In his little book Altogether Gift: A Trinitarian Spirituality, Michael Downey suggests that we can learn things about being human from the mentally handicapped that we can’t learn from the healthy.  Handicapped people are often entirely dependent, and have to bow at every moment to the direction of others.

It is easy for us who are free from mental handicaps to think that being human means being self-directed, rational, or independent. When we examine ourselves in the mirror of handicapped people – including fetuses – we realize that being human is less about standing tall than about receiving a gift.

This is not relativism.  It is not true that we are “all handicapped” or that mental deficiencies are only so in the eye of the beholder.  But it is true that all human beings share, to one degree or another, the very dependencies that make the handicapped so strange and awkward.

Perhaps this explains why Paul says that in the church we bestow abundant honor upon the “unseemly members.”  Perhaps he wants us to learn more deeply what it means to be a “seemly member” by considering our “unseemly” brothers and sisters.

- Taken from Peter Leithart, Touchstone, p. 5, October 2008

Her books have sold over a hundred million copies, making her one of the most widely read authors in the modern era.  Until recently, Anne Rice’s name was synonymous with “popular vampire fiction.”  Her gorey gothic romances have been adapted into Hollywood films and television productions.

More recently, however, to the chagrin of many of her fans, Rice announced her conversion (or re-conversion) to the Roman Catholic faith of her childhood.  No longer a writer of baroque horror stories populated with blood-sucking fiends, she has dedicated the rest of her life to writing about her Lord, Jesus Christ.

Many Christians were skeptical when they learned that Rice plans to produce a series of novels on the life of Jesus.  The first two installments have already become best-sellers (Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt and Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana) and she’s only getting started.

You might be surprised, as I was, that she’s remarkably reverent and orthodox as she weaves plausible and deeply researched narratives about Jesus.  Rice has explained her path back to Christianity from atheism in numerous interviews.  She offers a taste of her upcoming memoir on her website.  It’s entitled “Called Out of Darkness” and I have high expectations.

Few, if any popular authors are as well informed about biblical studies as Anne Rice.  Certainly, she has read much more in the field than most LCMS pastors.  In First Things magazine online, Father Dwight Longenecker interviews Rice about her vampires, her Christian faith, and her books on Jesus.  I commend it to you.

Even though we are still basking in the glory of the Festival of the Resurrection, today my mind turns toward Christmas. That’s because today is the commemoration of the Annunciation, the scene in Luke’s Gospel where the angel tells Mary that she will bear a son who will be called the Son of God. March 25 is exactly nine months before Christmas which, of course, is the the celebration of the birth of Jesus.* Thus today is really the celebration of the impregnation of Mary, the incarnation of God’s one eternally begotten son in the Virgin’s womb. As St. John wrote: The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

I never seem to get past this date without needing to comment on the great atrocity of abortion. It is simply not possible to take the incarnation of God’s Son seriously and not be opposed to abortion. The Eternal Son did not begin his earthly pilgrimage as an infant in Bethlehem. He began it as a zygote in Nazareth.

Some modern churches have altered the words of the Nicene Creed to become more politically correct, and in so doing have sold their souls for a mess of pottage. The traditional English translation states that the Son of God “became man.” In order to avoid the appearance of male chauvinism, some have rendered this instead as “became fully human.”

That is a very unsatisfactory translation. I understand the purpose. By “man,” we do not mean to imply that the incarnation does not benefit people without penises. So we say Jesus became a human being. And that is true enough. The trouble is with the phrase “fully human.” Fully Human? What other options were there? Could the Son of God have entered the world as a partial human? A potential human? Maybe a cyborg or a chimera? The phrase “fully human” implies that there are degrees of being human and that is completely incompatible with the Christian faith.

I’m with Frederica Mathewes-Green who said, “I believe that we begin when our bodies begin…. I believe that where there is a living body, there is a soul. There is no such thing as a living body without a soul; I’ve never encountered such a concept outside zombie movies. You can’t, therefore, say that this living, unique human body suddenly becomes a person at six months gestation, or at birth, or some other time. Where there is a living human body, there is human life.” To read the rest of her stunning essay, go here.

There are ethical implications for what we believe as Christians. It is not possible to take seriously the incarnation of the Son of God while tolerating abortion. Read that sentence again. Read it twice because anyone who denies the true humanity of Jesus is in serious danger.

St. John wrote that anyone who denies the incarnation of the Son of God is the antichrist. “Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist (2John:7).”

A person who accepts abortion must reason that the object being removed from the woman is non-human or somehow less than human, otherwise it is clearly murder. A Christian, however, believes that God became flesh at the point of conception (“conceived by the Holy Spirit”) and this confirms for us the tenet that a zygote is a human being.

I don’t see how anyone can, in good conscience, celebrate Christmas without opposing abortion.

* Before anyone asks, no, we do not know the precise date of Jesus’ birth. These dates were selected by the church and continue to be observed out of tradition.

Death is unnatural in the sense that it is not the design of the Creator. It’s not supposed to happen to you. When God created Adam and Eve in the Garden, it was not His purpose for them to die. Death is not just a part of the “circle of life” as in that horrible Disney song. Holy Scripture describes death as the curse for sin (Romans 5).

As a thing unnatural, death is not something I am willing to make peace with. There will be no coming to terms. No armistice. Contrary to the well-intentioned but ethically challenged right-to-die crowd, death is not a friend to be welcomed as the deliverer from this world’s troubles. Death is the enemy whom Christ has destroyed! 1 Corinthians 15:26.

Our time, once coined the Culture of Death, wants to redefine death, to domesticate it. The Culture of Death believes that death is nature’s way of making room for life. The Culture of Death believes that a person’s value is determined by his productivity so that when a person becomes a burden or a drain, then he should die. It’s a “survival of the fittest” thing.

Of course, one must accept the reality that biological death is inevitable for all of us (except those alive at the parousia). And there are times when a dying person must be allowed to die – though not because it is his/her “right” but because it has become the lesser evil.

At the same time, I confess that by His own dying and rising, our Lord Jesus has transformed death so that for those who are baptized into Christ, death has lost its sting. We are set free from the fear of death and, as the Apostle writes, we do not grieve as the world does. For the new creature in Christ, death is no more a threat than a night of sleep.

Christians may inadvertently contribute to this domestication of death when we emphasize that so-and-so has gone to a better place. That’s true. And it is comforting. Jesus told the penitent thief, “Today you shall be with me in Paradise.” And St. Paul does write that to be absent from the body is to be with the Lord. But the focus must not be upon the soul residing in heaven.

Our final hope, after all, is not that one day this ol’ body will give out and we will be liberated from the prison house of the flesh to soar with God. Our final hope is to share in Christ’s bodily resurrection, having already been made a participant in it through Holy Baptism. And thus will be overturned the curse of sin and the reign of death forever.

The article begins with “Yonatan Gher and his partner, who are Israeli, plan eventually to tell their child about being made in India, in the womb of a stranger, with the egg of a Mumbai housewife they picked from an Internet lineup.”

Go here to see the article.