Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth for the Colson Center. I'm John Stone Street. For over 2,000 years, the church has carried three precious gifts to the bedsides of the dying. Repentance, hope, and the promise that Jesus Christ has indeed conquered death. Specifically, the Anglican tradition, through confession, anointing, holy communion, and the accommodation of the departing soul, has borne witness that in life and in death, the redeemed belong to Jesus Christ.
Recently, however, the Anglican Church of Canada authorized a trial-use liturgy for those who choose medical assistance in dying or MAID. Rather than proclaim God's word, this new liturgy attempts to revise it. Though there is one paragraph that attempts to distinguish between blessing the patient and blessing the act of suicide, it's quite difficult to see any substantial difference here between the doctor that is administering a syringe and the priest who is anointing with oil. Liturgy is never morally neutral. When the church prays, the church teaches.
The communal worship of a church is theology in action.
So to surround a medically scheduled death with scripture, confession, anointing, Eucharist, blessing, and prayers of commendation is not just a mere accompaniment. It tells this dying person, as well as the family, the congregation, and a whole watching world, how this act should be understood. Among the foundational doctrinal standards of the Anglican tradition is the Thirty-Nine Articles, which teaches that, and I quote, it is not lawful for the Church to ordain anything contrary to God's Word written. That principle, of course, is not uniquely Anglican. It expresses the shared conviction throughout Orthodox Christianity that the church is to serve as a steward of divine revelation, but never as its editor.
And that's why this controversy points to a much larger crisis. Across the Western Church, long-settled biblical teaching concerning marriage, sexuality, the sanctity of life, and the uniqueness of Christ is increasingly treated not as divine revelation to be received, but as a tradition that can be revised. Increasingly, the church behaves as though she possesses the authority to reinterpret what God has already settled. But she does not. The apostles never viewed themselves as innovators.
Paul described himself as a, and I quote, steward of the mysteries of God. A steward doesn't rewrite the master's instructions. He faithfully delivers them. Likewise, the church's authority has always been ministerial, not magisterial. She speaks under God's word, not over it.
Whenever the church blesses what God forbids or refuses to distinguish between obedience and disobedience, she ceases to exercise Christ's authority and begins exercising her own authority. The deeper tragedy is not simply that therapeutic culture has influenced Christian theology, but that the church has presumed to reinterpret what God has clearly declared. That life is a gift from him. Whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's, wrote the Apostle. Our lives belong not to ourselves, but to the God who made us, redeemed us, and will one day raise us up again.
Of course no Christian should minimize suffering. Jesus never did. He wept at Lazarus' tomb. He healed the sick and comforted the brokenhearted. Christians should fight to strengthen palliative care, support families, relieve pain, and ensure that no one suffers alone.
But compassion is not just the alleviation of suffering. It has to remain tethered to what is true. Love does not only ask what relieves pain, but also what honors the Lord in life and in death. When detached from truth, compassion will first become sentimentality, but then rebellion that's disguised as mercy. And the Bible calls this false worship.
Israel's gravest sins were often committed not by abandoning worship, but by corrupting worship. That same spirit is at work whenever the church takes what God has instituted and then bends it to serve what God has forbidden. Every great heresy repeats the question that was first whispered in Eden, did God really say? But the wisdom of the age will never save the age. The church's calling is never to improve upon divine revelation, but always to proclaim it faithfully.
We don't honor Christ by blessing what he forbids, nor do we love our neighbors by surrendering God's truth to the spirit of the age. No the church has been entrusted with a sacred stewardship. We're not to rewrite the gospel. We're to proclaim it, to call sinners to repentance, to announce the Lordship of Jesus Christ, never to sanctify human autonomy. That is what our authority has told us, and it is enough.
For the Coulson Center, I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint. Today's Breakpoint was co-authored with Michael Craven. If you're a fan of Breakpoint, leave us a review wherever you download podcasts. And for more resources or to share this commentary with more people, go to breakpoint.org.
