Bioethics and Christian Spirituality: Introduction
The Series
1. Introduction
2. Taking Life
3. Making Life
4. Faking Life
5. Discussion
Folks, you all are in for a real treat!
I was browsing through my iTunes library and stumbled upon a series of mp3 recordings I did for the ministry for which I worked a few years ago. During that time I was the coordinator of our Statesmanship Institute, a program that sought to equip congressional staffers with an understanding of a biblical world view on such topics as economics, foreign policy, and law. While most of the sessions were from a decidedly conservative version of the biblical world view, probably the gem of the entire series was a talk given by Nigel Cameron on a emerging biotechnologies and issues of human ethics. And since the ministry doesn’t exist anymore (thus the recordings belong to no one), I’m going to offer them here!
Nigel Cameron, who hales from England and studied at the universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh, is Director of the Center on Nanotechnology and Society, Research Professor of Bioethics and Associate Dean at Chicago-Kent College of Law in the Illinois Institute of Technology. He is also President of the Center for Policy on Emerging Technologies, founded the journal Ethics and Medicine in 1983 and is widely recognized as a commentator technology policy and ethics issues. His leadership in this field has brought him into partnership with “the Other” who also cares about human nature and emerging biotechnology.
This lecture was no Sunday School talk nor was it right-wing conservative anti-abortion propagandizing. It is a wide ranging discussion delving into the real implications of taking, making, and faking human life. He comes at the issue not so much from the stand point of the Biblical text, but rather from the philosophical, scientific, theological and cultural implications of modern biotechnological practices.
I guarantee you will want to download and listen to all five 13-minute installments over the next five Tuesdays. Enjoy and come back to share your thoughts!
You can read more about Nigel Cameron, here.
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Dude… you’ve got a great site, and I look forward to checking out this series! This is why I am selecting you to get the Thinking Blogger Award. You can check out my post about it at http://bibledude.net/WordPress/?p=55
Thanks! And keep up the great work!
Dan
I was struck by Cameron’s comment, “If you are pro-life in the 20th century, you must become pro-human in the 21st century.” And his question to a ‘right-to-life’ conference, “Is it worse to take human life made in God’s image (i.e., abortion) or to make human life in our own image?” That is a lot to think about!
I look forward to the next session.
I, too, was struck by both of those statements. And as you’ll hear in the next installment (i think) he urges Christians to separate much of the discussion on emerging biotech issues (like cloning and the manipulation of human nature using nanotechnology) from the pro-life/abortion debate, which he says muddies the water.
Anyway it was amazing listening to these again and trust they will challenge people think critically about the implications of the bioethics debate which is my generations doorstep.
-jeremy