Rector's letter for July Fowey News

Dear Friends

I write this with a very heavy heart on the afternoon that Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide bill has passed in the House of Commons, with weakened safeguards following a committee stage lacking rigour and proper scrutiny, and a couple of days after MPs voted to decriminalise abortion up to birth. These are colossal social changes fundamentally changing the relationship between the citizen and the state.

I believe a rubicon has been crossed. Not only is it a tragedy but it is evil. We have enshrined death on demand in our society. It is a great sadness for our nation and returns us to a pre-Christian pagan culture in which life is cheap and disposable and in which only strength and power prevail. Whilst personal choice is something to cherish, a (perhaps unintended?) consequence is that the weakest and most vulnerable in society - the unborn, the elderly and the chronically ill - not only suffer but may be dispatched when inconvenient.

Christians believe we are all made in the image of God. It means that we are all extraordinarily and intrinsically valuable. It calls for compassion and kindness to those in difficulty and pain. And, deep down, I think we know that. That’s why, at great expense and risk, we don’t think twice about sending rescue teams up mountains or out to sea to attempt to rescue anyone who is lost – whoever they are. We seek to save lives regardless of nationality, gender, sexuality, age, religion, contribution or economic worth.  As one MP, in the debate on assisted dying, stated, “I do not want to live in a society where any person, including the terminally ill, is encouraged in the belief that their lives are not valuable and valued to their very last moments.” Indeed, I think we instinctively recognise the value of human life, from conception - think of the joy of an ultrasound for a couple longing for a child - to the grave - witness the millions donated to the hospice movement every year.

But such a view is the fruit of Christianity. The ancient world despised weakness and infirmity. Compassion was utterly strange, even ridiculous, to Roman ears. The ‘survival of the fittest’ existed long before Darwin. In fact, infanticide was so widespread in the Roman world that the first known treatise on gynaecology included a section, “How to recognise the newborn that is worth rearing.” If they did not make the grade, the advice was “expose it and try again.”.

For 2000 years of history infanticide has been regarded as wrong because they were 2,000 years of Christian history. But get rid of Christianity and the default position is the status quo ante.

Is that really progress?

with prayers for a better story to prevail, warmly,

Philip