cloning and a world ago...

In 1969 I was doing a paper for English class, and decided, being the hopeless egghead I was, to write about cloning. Particularly about the moral issues that arose in cloning, which was a very new field at the time, a time when life was no simpler than today, we just remember it that way, because otherwise our heads would explode.

I asked my minister, Rev. B. Carlisle Driggers of Calvary Baptist Church (Morgantown, WV), if the Southern Baptist Convention (then, a great deal more sane than they are today) had any information on their stance on cloning. I didn't consider it very promising when I had to explain the process to him (he's a very educated man and I have a great deal of respect for him, but I was concerned that if he didn't know, the SBC, as a whole, would be in the dark).

He advised me to write to the "Christian Life Commission" of the SBC, particularly to one Harry N. Hollis, who was the head of it at the time, and ask him what position the largest Protestant denomination in North America had on the issue. I followed his advice and wrote out a long explanation of what I was looking for, why I was looking for it, and what the process was.

I got back a very nice letter from Dr. Hollis, including some pamphlets regarding artificial insemination (hey, I was 14, this was practically porn to me), saying that they had never heard of the process, and asking if I would please send them a copy of my final paper so they could have something to base their initial position discussions on.

Oh joy, a thirteen million member organization basing a ruling on eternal morality in the sciences on a 14 year old boy's handwritten essay. I was flattered if a bit overwhelmed, and did send him a copy of the paper (which, as I recall, I got a B+ on...most of the deductions were for my sloppy handwriting). I have no idea what they did with it...it probably is in the bottom of a box somewhere in Nashville.

Anyway, when the SBC turned to the right a few years later I bailed. Not that I don't like a good fight, but I could see where churches were being ravaged by the contention, and the church is supposed to be a hospital for the sick, not a war museum.

My position on cloning? Same then and now. Any technology has an inherent danger of being used for bad or good things, there is nothing you can't find utility towards both in (in varying amount...the first time we have to blast an incoming asteroid off course to save the Earth, we'll be delighted we did create "the bomb"...). I think that the soul is not a biological construct, and whether it is something manifest of God or that evolves as a result of sentience (which dovetails nicely with the notion of "age of accountability") . I think if you cloned one man ten thousand times, each new life would have as much a separate soul as identical twins have. In fact, if you merely put down your picket sign for ten seconds and use the brain God gave you, you'll see that cloning is basically just laboratory "twinning".

Anyway, just thought I'd share that story...I had forgotten all about it until recently.