Answers in Genesis founder decries euthanasia liturgy

Christian apologist Ken Ham on Wednesday denounced a recent euthanasia liturgy released by a national Canadian church. The pastoral liturgy from the Anglican Church of Canada read like a stamp of approval for Medical Assistance in Dying, or MAID, Ham wrote in a post. Canada legalized the practice in 2016, allowing suicide providers to administer lethal injections to patients who wish to end their lives. Under the law, patients 18 and older can be eligible for MAID if they have an incurable illness, an advanced state of irreversible decline in capability, and intolerable physical or psychological suffering. The Anglican church’s council of general synod approved its 60-page liturgy for MAID patients in June.

The document listed prayers, confessions, Scripture readings, and instructions for communion that should be provided before and after the person’s life ends, Ham said. The document has the appearance of godliness, but instead it tells pastors that they have a duty to stand with patients who choose to end their lives, he said. It ignores that a physician’s actions in MAID deliberately kill a patient, the Answers in Genesis founder wrote.

What does the liturgy say?

• It described itself as a resource for providing pastoral care to those who die from the assisted suicide practice. Care for those who are dying was a normal part of pastoral care, according to the document.

• It noted that some Anglicans have had profound experiences of witnessing a MAID death accompanied by prayer and pastoral care. It acknowledged that other Anglicans believe that the practice offers no moral good and may defy God.

• The document claimed it should not be viewed as a guide or blessing on individuals’ decisions for or against MAID. It insisted that it was not a moral argument supporting or criticizing the assisted suicide practice.

Who else has criticized the liturgy? George Sinclair, a former priest in the Anglican Church of Canada, condemned the liturgy in an article for the Gospel Coalition in Canada. The liturgy showed that the Anglican Church of Canada believed in a different religion than historic, orthodox, biblical Christianity, Sinclair said. The rites in the liturgy don’t justify the killing, he wrote. Sinclair currently leads an Anglican Network parish in Ottawa.

The liturgy risked normalizing assisted death, wrote Wesley J. Smith, a contributor to The National Review. The church has surrounded MAID with religious rituals that are typically associated with natural dying, Smith said.