Ethical dilemma

I really like NPR. Growing up, it was always on the radio. Recently, I heard this story. It is about doctors in Haiti faced with ethical decisions.

Do you sacrifice one person in order to save many more? The main dilemma involves a chronically ill woman who needs oxygen in order to survive. The doctors, mostly American volunteers, believe that she will need oxygen for the rest of her life. There are other patients in the hospital that also need the oxygen. They have less chronic diseases and will probably only be on oxygen short term. The resources are scarce. If she is given oxygen other patients will be denied that oxygen. Is it right to deny her oxygen, which will probably cause her death, so that more patients can receive the oxygen? Is her life expendable so that other patients can be saved?

Ultimately that is what the directors of the hospital decided to do. They transfered her to a "local" hospital and took her off of oxygen. They were not around to see if she lived or died. Since they could not legally deny her treatment if she stayed at their hospital they decided to transfer her to a hospital where she might or might not find adequate treatment.

This is one of those situations that I always think is such an dilemma. Does she have a right to oxygen? There is only so much to go around and she will always need it. You can save her life with the oxygen, but you could also save the lives of many more patients if you denied her the oxygen and kept it for future, as of yet unknown, patients. What would you do? I think I would make the same decision that doctors made. Although, I might regret it for the rest of my life. In the article they said that the same hospital later treated a 15 year old boy with a similar issue. However, they were able to get him flown to a hospital in Florida where he received surgery that corrected his problem so that he can live oxygen free for the rest of his life. Did her sacrifice of oxygen save his life?

My only real qualm with the decision made is that the person who was "responsible" for the final decision never actually met the woman. He sentenced her to death and yet he never met her. I suppose it's easier that way, but I feel like it is less moral. If you are going to say it is morally acceptable to sacrifice one person for the benefit of many than you at least need to be able to look that person in the eye.

On the upside, the woman did not die when she was transfered and the report said that her prospects were looking up, even though she did not have oxygen.

What would you do?

Guns are bad

I just read this article in the Telegraph (a newspaper from the UK). Apparently, during a lavish wedding celebration the uncle of the bride was very excited and got his gun out to fire a celebratory shot and he ended up shooting the groom in the head. What was supposed to be the happiest day of this woman's life ended up being the saddest.

I grew up in Louisiana where people thought that firing guns was a great way to celebrate all sorts of things. Every year on the news there were stories of people being killed by the bullets on their way back down.

Of course no one meant to hurt anyone, but guns are designed for causing harm, they are not designed for the thrill they give people. (Although, I cannot say that there is or is not a thrill as I have never shot a gun myself). If people had decided to use guns for their intended purpose these people would still be alive today. I'm not very pro-gun, but I understand that people have a right to have guns, especially for hunting, however, firing guns, even up into the air, in crowded situations does not sound very smart to me.

I am saddened because people die unnecessarily every year.

How I met your mother

So in all my spare time, I am watching a lot of TV (online of course!) I talked about my addiction with Torchwood in an earlier post. But now I am watching How I Met Your Mother. (HIMYM) One reason was that at a conference some time ago someone told me that HIMYM was the best sitcom ever! With such a high recommendation, I figured I might as well watch it.

The show's premise is that the main character, Ted, is telling his children the entire story of how he met their mother. The show revolves around the dating adventures of Ted and the other main characters. One of the characters, Barney, played by Neil Patrick Harris is fascinating. He is a 31 year old self-proclaimed bachelor for life (I'm only beginning season 2, so perhaps he changed... but somehow I doubt it - and if he did - don't tell me!) The reason I find this character interesting is that in almost every episode his goal is to have a one night stand with a beautiful girl that he meets in a bar. He is every girls worst nightmare (well mine at least). An attractive, successful, intelligent man that seeks out meaningless sex.

The character is funny, and as I've said before I really like the show, but still I wonder about this character. I know that in California it is considered rape if the girl is drunk. I'm not sure about the laws in New York, where the show is set. However, the fact is that Barney repeatedly makes comments about making sure the girl is "drunk enough" or other such things. It makes me wonder if this character is not just a man who is having a lot of one night stands, but also a serial rapist. In our society we don't consider that sort of interaction "real" rape. I have always imagined rape as a stranger who grabbed you walking down the street and the forces himself on you in some dark alley. However, that is NOT the reality. Most rape victims are raped by someone they know. I wonder if taking our obsession with sex and quick fulfillment is not encouraging the belief that it's okay. However, it's not okay. With that here is a video from Youtube that will be used in the final week of my WCC project.

Innerancy of the Bible?

In my job search I came across a school looking for an Admin Assistant. I thought, why not. Closer look at the website and I find this statement:

"There is one book of truth: the Bible, God’s written revelation to man, authoritative, reliable, inerrant and without need of any other document(s) to complete its message."

Needless to say, I decided not to apply. Yet, it got me thinking about different views of the Bible. If people truly believe that the Bible was plunked down on Earth by God in modern English just so that we could understand how sinful we are, they are seriously misguided.

The first and most obvious problem of the above statement is that the Bible is translated. We have ancient texts that are a collection of different versions of letters or books that people wrote thousands of years ago. They were written in languages that no one speaks today and even the best translators are just guessing as to what some of the words mean (just look at some of the footnotes in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament), especially Psalms. Do you really think the books of the Bible were translated without any other books? Were the translations also divinely inspired? That is just the most obvious flaw with the belief that the Bible is perfectly clear and does not need to be read in a very intentional academic way to understand the full meaning for both us and the original intended audience. (This does not mean that I don't think the Bible should be read devotionally, I just don't think this is the only way it should be read.)

This idea was backed up by a recent article in the New York Times. The author said this: "I know that this will offend some Christians, but the notion that Scripture is perfectly clear is wishful thinking, as a recent white paper prepared by the All Saints’ clergy demonstrates. The writers of the four Gospels don’t agree on even so simple a thing as which people were present at Christ’s empty tomb." If the gospels thought that even that detail could be changed in order to make the point more clear means that we can and should see the Bible as a lens through which to understand Jesus. If we only look at the literal meaning we are missing most of the Gospel, if not all.

There is also an interesting article in the New York Times Magazine about the Texas School Board and their influence on the curriculum in most other states. The Texas School Board has recently elected a near majority of Christian Conservatives with the clear agenda of changing the curriculum requirements in Texas, which because of the way textbooks are distributed, would effectively change the curriculum of 46 or 47 other states. Clearly this is an effective way to change the curriculum around the country. The people planning this understand that the students in the classroom will be in government and every other sector of life in a generation. If you can shape the basic principles that they learn you can change the way the whole country is run. School board is an elected position, that has a very low voter turn out - so the actual process of change is much simpler than electing someone to more high profile position. Of course, these Fundamentalist Christians are the same type of Christians that are running that school that I did not apply to. Perhaps someday we'll be teaching the inerrancy of the Bible in public schools one day.

Written for Episcorific

Okay, so I wrote something for Episcorific, which is this "zine" for/by young adults in the Episcopal Church. It's pretty cool - I have been meaning to submit something to them since I first heard about it last year, but hadn't gotten around to it. In effort of my shameless promotion of my WCC project, I wrote something about Lent and violence. I thought I would share that with you. With no further ado:

I’ve been thinking about Lent 2010 for a long time. This is not a season that snuck up on me this year. The main reason is that I’m part of a team that is developing “Cries of Anguish, Stories of Hope: A Lenten study on the Worldwide Struggle to end Violence Against Women.” (You can check out the study http://women.overcomingviolence.org).

When I told some of my friends at Church here about this project, one quipped that “you’ve found a way to make Lent even more depressing.” Lent is depressing, but it’s depressing because our world is depressing. Lent is the time when we focus on the sins of this world. Lent is a time to understand our own complicity to these problems. Lent is a time where we look for Jesus’ love despite these problems. We look all the problems square in the eye and say “you cannot win.”

During my research and planning for this project I have learned about atrocities all over the world. Human trafficking is the most profitable black market industry in the world – with estimations going as high as $32 billion a year with over 27 million people currently enslaved. On average in South Africa a woman is raped every 26 seconds. In India, 21 women of the Dalit Caste (“untouchables”) are raped each week. In the UK, the police estimate that 95% of rapes are never even reported. In the US, it is estimated that between 2 and 4 million women are assaulted every year by their partners. I did this research – I found all this information, yet the image that I see when I close my eyes is a girl in a pink shirt playing in the dirt in front of her hut in the Democratic Republic of Congo while you can hear her father saying that she will have to be a prostitute because no man will want to marry someone who is tainted. She was raped while gathering firewood. Her attacker, while jailed for a few months, will go free. I see her face and her tears every time I close my eyes to think about violence against women. Hers is the story that I cannot forget.

Yet, as much as these stories are appalling what I am struggling with is my own place in the picture. What am I doing to contribute to or bring an end to violence against women? Am I ever complicit? I know I have thought, or even said that perhaps a woman could have done something to avoid being raped. As if she brought it on herself. I have believed that only “weak” women stay with abusers. If women were stronger they would just leave him. I have looked the other way when I see a girl being harassed on the street. I have failed to speak out when a man talks to me inappropriately in a bar, hoping he’ll just go away. My work to eliminate violence against women is a drop in the bucket. What am I doing in this depressing situation? Where is God in this?

Lent is the time that the Church sets aside for us to remember and focus on these tragedies. We do this, not because God is absent in all of this, but because these tragedies are precisely where God is. God’s love for people extends beyond the worst that can possibly happen. Jesus came into the world to give people the ability to live in hope despite our tragic circumstances. Despite all the facts that I listed above, God is here with us. God is giving us hope to face the terrible situations and make something better out of them.

If we lived in a rosy, perfect world we wouldn’t need Lent. If the only problems in our lives are who will organize the Parish Pot luck next week or where we’ll go on vacation next summer we would not need Lent. Lent is a time for us to look around us and look around the world at the serious problems. A time for us to understand the problems. A time for us to immerse ourselves in the problems. We have Lent to be depressed about the world.

Luckily, for us and the world, Lent is not the end, but only the beginning. We have Easter to live out the rest of the year. When we truly understand and relate to the seriously depressing situations in the world we can rejoice even more loudly that Jesus conquers all. Jesus is Lord.

Churchianity?

I just discovered this blog.

Here is a quote from it:

It [Modern Church] promotes churchianity—the practice of making belief in Jesus largely focused on the habits and demands of the institutional church (doctrinal purity, religious behavior), rather than on God’s love.

So true! I see that all the time in churches I go to. It is more important to appear "religious" than to actually love people as God loves us. All I want to do is learn how to do that. I try, but I can't seem to go beyond what makes me comfortable. I signed up to volunteer here and perhaps that will help me. I'm going to be volunteering at a homeless services center. They do breakfast and clothing and financial advice. I'll see how that goes. I'm looking forward to it, and hopefully it will help me steer clear of the temptation of "churchianity."

Honestly, I think the fear of this sin is one of the reasons that I have not yet started seminary. I'm not 100% sure that I'd be going because I want to learn what God is calling me to - or because it would be the ultimate "right" thing to do in the Church. Go be ordained - there's nothing better than that, right? Perhaps I'll find out my own motivations as I get closer to deciding.

It would be so nice if going to Church and serving all the nice people at Church were what God intended for the Church. But instead I worry about social injustice and those that have so much less than the our abundance in the US. I see God's desire for justice. "Churchianity" is a tempting idol because it looks good. Especially in the US where "going to Church" is such a nice thing to do (I grew up in the Bible Belt - so it was the norm). Yet, if we were really following the Gospel and living like Christ we would not be "nice" at all. We would be prophetic and we would change our world. All you have to do is look at Jesus. Living out God's love got him killed by the Roman's.

Churchianity - it's a tempting sin. Pray that I, and all Christians, can avoid it.