Christians and the Brave New World

Tuinstra Blog 07

I’ve never tackled an on-line book review before, but I’m going to give it a try since it’s an important topic. The book is titled How to be a Christian in a Brave New World by Joni Eareckson Tada and Nigel Cameron. The book was published in 2006 by Zondervan. I first became acquainted with Nigel Cameron and his work through Mars Hill Audio here.

The back cover introduces the book as follows, “Stem-cell research. Cloning. Genetic engineering. Today, discoveries in biotechnology are occurring so rapidly that we can barely begin to address one ethical debate before another looms overhead. This brave new world we’ve entered is a daunting one as well, with disturbing implications for the sanctity of life and for human nature itself. How should we respond as Christians?

I’m going to leave the review of the literary qualities of the book to others who are more qualified than I. What I was interested in are the issues that Joni and Nigel put before us.

One thread that weaves itself throughout the book is the commodification of life. Commodification is the process of turning something into a “thing” to be investigated, bought, sold, manipulated, and improved-upon. When we turn the focus of technology on ourselves we become machines – things to be investigated and understood. At the beginning this seems harmless enough until we begin to patent our genes, create embryos for tissue transplant and manipulate our basic genetic makeup.

Late in the book the authors summarize their points by using the three words: take, make, and fake.

By “take”, they mean the taking of life, i.e. abortion and euthanasia. I’m quite familiar with the basic arguments related to abortion, but what I didn’t realize is that the discussion now centers on creating embryos for the purpose of killing them for embryonic stem cells or to select the characteristics the parents want in their offspring. When in vitro fertilization is used, extra embryos are usually created and a selection process may be used to choose the embryo that has certain characteristics or that avoids certain inheritable syndromes. The acceptance of abortion has opened the door to thinking of these embryos as objects to be manipulated and exploited. Joni does a good job in making clear that no evidence exists for the therapeutic use of embryonic stem cells whereas there has been quite a bit of progress using adult stem cells. It’s discouraging that the popular culture pins its hopes on the embryonic stem cells when there is no evidence that they’ll help.

One of the things that was new to me was the concept of eugenics. Eugenics is the philosophy of using genetics to breed superior individuals. Most of us know how this was used by the Nazis under Hitler, but what I didn’t realize is that there was a strong eugenics movement here in the United States. This movement more or less died away when Hitler’s atrocities came to light, but now it’s back using embryos as the subjects.

The second word, “make”, represents the developing ability to make designer babies. Certain genes have already been patented so that genetic screening of those genes generates royalties for the owners of the patent. In addition, the cloning of human beings is not too far down the road. Some are calling for cloning of humans to create embryos for research or to harvest their stem cells, but forbidding the bringing of a cloned baby to birth. Others want all cloning of humans banned entirely.

The third word, “fake” involves the merging of human life with technology, especially computer technology. Can we eventually understand enough about human consciousness in the brain to upload our consciousness into a computer so that when our body dies, our consciousness remains? What about enhancing brain power with computer chips? What if we could have the whole Bible available in our memory as a result of the synthesis of the biological with the technological?

At the end of the book, the authors bring up several interesting questions for discussion. Questions such as, “If cloning is ever successful, do cloned babies have souls?” “What if I have several frozen embryos – what should I do now?” Most of these are questions we are not used to thinking about and are not prepared to answer.

Hopefully this short review has made you aware of the issues that are before us. As Christians we need to be better prepared for this debate than we were for the abortion debate. God made us in His image. We are close to surpassing the attempt made at Babel not to construct a tower, but to create ourselves in any image we desire. Will God allow this? Are we prepared to enter the debate and take a stand for human dignity as created in God’s image and to oppose attempts to kill and mutilate the smallest humans among us? I strongly encourage every Christian to familiarize himself with the issues involved in this discussion and to prepare a biblically based response. Students in high school and college need to be able counter the secular, godless teaching found in so many classrooms. In my opinion this topic needs to be discussed thoroughly in our churches so that every Christian will know and understand the concepts, terminology and issues involved. How to be a Christian in a Brave New World is a good place to start the learning process.