Written by K. C. Ellis |
Monday, January 1, 2024
In Q&A at a 2021 training session by the Canada Association of MAiD Assessors and Providers, a physician asked Dr. Kevin Reel—the president of the Canadian Bioethics Society—what a doctor should do if a patient sought MAiD “because of socioeconomic reasons.” Dr. Reel replied that of course the physician didn’t have to administer MAiD, but he would “have to refer the person onto somebody else, who may hopefully fulfill the request in the end.” I shudder for those who, unlike my grandpa, lack loved ones to advocate for even basic social assistance and are instead funneled through a bureaucracy of death. The conversation around MAiD puts front and center the questions of what makes life worth living and, by implication, in what circumstances a life might no longer be worth living.

My Grandfather died last October. In some sense, his death wasn’t a surprise—at almost ninety, he’d dealt with increasing health issues and not-infrequent hospital visits for years. What was surprising and traumatic was that, just earlier in the week, he’d seemed to be entering a relatively healthy period. But what started as a check-in for his heart arrythmia rapidly turned into the last news we wanted to hear: he had contracted pneumonia (which required restricting fluids) but also a blood infection (which required increasing his fluids to allow antibiotics to be effective). Two fatal conditions that were impossible to treat concurrently, and sepsis soon set in. Within hours of feeling unwell, Grandpa Tom had deteriorated until it was clear his last hours had come. I drove as fast as I could to be by his side in the hospital.
Grandpa Tom and I shared a special connection whose severance has left a hole I doubt will ever be filled on this side of eternity. When I was a child, he made up songs for me and my brothers, built us toys and a treehouse, and always bought us a happy meal after play time at the park. No matter how small my part, he was there to see my high school plays. In my college years, I had the privilege of worshiping with him and my grandmother in church. He was there when I proposed to the woman I’d marry, and to this day I wear the wedding band, once his own, that Grandpa Tom passed to me. At every major milestone of my life, he was there to cheer me on and show me love.
I now think that part of what made our relationship so special was that, as my mother’s stepfather, Grandpa Tom wasn’t even part of my biological family. His life was a picture of the gospel: after alcohol abuse led to a failed marriage that estranged him from his children, Grandpa Tom had a dramatic conversion experience and found deliverance from the anger and alcoholism that had so hardened his heart. He knew better than most of us that he wasn’t perfect and that he needed a savior—his faith seemed so real to me because he was open about the ways he’d struggled and failed. Never once in his life did I know a Grandpa Tom who boasted, “Thank the Lord that I am not like those other people.” Always his confession was, “Lord have mercy on me, a sinner.”
This redeemed Tom found a new family through meeting my grandmother—who herself had suffered divorce—and married her Christmas day of 1985. Here again, the gospel shines through. In Christ, God grafted the gentile nations’ wild branches onto the cultivated tree of Israel and created a new family with ties stronger than blood relation. Grandpa Tom’s marriage to my grandmother grafted him into my family, and his branch bore abundant fruit in the love he had for his grandchildren.
In the last years and months of his life, my grandfather had gradually become less and less able to care for himself. My grandmother was a nurse by training, and her tireless care for him was itself a testament to the tireless, sacrificial love of Christ, the Great Physician of our souls. My parents undertook to renovate their house to accommodate the mobility assistance he needed, and my mom sacrificed much of her own time and energy to ensure that he received the medical care he needed to hold onto life as long as he could. For all involved, that care was a heavy burden. To care for someone in decline is to devote more and more effort for less and less improvement, and the time to enjoy any improvement that does occur gets shorter and shorter with every bout of illness, every defibrillation to restore a regular heartbeat.
In the months since Grandpa Tom has passed, I have returned again and again to the question of what it means to die well. In recent decades in the West, most fiercely now in Canada and Northern Europe but with parts of the U.S. slouching in that direction, “Medical Assistance in Dying” (MAiD) has become more and more ubiquitous. A catchall term for euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide, MAiD has metastasized in recent years. From a narrow treatment offered those with imminently terminal conditions and in unbearable pain, MAiD is urged upon those whose primary care would be too expensive, who suffer from treatable mental illness, or who find themselves on the brink of homelessness. They are told by kind doctors, with excellent bedside manner and with the authority of the major medical associations and the approval of government health services, that MAiD will allow them the autonomy to die with dignity instead.
A recent medical journal article sounded a klaxon’s blare on Canada’s MAiD regime. It relates the true story of a man with “hearing and cognitive disability” who suffered from depression and was involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric hospital as a suicide risk.
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We do not have a cold, distant deity sitting idly by, watching us worry and work. We have a heavenly Father who loves us more than he loves the birds, who cares for us more deeply than we do even for ourselves, and who wants us to know how deep his love is.

Hi. My name is David, and I’m an anxious person. In fact, just saying that makes me a little anxious.
Mostly, I worry about everything. I wake up worrying, and I go to sleep worrying, and in between, I worry some more. I even worry about worrying about the right things. What if I forget something and my family doesn’t have what they need when the time comes? What if, by my failure to worry, I lead us straight into hardship? What if I fail them?
It’s a miserable way to live, honestly. But it’s my way.
I know it’s not the way I’m meant to live. I worry about that as well. I need to change, but it’s hard. In this kind of world, how can one not be a little anxious all the time?
Who can save me from this body of death?
The Cure for Anxiety
The Bible, of course, isn’t silent in the face of anxiety. It’s well known that the most repeated command in scripture is “Do not fear.”
There is a whole section in the most famous sermon ever preached, the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus addresses this issue. I’ve read it a thousand times. Maybe you have, too. But, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to point out something that has changed my life. I don’t mean to be hyperbolic (that’s an anxiety trait, I know), but it has made a bigger difference in my mental health than anything else ever has. And the thing is, it’s been there for thousands of years.
The key verse in this whole thing for me is Matthew 6:26. The ESV heading for this little section is “Do Not Be Anxious,” which, honestly, gives me anxiety. I like the CSB heading better: “The Cure for Anxiety.” That’s much less anxiety-inducing. Maybe the cure will work. Maybe it won’t. But that’s not up to me. So, let’s try it out, shall we?
Consider the Birds
Matthew 6:26 is such a simple verse. “Consider the birds of the sky: They don’t sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they?”
Tim Keller used to say that good preaching connects an intellectual truth to a sensory experience. Jesus was a good preacher, of course, so he knew this too. That’s what he did in this verse. We are anxious people, constantly worrying about provision. Will we have enough tomorrow? Will we be okay? The intellectual truth that God will care for us takes us only so far. We need some sensory experience to help us actually believe it.
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The term Christian Nationalist sends the wrong message to both those outside the church and those inside the church.  Therefore, I simply do not use the term.  I prefer the term Christendom. When I speak of Christendom, surprisingly most people in the church today have never heard of it.  I find this ironic because America (with all her warts) at various times in history could be judged as an example of Christendom. We have been living off that borrowed capital for years, but it is hastily running out.

America is at war—not literally as in the shedding of blood.  At least, not yet.  However, we have not been this divided since the advent of the Civil War.  History does tend to repeat itself.  It appears to me that total anarchy is on the horizon, and the 2024 presidential election could easily trigger this event.
On the one hand, we have a political party (with a president in the White House) that is pro-abortion up to the point of birth, a proponent of homosexual marriage, and an advocate of the mutilation of children in the name of transgenderism.  With this party in power, we are now a nation that is known for Drag Queens teaching children at public libraries, open United States borders, and monetary inflation that steals purchasing power from every household.
On the other hand, we have a second political party in this country that is pushing back on some of these issues, although not all of them. For Bible-believing Christians the present political and social disorder is very appalling.  Most biblical Christians have lost hope in both political parties.
Some Christians are looking for a rapture very soon.  They believe they will escape what could be a coming calamity.  Others, like myself, believe that this is simply the judgment of God on our nation, and this is something we all must face head on.
The issue before us is very simple.  America has changed religions.  From a nation where political laws were based on the Ten Commandments, our nation has been commandeered by those who despise God’s law.  This new religion controls almost all landscapes of our country including the political, the educational, the military, the media, and even the arena of large business corporations.  It is quickly infiltrating the church.
The Evangelical Church is a mess and unable to respond.  Most pastors are silent from the pulpit in order to avoid conflict. Other pastors in the name of the separation of church and state (or the separation of two kingdoms) believe that only the church should be under the law of God, and it is alright if the state legalizes abortion, homosexuality, and the freedom to choose one’s sex. They promote the idea that the church is spiritual and the Bible has no authority over civil magistrates or unbelievers. Persecution is our calling and we should welcome it. It is the way of glory.
Thus, out of desperation and grief, there has arisen a new movement calling itself Christian Nationalism.  It is a backlash against the current war against Christianity.  It is partially a replacement movement for a silent church.  Leaders include Marjorie Taylor Greene, a U.S. House Representative from Georgia, and Lauren Boebert, a U. S. House Representative from Colorado.  Al Mohler, who has spoken against the use of the term in the past, now seems to be warming up to it.
For several reasons, I am opposed to adopting or using the term Christian Nationalism as a response to the present anti-Christian crusade.  I believe the term will do more harm than good.  My reasons are as follows.
First, no one has defined the term Christian Nationalism.  There is no consensus on what it means.  Cultural theologians, both liberal and conservative are attempting to give it meaning, seeking to be the first in line to claim that honor.
Secondly, it is all happening so fast that it makes my head swim.  It may be time to just sit down and do more thinking about it rather than bellow the term in frustration.  Proverbs 25:8 tells us to be cautious about arguing our case too quickly. This is wisdom that is needed in our day.
Thirdly, the term nationalism will be associated with the Nazi Nationalism of Germany before World War ll.  Since the mainstream media is pushing this narrative too, and since they control much of public opinion, biblical Christians who are vocal will be called Nazis.  In the case of our present President of the United States, he has already called people like me Semi-Facist.  The FBI has become a political arm of the present regime, and many vocal Christians will likely come under considerable scrutiny (like the My Pillow Man).
Fourthly, no one that I know believes that the church should rule the state.  In the Old Testament there was a separation of the realms of Moses and Aaron.  In the New Testament the power of the sword belongs to the civil magistrate and not to the church.  This idea of the church ruling the state is simply a false conflagration to scare the ignorant and to create a false phobia.
The separation of church and state is biblical.  However, no one can separate religion and state.  Every state will be dominated by some religion, whether it be Christianity, Islam, or (now in the case of America) Neo-Marxism (see my book Critical Race Theory and the Church – A Concise Analysis).
I have the same frustration as both Representatives Greene and Boebert, but I have a better name for what they want to see.  It is called Christendom!  It is a word that has been in use for hundreds of years.  It does not have a pejorative connotation tied to it.  It simply refers to a nation that, either by a consensus of the people (democracy) or by royal inheritance (Great Britain), is a culture governed by Christian principles and as such will be blessed with peace and prosperity.
In Christendom the church-state separation is respected.  The ten commandments are the basis of a civil society.  The laws of the state should reflect in principle the laws of God.  No one is forced to go to church.  After working six days, God gives us a day of rest.  The dignity of life is to be protected, even those in the womb.  Adultery is treason against the family because God created the family for security and protection. Opportunity is based on merit, and not on race or color.
The term Christian Nationalist sends the wrong message to both those outside the church and those inside the church.  Therefore, I simply do not use the term.  I prefer the term Christendom.
When I speak of Christendom, surprisingly most people in the church today have never heard of it.  I find this ironic because America (with all her warts) at various times in history could be judged as an example of Christendom. We have been living off that borrowed capital for years, but it is hastily running out. The bank account is almost empty.
Only a full-orbed gospel can create a true and lasting Christendom.  The hearts of the elect must first be changed through the power of the Holy Spirit.  In Christendom, good Christian men will become leaders in all the domains of life. This is the only way to stop the present slide toward insanity and suicide.  Remember, all who hate God love death (Prov. 8:36).  Not all men in a Christian nation will be Christians, but in spite of their rebellious hearts, they will reap some of the blessings of God.
There is much that could be said about this topic.  I cannot deal with it all here.  I am not sure that I am capable.  But I plead for my Christian brethren to dump the term Christian Nationalism and use the term Christendom.  Then, let the real conversation begin.
Larry E. Ball is a retired minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is now a CPA. He lives in Kingsport, Tenn.
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