Moral Dilemma

Recently the Church leaders exhorted us to support the campaign against the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. I listened, and yet I couldn’t understand how my church friends and leaders could be so sure that all parts of the HFE Bill were evil, to be condemned and campaigned against. I wasn’t getting the same whispers from the Holy Spirit at all. I thought about the abhorrence that was being expressed at the concept of ‘Saviour Siblings’ … but isn’t that exactly what we proclaim Jesus to be? If that concept is a godly one … ? (“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways”, declares the Lord. Isaiah 55:8)

There is a human phenomenon identified as ‘contempt prior to investigation’. It is a potential trap we can fall into if we accept someone else’s judgment on something we haven’t looked into for ourselves. I’ll confess I haven’t invested the effort of reading the HFE Bill, yet as I listened to what was said at the church meetings, my thoughts turned to a young man for whose healing I’ve been praying since he was about 7. He’s now in his mid-twenties. He suffers muscular dystrophy. It seemed to me that the Holy Spirit was whispering this was a step towards a world where hereditary disease would be a thing of the past.

Other scriptures that came to mind were:
‘There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.’ 1 John 4:18
‘To the pure, all things are pure …’ Titus 1:15
‘All a man’s ways seem innocent to him but motives are weighed by the Lord’ Proverbs 16:2

I wonder if it wouldn’t make more sense to pray into the positive gains that the scientific research might provide rather than to project our fears onto the canvas of scientific research; to look trustingly towards the light rather than watching the shadows on the wall of the cave.