eChurch Blog

Another House Committee Bid to Protect Unborn in Health Bill Fails Friday

By Kathleen Gilbert

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 31, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – What was possibly the final bid to halt the Obama administration health care bill’s expansion of abortion in the House Energy and Commerce Committee failed early Friday.

Another pro-life amendment offered by Democrat Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) and Joe Pitts (R-PA) to halt the abortion mandate Friday was rejected 27-31. (A tally of the votes can be found here.)

The amendment states that “no funds authorized under this Act (or amendment made by this Act) may be used to pay for any abortion or to cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion,” although it makes exceptions in the case of danger to the mother’s life, or in cases of rape or incest.

“Once again the Democratic Majority has demonstrated it fully intends to fund or subsidize abortion services in their health care plan,” commented Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on this latest Committee action.

“With the majority of Americans, we believe that health care legislation should not cover abortion. The actions of the House Committee demonstrate beyond any doubt that it intends for the federal government to fund coverage of abortion on demand.”

Perkins applauded Stupak and the other committee Democrats who voted to keep abortion out of the health care bill.

“We will continue to work with members of both parties to remove abortion from the government health care plan when this legislation moves to the House floor,” he said.

Stupak and Pitts had made a similar, initially successful bid during committee mark-ups late last night, but met with failure hours later when Committee Chairman Henry Waxman invoked House rules that allowed him to bring the measure up for a second vote.  The amendment then failed 30-29.

Earlier Thursday evening, the House passed an amendment by pro-abortion California Democrat Rep. Lois Capps that allows for federal funding of abortion coverage in the government health care plan, permits taxpayer subsidies of private plans covering abortion, and mandates that every U.S. region have at least one health plan covering abortion.

Man wanted to be like God and God has let it play out and this ‘experiement’ is not looking too promising thus far I’d say….

World Hunger Hits Historic High of 1 Billion

The number of people going hungry every day has hit a historic high of 1 billion, or more precisely 1.02 billion, according to the U.N. World Food Program.

Millions of people who were on the brink of hunger have now been thrown into this category by the global economic crisis that resulted in lower incomes and job losses.

According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, about an additional 100 million people are in chronic hunger and poverty this year compared to last year.

And while the number of people with urgent food needs has increased, aid agencies are reporting lower donations and budget cuts.

WFP executive director Josette Sheeran said Wednesday the agency is facing “dangerous and unprecedented” funding shortfalls this year.

“Our budget for this year of assessed and approved needs is $6.7 billion and we expect from our projections and working with government to come in at $3.7 billion,” Sheeran said at a press briefing ahead of meetings at the White House.

Sheeran said the agency is working to cut $3 billion from its program by reducing rations and programs throughout the world.

Its goal is to feed 108 million people in 74 countries this year.

In addition to budget cuts, aid groups are also struggling with the impact of high food prices.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization reports food prices are higher today than a year ago in more than 80 percent of developing countries.

Sheeran suggested that the food crisis is “not as dramatic at home” as in developed countries, resulting in less of a sense of urgency to help the world’s hungry.

But “one out of every six [people] today is on the official list of the urgently-hungry,” she said, according to RTTNews.com. “One-third of the world’s children in the developing world is stunted.”

The WFP official praised the United States – the world’s largest food aid donor – for being an advocate to finding solutions to long term needs as well as meeting immediate needs.

The United Sates provides about half of all food aid to needy people in the world.

Besides government agencies, Christian aid agencies such as Food for the Hungry, Food for the Poor, and Lutheran World Relief have also been a major contributor in helping to feed those vulnerable to hunger.

Since 1971, Food for the Hungry has responded to physical and spiritual hunger in more than 26 countries worldwide.

In response to the current food and economic crisis, the ministry calls on Christians to pray for the world’s poor and hungry and for long-term solutions to families at risk or on the brink of salvation, give financially to help the ministry respond to world hunger, and sponsor a child that will help to not only transform the child but also his/her family and community.

Classic

By Kathleen Gilbert

NEW YORK, July 31, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Center for Reproductive Rights has issued a report blaming pro-life activism and a growing “stigma” surrounding abortion for a steady decline in the procedure across the U.S., and is calling upon the U.S. government to help expand abortion by eradicating pro-life laws.

Nancy Northup, the center’s president, said physicians and clinics providing abortions have fallen by 25% since the 1990s – a decline it blamed on the pro-life presence outside the businesses of abortionists, whom the group upheld as “human rights defenders.” (To see the CRR document “Defending Human Rights,” click here.)

The report also targets legal restrictions on abortion, including the 24-hour waiting period and regulations for cleanliness in abortion clinics, and called upon federal, state, and local governments to abolish such laws as restricting the “constitutional right” to abortion.

“The Center for Reproductive Rights encourages the government at all levels to adopt and enforce measures to improve the safety of providers and to eliminate laws that impede their work,” stated the report.

In particular, the group called for the repeal of the Hyde amendment, which restricts Medicaid from funding abortions.  According to the Guttmacher Institute, such rules prohibiting public abortion funding save the lives of about one out of every three children who would have been aborted had public funds been available.

In response to the growing popularity of the pro-life movement – over half of participants in a recent Gallup poll considered themselves “pro-life” – the group called for active promotion of abortion as a mainstream health care procedure.

“Because abortion is not integrated into mainstream healthcare, it is marginalized and perceived as ‘dirty’ and outside of normal medical practice,” complained the group.

However, pro-life analysts believe the decline in physicians providing abortion can be traced to growing awareness of the repulsive nature of the procedure itself, rather than an imposed “stigma.”

“I think they [abortionists] have been diminishing in number for years because this is the type of trade that is contrary to the reason that people go to medical school,” Mary Spaulding Balch, state legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee, told the Catholic News Agency.  After all, she noted, most medical students enter the profession with a desire to save life, not destroy it.

Because of advances in ultrasound technology and fetal surgery, Spaulding Balch said that younger doctors “are understanding the unborn child as the second patient.”

Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansans for Life, noted how the report’s timing coincided with the push on Capitol Hill to fund and provide insurance for abortion in President Obama’s vast health care overhaul.

“I can’t help but think it’s nothing more than an attempt to scare the American people away from being informed and concerned about the massive abortion mandates that are in the proposed health care reform bills and that will remain there unless explicitly excluded,” Culp told the Kansas City Star.

The first time I read Michael Green’s Evangelism in the Early Church in 1984, it was a required textbook for a course at seminary. My subsequent six readings since then have all been the result of my desire to be reminded of the passionate heart of evangelism of the early Church. Green’s book, published in 1970, looks at the Church from the time of the Apostle Paul to Origen in the middle of the third century.

One of the greatest appeals of the book is the deep commitment to both theology and evangelism, and the recognition that the two cannot be divorced. Green says it well in the preface: “Most evangelists are not very interested in theology. Most theologians are not interested in evangelism. I am deeply committed to both.”

An Emerging and Encouraging Trend

Though my observations are anecdotal at this point, I am greatly encouraged to see more young church leaders today with a passion for both theology and evangelism. They realize that true evangelism will not take place without a solid biblical and theological foundation. And they realize that theology is dead unless it is lived out passionately in ministry and evangelism.

Nearly four decades ago, Michael Green wrote about that reality in the early Church. And he rightly insisted that theology and evangelism must not be separated in the Church today.

Evangelistic Motives in the Early Church

Green noted some of the evangelistic motives of the early Church. Not surprisingly, each motive has deep theological and biblical roots.

A sense of gratitude. The early Christians were tireless and unselfish in their evangelistic zeal. They were prepared to sacrifice all, even their own lives, in order to share the gospel of Christ. One of their primary motives was their overwhelming gratitude for what Christ did for them. So many of the biblical truths affirm this reality. For example, “Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10, HCSB). Similarly, we hear the Apostle Paul declare, “And I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

A sense of responsibility. The biblical mandate of evangelism is clear. We hear Great Commission passages such as Matthew 28:18-20 and Acts 1:8 repeated often. But the Bible is replete with passages that reflect this sense of responsibility. Paul, in his farewell address to the Ephesian elders, reported, “I testified to both Jews and Greeks about repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus” (Acts 20:21).

A sense of concern. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). The simple but powerful truth is that there are really two categories of humanity: the saved and the lost. The saved will spend eternity with Christ; the lost will spend eternity separated from Christ in hell. We must proclaim with passionate concern that Jesus in the only way of salvation (John 14:6). Our hearts should break over the lostness of humanity, and our response should be obedient and urgent evangelism.

A Great Commission Resurgence: When Theology Meets Evangelism

Will the evangelical church in America experience a Great Commission resurgence? With the early Church as our pattern, we can have great hope that such a resurgence will take place.

But no great evangelistic move of God has ever taken place without the rightful wedding of theology and evangelism. When evangelism has no theology, it degenerates into human-made methods and manipulation. When theology has no evangelism, it degenerates into a dry and powerless academic exercise.

May we see a Great Commission resurgence like the early Church.

May our motives be deeply theological.

May our actions be passionately evangelistic.

And may God do a great work in our land.

Ecumenical News International

UN runs into flak for rejecting Christian group as NGO observer

Geneva (ENI). A United Nations group that vets non-governmental organizations applying for accreditation to observe the international body, has rejected an international Christian group after it refused to divulge members’ names in China, citing fears about religious freedom.

UN Watch, a Geneva-based advocacy and monitoring group, condemned the U.N.’s decision to reject the Dynamic Christian World Mission Foundation application as an NGO observer due to its refusal to accede to China’s demands that it disclose member addresses in the People’s Republic.

Russia, Egypt, Cuba, Pakistan, and Sudan had expressed concerns about “the organization’s ability to contribute” to the United Nations.

At a meeting in Geneva on 27 July, the 54-member of the U.N. Economic and Social Council, known as ECOSOC that vets which NGOs get observer status, endorsed a decision taken by a subsidiary committee earlier in 2009 to reject the group’s application.

It also rejected a U.S. initiative to keep the application open for the Christian foundation, a group registered in South Korea and California and which promotes Christianity through educational projects in Russia, Japan and Kyrgyzstan. The vote was lost by 23 to 22 at ECOSOC.

“Today’s vote is a setback for religious freedom, and could set a dangerous precedent at the U.N. for repressive regimes to launch frivolous objections, or demand sensitive information, in order to obstruct the important work of civil society organizations in the areas of religion, education, and human rights,” said Hillel Neuer, the executive director of UN Watch.

The advocacy group has frequently accused bodies such as the U.N. Commission of Human Rights of being controlled by countries like China and Russia, and states such as Libya and Vietnam which have poor rights’ records.

Those voting to reject the Christian group included Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, India, Indonesia, China, Ivory Coast, Malawi, Malaysia, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Pakistan, and Venezuela.

Those voting to support its application included the U.S., Brazil, Greece, Guatemala, Canada, El Salvador, Estonia, France, Germany, Japan, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, and Portugal.

“NGOs at the U.N. are routinely under assault,” said Neuer in a statement.

At the same time, Neuer welcomed two other votes initiated by Western nations that saw ECOSOC grant accreditation to two NGOs, overruling earlier decisions by a lower committee.

By a vote of 25 to 12, with 13 abstentions, the U.N. accredited the Brazilian Gay, Lesbian and Transgender Association. Those voting against included Algeria, Belarus, China, Indonesia, Iraq, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan.

Egypt, an observer state on the 54-member body, suggested that the aim of the NGO and its supporters was to make homosexuality universal, and complained of “double standards” against Muslim charities that were rejected for ties to terrorism. In response, Brazil said the group merely represented a constituency of people.

Similarly, by a vote of 30 to 9, with 8 abstentions, the United Nations on 29 July accredited the Democracy Coalition Project, a Washington-based organization founded by George Soros’ Open Society Institute. Those voting against it included China, Russia, Sudan, Venezuela, Belarus, Bolivia, Malaysia, and Mozambique. China and Russia said the group “attacked countries specifically” and had “a political agenda”.

In another statement on 29 July, U.N. Watch expressed disappointment at the refusal by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, to answer whether she will receive the Tibetan Buddhist leader, the Dalai Lama, on his visit to Geneva in early August. The response is understood as a negative answer. Still, UN Watch welcomed her criticism of China’s “serious systemic violations of human rights” in Tibet, and her call for due process for detainees and access to international observers.

Ecumenical News International

Polish Lutheran heading EU body wants dialogue with faiths

Warsaw (ENI). Jerzy Buzek, a Polish Lutheran who has become the first president of the European Parliament from a post-communist eastern European country, says he wants to deepen dialogue with the continent’s Christian churches.

“The principles associated with the whole tradition, culture and, above all, faith of Christianity have fundamental importance for me, as well as for Europe’s future identity and development,” said Buzek, who was Poland’s prime minister from 1997 to 2001.

“A debate with churches and other religions on our continent’s problems is essential,” Buzek said in an interview with Poland’s Catholic information agency KAI. “I’ve no doubt Christian values should be very important at an individual level for each politician and leader, but also collectively since they define and show the key ways a politician can act.”

The 69-year-old politician was speaking after his election on 14 July to head the 736-seat parliament for the 27-nation European Union. He belongs to the parliament’s Christian Democratic European People’s Party grouping.

“Respect for others who think differently is also a special value for Christians. Such is my understanding of the presence of these values in social and political life,” Buzek stated. “I have never manifested my faith in a persistent manner. The best way of showing what we believe in is through our own actions and behaviour in daily life, and by acting publicly in a way which reflects our deep Christian faith.”

Buzek said he believed the “vision of Europe” promoted by the Pope John Paul II still indicated “the end to which we should strive”, and said he was concerned European politics had “somewhat renounced Christian values”.

Born in the Silesian town of Smilevice, now in the Czech Republic, Buzek has been a member of the European Parliament since 2004 for the Civic Platform. This is currently the biggest partner in Poland’s coalition government.

Buzek’s election was praised by the Rev. Thomas Wipf, president of the Community of Protestant Churches in Europe, which groups more than 100 Lutheran, United, Reformed, Methodist and other Protestant churches.

“It is good for the EU that for the first time a politician from the states which entered in 2004 will assume a key position,” said Wipf, who also heads the Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches. “Moreover we are delighted that in future a committed Protestant and member of a minority church will take over the presidency of the European Parliament.”

The (Lutheran) Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession in Poland has 75 000 members in a country where Roman Catholics make up around 86 percent of the population of 38 million.

Speaking at a Lutheran service on 20 July in the southern town of Wisla, Buzek said he knew “how important prayer is”. He said he counted on “spiritual support and community” from fellow Lutherans in Poland, which will take over the European Union’s rotating presidency in June 2011.

As I sit here watching global Christian news feeds stream in front of me all day long, frankly, at times, it is hard not to get a little depressed.

I obviously select those news stories that fit my own particular theology and doctrinal stance.

One of the biggest news issues I never blog about, is the global persecution of Christians, because frankly there is so much it and it is so disturbing. If I started reporting on this, I would never be able to report on anything else and that’s why I am content to let dedicated websites like Persecution.org tackle this, as in truth, it needs dedicated websites to cope with the sheer depressing volume.

I do tackle some of the ‘persecution’ issues in the UK and have noted some criticisms on the Internet, as some folk don’t consider the negative Christian experiences in the west as ‘true’ persecution. I think from my own perspective I would argue that we are witnessing a ‘creeping’ towards ‘true’ persecution in the west, which is being powered via the law courts, legislative powers and liberal European governments.

All I see all day long, is the global push for government funded and politically sanctioned abortion en-masse, or the global acceptance for homosexual ‘marriages’ or the ‘right’ to commit suicide etc. These selfsame issues are ripping the established ‘visible’  church in two and there is no doubt in my mind that we are seeing a polarisation within the global visible church, to the point whereby we are witnessing schisms and new partnerships (old in some cases) being formed and re-formed.

Some say this is the Devil dividing the church, others that God is separating the ‘wheat’ from the ‘chaff’. I will not state about how I feel personally, but it is probably not too hard to detect if you look carefully through my Christian news selections.

So…I became a little ‘down’ tonight and went for an aimless drive and on the dashboard of the car was a bible and I came to this verse.

Proverbs 31:8 + 9

Open you mouth for the speechless,

In the cause of all who are appointed to die.

Open your mouth, judge righteousness,

And plead the cause of the poor and needy.

When I read that, I had a sense of peace, because I realised that it is right to stand up and speak (blog) for the cause of those appointed to die and who are speechless and that to me is the millions upon millions of aborted humans, sacrificed to the modern god of convenience.

I didn’t even bother earlier to put the recent abortion figures from China, which officially stands at 13m a year (and this is only the reported, official cases – and many are ‘enforced’). I have also stopped blogging about President Obama and his massive abortion expansion plans and the political and physical attacks on pro-lifers across the globe along with the political legislative maneuvering to enforce abortion as a ‘human right’ (Irony) in predominantly Catholic countries. I stopped because I was sick of it and had become depressed by reading it all and just had that sense that no-one really cared anyway.

That scripture from Proverbs, reminded me that God cares and so I care also…forgive me Lord…evil runs rampant when good men say/do nothing.

If you want the ‘right’ to end your own life then so be it, but you have no right to end the life of others…those that haven’t even been given a shot at life. Women’s emancipation I am told….what about all of the little baby girls who never got the chance to become a woman and make a choice?

I stand with the church that will not proclaim, that which is wicked, as a good thing…whatever church that may be….I stand with you in the Lord.

Amen

Webmaster

Associated Baptist Press

Baptists celebrate 400th anniversary near site of movement’s origin

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (ABP) — Baptists from around the world recalled the birth of their movement 400 years ago during a July 30 worship service held a few blocks from the site of what is generally recognized as the first Baptist congregation.

About 300 worshippers filled the main floor and double balconies of the Singelkerk, a Mennonite church on Amsterdam’s Singel Canal built in 1608, a year before the first Baptists met in a bakery on the Amstel River, a short distance west.

The bakery no longer exists, but leaders of the initial Baptist movement – including John Smyth and Thomas Helwys – forged close ties to the Mennonites, with whom they shared views on believers’ baptism and congregational governance. Both Smyth and Thomas are believed to have worshipped in the Singelkerk.

“Four hundred years have passed since the Baptist work began,” said Neville Callam, general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, as the July 30 service began.  “Now we gather in the presence of representatives from around the world to worship the child of God.”

The BWA’s General Council held its annual gathering July 27-Aug. 1 in Amsterdam.

“We are here to celebrate God’s faithfulness during those first 400 years,” said Albrecht Boerrigter, general secretary of the Union of Baptist Churches in the Netherlands. “Take what you get here and carry it with you into the future.”

A wide array of languages highlighted the service, whose program was printed in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, German and Swahili. Scripture was read in Bangla and Dutch and verses of songs were sung in French, German and Spanish. The congregation recited the Lord’s Prayer simultaneously in their own language.

A litany of thanksgiving expressed gratitude to God for the “cloud of witnesses” who have enriched the Baptist movement, from Smyth, Helwys and Menno Simons, to Roger Williams and William Carey to John Leland and Martin Luther King Jr.

“They ran the race set before them,” the readers said.

In a sermon, the BWA’s general secretary emeritus highlighted “the freedom in Christ [that] has been the theme of the Baptist movement from our beginning to the present day.”

But Denton Lotz, who retired last year as the BWA’s top executive, warned that the defense of religious freedom must change if it is to be relevant in the 21st century.

“It is incumbent upon us as a people of faith to realize that our concerns today are very different from those of 400 years ago,” Lotz said. “If we fail to take seriously the 21st century and merely continue to defend religious freedom as though we were living under King James I, then we will become irrelevant and our defense of freedom irrelevant.”

The threat today is not directed at religious practice, Lotz said, “but rather whether or not religion will be granted a fair hearing or a hearing at all. Will the public expression of religion continue to be curtailed or even allowed? Our public and state education has promoted secularism as its own religion and has indoctrinated the younger generation to believe that man can live without God and can explain the universe and history and community without faith.”

“Our goal must not be religious freedom to practice or religious freedom to express our faith,” he added. “Our goal is to be on mission with Jesus Christ.… Therefore, today and in this 400th year we honor all those men and women who by faith followed the footsteps of their master.”

Christian Post

My first pastorate after seminary was in St. Petersburg, Florida. In my interviews with several of the lay leaders prior to my coming to the church, I noticed a recurring theme. When I would ask them about the health of the church, one word was repeated several times: stable.

I could not reconcile their perception of the church with the information they had sent me. The most recent year’s attendance was 118; seven years earlier the average attendance had been 191. In a relatively short period, attendance had declined 38 percent, but the common theme among the church members was that the church was “stable.”

The more I heard from the church, the greater my concern grew. The number of conversions in the congregation was almost nonexistent. Ministries had been discontinued. Biblical literacy and doctrinal awareness had declined. And the reputation of the church in the community had suffered. But the condition of the church, according to key laypersons, was “stable.”

A Common Plight

From an outsider’s perspective, this lack of awareness was inexplicable. But in subsequent years, I consulted with hundreds of churches. Much to my dismay, I discovered that this reality blindness was common. Many churches are unwilling to make needed changes because they fail to see the need for change.

The Manifestations of Reality Blindness

As my team consulted with churches over the next two decades, we not only discovered that reality blindness was common; we discovered that it often manifests itself in three ways.

First, the churches have no means of accountability. They don’t know if they are truly evangelistic, engaging the culture and the community. They fail to ask if their members are really growing spiritually and biblically. They don’t know if their ministries are really effective. They may continue some ministries because that’s the way it’s always been done. In simple terms, these churches refuse to ask the tough questions.

Second, the churches that have reality blindness often have members who have little doctrinal awareness. While the churches typically had a written doctrinal statement, most of the members had no idea what the statement contained. And the few members that might have had some awareness expressed theological positions in contradiction to the printed doctrinal statement.

Third, many of these church leaders were change resistant, even when needed change was clearly obvious to an outsider. Obviously, change is unlikely when leadership is unwilling to look reality in the face.

From Reality Blindness to Breakout

The bad news is that most churches in America will remain in a state of reality blindness. It’s easier to assume that all is well rather than confront the painful truth that serious change is necessary.

The good news is that a few churches will move from blindness to breakout. We have studied about and consulted with such churches over the past twenty years. The leaders of these churches have been willing to confront the brutal facts about the state of their congregations. And they have been willing to lead the churches to make the changes necessary to move from near death to greater health.

One pastor of a breakout church stated it well. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in a place where we are playing church and not impacting our community. I know that change is painful. I know that many in the congregation both resist and resent change. But I can’t live a life of mediocrity. In God’s power, I have to lead my church to greatness for God’s glory.”

Reality blindness or breakout? One is a path of comfort, little conflict, and little impact. The other is a path of change, discomfort, and potential conflict. But it is the path where lives are changed and communities are impacted.

May we leaders do what it takes to see our churches become dynamic and vibrant. May we see that reality blindness is really not an option at all.

Daily Mail:-

We all pray for dignity in our own dying, and to be able to provide this comfort to our loved ones, should they pass away before us.

So it is almost impossible not to feel respect for the courage shown by multiple sclerosis sufferer Debbie Purdy, who yesterday succeeded in convincing the Law Lords that it is a breach of her human rights not to know whether her husband will be prosecuted if he accompanies her to a Swiss clinic to end her life.

The problem, of course, is that Miss Purdy’s personal victory has profound moral and social consequences that stretch far beyond her own case.

For, following yesterday’s judgment, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, must now attempt to define the exact set of circumstances under which a person could be prosecuted for helping a relative to kill themselves.

But more significantly, by implication he must also indicate those circumstances under which a person will not be punished. It will be, in effect, nothing less than a legal guide to achieving immunity under the 1961 Suicide Act, which currently makes helping another person to die an imprisonable offence.

This challenge is exactly what Mr Starmer – who describes the existing suicide law as ‘workable’ – did not want. He understandably does not wish to have his hands tied by a black and white ruling.

It is eminently sensible for the DPP to decide prosecutions on a case-by-case basis, and so far he has significantly decided not to prosecute in any of the 115 instances in which a relative has helped a Briton to die at the Dignitas clinic, in Switzerland. That is how the Law Lords should have left matters.

What seems indisputable, however, is that yesterday’s ruling has opened the door to aggressive demands for a new law to permit assisted dying in the UK, without the need to travel overseas.

The Mail recognises this is a profoundly difficult issue, in which there is no room for dogma or glib certainties. But it equally recognises that formulating any new law is fraught with danger, given the propensity for loopholes, legal challenges and abuse.

Codifying legal killing is even more perilous. What if the right to die becomes a duty to die, with vulnerable people feeling under pressure to end their lives rather than burden the cash-strapped NHS, or relatives paying for nursing home care.

There is a grave danger that it could become a cheap and preferred alternative to palliative care, favourable both to the health service and any cold-blooded relative worried by the prospect of their inheritance draining away.

Of course, supporters of assisted suicide pour scorn upon this ‘slippery slope’ argument, insisting cast-iron safeguards could be written into the law.

But the history of social legislation offers a stark warning about unintended consequences. The 1967 Abortion Act, remember, was supposed to apply only to pregnancies which placed either the mother or unborn child at risk. Today, abortion is all too often used as an alternative to contraception.

Yes, we recognise that assisted suicide is a hugely complex issue, but worry that centuries of wisdom are being renounced by a liberal establishment for which legalising euthanasia has become an almost totemic issue.

The fact is that overturning the principle of the sanctity of life is too important to be left to bien pensant opinion, lawyers and judges. It demands a national debate.

How depressing, then, that the Church of England – so quick to pronounce on homosexual rights – has yet to stand up and be counted on an issue that fundamentally defines our humanity.