Because We Have Faces

The beginning of Lewis’ Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold includes this scenario about the absolute authority that a man might have over life and death.

At that moment the door was flung open and out came my father. His face shocked me full awake, for he was in his pale rage. I knew that in his red rage he would storm and threaten, and little might come of it, but when he was pale he was deadly. “Wine” he said, not very loud; and thot too was a bad sign. The other slaves pushed forward a boy who was rather a favourite, as slaves do when they are afraid. The child, white as his master and in all his finery (my father dressed the younger slaves very fine) came running with the flagon and the oyal cup, slipped in the blood, reeled, and dropped both. Quick as thought, my father whipped out his dagger and stabbed him in the side. the boy dropped dead in the blood and wine, and the fall of his body sent the flagon rolling over and over.

Lewis was a champion of democracy and stated quite clearly that individual liberty was of paramount importance in controlling the evils of man and of government. As we have discussed before the liberalism that originally gave us democracy has taken a turn toward totalitarianism. I attempted to express some of this in my dialectical treatment of Hebrews 11.

No sacrifice is adequate for personal redemption, except as one sacrifices, not just the ownership of goods, but also ownership of the right of ownership.

The power to own even life and death, even your own body, is no longer yours. It has been going on in Europe for a long time. Now New York is experimenting with opt-out organ donation. That means you — your body — is at risk.

The problem begins with rights. The statism of the Left has led it to abandon the right of the individual and translate it into the right of the collective through redistribution. This has gone way beyond the redistribution of tax dollars and no includes the redistribution of your very body.

The problem ends with life. The Left has been butchering people for most of the past century through its eugenics program. Whether it be Stalin’s type of eugenics or Hitler’s type, or the type that Sanger promoted, subsequently affirmed by liberal justice Ginsburg. With all the involuntary euthanasia that is winked at, is anyone here so naive as to think that it won’t continue into this new field?

This is where the Christian must be pro-active. We must speak against the politics, the legislation, and, yes, even the candidates, of this movement. We have been silent too long.