by Tim Stanley, Telegraph
The vanishing of Christian ethics has been catastrophic for Britain
[…] Religion, in fact, barely featured in the assisted dying debate, except to suggest that opponents might be acting under orders from the Pope. This fantasy pays a backhanded compliment to a faith that has been losing its influence for a very long time. As far back as 1937, Cosmo Gordon Lang, the archbishop of Canterbury, abstained in a Lords vote on divorce because he judged it “no longer possible to impose the full Christian standard by law on a largely non-Christian population”.
Christianity defined the West for so many centuries that its loss is experienced as the death of a fixed order, but we mustn’t forget that Jesus was a revolutionary who overturned an even older system of ethics. Pagans, who largely felt life was meant to be enjoyed, thought the martyrdom-chasing Christians were nuts. One can see why. They taught that death is not the end, life is a test, and suffering is an opportunity to imitate the crucifixion.