Site
Contents
 |
General Information about the Area Office
North Indiana Conference Office
South Indiana Conference Office
Prayer Guides
(Courtesy of the NIC Prayer Team)
Area United Methodist
Foundation
For resources to assist your congregation in welcoming guests,
click here
Seashore District Volunteer Center VIM project -- Completed
Hoosier United Methodist News Archives
| Hoosier United Methodists together |
April 2005 |
Welcome
End-of-life issues lead this season of Eastertide
The beginning of this Easter season leading to Pentecost has been filled with discussion about end-of-life issues surrounding the deaths of Terry Schiavo and Pope John Paul II. Even the juxtaposing of the deaths of a brained-damaged young woman and of a seasoned leader of the world's largest Christian communion shared moments together on national news.
These two deaths during the same week that we celebrated the Resurrection of Jesus Christ brought the reality of the end of life right along side Christianity's central event which proclaims eternal life. Both lives and deaths showed the strength of faith and feelings over human mortality. Two events we all share as humans are birth and death. We know about our birth - we're here in time and history as creatures of our God and Sovereign. What we don't know about is our death. When, how, where and why are unknown until death occurs.
Both the deaths of Schiavo and John Paul showed us the need of a living will in a day and age when existence can be prolonged. Whether or not that life has value and quality or even if existence can be called life with meaning has been at the center of endless discussion since we began April.
Life is sacred, and so is death. As Christians we need to recognize both life and death as gifts of God, rather than something good and something bad. As Christians we believe that at death we experience God's gift of life eternal. May God's spirit guide us in our own life-and-death struggle.
In the more mundane matters of the state, April 29 is the close of this legislative session for the General Assembly -- sine die -- a very different life-and-death struggle as issues representing values and the quality of life for Hoosiers will be debated daily in Indiana's House and Senate.
From what has been reported, we expect no expansion of gambling this legislative session. This we celebrate. United Methodists and other faith groups have spent endless hours and innumerable letters and phone calls assuring no expansion of gambling. But be mindful that the session is not yet over. Bills before both houses can have peculiar words attached to them to open the door to gambling expansion. We must continue to be diligent in keeping our opposition to gambling before lawmakers and watch what happens with illegal "cherry master" gambling devices.
We also need to keep the prevention and cessation of tobacco before the legislators as well. Working together, the Hoosier Faith and Health Coalition in support of full funding for the Indiana Tobacco Prevention and Cessation agency has been heard. It appears that ITPC will not be fully funded in its 2003 level, but it appears that it will be financed at least at its current funding level to assure us that smoking rates will continue to decline.
Coalition members also favor a proposed hike in the cigarette tax. With each hike in cigarette taxes, reports show that more smokers decide to stop smoking and fewer begin smoking.
Finally, working with other faith groups and social service agencies, this month also will see new laws to more closely watch the care of Indiana's children, especially those under state custody. We should also see an increase in the number of caseworkers, so that caseworkers can provide for safe care for the children and youth in their keeping.
We continue April in the hope of Christ's resurrection, not only as an event in our history, but also as a daily realization of spiritual resurrections that occur in evidence of our Christian faith.
Welcome,
Daniel R. Gangler
Last updated on 25 Apr 2008