How America reckons with its fractured reality

The first thing is always to listen. To sit. To feel.

Jared Stacy

Jared holds a Theological Ethics PhD from the University of Aberdeen. His research focuses conspiracy theory, politics, and evangelicalism.

Two people sit at the table, one dictates as the other types. Behind a banner reads: write a postcard to the next president.i

Artist Sheryl Oring types messages to the president.

instagram/usf_npml

Yesterday, the day after the election, I preached a funeral. I heard the name of our President-elect only once. But I did speak on Jesus and Lazarus. About pain and loss.

I named our enemy, death, that robber, cheat, and swindler. And I spoke about grief—we all grieve in so many different ways. And then about tears. I shared about the man from Nazareth, whose public grief before the tomb of his friend drew hushed whispers from onlookers.

It was, you may remember, a tomb he was about to open. He knew, Jesus did, what he was about to do. And did it so that those who were there would become witnesses to precisely what God is about: defeating death. “Come out, Lazarus!” says Jesus, and he does.

The Christian faith, I told the grieving, would have us believe that even in our grief, there is a hope that hems it in. That Jesus enters our darkness and comes to rob death of its finality. I love too that Jesus says next— “Unbind him!” —turning onlookers into witnesses and participants.

This was how I spent my day. I’m not sure I could have spend it any better. Not because it was an escape from the election, but it forced some perspective on me. Because T.S. Eliot is right: “we cannot bear much reality.”

Here, political autopsies are everywhere. Some talk of the Democrat’s conceit, of denying President Biden’s liability as a candidate, bypassing the primaries, refusing to meet economic concerns. There’s talk of Trump’s genius and what looks to be the end of his legal troubles. There’s talk of the downfall of America, of ascendant and aspiring authoritarianisms. Perhaps. Especially if we take Trump at his word.

But as the funeral ends, I’m weighed down by the messages I’m starting to read. Not about the results alone. Not questions about political strategy and futures. No, these are pained voices from a Christian community in America betraying itself.

My phone messages are filled with stories of pain and loss. Friends and strangers alike, enduring the same loss, the same betrayal. The communities that taught us the faith now distort it. And none of this is new.

Howard Thurman, who mentored Martin Luther King Jr., said it back in 1946: “the tragic truth is that the church permits various hate groups in our common life to establish squatter’s rights in the minds of believers because there has been no adequate teaching on the meaning of the faith in terms of human dignity.” This loss has been with us for generations. But these fissures and fractures are ours to bear today. And they are not unconnected from the social and political chaos of America.

Martin Luther once said, “living, dying, and being damned makes one a theologian.” This has taught me to welcome, rather than despise, accusations that question the validity of my faith. It’s also made me suspicious of the misplaced messianic hope from which such questions emerge. It’s a false hope not easily displaced.

Before I returned to the States from living in Scotland these last few years, a good friend told me honestly: “perhaps America will have to ride it out, all of it, until it’s done.” The thought seemed a far-off scenario then. But I think he’s right.

When Israel built the golden calf in the wilderness, Moses made them grind it up into powder, mixing it in their drinks. The Christian community in America, whether we realize it our not, will soon be drinking our idolatry down to the dregs with consequences beyond Christian community itself.

And people ask, “what should we do?” And I think that time is near for that question. But the first thing is always to listen. To sit. To feel. And to remember that it’s not for nothing that Jesus, who pronounced so many woes over Jerusalem, also wept over it.

This article’s image is of Sheryl Oring, an artist who invites the public to write to the next president. She has typed and sent thousands of messages to the White House every election since 2004 as part of her performance series I Wish to Say. Read more about her and the letters: Artist Invites the Public to Write Letters to the Next US President

Article

Assisted dying

Care

Comment

Politics

7 May 2025

4 min read

Assisted dying is not a medical procedure; it is a social one

Another vote, and an age-related amendment, highlight the complex community of care.

Henna Cundill

Henna is a researcher with the Centre for Autism and Theology at the University of Aberdeen.

Graffiti reads 'I miss me' with u crossed out under the 'mem'

Sidd Inban on Unsplash.

Scottish Parliament’s Assisted Dying bill will go to a stage one vote on Tuesday 13th May, with some amendments having been made in response to public and political consultation. This includes the age of eligibility, originally proposed as 16 years. In the new draft of the bill, those requesting assistance to die must be at least 18.

MSPs have been given a free vote on this bill, which means they can follow their consciences. Clearly, amongst those who support it, there is a hope that raising the age threshold will calm the troubled consciences of some who are threatening to oppose. When asked if this age amendment was a response to weakening support, The Times reports that one “seasoned parliamentarian” (unnamed) agreed, and commented:

“The age thing was always there to be traded, a tactical retreat.”

The callousness of this language chills me. Whilst it is well known that politics is more of an art than a science, there are moments when our parliamentarians literally hold matters of life and death in their hands. How can someone speak of such matters as if they are bargaining chips or military manoeuvres? But my discomfort aside, there is a certain truth in what this unnamed strategist says.

When Liam McArthur MSP was first proposed the bill, he already suggested that the age limit would be a point of debate, accepting that there were “persuasive” arguments for raising it to 18. Fortunately, McArthur’s language choices were more appropriate to the subject matter. “The rationale for opting for 16 was because of that being the age of capacity for making medical decisions,” he said, but at the same time he acknowledged that in other countries where similar assisted dying laws are already in operation, the age limit is typically 18.

McArthur correctly observes that at 16 years old young people are considered legally competent to consent to medical procedures without needing the permission of a parent or guardian. But surely there is a difference, at a fundamental level, between consenting to a medical procedure that is designed to improve or extend one’s life and consenting to a medical procedure that will end it?

Viewed philosophically, it would seem to me that Assisted Dying is actually not a medical procedure at all, but a social one. This claim is best illustrated by considering one of the key arguments given for protecting 16- and 17- year-olds from being allowed to make this decision, which is the risk of coercion. The adolescent brain is highly social; therefore, some argue, a young person might be particularly sensitive to the burden that their terminal illness is placing on loved ones. Or worse, socially motivated young people may be particularly vulnerable to pressure from exhausted care givers, applied subtly and behind closed doors.

Whilst 16- and 17- year-olds are considered to have legal capacity, guidance for medical staff already indicates that under 18s should be strongly advised to seek parent or guardian advice before consenting to any decision that would have major consequences. Nothing gets more major than consenting to die, but sadly, some observe, we cannot be sure that a parent or guardian’s advice in that moment will be always in the young person’s best interests. All of this discussion implies that we know we are not asking young people to make just a medical decision that impacts their own body, but a social one that impacts multiple people in their wider networks.

For me, this further raises the question of why 18 is even considered to be a suitable age threshold. If anything, the more ‘adult’ one gets, the more one realises one’s place in the world is part of a complex web of relationships with friends and family, in which one is not the centre. Typically, the more we grow up, the more we respect our parents, because we begin to learn that other people’s care of us has come at a cost to themselves. This is bound to affect how we feel about needing other people’s care in the case of disabling and degenerative illness. Could it even be argued that the risk of feeling socially pressured to end one’s life early actually increases with age? Indeed, there is as much concern about this bill leaving the elderly vulnerable to coercion as there is for young people, not to mention disabled adults. As MSP Pam Duncan-Glancey (a wheelchair-user) observes, “Many people with disabilities feel that they don’t get the right to live, never mind the right to die.”

There is just a fundamental flawed logic to equating Assisted Dying with a medical procedure; one is about the mode of one’s existence in this world, but the other is about the very fact of it. The more we grow, the more we learn that we exist in communities – communities in which sometimes we are the care giver and sometimes we are the cared for. The legalisation of Assisted Dying will impact our communities in ways which cannot be undone, but none of that is accounted for if Assisted Dying is construed as nothing more than a medical choice.

As our parliamentarians prepare to vote, I pray that they really will listen to their consciences. This is one of those moments when our elected leaders literally hold matters of life and death in their hands. Now is not the time for ‘tactical’ moves that might simply sweep the cared-for off of the table, like so many discarded bargaining chips. As MSPs consider making this very fundamental change to the way our communities in Scotland are constituted, they are not debating over the mode of the cared-for’s existence, they are debating their very right to it.