How to Be a Christian in a Brave New World - Softcover

How to Be a Chris­tian in a Brave New World
Copyright © 2006 by Joni Eareckson Tada and Nigel M. de S. Cameron
Requests for information should be addressed to:
Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tada, Joni Eareckson.
How to be a Christian in a brave new world / Joni Eareckson Tada, Nigel M. de S.
Cameron.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-310-25939-8
ISBN-10: 0-310-25939-8
1. Christian life. 2. Bioethics --- Religious aspects --- Christianity. 3. Medical ethics ---
Religious aspects --- Christianity. 4. Christian ethics. I. Cameron, Nigel M. de S. II. Title.
BV4501.3.T32 2006
241'.6429 --- dc22
2005030455
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International
Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by
permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.
The website addresses recommended throughout this book are offered as a resource to you. These
websites are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement on the part of Zondervan, nor
do we vouch for their content for the life of this book.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means --- electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or
any other --- except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the
publisher.
Published in association with the literary agency of Wolgemuth& Associates, Inc.
Interior design by Beth Shagene
Printed in the United States of America
06 07 08 09 10 11 12 * 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Part One
The Brave New World
In 1932, English writer Aldous Huxley wrote one of
the most famous books of all time, with the strange
title Brave New World. The title is a quote from
Shakespeare's play The Tempest and suggests both
the boldness and the folly of something that looks like
a utopia (paradise) even though it much more closely
approaches the opposite.
Eleven years later, C. S. Lewis wrote a short essay
that some people
consider the most important thing
he ever did. With incredible insight, his work The
Abolition of Man looked ahead to the technologies
of the twenty-first century and warned that a world
that uncritically accepts the wonders of biotech will
eventually devastate human dignity.
Thus the secular Huxley and the Christian
Lewis
set the stage for the challenges of the twenty-first
century. Some of these challenges still await us; many
already are with us. Christians
need to be prepared
so they can be 'salt and light' in the time and place
where God has placed them.
Human beings are unique because God made
us 'in his image,' as the Bible makes so clear in
Genesis 1 and Psalm 8. Reminding ourselves of what
it means to be made in God's image is the starting
point for understanding what medicine, science,
and technology should be used for --- and what they
should not.
In the last chapter of this section, we need to
hear the long-forgotten story of what happened a
hundred years ago, when Americans discovered
'eugenics' --- the desire for 'good genes' at all costs
--- before the Nazis ever came to power in Germany
and took those same ideas to their logical conclusion.
We need to remember, because eugenics is making
a comeback.
Chapter 1
Starting Out
Larry
On a misty evening in September 2002, Larry drove his eighteen-wheeler
into a gas station in a small Arizona town. He hopped out of the cab,
started filling his tank, and then walked along the flatbed to check the
restraining bands on his huge load of pipes. That's when it happened. A
band snapped. Then another. Before he could run, the pipes came crashing
down, smothering him under a massive pile. Larry tried to push the
large metal cylinders away but couldn't. They not only crushed his lungs
and collarbone but his spinal cord. He lay bruised, barely breathing, and
unable to move.
Three months later, he was sitting in a wheelchair, staring out the
window of a nursing home.
I heard about Larry when his aunt wrote to ask if I would send him
one of my books. She explained that he's now paralyzed from the neck
down and trying his best to adjust to his wheelchair, including life in an
institution. He's twenty-eight years old, single, and can't speak because
of the big ventilator in his neck. Larry, she said, is deeply depressed.
I wasted no time in tracking Larry down. When I learned he had a
website, I browsed through a handful of emails written by his friends.
Most of them came from his beer-drinking buddies and described all the
parties he was missing. It was enough to push me further to hunt up
Larry's mother. I got her on the phone.
'He's a good boy,' she lamented. 'And this is all so horrible . . . he
wishes he weren't so paralyzed so he could end his life. He's desperate to
kill himself.'
Her words made me shiver. I can understand a desire to kill oneself.
I'm a quadriplegic; I understand everything he's going through, from
bed baths to bowel programs, from pressure sores to the painful stares
from others. Thirty-eight years ago when I broke my neck, I saw no
reason
to go on either. Back then, I wrenched my neck violently on my
pillow at night, hoping to break it at a higher level. I looked forward to
the day I would gain enough movement to drive a power wheelchair; then
I could drive myself off a curb and into traffic. Only when I realized that
I might become brain injured did I drop the idea.
I'll bet Larry feels the same way. I'll bet that at night he fights off
the claustrophobia, carefully plotting ways he can quietly end his life.
If he smokes, I know what he's thinking when he draws on his cigarette,
holding the smoke in his lungs: Maybe this way I'll get lung cancer. Yeah,
that's a quiet way --- and a sure way --- to end my life.
Despair that deep simply devastates.
Yet today, things are worse for him than they were for me thirtyseven
years ago. Three-and-a-half decades ago, society didn't so quickly
assume that a severely injured person makes a rational choice if he ends
his life. Fewer doctors bought into the premise, 'You're better off dead
than disabled.' No Jack Kevorkians offered to aid me in my death wish;
compassion was still something other than three grams of phenobarbital
in the veins. Now, in 2005, a ventilator for a severely injured person
might be termed 'futile care.' In fact, Larry's institution probably has in
place futile care policies; that is, directives that allow doctors to overrule
a family's wishes for treatment.
Who would ever have thought we would one day call care futile?
Larry doesn't care about any of that. He thinks his life is futile.
He's convinced he would be better off dead than disabled. He would say,
'What I do with my life is none of your business. I'm entitled to exercise
my independence. It's fundamental to what this country is all about.
And if they don't soon find a cure for people
like me, then I'm out of
here!'
This man's hell-bent on getting cured --- and if not that, then killed.
I took a deep breath and decided to email Larry at his website 08 02 'This book tackles some of the most profound ethical questions facing Christians today, including stem-cell research, cloning, and genetic engineering. It draws on both cutting-edge information and life experience to help believers think through issues they can no longer ignore. This book will not only teach you about these important issues, but it will help you think through them from a biblical perspective.' &amp;mdash; <em>Rick Warren's Ministry Toolbox</em> <br><br> (<i>Rick Warren's Ministry Toolbox</i> )