Caring, not killing, in a throwaway society by Tom Eggebrecht

Word from the Center
Written By LCRL Staff

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We live in a throwaway society. Our culture values the latest gadgets, the newest cars and the trendiest fashions. Don’t like your iPhone anymore? Throw away the old one and spend many hundreds of dollars on a new one. No big deal. Your car needs a major repair? No need to take it into the mechanic. Throw it away and go get a new one. Human life? If it’s not convenient for you, just throw it away and get on with your life.

The latest statistics we have for abortions in America are from 2014. That year 652,639 legally induced abortions were reported by the Centers for Disease Control. Oregon’s Death With Dignity Act was enacted in 1997. Since then a total of 1,545 people have had lethal prescriptions written and 991 patients have died from ingesting these medications.

This may be how the world works, but it’s not how the Church works. The Church is not a throwaway society — quite the opposite. In 1992, the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod’s Commission on Theology and Church Relations (CTCR) published the document Christian Care at Life’s End. It’s a long read, but the seminal phrase of the document is this: “Christians aim always to care, never to kill.” Click here to read more.

Tom Eggebrecht is senior pastor of Ascension Lutheran Church in Casselberry, Florida. This article was first published in and is reprinted here with permission of The Lutheran Witness.

 

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LCRL Staff
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