By Joseph Farah
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
I am convinced God uses
trials like the Terri Schiavo case to test men.
Pinellas County Circuit
Court Judge George Greer was tested – and found
wanting. He had seven years
to consider this case and got it wrong every
time.
I don't know Greer
personally, but I know many people like him. They go
to church on Sunday
and then between Monday and Friday lead lives with no
seeming connection to
what they hear preached in the pulpit, what they
read in the Bible, what
they claim to believe of the Christian faith.
This may be the biggest
single problem we have in America today – this
disconnect between the
spiritual lives of Christians and how they
practice their faith in the
world.
Greer, until recently, was a member of the Calvary Baptist Church
in
Clearwater, Fla. He left at the urging of Pastor William Rice,
who
counseled him wisely: "You must know that in all likelihood it is
this
case which will define your career and this case that you will
remember
in the waning days of life. I hope you can find a way to side with
the
angels and become an answer to the prayers of thousands."
Rice has
my highest regard for that decision. Too many pastors in this
country don't
require obedience to God as a prerequisite for church
membership. They seem
to believe in a kind of "cheap" grace that comes
with regular attendance or
tithing rather than a Christian walk. They
seem to have no minimal
standards for fellowship and communion with the
saints.
There are few
heroes in the Terri Schiavo scandal. Her parents and
siblings qualify.
Terri herself qualifies. Those who braved arrest to
bring her cups of water
qualify. And, in my book, so does Rev. William
Rice.
Do you want to
know why the church doesn't have influence and impact in
our increasingly
secular world today? Because there are too many
so-called Christians like
Judge George Greer and not enough like Pastor
William Rice.
Greer's
friends have attacked the church and defended the judge, saying
he was
interpreting the law to the best of his ability. However, if that
is true,
then Greer, as a Christian, had a duty to obey God's laws rather
than man's
laws. That would require him to leave the bench if he truly
saw a conflict.
Instead, Greer opted to leave his church – and,
presumably, his weak faith.
"Like evangelicals across the world, we are horrified at the thought
that
a handicapped woman could be, in effect, starved to death before
a
watching world," Rice wrote. Admitting he was not a legal or
medical
expert, Rice asserted: "I know right from wrong. I know what God
thinks
about human life. I know there is only one way to describe the
prospect
of starving a woman to death because she cannot feed herself. It
is
wrong."
Rice continued: "Morality and truth must serve as our guide.
Terri
Schiavo is not on life support. She is not dying. Good evidence
exists to
suggest that she is responsive. All she receives is food and
water, the
same as you and me. Are we to conclude that she is less than
human
because she cannot feed herself? Can a month-old child feed himself?
Is
an elderly patient stricken with some debilitating disease and unable
to
feed herself suddenly less human? Do we now use an IQ test to
determine
if someone possesses the right to live? Isn't that God's choice?
Only God
can give life, and only He should take it away."
"Tread
carefully if you think this is simply about a dying woman being
allowed to
die peacefully," Rice wrote. "Remember when we were told that
Roe v. Wade
was simply about helping women who had been raped or whose
lives were
imminently threatened? Today, few abortions fall into that
category, but
millions of human lives have been sacrificed upon the altar
of selfishness.
And the slide down the slippery slope continues."
In case Greer was still
confused, his pastor gave him more to think
about.
"This case seems
complex, but it is as simple as four words: 'Thou shalt
not kill.' If you
need a compass for this complex case, you'll find it
there," he wrote. "As
we all know, the Sixth Commandment means it is
wrong to murder – to take
the life of an innocent person without just
cause. If I were the nurse in
that hospice center and the directive were
given to me to discontinue
feeding a living human being and watch as he
or she starved to death, I
couldn't do it. I'd rather get fired, resign
or do something else."
Christians can go on blaming others for the problems we face in
this
country. Or we can go into the churches and start cleaning up the
messes
we have in our own houses of worship. It's time to take back
the
churches. It's time to renew the idea of standards. It's time to
make
church membership mean something again.
Judge George Greer did the
wrong thing. Pastor William Rice did the right
thing. If we had more
pastors like Rice, we'd have fewer judges like
Greer.
----------
"Let
your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how
you ought to answer every man." (Colossians 4:6)
http://www.InnGlory.org