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.
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"Let your speech be always with
grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every
man." (Colossians 4:6)
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