Over at The Gospel Coalition, I respond to Rob Moll’s controversial suggestion that Christians should endorse federal funding for end-of-life counseling. The conclusion:
If I might close with a slightly broader point about Christian discourse on this issue, as Christians our political imagination has been stunted by our adherence to contemporary discourse. With respect to health care, the question within the last year has always been what the government should—or should not—do. If end-of-life planning for Medicare patients is a good that would ease our government’s financial burden and improve the welfare of its people, then as Christians we should spend less time being preoccupied with whether the government should pay for it and instead get down to the business of providing it.
One line that has been rolling around in my head the past few days is a modified version of 1 Corinthians 7:30, where Paul suggests we are to “mourn as if not mourning.” In one sense, we are to die as if not dying. How that should play out in a technocratic era is obviously a matter of some debate.
Matthew Lee Anderson
Matthew Lee Anderson is an Associate Professor of Ethics and Theology in Baylor University's Honors College. He has a D.Phil. in Christian Ethics from Oxford University, and is a Perpetual Member of Biola University's Torrey Honors College. In 2005, he founded Mere Orthodoxy.
