wfn.org | Dying people don't always look to pastors for comfort, panelists say

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Note #6212 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

11-October-2000
00350

Dying people don't always look to pastors for comfort, panelists say

Poll finds that ministers are often just bystanders at deathbeds

by Evan Silverstein

TOWSON, Md. -- The manner in which pastors treat death is as important as
the way they deal with life, according to a panel of theologians, doctors
and others gathered here recently for a consultation on end-of-life issues.

	The purpose of the Oct. 5-7 pastoral meeting, sponsored by Presbyterians
Pro-Life (PPL), was to encourage pastors to explore with theologians,
ethicists, philosophers, medical practitioners and other ministers the
pastoral role of the Christian church in responding to the needs of the
seriously ill and dying.

	"The pastor does not always show himself as the spiritual leader in the
lives of his flock," said the Rev. Robert Fleishmann, a panelist who is
national director of Christian Life Resources Inc., part of the Wisconsin
Evangelical Lutheran Synod in Milwaukee, Wis.

	"Why is that? Sometimes we get involved with our computers; sometimes we
get involved with our visits."

	The conference, held at Central Presbyterian Church in Towson near
Baltimore, featured a panel of about 18 representatives from the
Presbyterian, Lutheran, Catholic, Baptist, Methodist and Episcopalian
denominations. Their host, the PPL, is an independent, non-profit
corporation made up of members and pastors of the Presbyterian Church (USA),
whose commitment ranges from strengthening the bonds of family love to
protecting innocent life, according to the group's World Wide Web site.

	A Gallup poll in 1998 found that only one-third of respondents regarded
clergy as capable of providing the comfort and help needed at the end of
one's life. A large percentage of those under 25 years old expressed concern
about being forgiven by God or being cut off from God. People nearing death
most often seek support from friends and family, but the Gallup pollsters
concluded that families of dying people also need support and teaching from
the church.

	At a time when people have to make serious moral decisions about themselves
and their loved ones, pastors are finding themselves playing a diminished
role in providing spiritual and emotional support and spiritual direction,
Fleischmann said.

	"The problem is, if pastors don't begin to take the spiritual initiative
and the spiritual leadership in that capacity, they're not seen as players;
they're seen as bystanders," he said. "The sad reality is that there just
seems to be a lack of reinforcement" of what "is really the final authority
about life and death — namely the word of God."

	Terry Schlossberg, PPL's executive director, agreed.

	"We in the church ought to be concerned that the attitudes and decisions,
even of church-goers, are shaped more by an unbelieving culture than the
preaching and teaching emphasis of the church," Schlossberg told
participants on the consultation's first night.

	Ethical concerns related to how long medical treatment should be continued
and when decisions cross the line from moral to immoral also were debated.
As families agonize over tough decisions, often involving the issue of
evoking death, they may get "priestly" counsel only from medical personnel.
Churches are often at the far edges of counsel and care, some panel members
agreed.

	"I think it depends on what the motivation is," panelist Dr. Margaret
Cottle said when asked whether a terminally ill patient should be allowed to
decide whether to terminate his or her life to alleviate the suffering of
loved ones around them. "If the motivation for stopping whatever is
happening is to (simply) bring death, then I think it is not justifiable,"
said Cottle, a palliative-care specialist from Canada, who has presented
numerous workshops on integrating faith and care for the terminally ill.

	"If what you come to is the point where nothing is working anymore and you
are prolonging dying, rather than prolonging living, that's one thing," she
said.

	Allowing a person to die is sometimes permissible, but only under specific
circumstances, said J. Budziszewski, a political theorist and associate
professor in the Department of Government and Philosophy at the University
of Texas.

	"This does not mean that humane care, such as washing or feeding, may be
withheld or withdrawn," Budziszewski said. "It does mean that under certain
conditions, a particular medical treatment may be withheld or withdrawn."

	Budziszewski said four conditions must be satisfied before withholding or
withdrawing a medical treatment: the patient is dying; death is imminent;
the medical treatment is of an extraordinary nature; and the patient's death
in not directly the goal of withholding or withdrawing treatment, but merely
one possible result.

	The Rev. James R. Edwards, a PC(USA) minister and professor of religion at
Whitworth College in Spokane, Wash., said with regard to the prolongation of
life, "It means that I am free to relinquish my life to God as creator and
redeemer, when all further medical and technical support have no effect
other than postponing the inevitability of death."

	Edwards, speaking of euthanasia, called the application of procedures or
the withholding of procedures in order to end life or assist death "a moral
evil."

	"By playing the role of lord over life, rather than performing the service
of being a steward of life," he said, "(is) a presumption against the
sovereignty of God."

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