Ethics for
Assembly 2002.
If the Senate passes the legislation to allow stem cell research
on embryos, who will come with me on a march into the city carrying huge
placards that read “SHAME!”?
Anyone? No, well
that’s a relief…
Well, I guess it would compromise my work… what would my
patients think? What about the Medical
Board? Would I get charged by the
police and then lose my licence to practice?
Quite possibly. No, for the sake
of respectability and because of my public Christian stand I must not
compromise what I have tried to achieve all these years in educating on matters
of grief and death & dying and depression and sexual abuse and infidelity
and persuading people to become Christians – think of the disrespect I
could cause to the message of God – so I will shrink back into my ‘sanctuary of
private virtuousness’ that Bonhoeffer talks about* and keep my mouth shut and
not wave my placard that Australia most desperately needs to see.
Well, it would almost be like walking into town with no
clothes on. How embarrassing!
There! Having made
that decision I feel more comfortable and no doubt you do too
But, how and when will we know that that is what we have to
do?
What will it finally be that drives us to that conclusion?
And will it be too late?
What will it be?
So, what will it finally be that drives us to walk into
Perth carrying our placards?
How will we know that that is what we have to do?
And will we still be able to?
Maybe the placard should read:
PLEASE
DO NOT
SHAME
AUSTRALIA
*Letters and Papers From Prison.
Why Shame? Charles
Colson in one of his Breakpoint articles, talking about pornography, says we
have forgotten what shame is. We should
identify things that are shameful and label them as such.
Many of you would be aware of the George Barna poll that
indicated that the percentage of Americans affirming that they believe in “moral
truths or principles” that are eternal and unchanging actually declined after
Sept 11 from 38% to 22%. More
significantly, only 32% of US evangelicals, even after Sept 11, still believed
in absolute moral truth – down from 48%
in 1991 and 38% in 1994. Would
we poll better here? I hope we would
and I think we would.
Will what happened in Bali make any difference? Time and again we hear that people have
prayed; prayed for someone’s safety; prayed that they would find someone;
prayed to get out alive. They may not
have prayed to our God, but some of them will have. But just the fact that they utter a prayer is an indication
within them of a consciousness of a presence or force outside of
themselves. Let us grab the opportunity
and say, as Paul did to the people of Athens “we can show you who your
unknown God is”. Let us say that in
our conversations and our pulpits.
Ravi Zacharias in Deliver
us From Evil – Restoring the Soul in a Disintegrating Culture (1996) says that no world-view suffers
more from the loss of truth than the Christian one and that for the
Christian this is where the battle must be fought.
CSLewis in The Abolition of Man – that incredibly
prophetic series of lectures in 1943 –talked about ‘men without chests’ or
adults who lack moral formation and moral character; without enduring values;
who divorce their head from their hearts; who use their ‘head’ but lose their
‘chest.’ ‘Men without chests.’ What a wonderfully penetrating and insulting
term! We should make more of it. Not only to mean that people should be more
moral in their science and to re-integrate values in education, but also to
have the courage and moral fortitude to stand up and fight for the future of
our society.
J I Packer, in his brilliant article Surprised by Lewis in Christianity
Today Sept 1998, writes:
‘The Abolition of Man was the waving of a red flag at an oncoming
juggernaut that would reduce education to the learning of techniques and so
dehumanize and destroy it, tearing out of it that which is its true heart.’
Packer further writes:
‘The attempt was ignored, and
today we reap the bitter fruits... The inner desolation and desperation that
young people experience as subjectivist relativism and nihilism are wished upon
them in schools and universities is a tragedy. (If you do not know what I am
referring to, listen to the pop singers; they will tell you.)’
Along the same line M.Scott
Peck (of The Road Less Travelled
fame) in The Denial of the Soul (1997) writes:
‘...advocates of euthanasia on
demand... fail to realize.. that the achievement of their ends would quite
possibly create a society even more soulless and mechanistic than the one we
have now... a society where there is no potential glory in dying, an utterly rational
society where people are simply put to sleep upon request without any reference
to the irrational mystery of their souls or to God who is their source and that
of all true glory.’ (p228.)
And as Christians, when we talk about the value and meaning
of life, we are told to keep out of the stem-cell argument, that as ‘religious’
people we have no right to speak – as Richard Neuhaus warned in the 80’s we are
being told to keep out ‘of the public square.’
It really is a pathetic argument isn’t it? We have as much a right to speak as
others. What these critics are really
saying is ‘leave God out of the picture – we don’t want to listen to what your
God tells us in setting boundaries and anyway we are doing this for the good of
mankind’.
In the six decades of my life I have seen our society change
from one with basic Christian values to one that seems to want to destroy every
value that we once held high. But Natural Law is written on our hearts
as Paul says in Romans and we are without excuse. Natural Law of course originates from God but is present in many
cultures and religions and we can appeal to the community that these eternal
and immutable principles can only be ignored and rejected at out peril and that
history is full of illustrations of calamity consequent upon this rejection.
I want to put to you that
the focus (as to the real battle) has been sharpened. The embryo stem-cell issue itself is not the battle. It is only one bridge – an important one,
yes, but only one bridge. If you like, it’s
a symptom of an underlying deeper malady that is pervading our society. Well of course you know that, but I’m a slow
learner. It is only as a result of the
stem cell debate that the real battle – for me – has been focussed. It has highlighted for me the deeper and
fundamental issues of the definition of life, deteriorating values in our
culture and – as above – that Christians are being told they must not be heard.
The issue of using embryos
for research will not go away. Likewise
considerations of the meaning of life with respect to euthanasia will not go
away – it will be with us until the forces for evil have won or until God calls
Time. The definition of life – whether
at its beginning or its end – is of critical importance and is not to be found
in consideration of personhood or worth or other abstracts.
Illusions, lies and
euphemisms abound to shroud the real issues.
These issues – the beginning of life, the quality of life,
and the ‘worth’ of life are critical to our thinking with respect to abortion,
embryo research, eugenics and euthanasia.
There is good reason to believe that what we are facing in
the attempted manipulation of life and death is more sinister than any other
evil we have encountered; that this evil eclipses in its potential and
significance wars and genocide and immorality and corruption and – dare I say
it – terrorism.
This is our new rebellion against eternal truth and part of
our quest to be our own gods – the new Tower of Babel.
What must we do? We
must not be fearful; say that we believe in higher values; there is
something more; there is a God who rules the universe and who
does care what happens; there are moral absolutes; truth is
important. We may be ridiculed but at a
time of need the person to whom you have talked might pray to the God they have
tried to pretend is not there. Talk to
your friends and neighbours: if you were there, would you have prayed? Who
would you have prayed to?
What can we do? Is
it ‘enough’ to preach the gospel?
Yes, our main ‘mission’ focus must always be to glorify God
by preaching the gospel in season and out of season and bringing people to
Christ, but we also need to speak to issues involving our culture, to be a
prophetic voice and say what needs to be said as God’s people and watchmen
(Ezek 33:7-9). We need to appeal to
lasting values of virtue and honour,
justice and mercy that are a part of universal and natural law. We need to proclaim the Word of God – as
Jeremiah had to – to the rulers and people of this land.
This is what the
LORD says: “Go down to the palace of the king of Judah and proclaim this
message there: ‘Hear the word of the
LORD, O king of Judah, you who sit on David’s throne--you, your officials and
your people who come through these gates.
This is what the LORD says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of his oppressor the
one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or
violence to the alien, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent
blood in this place.’” Jeremiah
22:1-3.
What can we do? How can we change our culture?
o Build ‘values’ (and outreach) bridges into the community
with topical seminars, panel discussions and specific teaching sessions on
depression, death and dying, euthanasia, the role of family on our society
(e.g. Growing Kids God’s Way), suicide (saying that there is something more
than the subculture view that life is only about pleasure and that, if life is
too hard, I’ll just kill myself) etc etc
o Pop group Men with Chests
·
Issues Education:
o ‘Ground’ our own people in these matters and mobilise
an army who understand the times; who know what to do; people of passion
like the men of Issachar (1 Chronicles 12:32); making the most of every
opportunity, because the days are evil (Eph 5:15).
o Public education through seminars, teaching programs
on specific issues as above
Choose Life
Do Not Shame Australia – Protect
Innocent Embryos
Do Not Sell Australia’s Soul –
Choose Life
And so we might see that a sharpened focus for the 21st
Century is Restoring the Soul to our Culture. We can summarise it succinctly in defining a problem, a solution, and
a mission.
A Sharpened Focus for the 21st Century
The
Problem:
Our culture’s denial of the soul, soul values and Natural Law.
Evil,
sinister in its potential, masked as compassion and progress.
Definition
of life, particularly its beginning and end, being blurred to suit ‘humanistic’
biotechnology and ideals. This is
symptomatic of our society’s rebellion against God and determination to do our
own thing.
Christians are being marginalised and told they must not be heard.
The
Solution:
As always, preach the Word.
But we need to be heard as a
prophetic voice (the ‘whole’ Word) to our society’s needs and ills.
The
Mission:
Restoring the soul to our culture.
Prof Brian Stone indicated that it could be helpful for
presidents to have something actually passed by Assembly and asked three of us
to prepare something which could then perhaps be voted on at next
Assembly. One of us due to severe time
pressures was unable to contribute at all.
Jill and Steve McAlpine were able to put together a possible preamble
only so it has been left to me to give you an idea of possible motions for
Council and then Assembly to consider.
They are in fact very similar to the statement was sent to
all WA MPs that you might have seen on the screen as you were coming in. 15 Christian leaders including Brian Stone
signed that statement. The resolutions
have been put in the same we affirm/we deny format that we used for the
statement on homosexuality a few years ago.
Suggested
resolutions for Assembly concerning definitions of life with particular
reference to protection of embryonic human life.
We affirm that human life begins when a cell
containing human chromosomes has the ability to replicate and differentiate
into individual tissues (i.e. with fertilisation but also by cloning). The genetic pattern of such a cell is
uniquely human and determines its adult characteristics.
We deny that any other definition of the
beginning of human life is acceptable. Concepts
of personhood and self-awareness are arbitrary and capable of varying
definition and are not acceptable.
We affirm that the human embryo is human
life in the truest sense and must be protected against experimentation or
exploitation along with life at any stage.
We deny that cloning technology is acceptable whether for
so-called therapeutic or reproductive purposes. We also deny that fertilisation attempted between human and
non-human cells (to create a ‘chimera’) is acceptable.
We affirm that many scientists consider that
stem-cell research on adult tissues and other non-embryonic tissues (e.g.
umbilical cord) has proven benefits and safety as well as great medical promise
for the future and that embryo research is not as necessary as other scientists
make out.
We deny that as
‘spare’ embryos are going to die anyway, then it is reasonable to use them for
stem cell research or experiment on them in other ways. We submit this would be like asking whether
it might be acceptable to do research or experiment on a person who is comatose
or lacks self-awareness for other reasons and who is either near death or will
not recover.
We affirm (in answer to those who say that
‘religious’ people should keep out of the debate) our right – and indeed obligation
– to speak for the future of our society.
We assert that ‘natural’ Law is present in the heart of mankind, that
this law exhorts us to protect the innocent and helpless, to uphold the
sanctity and preciousness of life and that these are eternal and immutable
principles.
Mr
Chairman, I move these resolutions be passed to Council for consideration.
carry each
other's burdens;
keep no
record of wrongs;
work for
harmony and peace;
work for justice
and righteousness, hating evil;
protect
the weak and helpless;
are not
weary in doing good;
are not wanting to make a good impression;
know: the
real situation – locally, globally and eternally;
the
fragility of life;
the
preciousness of freedom;
the lies
and deceits and illusions all around;
that they
reap what they sow;
they are
free because they are responsible;
that
increased privileges give increased responsibility;
are
self-aware and ‘real’
vigilant
and watchmen;
prepared to sacrifice
pleased to accomplish and experience, but still humble and
contrite in spirit;
display
spontaneity; can have fun; have the ability to laugh at themselves;
can live
simply, enjoy nature and simple pleasures;
positively
think of those things which are “true, noble, right, pure, admirable”;
have
learned from the lessons of history;
delay
gratification for the sake of something better;
appreciate
being taught something new;
Gal 5&6; 1 Cor 13; Jer 22:1-3; Amos 5:15; James
1:27; Ezekiel 33:7-9;
2 Tim 4:2; Luke 12:48; Ecclesiastes 9:10; Isaiah
66:2; Philippians 4:8
BreakPoint with Charles Colson
January 3, 2003
In a scene in The Two Towers, the second in J. R. R.
Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, the traitor Saruman is torturing
the noble wizard Gandalf. "What," the evil wizard asks Gandalf,
"is the greatest power?"
"Life," Gandalf replies.
"You fool," says
Saruman. "Life can be destroyed. Did I teach you nothing?"
Trying again, Gandalf says,
"Creation."
"Yes," answers Saruman,
"the power to create life."
This passage comes to mind when we
consider that this month marks the thirtieth anniversary of the start of the
modern holocaust: the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision. Some 50
million babies have died since that ruling was handed down.
Terrible as Roe was, we are
now facing an even worse horror. In Roe, we took life—which was bad
enough—but at least we were not pretending to be God. But now, with cloning,
humans will play God, the Author of life: We will create life for our
own purposes. In fact, if reports are true, we already have.
The Raelians, a religious group
that believes humans are the clones of extraterrestrials, claim that a cloned
child, a baby girl named Eve, was born on December 26. This is not some
science-fiction story—it’s an immediate concern.
Sadly, just as most Christians
were asleep when Roe was decided, we are in danger of sleeping through
the alarm of this latest moral catastrophe.
Nearly the only people who opposed
abortion-on-demand in 1973 were our Catholic brethren. Many said, "It’s
just a Catholic issue." Hard as it is to believe today, Southern
Baptists—my own denomination—were in favor of abortion.
And now, on an issue of even
greater moment, we may do the same thing. We’re not talking about taking the
lives of 50 million kids, as horrible as that is. We’re talking about creating
the lives of 50 million kids—and then killing them, ostensibly for the good of
humanity.
Where will all this lead us? C. S.
Lewis offered a prophetic warning half a century before human cloning became a
potential reality. "If any one age," he wrote, "really attains,
by eugenics and scientific education, the power to make its descendents what it
pleases, all men who live after are the patients of that power," slaves to
the "dead hand of the great planners and conditioners."
Just as Lewis foresaw, the biotech
revolution is moving like a steamroller, crushing everything in its path—including
ethical questions. The reason is that secular ethics have been drained of moral
content. In the political debate, the utilitarians—those who demand the
"greatest good for the greatest number"—have seized the high ground,
offering dazzling promises of cures to come.
As Christians, it’s our duty to
raise even bigger moral questions. The worst atrocities are performed in the
name of humanitarian causes. And sacrificing one to benefit all soon makes all
vulnerable.
This month I’ll be devoting quite a bit of time to life issues and the social forces that have driven the demand for legal abortion and how they lead to the demand for euthanasia and assisted suicide. I’ll also describe the challenges for Christians in this "brave new world." You’ll learn what specific things you can do to wake up your neighbors—before the abolition of man triumphs over the human race.