BIBLICAL ETHICS:  SOLVING CULTURAL DILEMMAS

• First is Proposition 8 from California’s recent election.  That proposition on 4 November, which passed by a significant margin, prohibits same sex marriages in California.  It was a major point of discussion during the election and evangelicals and Mormons invested heavily to pass this proposition.  For that reason, many in California are burning the Book of Mormon; there has been an incident of mailing envelopes to Mormon buildings filled with white powder; and there have been incidents where activists have marched on Mormon facilities with signs and shouts of “hate” and “bigot” directed at Mormon support of this proposition.  Now, the California Supreme Court has agreed to review the legality of Proposition 8.  William McGurn, Wall Street Journal columnist, argues that “The great achievement of our system was to create a political order where these great moral disputes, as a matter of policy, are left to the people—with allowance for differences according to region and locale. . . The outcome is left to the people acting through their elected representatives, a process that inevitably involves compromise, trade-offs and messy accommodations.”  When the courts usurp this role from the people, generally three results obtain:  (1)  Courts often impose their view on the people, regardless of what the people desire or vote upon; (2)  Those who are running for political office can state publically that they oppose gay marriages, all the while knowing that the courts will rule in favor of gay marriages.  This is exactly what occurred during the recent presidential election.  Joe Biden and Barack Obama both said that they opposed same sex marriages, knowing that the courts would rule in favor of such marriages, despite strong opposition from the people of each respective state.  Yet, those who support same sex marriage voted overwhelmingly for the Biden-Obama ticket, because they knew the same thing Biden and Obama did.  That is manifestly dishonest and wrong.  The courts should not have the freedom or the power to so blatantly and wantonly overturn the clear will of the people.  (3)  As McGurn observes, when the courts usurp the authority of the people, they inject cynicism and bitterness into the entire process.  Listen to Justice Antonin Scalia, whose comments on the abortion question in 1992 indisputably apply to the same sex question as well:  “[B]y foreclosing all democratic outlet for the deep passions this issue arouses, by banishing the issue from the political forum that gives all participants, even the losers, the satisfaction of a fair hearing and an honest fight, by continuing the imposition of a rigid national rule instead of allowing for regional differences, the Court merely prolongs and intensifies the anguish.”  In the debate and the discussion, which the California Supreme Court will shut off when it makes its ruling, the strong biblical arguments against same sex marriage will not be considered.  There will be no clear, fair and honest argument on the nature of the most fundamental institution of civilization.  Instead, a few judges in black robes will overturn the will of the people of California that was expressed in passing Proposition 8.  What a tragedy for democracy.  See McGurn’s essay in the Wall Street Journal (25 November 2008).

• Second is another referendum on which the people of Californian voted, namely Proposition 2.  The people of California approved this resolution overwhelmingly as well.  In essence, Prop 2, which goes into effect in January 2015, ends the practice of confining certain animals raised for food in crates and cages so small that the animals can barley move.  It requires that factory farms provide enough space for animals to stand up, turn around and extend their limbs.  It applies to breeding pigs, egg laying hens and veal calves.  To pass this proposition, an enormous amount of money was spent (over $10 million) by the Humane Society and Californians for Safe Food.  Since California is the nation’s fifth largest producer (and #1 consumer) of eggs, this was no small issue.  Indeed, it has national implications, for the cost of eggs will go up because of Prop 2.  Prop 2 is the latest example of a growing, aggressive animal rights movement in the US.  Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, argues that “Nine billion animals are killed for food every year, and most of them are confined in intensive conditions.  It is the greatest abuse of animals that occurs on this planet.”  Pacelle has stressed the link between the inhumane treatment of animals and the health risks of factory farming.  In short, this new emphasis has framed the question of animal rights in terms of compassion and morality.  Instead of baby seals and whales, Pacelle and the animal rights movement have quite successfully made America’s pigs, calves and chickens the darling cause of their movement.  The overwhelming passage of Prop 2 illustrates that they have been successful.  But there is a danger here.  Few would condone any kind of torture of animals as ethically right.  But confining animals for food is not necessarily abusive.  Further, how far do we go in granting, as an ethical issue, rights to animals?  It is imperative to remember that only humans bear the image of God.  Further, humans do have dominion authority over God’s world, with the understanding that the non-human creation is of great significance  to God.  For example, God has a covenant, not only with humans but also with nonhuman creation.  After the flood, God made a covenant: “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark” (Genesis 9:9-10).  The physical world has dignity, worth and value quite apart from its service to humanity.  Incredibly, as well, God’s plan for redemption has a cosmic quality to it.  This fact provides a crucial foundation for building a Christian theology for an environmental age.  The biblical hope that the whole created order, including the material world of animals, rivers and trees, will be part of the kingdom confirms that the created order is good and important.  Romans 8:19-23 demonstrates that at Christ’s return the groaning of creation will cease, for the creation will be transformed:  “The creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God” (v. 21, NIV). 

Since we are God’s stewards over His creation, what should be our motivation?  Are we good stewards for pragmatic reasons or for moral reasons?  The pragmatic view posits that we should be good stewards over God’s world because our very survival depends on it.  For example, if we farm the hills irresponsibly, we will lose topsoil and harm our ability to produce food.  If we wantonly kill snakes, eventually we will be overrun by rodents.  If we mine copper irresponsibly, we will cause horrendous erosion that harms the waters.  If we burn the rainforests, we pollute the air and destroy oxygen-producing trees, which in turn threaten our supply of oxygen.  But the Bible rejects this as the motivating force for good stewardship.

Instead, Scripture implores humans to exercise good stewardship over the physical world because to do so demonstrates honor and respect for God’s created order.  The physical creation should not be exploited, because it is morally wrong to misuse God’s created order.  Having God’s perspective, we responsibly farm, we shun wanton destruction of animal life, we responsibly mine copper and we cease burning the rainforests because we respect and honor that which God has honored and respected.  We show honor to the physical world with which God has a covenant relationship.  Christians should, therefore, be the leaders in responsible environmentalism.  As God’s theocratic stewards, we represent Him when we honor His physical world.  See Maggie Jones, “The Barnyard Strategist” in the New York Times Magazine (26 October 2008), pp. 47-51 and James P. Eckman, Biblical Ethics, pp. 91-93.

• Third is the matter of surrogate motherhood.  In a recent article, a woman who had another woman give birth to her baby reveals the emotion and delicacy of gestational surrogacy.  In the US, there are two types of surrogacy:  1.  Traditional surrogacy, when the woman carrying the baby is also the biological mother, with the resulting child created from her egg and the sperm of the donor father.  2.  Gestational surrogacy, when the surrogate mother is carrying a child unrelated to her; she is merely gestating the child.  What complicates the whole matter of surrogacy is that some states prohibit any form of compensation for surrogacy.  In states where it is legal, the cost of gestational surrogacy is between $30,000 and $60,000.  Those costs do not include the cost of the retrieval and fertilization of the biological mother’s eggs and the transfer of the embryo into the gestational carrier.  That costs about another $10,000.  There is little doubt that there is a financial factor in such transactions.  Women who offer their bodies as surrogates are doing so for the money.  But as most have observed there is an inherent hypocrisy going on in our culture, which hopes to believe that the motivation is purely altruistic.  This hypocrisy overcomes the deep cultural revulsion against attaching a dollar figure to a human life!  The writer of this article, whose baby was carried by another woman (a surrogate), is transparent and reveals the hurt, questions and doubts she had through the entire process.  After the baby was born and the entire process over, she writes:  “What had we done?  Was it right to have circumvented the natural order of things?  Why had I chosen to miss out on the act of giving birth, to be left out of the circle of life?  My husband came out and sat next to me.  He took my hand.  ‘You gave birth to our baby.’  He told me.  ‘The doctors went in and took our baby out of you 10 months ago.’  He was casting back to the day the doctor removed my eggs.  ‘It was like a C-section.  They just went in and got him when he was very small.  And now he is here and as much a part of you as if he had come out of your body.  Because he did come out of your body. . .’  Our child did come out of me, from us.  Our bodies were married in a glass dish, and our boy was carried by another woman for nine months.  He is our most vivid dream realized—the embodiment of the most blindly powerful force in the universe, brought to life the only way he could be.  With a little help.”  Did you notice what occurred here?  To alleviate and cope with her profound questions, she embraced the very truth that Psalm 139:16 teaches:  The human embryo has infinite worth and value, a human being of value.  This dear lady embraced the notion that her son’s value and worth began at conception.  He came “out of her.”  That is how she settled the enormous emotion and inadequacy she felt not having given birth to her son.  Her language betrays a view of human life, its origins and its value that is fundamentally an ethical view rooted in the Bible.  I have huge ethical reservations about surrogacy—traditional or gestational.  I believe it can easily lead to the selling of human life in the womb.  It is a profoundly disturbing development in modern civilization that reproductive technology has made available to those who can afford it.  But as this article reveals, you cannot ignore the truth that life begins at conception and has value, worth and dignity.  Perhaps in a strange way and certainly as an unintended consequence, gestational surrogacy will validate this biblical truth.  See Alex Kuczynski, “Her Body, My Baby” in the New York Times Magazine (30 November 2008), pp. 43-78.

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