 | Dr. John Click, has been the Pastor of Immanuel Baptist Church for 27 years now he is the pastor emeritus. He’s a graduate of Baylor University with a BA and Southwestern Seminary with a BD. He received his DMin at Midwestern Seminary. He has served in numerous positions in the Southern Baptist Convention, including: President of the Kansas/Nebraska Convention, Executive Committee of SBC, North American Mission Board, International Mission Board, and Houston Baptist University Board. He has traveled to preach in Europe, Central and South America and the Far East. Dr. Click is the founder and first President of Harvest Communications, which is a TV production company specializing in producing teaching materials for Para- Church organizations. You may contact him for comments or questions by e-mail at: Jcclick99@aol.com. |
Religion
2007-07-01 16:13:00
Is cloning wrong?
Our lunch group is composed of fellow employees (some Christians and some not) at one of our city’s manufacturing firms. We talk about every topic imaginable. The other day ‘cloning’ was brought up. Most of us who are Christians knew it was wrong, but when asked why, none of us could give any good reasons that the others would accept. I thought perhaps the forum of clerics you have might help.
When discussing human cloning, one must distinguish between therapeutic (or non-reproductive) cloning and reproductive cloning.
Therapeutic cloning is a process that allows a person’s own cells to be developed and transplanted back into the person for the purposes of healing and health, and to relieve suffering. Reproductive cloning is a process in which a fetus is ultimately developed in order to replicate a whole person for some other reason or reasons.
I believe, as a Christian and a Presbyterian, that God gives us minds, gifts, and skills to use for good purposes, including healing and health, and relieving suffering. I also believe that just because we CAN do something technically using those minds, gifts, and skills we should not do it for that reason alone or for unwise reasons.
Therefore, I understand therapeutic cloning to be appropriate for us to do, given its purposes, but I understand reproductive cloning to be inappropriate. Aside from the facts that it is not scientifically safe and there are not appropriate regulations in place for it at this point, theological concerns weigh heavily against it. It wanders too far into God’s domain of the creation of life, and inherently, it has too many possibilities for sin and evil.
Presbyterians in the PCUSA denomination still continue to explore the issues of stem cell research and cloning. Some of these discussions and resources in this area may be found on our denomination’s web site, www.pcusa.org.
