Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Getting Back To The Doctrine.

Collin Hansen writes at Christianity Today that "We are all Theologians" and examines the need for teaching doctrine to evangelical youths. Here's a clip from the article:

It might appear, then, that doctrine has no pull in this age that shuns indoctrination. Indeed, Smith and Snell find that young adults hold their religious beliefs in abstract, "mentally checked off and filed away." Doctrine does not determine their lives. Religion is about being good and living a good life, not believing the right things. But this approach draws a false dichotomy between belief and behavior. In fact, the idea that religion boils down to good works is itself doctrinal, if erroneous from an orthodox Christian perspective. It makes a doctrinal distinction by privileging Jesus' ethical teachings over his work on the Cross and in the Resurrection. It rejects Jesus' interpretation of his sacrifice as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). Young adults who buy into this view follow a well-worn path trod by liberal theologians in the last two centuries.

"The likes of Adolf von Harnack, Albrect Ritschl, Wilhelm Hermann, and Harry Emerson Fosdick would be proud," Smith and Snell write. "People, it is clear, need not study liberal Protestant theology to be well inducted into its worldview, since it has simply become part of the cultural air that many Americans now breathe."

No matter how hard we may try, no one can avoid doctrine. So no matter how bad its reputation, doctrine is a necessary component of Christian discipleship. The March Christianity Today cover story by Darren Meeks notes that Christians today prefer spiritual disciplines and works of mercy to discussing doctrine. Yet however valuable those acts may be, they cannot replace doctrine for spiritual formation.

Publishers have planned to release several resources that call Christians back to their doctrinal foundations. Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears wrote Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe, scheduled for an April release. J. I. Packer, a self-described catechist, has teamed with Gary Parrett to write Grounded in the Gospel: Building Believers the Old-Fashioned Way. Christians who ignore catechesis, or religious instruction, simply cede the task to teachers, professors, peers, and media. Kevin DeYoung tries to rehabilitate the Heidelberg Catechism as a teaching tool inThe Good News We Almost Forgot: Rediscovering the Gospel in a 16th Century Catechism.

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Interfaith Alliance Makes Recommendations to Obama on Faith-Based Initiatives.

For Immediate Release

March 9, 2010

Contact: Ari Geller - Rabinowitz/Dorf Communications 202-265-3000

Interfaith Alliance Calls for Quick Implementation of

Recommendations From President’s Advisory Council

Washington, DC –Interfaith Alliance President, Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, issued the following statement today urging the president to move quickly to implement the recommendations of his Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Rev. Gaddy was a member of the taskforce charged with making recommendations on the reform of the faith-based office in the White House.

The recommendations made by the advisory council go a long way toward bringing the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships in line with the Constitution. I have made no secret of my desire to see this office closed, but if it is going to continue, it must do so – and can do so – in a way that respects the boundaries between religion and government.

The ball is in the president’s court now. Until the president takes action, these are only recommendations. Until he takes action, we are still working under the same guidelines used by the Bush Administration which allowed for untold damage to befall the institutions of religion and government. I have urged the administration to implement the recommendations via executive order as soon as possible.

The recommendations presented to the president will not only strengthen the constitutional foundations of the office, they will protect the religious freedom rights of social service beneficiaries, increase transparency, and most importantly, ensure that government money does not flow directly to houses of worship.

Interfaith Alliance celebrates religious freedom by championing individual rights, promoting policies that protect both religion and democracy, and uniting diverse voices to challenge extremism. Founded in 1994, Interfaith Alliance has 185,000 members across the country from 75 faith traditions as well as those without a faith tradition. For more information visit www.interfaithalliance.org.


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Denver Struggles to Keep Reproductive Services at Hospitals Slated for Catholic Takeover.

From NonProfitInformation.com, a story on the battle raging in Denver about the Catholic takeover of three secular hospitals:

The unexpected delay by the Federal Trade Commission to bless the transaction may provide local critics with a last gasp effort to continue fighting the deal. Community members and medical professionals contend the transfer would unfairly subject comprehensive reproductive health and end-of-life care to church doctrine over patients’ needs. The Catholic church considers abortion, contraception, elective sterilization and termination of invasive life support as “intrinsically evil” and refuses to provide these medical services or respect patients’ advance directives.

The disputed takeover in Denver exemplifies the very serious implications for the 127 non-denominational hospitals that succumbed to merger fever with cash-flush Catholic health care systems in the 1990s. According to a study by Catholics for Choice, half of merged secular-Catholic hospitals suspended most or all of their reproductive health care services. Eighty-two percent denied emergency contraception to rape victims — and more than a third refused to provide a referral.

But for some tax-exempt, nonprofit hospitals co-owned by secular and church interests, there was little more than a wink and a nod to church mandates on care. Comprehensive reproductive healthcare services quietly remained available.

These practices received higher scrutiny in 2001 when the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops revised its Ethical and Religious Directives for medical care to address “misinterpretation and misapplication of the principle of cooperation with other-than-Catholic organizations.” In other words, the church would no longer turn a blind eye to reproductive health and end-of-life care at its secular partner facilities that did not meet strict Catholic orthodoxy.

More importantly, the local hospital policymaking was a little noticed precursor to the bare knuckles strategy on recent display with the church’s relentless lobbying for the 2009 Stupak and Nelson amendments to further restrict access to abortion care via publicly-subsidized health insurance plans. At the same time, the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., threatened to end social service programs for tens of thousands of poor residents if the city council approved a same-sex marriage ordinance.

Now, the Denver hospital takeover is offering a glimpse of the intense pressure being brought to bear by the church on its healthcare partners. The Vatican’s renewed insistence on complete doctrinal influence on patient care is bolstered by very real threats to hold desperately needed institutional capital funds hostage until its theological demands are met.


It's a great article, full of helpful facts and information. You can read the entire piece here.

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How We Define Death And The Future of Hospice.

Larry Beresford challenges the latest meme that hospice patients have declined in number recently. He notes that, among others, Tim Cousounis at Palliative Care Success and the Urban Institute's Howard Gleckman, who wrote a recent article for Kaiser Health News, have examined hospice enrollment and concluded the same thing. It is in decline.

The reasons they cite are varied but predictable: a bad economy makes doctors hesitant to refer profit-generating patients to hospice where the income derived from costly curative treatments naturally declines; Medicare rules require that a patient have less than 6 months to live before going into hospice and sometimes patients, particularly chronically ill ones, live beyond that time frame, a situation Medicare would like to avoid; and of course, the constant challenge of image that hospice faces as a place where one goes when they have "given up" continues to prevent ever-growing enrollment.

From Beresford's latest blog post:

I contacted a couple of leading hospice executives to ask them if the declining enrollments trend is true. One said that hospice patient census fluctuates up and down for all sorts of reasons, but that his agency's is up, after a sharp drop in 2008. But Samira Beckwith, CEO of the highly successful Hope Hospice and Palliative Care in Fort Myers, Florida, responds, "I think that everything [Gleckman] says in his article is true." One of the problems, she says, is that America's hospices still have not successfully communicated the idea that hospice care means "living" as fully and as well as possible until death comes. Instead, Americans have learned a little bit about hospice and believe it means "they have to die really soon if they say yes."

The problems of misunderstanding, misconceptions and mistrust of hospice care by people confronting hard choices at the end of life have been around throughout the history of hospice in America, even as the number of people receiving hospice care has steadily grown, up to 1.45 million in 2008. Physicians' reluctance to bring up the "H" word with their terminally ill patients has been well-documented. The second-guessing of hospices' enrollment decisions by Medicare has also intensified recently, but is not a new phenomenon. A similar round of government scrutiny occurred in the mid-1990s. And still the trends of the number of hospices, number of patients served and total Medicare outlays have pointed steadily upward since the first U.S. hospice opened in 1974 and since Medicare began paying for hospice care in 1984.

Beresford's conclusion is that perhaps this ebb in enrollment is really a reflection of market capacity:

The MBAs who run fast food or pharmacy chains are taught that when your company or your industry stops growing, it is already dying. But is that the right model for a service designed to promote compassionate, individualized, quality of life-promoting care for dying patients and their families? Shouldn't hospice's goal be to offer a meaningful option to all those who might need it and want it, and who might qualify, according to the rules of those who would pay for it, as being terminally ill -- rather than just continuing to grow? And if there is a current decline in referrals, given the recent proliferation and rampant competition of mom-and-pop hospice providers, particularly in certain metro areas and in the states of Alabama, Mississippi and Oklahoma, perhaps what's happening now is what the economists might call a necessary market correction.
I tend to disagree with Beresford and here's why: hospice is really the only option for patients who wish to die at home and so, as long as statistics continue to show that a majority of Americans wish to die at home (80%) and that most continue to die in facilities (75%) there's room for hospice to grow.

Whatever strides the hospice community has made in the past three decades or so of convincing society that the patient can decide where they die (and increasingly, when), the prevailing institutions in our culture - the church, the medical industry, and the state - haven't done much to change the tone of discussion about death. Only in Oregon, where the state population has had a long and in-depth conversation about end of life care (primarily because of the successful initiative to legalize assisted suicide) is there a more sophisticated understanding of end of life care options. I suspect that, as statistics in 2007 showed, that Oregon continues to lead the country in hospice enrollment. A couple of other factors that are working against hospice enrollment:

1. The rise of "pro-life" opposition to end of life choice (as conveyed through fear of "socialized" medicine, removal of artificial nutrition and hydration, end of life care planning (DNR, living wills, medical proxy designation), and aid in dying) and simple statistics that show the devoutly religious are more inclined to seek aggressive, futile care at the end of life are only one front that prevents society from viewing hospice as a healthy, life-affirming choice.

2. The medical industry has absolutely no incentive to direct terminal patients to hospice. Doctors are entrenched in a culture that, as Joanne Lynn says, puts patients on a "glide path" that involves aggressive treatment until death, as though death is a "failure" of medicine that can be cured. Doctors have only begun to be trained in medical schools for end of life care discussions (and continue to not be reimbursed for the necessarily lengthy discussions); palliative care is growing but still in its infancy; doctors tend to grossly over-estimate the time a patient has before death (hence delayed and briefer hospice enrollment); aggressive care is revenue for medical institutions and doctors; the conservative AMA and other medical associations (with the exception of many nursing organizations) have resisted society's call for greater improvements to end of life care. As well, advancements like 911, CPR, and the ability to lengthen a patient's life have prevented serious discussion about "quality of life." "Doing everything we can" to save a patient is the default, whether it lengthens the patient's life or keeps them comfortable - or not.

3. As we've seen during the year-long health care debate, the state has done little - either at the state or federal levels - to promote or legislate sound end of life care laws. I can think of only a handful of state laws that promote end of life planning. Veteran's Affairs, the largest health care provider in the US, has made commendable, great strides in meeting patient's needs and wishes in the last months of life but at the end of last year we saw them come under attack for distributing a planning guide, then termed the "death book." This noise, however illegitimate, makes institutions, health care providers, and doctors hesitant to discuss these issues.

In essence, the media and society have allowed fear-mongering and inaccurate accusations to shut down the end of life discussion.

The entire non-sensical circus that stemmed from the health care debate - death panels, the state's gonna euthanize you, etc. - has had an effect. The environment we're in at the moment (a political battle that has less to do with patient care than politics) has had a dampening effect on legislative efforts to enforce good end of life care planning.

The powerful Catholic church, a strong opponent of removal from ANH and of assisted suicide, is in a position where they must articulate nuanced and complicated arguments for hospice (an organization founded by the Catholic Cicely Saunders and long affiliated with the Catholic church) if they want to support hospice at all. For their political purposes, it is much better to push "all life is sacred" than "you're bound for a better place," both rhetorical constructs that sound true enough but work to As well, the church is firmly under the influence of a staunchly conservative leadership right now. And, as the second largest operator of hospitals in the US, they too have an interest in keeping patients in hospitals, receiving aggressive care. Their force and influence was proven during the health care debate.

And lastly, death just isn't what it used to be. Death used to mean the almost simultaneous end of a heart beat, breathing and brain function. In the past 30 or so years medicine has figured out how to maintain the first two indefinitely. And brain function, as we've seen with the cases of three young women - Karen Ann Quinlan (1985), Nancy Cruzan (1990), and Terri Schiavo (2005) - is increasingly considered not a suitable qualification for death.

But there is hope for hospice. Baby boomers are increasingly greying and, as they have changed every other institution their generation has moved through, end of life care is bound to be altered by their increasing need of it. As well, our health care system is not equipped for such a large influx of elder patients. The threat of economic destruction should be enough to push US society and government to reconsider how we care for those who are dying. Hospice will play a vital role in that reconsideration.


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