Dance with Death: U-Church of Canada Abandons Hope

Advent is a season of hope. The holy season of Advent invites us to shift our priorities and to embrace the gift of hope found in Jesus Christ.

There are many cheap and hostile substitutes for hope barking for our attention and support.

Alerted by a video by Mr. Matt Walsh to a United Church of Canada (UCC) database containing incantations, as social commentator Walsh has rightly termed such misguided and misguiding compositions, it's this blogger's sincere desire that those in the UCC who possess even a modicum of commonsense, for the sake of their souls, upon confronting the horrifyingly misleading material concocted by the UCC brass, will come to their senses and veer toward safer harbours where the dignity of human beings created in the image and likeness of God is preserved and human life is revered, not painted over using some diabolical inversion of prayer.

Original texts can be viewed at the following UCC link: https://united-church.ca/worship-theme/death-and-dying. Be forewarned - said repository is an archive of deceit and despair.

As a former member of the UCC, from birth until my late teens, I knew a very different community, one much closer to its Methodist roots. The UCC has long since transformed into a clone of the New Democratic Party of Canada that espouses extremist leftist secular ideology. Decades ago, the UCC abandoned what little orthodox belief that remained among its Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregationalist founders. UCC ministers have repeatedly emptied their pews by riveting themselves to every pseudo-spiritual merry-go-round.

The "prayers" developed by David Sparks, a United Church of Canada minister, and Sheila Noyes, former co-president of Dying with Dignity Canada, are poison. The texts are to authentic spirituality as crystal meth is to a healthy diet. The arrogance of self-absolution promoted by the texts leads one to question the intentions of the composers. Do they imagine that by attaching a passing reference to Jesus Christ they can conceal an attempt to trick God and man into believing as acceptable the mortally sinful act of willingly and clear-mindedly choosing to commit suicide?

Deuteronomy 30:19

I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live.

A person in a vulnerable state does not need sophistry that subtly coerces at-risk individuals to choose despair, hell and eternal alienation from God. A person experiencing suicidal ideations needs accompaniment of a truly Christian kind, an accompaniment where those in contact with the vulnerable person suffer with (com-passio) him or her, providing comfort, reassurance, prayer, and practical support. Someone who is suicidal does not need an executioner. No one need be in pain. Palliative care services, for example, are outstanding for minimizing pain and for providing authentic accompaniment.

True compassion places demands on us all to ask for God's grace to endure suffering - the sick and caregivers. Grace transforms suffering. A crucifix reminds us that God is with us in our suffering and never abandons us to acts of despair. He draws others to be with us if we allow Him His rightful place in our life. By comparison, the UCC god is a liar offering a cheap solution that places the soul in opposition to the Creator's will.

Below is an example of a UCC weapon against hope, a blasphemous incantation masquerading as a prayer. Commentary in red.

Prayer at the Time of Deciding on the Day and Place of Death

by David Sparks, United Church of Canada minister, and Sheila Noyes, former co-president of Dying with Dignity Despair Canada.

Loving God, time and eternity, all life and all death, are in your hands. Be very close to me now as I decide the time and the place of my own death. [An act that explicitly rejects the sovereignty of God over one's life.]

You know so well the pain and helplessness that I suffer; you know that joy and laughter have gone out of my time with family and friends; you know that I want this existence over and done with. Good living time is finished and done for me; you know that too. [Hey God, I'm telling you what you already know. Who am I trying to convince?]

I do not want to linger in pain, waiting for death to come. I do not want my family and loved ones to watch me suffer to the bitter end. I do not want them to be haunted by memories of a slow, painful death. Daily my dignity is being eroded. I am ready to go through that final door. [Dignity is here defined as something cosmetic. The authors of the text reduce dignity to utility. 'I am not useful, or beautiful, or easy to be with, therefore I should not be.']

I give thanks that I have still the ability to choose, but I realize this window of lucid opportunity may very soon be closed. [Ah - the idol of choice. Since God is the Author of life, and I'm not, at least I can make myself equal to God by being the author of (my) death. Parish the thought we might be a burden to others who love us and are willing to walk the final mile with us, even in our distressing state.]

Give me the courage to state clearly what I want to happen so I can die when I choose, so I can go peacefully with my loved ones around me, and my last wishes, respected and followed. [Choose life! Live life with true dignity by embracing death as Jesus and the martyrs have embraced death. Repent of your sins and trust in the mercy of God. Ending one's own life by morally illicit and repugnant means that test the mercy of God is not a noble act. We live in an era when every mundane human act is deemed heroic. Don't fall for a lie, a lie that puts one's soul at risk of hell and damnation.]

Embrace with your love, God, loved ones… and be so close to them, so very close, as they quietly follow me to the place beyond which they cannot go. [Hell?]

Be with loved ones…in the days and weeks that follow my death, that they will seek and find the grief-help they need, and reassurance in their decision to go with me to the place of a final farewell. [Poetic nonsense. Bad poetry at best.]

I pray in the name of Jesus the Christ, who suffered greatly, died on the cross, but gloriously overcame death. Amen. [A token and blasphemous suffix to verbal diarrhea produced by agents of death.]

Monsignor Rossetti reminds us that... .

(w)hen demons are present, they infect you with their evil psyche. They are immersed in narcissism, fear, paranoia, anger and, yes, despair. It is for good reason that Dante’s Inferno has inscribed over the Gates of Hell, “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.” Having definitively rejected God, demons and the damned have forever rejected the true source of all hope.

As for the UCC, the following passage comes to mind:

They shall name it No Kingdom There, and all its princes shall be nothing. Thorns shall grow over its strongholds, nettles and thistles in its fortresses. It shall be the haunt of jackals, an abode for ostriches. And wild beasts shall meet with hyenas, the satyr shall cry to his fellow; yea, there shall the night hag (Lilith; Latin: lamia) alight, and find for herself a resting place. - Isaiah 34:12-14 RSVCE

The night hag to which the prophet is referring is Lilith, a demon.

With "prayers" like the one composed by Sparks and Noyes, who needs God? Theirs is a paragon of Pelagianism (and progressive liberal) virtue. Their "prayers" merely prey upon the vulnerable and ignore the dignity of human beings who deserve better than being treated as an inconvenience and therefore disposable.