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Physician
Heal Thyself Old Testament Reading: Genesis 12:1-4a
This selection from Psalm 40 came to me not too long ago when I was reading an article in the New York Times entitled, "Science Academy Supports Cloning To Treat Disease." (New York Times, January 19, 2002) The National Academy of Sciences recently came out with a report favoring "research cloning" while also strongly opposing "reproductive cloning." So what is the difference between "research cloning" and "reproductive cloning?" The Academy stated that there is a significant difference between trying to produce a human being through cloning, and trying to seek cures for a myriad of human illnesses, diseases and debilitating physical conditions through the same basic cloning technologies. The report of the National Academy of Sciences finds itself however in direct conflict with the President of The United States and religious denominations representing millions of Americans and others that claim an affinity with the "religious right" in America. In "research cloning," the newly constructed embryo could be used to harvest stem cells, highly specialized in nature, that could then be used for research and for subsequent treatment of a plethora of human diseases and conditions that maim, cripple and more often than not destroy the quality of life of an afflicted person. The National Academy of Sciences supports this research. Those who oppose it do so on the basis that in order to extract stem cells, the embryos are destroyed and thus the issue of, "when does life really begin" raises its debatable head. The President' s Press Secretary, Ari Fleischer, responding to questions about the President' s opposition to any form of cloning said, "The President looks at these issues from a scientific and moral standpoint." At the same time that the White House was responding to the whole issue of cloning, the President's recently formed Bioethics Council was also studying the issue. Strangely, the Council is made up of legal and ethical scholars, scientists, physicians, and a journalist who is also a psychiatrist... but it appears that there is no solid theological/religious presence on the Council. I find this a rather strange and quite troubling situation when issues of morality and ethics are used as common denominators for any decision-making. Verses 5 and 6 from Psalm 40 are constant reminders that our vision of what is and will become is limited by the basic conscious awareness of our humanity. It is God who is in charge here, not us, and to presume to speak the ultimate truth of God when there is merit on both sides of such a complex issue is problematic. It is all well and good to cite constraints and controls on human behavior or in this case, scientific research. But the question must be raised, given the plurality of religions and religious beliefs in America, "Whose ethics and whose morality shall we apply in cases such as these?" I recall seeing a bumper sticker many years ago in Boston that was authored by the Boston Women' s Health Collective. The bumper sticker was jarring to say the least, but it did get one' s attention regarding a very controversial subject. It got me to thinking. It read; "If men could become pregnant... abortion would be a sacrament." The reference to "sacrament" was directed to the position of many religious leaders, mostly male, who decried abortion of any kind as a sin. As Bishop Richard Holloway points out in his book Godless Morality:
In the Old
Testament lesson for this morning taken from the Book of Genesis, we are
exposed to the powerful story of Abram or as we commonly know him, Abraham.
It is a story of revelation, discovery and great faith. It is a
story of taking great risks! The Lord speaks to Abram and says to him
basically... "OK, pack it all in. Leave everything that is familiar
and comfortable to you, everything that has value to you and begin a new
journey." God says,
Unlike many
of us who are unwilling or too frightened to risk the adventure of being
exposed to God's call, Abraham simply said yes to God and asked his brother's
son Lot to journey with him and his wife Sarah. At the vulnerable age
of 75 years Abraham took all of his possessions and set forward on an
unknown journey.
Abraham was moved to begin his journey of discovery by accepting great risk, sustained by a great faith. I am sure that many who knew Abraham considered him a religious fanatic or even worse a fool, who was crazy for doing what he did. But it was in this risking... in this faith-centered journey of discovery, that Abraham came to know the powerful presence of God in his life. It was this risk taking and his journey of discovery sustained by his great faith in God, that foretold of the eventual coming of the promised Messiah in the person of Jesus. Without this risk taking there would have been no great memory of Father Abraham or Sarah, and their role in the journey to freedom and the birthing of what was to become Israel. Without Abraham moving into an unknown frontier and challenging the religious thinking of his time, we would not be here today as his ancestors who represent the New Covenant. In Paul's Epistle to the Romans we read,
It would do us all good to remember this simple truth! Risk taking and discovery are often seen as the mistresses of failure, ridicule and yet they are the ultimate hope for change. The Church as an institution has never dealt very well with change. A painful lesson of this is the crucifixion of Jesus. Hundreds of years following Jesus' death on the cross, Galileo ran afoul of the Church and its male hierarchy by proclaiming change. He concluded that the sun did not rotate around the earth, but rather the earth rotated around the sun, thus debunking the place of the earth as the center of the universe and God' s ultimate attention. He was condemned as a heretic by the Church. In order to save his life, he was given the chance by the Church Fathers to recant. Galileo did so! As I said, the Church as an institution has never dealt well with change. Begrudgingly, in December of 1991, the Vatican finally officially admitted that it had made an error in the matter of its treatment of Galileo. Sir Isaac Newton in his scientific research radically redefined how theology explained the way in which God worked in the world. Newton said that there were natural explanations for many things in the world that had been previously believed to be acts of God. The world was seen by Newton as working on fixed laws. And so, illness was no longer viewed as a divine affliction, and the weather was deemed a morally neutral function of science. Charles Darwin in his The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, contradicted biblical literalism by saying that the world as a created piece was not yet finished, and that it was in a constant state of evolution. Can anyone here ever comprehend that when chloroform was invented it was objected to on the grounds that it was beyond the natural order of things to anesthetize pain, because it was the intended law of nature that human beings should feel pain? Many of the great advances in science, medicine and theology were made against the public opinion or the theologically grounded moral and ethical decision making of the day. None of us should ever forget this simple truth of history as we move forward into the complex world of genetic engineering and cloning for curative purposes. In all of the debates on cloning for therapeutic purposes, the Christian Church as a whole has either been silent or obnoxiously condemning. Christianity has left the discussion table far too often when complex issues such as this come before God's people. The Church either retreats to the comfort of not taking a stand (which in fact is really taking a stand) or adhering to outdated, constraining moral and ethical imperatives that don't work anymore in the lives of a Second Millennium humanity. What I know above and beyond what science and technology have told me lately, is that the head of the Christian Church, Jesus Christ, was many things. He was, along with being God's Son, a significant teacher, preacher, storyteller, collaborator, lover of humanity and above all else, a gifted healer for his time. Jesus would not stand in the way of anyone who came to him seeking wholeness and renewed health. Jesus cast out the demons of his day and talked openly about it. Science and technology in partnership with solid Christian theology ought to be able to do the same today. But as people feared Jesus' healing power then, so they feel threatened and fear the possibility of new forms of healing today. Therapeutic cloning and stem cell research have the promise of boldly doing something that Jesus preached passionately about, so that all of God's children might have life in all its abundance and fullness. When the possibility of therapeutic cloning could cure persons who suffer from the paralyzing effects of spinal cord injury, or transmute the crippling and terminal effects of muscular diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis, Muscular Dystrophy and Lou Gehrig's Disease, or stabilize or even cure Cancer--a disease that effects one out of every five in my state of Califomia-- diabetes, Sickle Cell Anemia and even Alzheimer's Disease, then where is the Jesus in all of the moral and ethical decision making that says all cloning is anathema, a humbug, a sin, a spit in the face of God and the created universe? It is so easy to say no to such research when you are not the afflicted, when you are not immobilized, and when you are not facing a death sentence because of a currently incurable disease. Remember the troubling but dialogue-raising bumper sticker from the Boston women's Health Collective? "If men became pregnant…then abortion would be a sacrament." Fear makes human beings react in strange and sometimes devastating ways. Too often we either attack... condemn... or retreat in silence to the safety of non-engagement, when new discoveries, technologies, theological understandings or medical treatments are revealed. The Church too often reverts to outdated orthodoxy to condemn, or at best to send up the gray smoke of neutrality. It is time for Christianity to get into the discussion and struggle over Therapeutic Cloning, in ways other than using the Bible as an inerrant tool of conformity and condemnation. If Jesus was a healer and we are the Body of Christ, then we must now engage in seeking health and wholeness for all persons. It is not enough to simply pray for healing and cures of the body and soul. You and I must also work with the scientific community to see that there is a partnership in discovering and then applying such new cures to bring life in all its fullness to those, who by no fault of their own, suffer a separation from the condition of good health that too many of us take for granted.
Copyright 2002 The Very Rev. John Bryson Chane
Genesis 12:1-4a
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