Proponent of Chivalry Driven Euthanasia?

Art by Edward Blair Leighton(Thanks for the FYI Michelle!)

You may or may not have seen this photo before. I have personally seen it on Facebook many times over the last few months and been frustrated at the lack of protest from believers. The photo promotes a not so subtle ideology that is wrong and completely unchristian. Completely.  Last night laying in bed, I was stirred to write a response, here it is. I'll show you where it goes wrong and how.  

I'm not going to protest chivalry and attack the idea of laying down our lives for others; the key word there is others not women. But I'm not going to defend it either, and get bogged down in chivalrous dribble that leaves girls sighing and waiting for that knight in shining armor to rescue them and right the world, or leaves guys looking around every corner for a beautiful and helpless girl to rescue.



Now to the photo itself:
This photo is a proponent of a sort of morally based euthanasia by implication. It's text reads, "Chivalry: Not all girls like it. Just the ones worth dying for." Semi-colon addition mine.

This idea of some people being worth saving and others not worth saving and that people who disagree with you are worth less effort, based on a single viewpoint they hold regardless of sin is a blatantly anti-Christian idea that Christ  speaks directly against.

And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” Mark 2:17 (ESV) This is Jesus saying, "No! I'm going to the sick, it's the sick that need me."  He doesn't seem to think that even these sick and sinful people were worth less effort or action on their behalf because of their morals or belief state.  


The second subversive view it promotes, with the same level of error and moral obfuscation, is  going so far to say that due to someones ideological and moral beliefs they may or may not be worth dying for depending on whether they agree with the amorphous chivalry proponent group. It's eugenics(and by practice, euthanasia) hinged not on a gene pool, but morality, or more precisely, a single idea and like eugenics, whether you "pass or fail" is based on a loose "other" group of law makers and scientist proponents that have no real authority on the issue.

Put succinctly,
Instead of the eugenics: Looking to genetic makeup to determine if you will be able to add life to society, and making the decision based upon exterior and mental characteristic.

Now we have Moral Chivalry Driven Euthanasia: Looking at someones moral makeup to determine whether we will allow them to live, or who we will help live, or who is worth more, and making a decision based purely upon a single idea.

And Christian young people are saying, "Yes! I love this!", when the photo is grossly maligning huge tenants of Christianity and there should be voices decrying the ideology but instead the vocal group is in favor of the photo and are copying a 'lite' version of the eugenics mindset. I say vocal because I have to assume that there are other people out there who have a reasonable defense for not liking the photo, they just simply aren't the voices I've heard.

I realize this is a photo and not many of you who enjoyed it's statement and artists rendering will say, "Oh, yeah I was trying to decide if I should kill that girl who didn't like chivalry. She's not worth saving, you know."

And I'm glad you probably weren't thinking this! But by embracing the photo's message you're embracing something so anti-scriptural it just begs a counter argument to be heard, to be shouted! And since the counter to this worth by personal ideals message is found so absolutely throughout scripture that surely more Christians should be speaking out against the photo, or at the very least not promoting it.


By their actions or moral beliefs no one is deemed unworthy, by Christ, to die for. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4:9-10 (ESV)

And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” Mark 2:17 (ESV)Emphasis mine.

6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— 8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:6-8 (ESV) Emphasis mine.

For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. Luke 19:10 (ESV)

16 “For God so loved the world[The sinful hating world that is antagonistic towards Him.], that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 Amplified text addition mine.

This was just a handful of scriptures that came to mind, and they clearly show the error of the photo far better than several thousand more words by me. It's counter the scripture's entire message to say that someone is not worthy dying for, or has less value, for something so non-essential as chivalry. Jesus didn't think there were people not worth dying for. He also didn't think that the lost weren't worth as much effort. Who are we to say that they are worth less based on a man-made idea of chivalry?

Yes it's a humorous photo, yes no one probably is seriously considering not helping a girl who doesn't respect chivalry, but yes this idea is so anti-scripture teaching that you Christians who are in agreement with the photo, or embraced it, please examine yourself in regards to your acceptance of it.


I don't have space to go into this, and it's probably good for both of us(!), but a more conservative mindset is often more in favor of Chivalry, so this photo more specifically targets the liberal minded folk as less valued. In practice it probably is targeting more of the unsaved with a message their value is less. Again, don't have the space to go into it, but something for you to think about.


Throughout the article I will use the words euthanasia and eugenics as partially synonymous for our purposes. Eugenics is the father of of euthanasia and provides the backbone for the idea of less useful members of society. Euthanasia, rather than stopping the creation of more such members as eugenics does/did, starts doing it's dirty work on people who are already members of society.

Definition from Mirriam Webster.com
Euthanasia: the act or practice of killing or permitting the death of hopelessly sick or injured individuals (as persons or domestic animals) in a relatively painless way for reasons of mercy.

Definition from Dictionary.com
Eugenics: the study of or belief in the possibility of improving the qualities of the human species or a human population, especially by such means as discouraging reproduction by persons having genetic defects or presumed to have inheritable undesirable traits (negative eugenics)  or encouraging reproduction by persons presumed to have inheritable desirable traits (positive eugenics). 





~Millard

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