Katiie’s Beer

Can we talk?

Posted on October 26th, 2006 by TK

Get Religion is an interesting blog. A well-known and well-respected Scripps-Howard News Service religion journalist, Dr. Terry Mattingly, runs the site with Douglas LeBlanc .

And that is what we hope to do with this blog. It is an experiment by LeBlanc and myself and, we hope, our journalist friends and new readers. We want to slow down and try to pinpoint and name some of these ghosts.

But I don’t want to sound like we see this as a strictly negative operation. There are many fine writers out there — some believe the number is rising — who are doing an amazing job of taking religion news into the mainstream pages of news, entertainment, business and even sports. We want to highlight the good as well as raise some questions about coverage that we believe has some holes in it.

Most of all, we want to try to create a clearning house of information and opinion on this topic. This is what blogs do best.

So this is why Doug and I started this experimental blog. We hope it grows. We hope it forms links with other sites that are digging into the same issues, each with their unique viewpoints and resources. We will point some of those out as well and include them in our links page.

I’ve been following an interesting discussion over at Get Religion on stem cell research. Actually, the post, made by journalist and Get Religion reporter M.Z. Hemingway, was interesting, but the overall comments have been disheartening. M.Z. initially made the observation,

“my real beef with this and almost all other stories dealing with embyronic-destroying stem-cell research is that they fail to distinguish between stem-cell research and embryonic-destroying stem-cell research.”

I had hoped to learn more about this distinction in the comments that followed, but instead I witnessed an attack on Ms. Hemingway and anyone who dared to suggested that there is a difference between stem-cell research and embryonic stem-cell research. Here are two striking examples of comments showing ignorace of basic science, extreme religious bias and a very scary justification of the killing of life for the benefit of others:

Do the research, they have almost completely exhausted Adult Stem Cell research. And since when is an embryo life? It is before any stage of life what so ever. (TK’s emphasis) Also the placenta from birthing is already completely used. So what’s next. . .Embryonic Research.

Posted by ******* at 12:56 pm on October 25, 2006

Yeah, I guess it’s better to allow these embryos to just be destroyed without providing any benefit to the human race, as they are after nobody adopts them to raise to human form. We have over 40,000 frozen embryos, which the religious right says can sit and rot in the freezer as long as they don’t use them to benefit our society. And why do you say this. . .because someone told you to. But I know how hard it is to introduce a new idea or fact into a religious mind (or closed mind as some might call it) but please do yourself a favor an learn something new. . .I promise it will be no more harmful to you then if a couple of queers got married. And any of you who talk about not destroying embryo’s even to benefit millions of living people, to all of you who oppose stem-cell research but still have not adopted a child either from an agency or better yet from an orphanage, you have absolutely no room to talk(TK’s emphasis) . .You wear your religion on your sleeve when it suits your purpose but want nothing to do with the real message of “that which you do for the least of your brothers. . .” I may abhor and reject religion but I have read the bible and I understand all the words, (TK’s emphasis) so I ask you this. . .when it comes to helping a living person or supporting the poorest people in the world, What Would Jesus Do? (TK’s emphasis) Ok, I guess that’s a cheap shot, but honestly if Jesus came back today the so-called Moral Right (which is neither one nor the other) would reject him and his message. Peace, Love and tolerance have no room in Religious America.

Posted by ********* at 12:58 pm on October 25, 2006

So, I wonder how we will ever be able to discuss the issue without people allowing themselves to slip to the lowest form of comments. My own comments weren’t much more intelligent. I feably offered the testimony of a Lutheran pastor also suffering from Parkinson’s disease, as posted by his friend and fellow pastor, Walter Snyder. I post his entire post with his permission. Feel free to disagree or to take offense at the religious remarks, but don’t discount this man’s opinion merely because you don’t agree with it. We must be able to talk about this.

Reflections of a Lutheran Pastor Suffering from Parkinson’s

Contrary “opinions” from people like me might be rejected by supporters of Missouri Amendment 2. After all, I suffer from none of the afflictions they claim might be cured by experimentation upon the cells of human embryos. In matters of personal health, I have, as the saying goes, no “dog in the fight.” Yes, my mother suffers from some form of senile dementia — I know not if it’s Alzheimer’s Disease or something else — but she cannot fully speak for herself and I might be accused of putting words into her mouth.

With this in mind, I contacted a recently retired pastor from my area to see if he’d share his personal thoughts on embryonic stem cell research and the upcoming vote here in Missouri. Not only do I respect him as a man and as a wise “old” pastor, I know him as one who has battled Parkinson’s Disease for a number of years.

Actually, my first look at Michael J. Fox’s video supporting the McCaskill campaign and ESCR made me immediately think of this brother, so I wrote him, “I’m curious as a brother pastor, a friend who enjoys your personality and insight, a Christian, and a voter what your personal thoughts are on Amendment 2 and the arguments surrounding it from both sides.”

He replied as follows and graciously gave me permission to use his private thoughts in this most public forum of blogging:

I was going to give you the quick answer: Of course! I’m voting no on Amendment 2. Isn’t everyone? We even have the sign in our yard. Aren’t I the noble one? But then, what does it cost me? Slim chance of embryo stem cells doing me any good! They just want to do the research, and maybe some day … besides they already have adult stem cells, placental cells.

But then, John Danforth, whose brother has ALS, writes in his book that the embryos they plan to use for research are no larger than the period at the end of this sentence, and that he cares more about his brother than about the clump of cells.

Is that microscopic group of cells a human being? Is Psalm 51:5 entirely clear on that? Psalm 139? Jer. 1? Etc., etc.? One could argue that they area kind of poetry and are outweighed by the serious life-and-death issues involved in finding cures for so many people.

On the other hand, if that tiny clump of cells is not a human being, at what point does it become one? Then it becomes a matter for anyone’s self-serving arbitrary determination.

How would I choose if it were a matter of sacrificing this tiny embryo for my quality of life? I a poor miserable sinner? I can know what is right but … well, I sure hope I could do it. And today I affirm that I would! But wretched man that I am!

So these are my remarks for your brotherly consideration and whatever other use you may have for them.

God bless!

I hope you take to heart these words of a man who knows that he is simil iustus et peccator. I ask that you would appreciate this Christian’s ongoing struggle to submit himself to the will of God in difficult circumstances without expressing false humility, shameful bravado, or a sense of self-imposed martyrdom. And I invite you to pray for him and all others who patiently await deliverance from “this body of death (Romans 7:24)” that God would “sustain [them] to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 1:8)”