As political activists champion assisted suicide bills in state legislatures with euphemistic terms like “right to die” or “death with dignity,” some healthcare professionals are calling attention to an often neglected weapon in the battle for the sanctity of life—true, compassionate end-of-life care. 

The day after California legalized assisted suicide last fall, leading public advocate for palliative and hospice care Ira Byock took to the airwaves of NPR’s Diane Rehm show to discuss the need for health care focused on improving the quality of a patient’s life. 

In his books on the subject and his website, Byock asserts that palliative care “is the biggest advance in medicine that most people have never heard of” that has improved quality and length of life while also reducing health care costs. 

Byock believes the nation is best served by addressing the root of the end-of-life crisis—the narrow focus on the physical care of a terminally-ill patient. As a result, the emotional, social and spiritual needs of the patient and his or her family are nearly excluded from end-of-life discussions, he said. 

Lou Sharp spent more than 40 years working as a home-health nurse and hospice caregiver. In 1992, Sharp helped found Circle of Life, a hospice program in Northwest Arkansas. Patients with a prognosis for less than six months to live can be referred by their doctor to hospice care, typically covered by Medicare, Medicaid and some private insurers.

Circle of Life Hospice provides patients and their families with a team of hospice caregivers, including nurses, social workers and chaplains. Nurses administer palliative care to keep patients comfortable and attend closely to physical needs either in their homes or in a home-like setting. 

Every human life, regardless of age or utility, is of equal worth. We equally bear the image of God.
 

“A chaplain can come in and talk to them one-on-one to ask the spiritual questions. Those are hard questions for a family member to ask. Chaplains really open up a lot of communication sometimes. It is often hard to admit you are afraid,” Sharp said. 

Social workers support both the patient and family members in coping with stress by listening, helping them express their needs and providing needed guidance and resources.

Sharp retired several years ago to care for her own mother in her declining years. She has experienced the value of hospice care from both sides—as a provider and a receiver. She believes this level of holistic care is important for both patient and family members.

The Circle of Life website, nwacircleoflife.org, dispels several “myths” about hospice, clarifying that hospice is not “where you go when there is nothing more a doctor can do” but rather that hospice is “a philosophy of care providing medical, emotional and spiritual care focusing on comfort and quality of life.”

Terry Sutterfield, a board-certified hospice medical director, has served as a family physician of more than 25 years. As chief medical director for Circle of Life, he oversees the center’s daily operations, makes home and in-patient visits, and prescribes the palliative care medications and treatments. 

Sutterfield explained that about 95 percent of Circle of Life patients receive hospice in their personal homes or in a nursing home, which involves several visits each week from a regular hospice team—people with whom they develop relationships. For those whose symptoms cannot be controlled well in their home, Circle of Life provides an in-patient hospice facility with round-the-clock care.

When asked what he observes in the lives of patients and their families, Sutterfield said, “The main thing we hear from families is what a relief it is to enter hospice. We can’t add days to life, but hospice can add life to days. Many have been in and out of hospitals and cannot improve, and their pain and symptoms are not being controlled. In hospice, we not only care for their physical comfort but also for their spiritual and social needs.”

Similar support programs operate in some critical care hospitals. 

Rikki Hester has worked 10 years as a social worker, currently at Methodist Dallas Medical Center in the neuro critical care unit, where she works closely with patients and family members through assessment and ongoing communication to identify if and when choices will be made for palliative care, hospice or withdrawal of life support. 

Hester is present when patients in her unit are declared brain-dead by a brain-flow study and the physician meets with the family to inform them of the test results. “As you can imagine, that is an incredibly difficult time for the families, and having the social worker present to offer emotional support is very important,” Hester said.

Hester also provides support to family members in emergency code blue situations—cardiac arrest. 

“There is something very special about having the families trust you with their loved ones at the most crucial times in their lives. Even as a social worker, I may not have a direct impact on the outcome of their medical prognosis, [but] the families want anything to cling to and hope for during this time,” Hester told the TEXAN.

Through people like Sharp, Sutterfield, and Hester, end-of-life and critical care services offer compassionate care to those suffering with terminal illnesses and also provide resources and emotional support for their families. Regardless of those strides in end-of-life care, recent events have impelled a resurgence of the euthanasia debate. 

On Oct. 5 California became the fifth state to de-criminalize physician-assisted death for certain terminally ill patients. The End of Life Options Act—which takes effect in January—came about, in part, due to the case of 29-year-old terminal cancer patient Brittany Maynard, a California wife and mother who in 2014 relocated to Oregon in order to obtain physician assistance to “die with dignity.”

Advocates for physician-assisted death assert that it is merciful to end a patient’s suffering because it increases personal autonomy. This argument is strategically linked to their choice of language to describe euthanasia: death with dignity.

Legalized euthanasia opponents, however, argue that a patient’s decision to die may be influenced by his perceived need to release families from care-giving burdens, thereby actually decreasing autonomy. 

As a practicing physician in a non-right-to-die state, Sutterfield said “sporadically” patients request assistance to hasten their death. “Many times patients who bring that up have seen family members or loved ones pass away in unpleasant circumstances. These patients and their families do not understand what is available in hospice. Studies have shown that patients often live longer in hospice care. We are asked [about physician-assisted death] occasionally, and we explain that it isn’t something we do, and then explain what is available to them in hospice.”

According to Sutterfield, research indicates that less than 50 percent of acutely terminally ill patients utilize hospice care. “Many die not receiving this kind of care,” he said. 

Sutterfield agrees with Byock’s assertions that the public discussion typically focuses on only two options for the terminally ill: suffering or suicide. “In our culture we look at the hot issues. But there is so much that can be done in hospice and palliative care that can make the patient comfortable.” 

Criswell College president and ethicist Barry Creamer told the TEXAN that the issue of euthanasia can be complex. 

“It is okay for people to refuse medical care, but there can be a conflict of interests because other people are also invested in the decision of the patient—people who could make money, people who stand to inherit money,” Creamer said. “But when continuing care becomes unreasonable, saying no to medical care is an option to anyone.

“On the other side, it is simple. Every human life, regardless of age or utility, is of equal worth. We equally bear the image of God. When you make a decision about care, it should be the same whether dealing with Steven Hawking or with any disabled individual. We don’t have the luxury of devaluing human life.” 

To guide family members and caregivers facing end-of-life decisions for loved ones, Creamer noted that while refusing medical care is an option to anyone, “people are not just valuable because of what they can experience. People are valuable because they are here, and we have the privilege to care for and love them.”   

In a recent foreword to a book on Baptist church doctrine, James Leo Garrett Jr. offers a somber word. He says, “The twentieth century was not the finest epoch in Southern Baptist history with respect to ecclesiological practice.” Referencing decades of emphasis on efficiency and unchecked church growth, Garrett laments a century that largely “found that ecclesiology was a weakness.”

While I do not agree fully with Garrett’s bleak assessment, I do think that Baptists in the twenty-first century have an opportunity to recover how believers should understand what the Bible says about churches—and that is a hopeful task. In short, regardless of the past, what matters most for the future is what we do with the time that is given to us. 

In 1994, the now late Baptist philosopher and seminary dean, L. Russ Bush, gave an address titled “The History of the Future.” In it, he gave a helpful reminder, “We are living and making the history of the future. What we teach and do today will be what future Christians consider to be their heritage.” 

Bush counseled against novel theological innovation “merely for the sake of newness,” for what we establish in the present will become the doctrinal foundation of the future. With this in mind, I am encouraged when I think about the present state of those working in Baptist theology. For many writing and teaching these truths today are engaging in the task of biblical recovery rooted in tradition rather than contemporary rootless invention. 

“ If the twentieth century left some ground uncovered in terms of faithful church practice, then those of us in the twenty-first have all the more reason to recover faithful practices to build a strong foundation for future churches.”

For example, just this year we saw the arrival of The Baptist Story: From English Sect to Global Movement by Anthony Chute, Nathan Finn and Michael Haykin. This wonderfully engaging introduction to the work of God among people in Baptist churches is as enjoyable to read as it is informative. 

The authors write with refreshing conviction and humility and yet attempt not to use “history to pressure others into conforming to a particular position” but rather to “provide a history that informs the reader of how Baptists have reached their conclusions.” The authors brilliantly achieve their goal, which makes this book a strong asset for laying a historically conscious foundation for understanding how believers have gathered in Baptist churches and why that matters. The story of the Baptists in history is a story that requires regular retelling.

Also this year, Mark Dever and Jonathan Leeman edited Baptist Foundations: Church Government for an Anti-Institutional Age. Designed as a basic textbook on Baptist polity for students, pastors, and church leaders, this book is unique in that it makes the case for the vitality of church leadership and structure at a time when many believers dismiss these matters as largely unimportant. Dever and Leeman are joined by a short-list of veteran pastors and accomplished Baptist scholars who show why churches should recover bygone yet biblical doctrines of church practice. 

For example, in a chapter on the need for regenerate church membership and church discipline, Thomas White concludes, “Without meaningful church membership, discipline will do more harm than good. Without the proper execution of discipline, meaningful membership can never be maintained. Without both of these practices, our churches will not properly reflect the glory of God or bear a strong testimony for the gospel. And our members will not take church seriously.” 

Therefore, as I reflect on the present state of the recovery of Baptist theology for the future, I am encouraged by publications like these because they are representative of the following trends:

First, the present discussion of Baptist theology understands that the Baptist ship is not the only group of churches who have set their sails in a Great Commission direction. Many today would agree with Carl F.H. Henry’s description of the single strength of Baptist identity—its “Bible-relatedness.” That is, Baptists have long been those who desire to conform the core of their tradition to the Bible and the Bible’s mandates for mission. Joyfully, these Baptist churches seek to work, wherever possible, with other traditions that desire to do the same. 

Second, there is no presumption that Baptists articulate or practice their tradition with perfection. Chute, Finn and Haykin conclude their volume this way. “The entire Baptist story consistently comes back to three key interrelated themes: promoting liberty of conscience, following Christ’s will in our individual lives and churches, and proclaiming the gospel everywhere. Baptists have not always lived up to these ideals, but when we have been at our best, we have embodied them.” Baptist theology built upon this kind of humility will serve future generations well. 

Third, these two books are a part of a larger and growing Baptist conversation that could not come at a better time. John Broadus, founding faculty member of Southern Seminary in the latter half of the nineteenth century, remarked that even in his own day there was “a widespread and very great ignorance as to Baptists.” That was saying something in a day when Baptist theologians roamed the nation like Marvel’s Avengers—defending their distinctives wherever they were threatened. Thankfully, today we, too, have a growing cadre of superheroes, like the authors of these two new books and many others preparing to join them, able to give us a helpful guide to combat our own ignorance as to the Baptist tradition.

Finally, the task of recovering a healthy understanding of church doctrine is not the end but merely a means to the end. When J.L. Dagg, another nineteenth-century Baptist theologian, said, “Church order and the ceremonials of religion, are less important than a new heart,” he was right, but he also did not mean that recovering doctrines of the church has no value. 

Indeed, the establishment of healthy churches only serves to ensure the potential of the regeneration of many more new hearts around the globe. For as churches are strengthened and seek, in cooperation with other churches, to fulfill the Great Commission, we will see even more the knowledge of the glory of God among all peoples as the waters cover the sea. This is the end of any recovery of Baptist theology.

Baptists today are living and making the history of the future. If the twentieth century left some ground uncovered in terms of faithful church practice, then those of us in the twenty-first have all the more reason to recover faithful practices to build a strong foundation for future churches. Making the history of the future in the present is an encouraging and hopeful task.  

Immigration, gun rights and response to the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage are just a few of the wedge issues among Christians. Even Southern Baptists are not immune to disagreement on these issues. As a matter of fact, it seems Baptists like to find things to argue about. There is nothing wrong with robust debate, but when the discussion becomes counter-productive for gospel advance, it is unacceptable.

We are entering a presidential election year in 2016. This may come as a shock to you, but no candidate (even the one I like) is going to bring revival to the churches. No president will be in the forefront of evangelism even if he is a committed believer in Christ. This doesn’t mean we should not participate in the process. Based on Romans 13, believers have an obligation to be good citizens. In the American context that means we should register to vote and cast our ballots.

As you consider candidates this year, I would like to propose some considerations.

Be informed. Select a candidate who has high moral character. This is a tall order because all of us are sinners; no one is perfect. It is impossible to find a candidate who has no blemishes, but David was a flawed man and still had redeeming qualities, such as humility before the Lord. Politicians will say anything to get your vote. Research the best person for whom to cast your ballot. Character matters.

Be convictional. Biblical issues are important. God is pro-life from beginning to end and in between. A candidate or party that holds pre-born babies as mere tissue is outside the biblical ethic. Euthanasia is taking God’s place in the process of death. Racial discrimination is unacceptable to the Christ follower. All people are to be treated with respect and dignity. The Bible speaks to economic systems. There are virtually no public policies that are untouched by God’s Word. Find out where the parties stand on these issues. Vote for candidates that more closely represent a biblical ethic.

Be a patriot. There is no conflict between being a Christian and an American. Perhaps one of the most controversial subjects is patriotism itself. I believe some have created a false dichotomy by saying, “I’m a Christian first, an American second.” Every Bible-believing Christ follower should say, “Amen” to that statement. However, being a Christian first doesn’t mean you can’t be a good American. The United States has provided evangelical Christianity with greater opportunities to present the gospel to the world than any country in modern times. Why would Christians want to weaken our nation? A strong America enables the gospel to be furthered to the ends of the earth. Whether it is reducing our national military defense or allowing illegal immigration, it is self-destructive to our nation. We should pursue peace, but we are not pacifists. We should love those who are in our land illegally without perpetuating the crisis.

Be a witness. America has experienced a shift in culture that will never be reversed by politics. Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists have a completely different worldview from our founding fathers. Secularists seek to eradicate the Christian witness from the public square. The only way we will ever see an America that is based on Judeo-Christian principles is to win people to Christ and teach them a biblical worldview. God doesn’t need America, but we need him. Only the gospel, not public policy, can change people’s lives. They need our Savior to save them from hell.

As you go to the ballot box this year, remember it is important to be a Christian first, then an American second. If you do that, you will cast a vote pleasing to our Father. May God bless America!

LAS COLINAS—Just as Jesus challenged his disciples in John 4:35 to “lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest,” this year’s Empower Conference hopes to reawaken pastors and church members to the urgency of the gospel. The three-day conference will be held at the Irving Convention Center in Las Colinas Feb. 29 – March 2.

“We believe that God is going to do great things through the Empower Conference,” said Nathan Lorick, SBTC director of evangelism. “Texas is overwhelmingly lost, and this conference will serve as a great reminder that we must bring intentional evangelism to the forefront of our ministries.

“At this year’s conference we will once again have a call to action for the One in A Million campaign. We want to see SBTC churches join together in one massive cooperative effort to reach one million homes with the gospel. I believe we can drastically impact the lostness across Texas through our efforts together.”

The conference kicks off Monday afternoon from 1-4 p.m. with a variety of breakout sessions, the Conference of Texas Baptist Evangelists (COTBE) session, and a ladies session. Participants can choose from seven breakout sessions at two different time slots that address such topics as evangelism, missions, multi-ethnic ministry, and engaging millennials. The COTBE session will feature messages from Johnny Hunt, Eric Fuller, and Michael Catt along with music by Luke Garrett.  The ladies session includes speakers Jennie Allen, Shari Rigby and Jennifer Rothschild as well as musical guests The Gettys.

Main conference sessions will take place Monday evening; Tuesday morning, afternoon, and evening; and Wednesday morning. Conference attendees will hear challenging messages from David Platt, president of the International Mission Board; Ronnie Floyd, president of the Southern Baptist Convention and pastor of Cross Church in Northwest Arkansas; J.D. Greear, pastor of The Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, N.C.; H.B. Charles Jr., pastor of Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla.; Matt Carter, pastor of The Austin Stone Church in Austin; Derwin Gray, former professional football player and pastor of Transformation Church in Indian Land, S.C.; and others. David Gentiles, Stacy Perkins, and The Gettys will lead music during the main sessions.

For more information on Empower Conference, including schedule, lodging, breakout sessions and a promotional video, visit sbtexas.com/ec16.