| La traduction d'Évangile et liberté |
|
|
Les sujets de Août 2010
 2 sujets Retour à l'accueil du blog
| 31 Août 2010 | | Viva la disobbedienza !
Traduction, Mardi 31 Août 2010 à 21:49 - Italiano
Laurent Gagnebin
Traduzione Giacomo Tessaro
Eppure la nostra intera educazione, familiare e scolastica, ci insegna il contrario ! Apprendiamo
così, attraverso un lungo percorso sovente doloroso, a dire sempre di sì. Ma è altrettanto necessario
imparare a dire di no. L'insegnamento del sì è così pesante e potente nella nostra vita che saper dire
di no diviene una colpa, diviene addirittura impossibile. Ci si può domandare seriamente se il
protestantesimo non sia, a osservarlo attentamente, principalmente ma non esclusivamente
nell'ambito religioso, una scuola di disobbedienza. Con esso, non si tratta di dire “ sì e...amen “. Da
Lutero a Martin Luther King, da Marie Durand che incise il suo famoso “ resistere “ a Albert
Schweitzer che remava così spesso controcorrente, lo spirito protestante, e più ancora lo spirito del
protestantesimo liberale, è in tutto e per tutto lo spirito dei resistenti e di una disobbedienza
spirituale e individuale. Rifiutare la costrizione religiosa è un gesto tipicamente protestante. Quando
contestiamo, nel nome della libertà di coscienza, il clericalismo e le infallibilità, è certamente il
diritto a una insubordinazione, a una rivolta, addirittura a una insurrezione, che difendiamo. Il
protestantesimo è incomprensibile, sia nella sua storia che nella sua essenza, senza questa virtù della
disobbedienza e dell'anticonformismo. “ Pensare e credere in totale libertà “ tale è lo slogan di
Évangile et liberté. Rifiutare il dottrinarismo e il dogmatismo autoritario, è sapere dire di no.
Nessuna istituzione, ecclesiale o meno, può, nel nome di un'ortodossia stabilita, vietarci un atto di
disobbedienza. Non siamo forse, per fedeltà a un Evangelo di libertà, degli obiettori di coscienza in
potenza?
| | | |
| 28 Août 2010 | | Is Life Sacred? Assisted Suicide – a Reflection
Traduction, Samedi 28 Août 2010 à 17:15 - English
by Vincent Schmid
Translated by Jack McDonald
Exit, an organisation which offers to help terminally ill people cut short their suffering, has operated legally in Switzerland since 2005. This practice, which occurs under the strictest judicial supervision, has recently prompted a fine and well-balanced documentary, Le choix de Jean [Jean’s Choice].
The delicate question of death by choice is a reality from which the Bible does not shrink. Saul, Elijah, Job, Paul – all these figures are depicted as seized at one moment or another by the desire to end it all. Some, like Saul, Samson and indeed Judas, achieve this goal. The Bible is familiar with this particular, ultimate, human behaviour: it is stated to exist rather than judged; at each occurrence, it takes place within the range of possible human experience.
But what does it mean?
It is possible to understand suicide as the supreme act of freedom. The ultimate freedom for someone facing the inevitable is to choose it rather than to have to undergo it. It is worth reminding ourselves of the way that the Gospels, especially John, present the approach of Jesus to his death on the cross: whereas he could easily have escaped from his enemies (by hiding or by fleeing – he didn’t lack for friends to assist…) Jesus instead chose to present himself before them. He chose to take a main part in his own death. “No one takes away my life; I give it by my own will.” (John 10.18) He endorsed his public pronouncements on the subject by the manner of his own death.
To this extent, Jesus sits alongside a large group of philosophers of Antiquity who countenanced the idea of deciding for oneself the time and manner of one’s death. Like Christ, Socrates thought that there were causes far higher and more important than the preservation of a single life.
A new approach to the suffering induced by physical degradation is possible: in spite of the multitude of clichés about the virtue of suffering which still circulate despite the onward march of medical techniques, we need to state again with vigour that suffering is not a value to be prized in itself. Suffering neither saves nor purifies nor instructs. Suffering belongs with tragedy and not with redemption. Suffering is the shocking shadow-side of our value-neutral sense experience. To desire to escape or cut short suffering when there is no hope of a cure is an attitude which is understandable even if we ourselves do not share it.
Suicide can be undertaken with others in mind. The incurably sick person who carries out this fatal course of action is refusing to inflict the spectacle of his own destruction by illness on those he loves; he wants to spare them the burden of an increasingly leaden dependency. It is a means for him of preventing that those around him should begin to wish for his death when this burden becomes unbearable. We can be in the presence here of a kind of self-offering in the best sense of the word: “There is no love greater than to give one’s life for one’s friends.” (John 15.13)
Finally, suicide does not cut across the spiritual dimension of human being. We note that Psalm 139 alludes to the frontier-territory of the desire for death: “If I ask the shadows to cover me, even the shadows are not dark for you.” This is especially interesting because it seems to be an attempt by someone to escape from God via suicide; and the psalmist affirms that even this end-state does not manage to sever us from our spiritual bearings.
So, the most radical act that a human being can carry out on himself, for whatever reason, cannot fend off the love of God. As Romans confirms: “Neither death nor life can separate us…” (Romans 8.38) There are plenty of factors which encourage us to think positively about a question which social and scientific changes are going to render ever more acute.
| | | |
|
|
|
|
Evangile et liberté in english
Evangile et liberté en español
Evangile et liberté in italiano |
| |
LES NOTES RÉCENTES
Un Dios que rompe los sueños
¿Hay que borrar el capítulo 25 del Evangelio de San Mateo ?
Soñé que llegaba al Paraiso
La Chiesa, altro nome dell'umanità
I nonni preistorici e l'emergere della religione
Ci può essere un risveglio spirituale delle Chiese nell'ecumenismo e nelle tradizioni religiose?
Perché djo permette che si dubiti di lui o che non si creda in lui?
Su cosa si deve fondare la teologia, sul pensiero degli uomini o su quello di Dio?
A proposito della Trinità
La grande parabola
|
