{"id":62013,"date":"2017-07-31T14:00:26","date_gmt":"2017-07-31T18:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=62013"},"modified":"2017-07-31T18:00:12","modified_gmt":"2017-07-31T22:00:12","slug":"joni-eareckson-tada-after-50-years-in-a-wheelchair-i-still-walk-with-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=62013","title":{"rendered":"(CT) Joni Eareckson Tada&#8211;After 50 Years in a Wheelchair, I Still Walk with Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"question\">You\u2019ve vocally\u00a0<a class=\"question\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/the-disability-double-standard-1389311313\">opposed<\/a>\u00a0assisted suicide laws, including in your home state of\u00a0<a class=\"question\" href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/local\/lanow\/la-me-ln-end-of-life-act-20170627-htmlstory.html\">California<\/a>,\u00a0<a class=\"question\" href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/joni-eareckson-tada\/a-grave-decision-for-cali_b_8259900.html\">noting<\/a>\u00a0that laws of this kind expose \u201ca fundamental fear of pain and disability.\u201d How do you see this fear impact the way we as a culture respond to those with debilitating illness, chronic suffering, or disability?<\/p>\n<p class=\"answer\">People have a fear of pain. People have a fear of dying. Fear is what has driven the legalization of euthanasia\u2014but fear should never ever be the foundation for social policy. It should not be society\u2019s role to help people end their lives.<\/p>\n<p class=\"answer\">Most people, when they are at the end stages of life, are afraid of pain, they\u2019re afraid of abandonment, they\u2019re afraid of isolation, they don\u2019t want to be a burden to their families. But all these issues can be addressed. They are problems that have solutions\u2014like better pain management, better support services, better family counseling. Let\u2019s pour resources into making it easier for people to\u00a0<em>live\u00a0<\/em>and not to die.<\/p>\n<p class=\"question\">Compassion is often a motivating factor for those who favor physician-assisted suicide\u2014including Christians who\u00a0<a class=\"question\" href=\"http:\/\/lifewayresearch.com\/2016\/12\/06\/most-americans-say-assisted-suicide-is-morally-acceptable\/\">support it<\/a>. In your view, how should Christians\u00a0<em>rightly<\/em>\u00a0understand and express compassion toward those who are suffering?<\/p>\n<p class=\"answer\">The first thing Christians ought to do before they even work on compassion is get a biblical view on\u00a0<em>suffering<\/em>. Most Christians would rather escape, avoid it, drug it, medicate it, divorce it, institutionalize it\u2014do anything but live with it&#8230;.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/women\/2017\/july\/joni-eareckson-tada-fifty-years-wheelchair-walk-jesus.html\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Joni Eareckson Tada opens up about praying for healing, Charlie Gard, and God&#8217;s place in suffering <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JoniandFriends\">@JoniandFriends<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/BQUaZVzAwi\">https:\/\/t.co\/BQUaZVzAwi<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 CT Women (@CT_women) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CT_women\/status\/890934763997077504\">July 28, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You\u2019ve vocally\u00a0opposed\u00a0assisted suicide laws, including in your home state of\u00a0California,\u00a0noting\u00a0that laws of this kind expose \u201ca fundamental fear of pain and disability.\u201d How do you see this fear impact the way we as a culture respond to those with debilitating<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=62013\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,175,168,104,177,34,166,169],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christian-life-church-life","category-anthropology","category-ethics-moral-theology","category-health-medicine","category-pastoral-theology","category-theology","category-theology-holy-spirit-pneumatology","category-theology-scripture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62013"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62013\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62019,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62013\/revisions\/62019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}