The current Evangelical world is rife with scepticism
regarding modern medicine and yet some will remember a time in which the
attitude that long dominated the movement was very much pro-medicine and
pro-technological development. Whether right, wrong, or indifferent, the shift
is interesting and more should be done in examining the reasons behind it.
The attitudes exhibited in the Lausanne-affiliated article
conform with Evangelicalism's historic norms though I don't doubt there will be
many contemporaries who will be upset by it. While we cannot subscribe to the
all-natural or 'nature is pure' myth promoted by some organic-agrarian minded
Evangelicals, it is right to be upset by the contents of this article and we
must reject the ideology which undergirds these 'medical' experiments.
The pro-medicine ethos of Evangelicalism was always rooted in
their pro-life ideology but as has been pointed out elsewhere this school of
thought has often proven selective and less than consistent. The response
(generally speaking) of the movement vis-à-vis Covid-19 has dashed any remaining
claims they might have concerning the 'life' label – or at least a consistent 'life'
posture rooted in the New Testament as opposed to a programme rooted in Enlightenment
categories based on 'rights' and individual liberties vis-à-vis a real or
supposed tyranny.
While more than a decade ago the American branch of the movement
expressed misguided fury in light of Sarah Palin's fictitious Obamacare 'death
panels' – a reality already in place thanks to capitalism and the insurance
industry, they have instead (with their anti-Covid mitigation stance) adopted
what is a functionally large-scale euthanasia programme for the elderly, weak,
and immunocompromised.
And yet few today will bother to attack the Maryland University's
cardiological medical experimentation on the basis of the life argument. For
many this will simply smack of evil science, hubris, and some kind of
perversion and manipulation of nature – which it is, but even this discussion
becomes complicated as many technologies (some once and still celebrated by the
Evangelical community) represent similar manipulations of nature and the 'natural'
course of things – whatever that happens to mean in the context of a fallen
world.
Once again, this is where the nature/natural discussion
begins to collapse. Dominionism (I think) has played a part in some of these
shifts and in some of the confusion as the doctrine tends to downplay the effects
of the fall and insist on post-edenic nature as 'good' – this despite the death-curses
laid upon it by God. Earlier generations saw technology and industry as fruits
of dominionist impulse while about thirty years ago (in the 1990's) a host of
cultural forces and a different read of dominion vis-à-vis Western social and
cultural history and industrialisation cast (for many) these questions in a
different light and generated a new organic-natural narrative. It was a
narrative that in the 1980's and before would have been viewed with suspicion
and associated with the ethos of 'hippy' culture.
And yet even the pro-science stance of an earlier generation
would have balked at the creation of such human-animal hybrids – what is
effectively a chimera. The Evangelical doctors in this case speak of things of
which they do not know.
But again confusion reigns as seen with regard to Covid
vaccines. A gross misunderstanding of the nature of mRNA technology and its use
as a delivery system has led some to suggest that vaccine recipients are genetically
a new species – a blatant and ignorant falsehood. And yet how many are quick to
embrace the utilisation of animal parts and hormones, genetic treatments, and
the ingestion of genetically modified (and often animal-hybrid) foods?
And yet for all the confusion on that end, such suspicions or
fears (if misguided with regard to the specifics of mRNA vaccines) are not
without a small hint of truth – one made in more poignant fashion by the
prospect of such chimerical medicine. There is in the historical and apocryphal
record tales of antediluvian wickedness that suggests a demonic manipulation of
nature. The New Testament hints at this, and alludes to it, but doesn't
elaborate upon it as some of the other (and yet non-authoritative) sources do.
One of the crimes committed by the fell Sons of God and their nephilim
offspring was in the realm of sinning against the plants and animals and in teaching
mankind magic and sorcery – concepts and practices rooted in the manipulation
of nature. The mythological record likely testifies to the truth of some of
these claims and the influence of primeval memory – even if the tales as they
came down to us have been modified, embellished, and re-crafted through the
ages.
For many the equation is simple, a return to the Days of Noah
marks a sure sign of the end, and the approach of the eschaton. Since these
practices are associated with the Days of Noah and we're seeing reiterations of
them in modern form, then it follows that we must be nearing the end – or so it
is argued.
I am not wholly unsympathetic to these views though I usually
find they are not thought through, some of the reasoning is spurious, theologically
dubious, and divorced from historical context and reflection. It's always easy
to see our day as the 'last days' moment. A better understanding of the last
days is to view them as this age in its totality, the Church Age, or the period
between the first and second Comings of Christ – and if one also understands
the cyclical and repetitious nature of prophetic fulfillment, one is likely to
be a bit more cautious in such assertions.
What can be said is that there are problems with an approach
to medicine that manipulates nature to an extent that it effectively declares life
to be an absolute, an end in and of itself – an attitude that seems to infect
some 'pro-life' Evangelical thinking and yet in reality reflects the attitudes
and values of the lost world. The world (and in particular the modern secular
world) lives as if this space-time-matter reality is all there is and so while
on the one hand the lost of the world embrace many policies that are less than
fully pro-life and often coldly utilitarian, on the other hand there are some
that exhibit a kind of desperation to cling to life at all costs, and I find
this attitude to be also present among some Christians. By cling, I refer to a
kind of frenzy or desperation that is willing to go to great extremes and even
to cast aside parallel ethical concerns in the pursuit of extending life – even
if sometimes that extent is minimal and the quality of such life is severely
reduced, and as such is dehumanising. This is a category of thought that seems
largely absent from the politicised Evangelical discourse concerning the 'life'
issue. It's not about 'quality' of life but about whether or not the
maintenance of life and the means of technology employed to do it are in fact
dehumanising.
Life as an absolute becomes such a driving imperative for
some of these folks that I believe they lose their way. It wasn't long ago I
saw a recently deceased Christian leader who had refused yet another round of brutal
and dehumanising cancer treatment was accused (online) of effectively committing
suicide – a false and frankly maddening sort of argument. This is all the more
true when one interacts with medical personnel who administer such treatments
and know what they do to a person – let alone the very troubling nature of a
lot of palliative care. It can be argued in some cases that what is meant to
alleviate pain and suffering in the face of a terminal diagnosis can in fact
accelerate the process of death. This is not so much a problem from my
standpoint, but rather for those who utilise life at any cost argumentation.*
And then in another twist, many of these same folks will
quickly abandon these arguments in the face of economic concerns and principles
rooted in the larger category of social ethics. Life is subordinated to the
demands of mammon. Sometimes they want Christian ethics legislated (and funded
accordingly) and yet at other times they don't and seem willing (under utilitarian
influence it would seem) to simply let the poor, undesirables, and those who
have not attained to a certain level of social status die. In which case I
suppose their poverty is part of their condemnation in that their inability to
afford the 'health care' demanded by the 'pro-life' Christian Right means that
they (if Christians) weren't able to ethically live out their faith. They were too poor to be proper Christians.
If they were good Christians they would have enough money to afford the
procedures. If that isn't Bourgeois Christianity, one of the sad legacies of
the Magisterial Reformation, I don't what is. Once again the latent prosperity
gospel found within the larger spectrum of Evangelicalism (and Confessionalism)
is spotted through the fog.
Though inconsistent, this kind of life at all costs desperation or really at times fanaticism is also
on display when men are trying to combine animal parts with human in order to
prolong life – again something that is already happening on a lesser scale in
other realms of medicine. And as mentioned we also see the manipulation of
genetics in the realm of foods with the utilisation of animal biology being
crossed with plant seed – a genetic hybrid once celebrated by pro-technology,
pro-Wall Street members of the Christian Right – a gift from God they argued to
feed the growing population of the world.
Today, the response in those quarters is mixed and while the
Evangelical world is still very much pro-markets and big business, some have
become critical of 'Big Agra' and 'Big Pharma', the monopolies that dominate food
and medicine – industries that are what they are because of the capitalist
system. There are literally layers to this irony but I digress.
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*And while I would agree that IVF is dubious, my take on it
is rather different. I believe it to be dubious in itself as a sought after
science, not merely because multiple embryos are generated for the sake of cost
effectiveness – which are then discarded and thus problematic from the pro-life
standpoint. I think the whole process is a problem and it's not too surprising
that the discussion is further confused by some of the spurious arguments made
in reference to contraception and the nature of such inhibitors with regard to how
they work vis-à-vis fertilisation. I refer to the arguments that such methods
rely on abortifacients or the misguided and somewhat misleading references to
research cell lines of aborted fetuses. There's a lot of bad information out
there and I say this as one who generally speaking remains opposed to
contraception. I have no interest in birth control but at the same time I grow
tired of the specious arguments being used to counter it.
Further, I remain largely unconvinced that human life begins
at fertilisation. I don't believe that Christian parents are going to find they
have another ten children in heaven as many fertilisations take place that
don't become viable pregnancies. Just when or how the soul is incorporated into
biological life (making it human in the full sense) is a mystery that we cannot
hope to resolve or understand. I would argue that 'life' in the sense of a
viable human being begins when the pregnancy itself becomes viable – when it
becomes a true pregnancy, at the moment of implantation in the uterine wall –
as opposed to a fertilisation that simply passes or even the tragedy of an
ectopic pregnancy which is essentially not viable. The overwhelming odds are
that it will never become a baby properly speaking and if allowed to continue
there is a very high chance the mother will also die. This is not in conflict
with the language of Psalm 51 which is not meant to be read in technical or medical
terms. But again, I cannot be dogmatic
on this larger point and to many pro-lifers such a position is heterodox.
I will say this – contrary to the politicised calculus that dominates the present discussion the mere granting or partial granting of the occasional point, or even the acknowledgement of nuance is not to cede the argument.