Are We Ready for the Ethics
Debate? Tuesday, February 1, 2005
What’s next Canada? I’m reeling with shock that I live in a
land where
family and friends can gather to celebrate that a 78-year-old ailing man
is going to kill himself the next day. The sad story of Marcel Tremblay,
who the Globe reports had a living wake at a Ottawa area Holiday Inn,
then went home and pulled a turkey basting bag over his head,
exterminating himself with helium while an approving family stood by and
watched, is just too bizarre to let go.
I feel rotten for heaping criticism upon this grieving family but
since
Mr. Tremblay himself stated at his press conference prior to his death
party that he hoped he would spark national debate, may I honor his
memory with exactly that.
We are a nation skipping along in Jiminy Cricket style whistling a
tune
that our conscience should be our guide on matters of deep moral
significance. We are the land where individual rights reign supreme, and
everyone writes their own tune on how this conscience will shape their
decisions. Mr. Tremblay and his family are just the latest example of
what awaits as we rapidly deconstruct the ethics of how we live.
As Parliament heads back to work today it receives immense moral issues
on the docket, and it’s time to take a collective pause to consider who
should be allowed to speak into our legislative conscience as it heads
for the future.
I was at a national church sponsored conference Saturday when a
Member of Parliament was introduced and asked to address the subject of how
Parliament intends to define marriage. His conclusion was that “job
preservation” was going to be affecting how the issue is ultimately
decided by Parliament, and while it may have drawn a chuckle and left a
voter feeling naively empowered, it still left me wondering if that is
all that decides how a conscience is educated.
To do as Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew suggested and
have
the church keep itself separated from this debate is like asking
Parliament to solve health care issues without consulting a medical
professional. When issues of morality are at play, representatives of
Christianity have full right to become part of the care and nurture of
federal decision-making.
Why? Because we have yet to find a standard for human rights and
behaviour that can be shaped for our ultimate good without appealing to
ideals higher than what humanity can create. Decades ago Dr. Sigmund
Freud said, “as regards conscience God has done an uneven and careless
piece of work" (New Introductory Lectures, 1933) This was before the
Nazis acting in good conscience created genocide out of human made
ideologies. Lawyer and theologian Dr. John Warwick Montgomery pointed
out flaws in human ethics at a Queen’s park lecture last week. The huge
dilemma of the Nuremberg trials, said Dr. Montgomery, was which system
of man made law and legal doctrine should prevail. The Nazis argued they
had followed their own system of law and legal doctrine, who were other
mere men to assault their decisions?
A similar argument is currently thrown at us in Africa. How can we
sit
by in 2005 while genocide unfolds in Sudan? Canada has supplied the
Darfur battle for peace with thousands of helmets and body armour vests,
15 helicopters and $40 million to feed and shelter victims in a conflict
that is claiming 35,000 civilians a month. Jan Egeland, UN
Undersecretary for Humanitarian Affairs predicts the civilian death
could soon grow to 100,000 a month. Our home-grown prophet of genocide,
Romeo Dallaire is calling for 44,000 troops to be sent into the Sudan
for action. Canada and the rest of the world, he warns, are on the brink
of criminal responsibility over these realities.
The media has not been enough to inform our conscience; in fact, it
shows we are fickle at best. Caring and moral as the tsunami crisis
showed us, but Darfur numbers twice the deaths of the tsunami toll, and
still our conscience cannot be moved.
So who will inform, educate and ultimately comfort our conscience?
Here’s the best that I think we can hope for. That the church will
actually be able to help our conscience form according to the teachings
of Jesus Christ. A helpful reminder of this is found in the work of Dr.
Karl Menninger, the famous healer who introduced psychology to the
public in the 1930's. He wrote his epic work, Whatever Became of Sin?
because he was worried the pulpits of the land were becoming morally
silent and it would only increase mental suffering and disease among
humanity. He begged the world to find its spiritual connection because
he wanted people to stop hurting, a complex moral quest which needs
answers outside of humanity.
I know it’s a risky thing to welcome a dialogue with faith on any
issue
that affects our lifestyles in Canada. I could fill a book of
fascinating stories where Christian zeal got moral truth horribly wrong,
but there is too much at stake for us to wipe out the beauty of God’s
patient dance with humanity. We are a country with a long history of
referencing the divine. The supremacy of God is acknowledged in the
preamble of the Constitution. The builders of Parliament chiseled ideals
of Christianity into stone on the walls that surrounded them. Those
truths have served us well and should continue to inform us.
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On April 30, 2005 Lorna was privileged to receive an honorary Doctorate of Christian Ministries from Canada's largest Christian university, Trinity Western University. Lorna was recognized for the witness and leadership that Listen Up TV has provided in public messaging: "a leader in the voice of evangelical life in Canada."
