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You got it wrong Dean Slee, says UK theologian
Church report permits allowing sick babies to die
From the Rev. Dr. Chris Green
Vice Principal,
Oak Hill Theological College, London
November 14, 2006
Sir,
The Dean of Southwark Cathedral, Ven. Colin Slee, summarises and endorses a report calling for allowing very sick children to die, with the couplet, 'Thou shalt not kill, but need'st not strive/officiously to keep alive'. http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=4990(Report,)
Mr Slee seems not to have noticed that this is not 'King James Version language' (as he puts it), but a quotation from the Victorian poet Arthur Hugh Clough.
In his poem 'The Latest Decalogue' Clough parodied attempts to update each of the Ten Commandments in turn, with such couplets as 'Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat/When it's so lucrative to cheat', or the one quoted above, and they are obviously deeply ironic.
It is doubly ironic, therefore, that Mr. Slee seems unaware that the lines he quotes were written to subvert and pillory the very liberalising tendency he represents.
Yours sincerely
Chris Green (Revd)
---The Revd Chris Green is Vice Principal, Oak Hill College in London
E-mail: ChrisG@oakhill.ac.uk
College web www.oakhill.ac.uk
Blog www.chris-green.blogspot.com
