolong a life, will forgo that practical help and let a person die. In this case, we are told it is proper for Christians to deny treatment to prolong life, as this was God’s will.

I do understand that different sects of Christianity have vastly differing beliefs.  But some will claim that everything possible must be done to preserve life.  Others claim that, despite the fact that God has provided us with the miracle of easily attainable medical technology, they must ignore that unless God saves their child through some other miracle.

Please forgive me if I claim to not understand this “Christianity” that people speak so glowingly about. Do we prolong life, or not?  Do we put it all in God’s hands, or not?  Do we help our neighbors to meet their most basic needs, or don’t we?  Or is someone willing to come out and call these “Followers of Christ” what they really are.

Do we prolong life or do we let people die waiting for a miracle?  If we want to have it both ways, I am inclined to believe that folks will just do as they please, and hide behind Christianity as their excuse.