Anselm Trinity Lutheran Church in Sheldon, North Dakota, has voted to leave the ELCA. The last straw? The proposed ELCA policy document on genetics.[1] It warns that genetic developments in biotech farming could lead to trouble:
● “This church believes that the greatest danger in genetic developments lies in the sinful exercise of radically extended human power (lines 423-25).[2]
“Radically extended human powers”! On no! Frankenstein is coming!
● “Human beings … have a limited vocation to continue what God is already doing for the earth: to promote the earth’s flourishing. Each genus of birds, mammals, reptiles and creeping things has its own fertility and natural boundaries“ (lines 124-26).
All species have “natural boundaries” deserving protection? Has the ELCA forgotten about evolution? New species?
● “Human creatures… are expected to not eliminate other species or to make the earth barren. They are not to claim for themselves either the knowledge or the authority to make solely human-focused or unilateral decisions about the creation” (lines 133-35).
What agendas lurk in the terms “solely” and “unilateral decisions”? What is even meant by this jargon?
Natural isn’t always better. Horses gave way to the steam engine, which gave way to the internal combustion engine, and so on.
When the vaccine for small pox was discovered in the 1790’s both Protestants and Catholics protested: “If God had wanted a vaccine, he would have created it.”
When the telegraph was invented in the 1830s, some warned: “If God had wanted the telegraph, he would have created it. Think of all the evil it will bring.”
In August 2011 the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Orlando will adopt the genetics statement as official ELCA policy. The statement purports to take various views seriously, but it will be used one-sidedly.
● ELCA lobbyists in Washington will lobby for who-knows-what agendas. With a huge potential for mischief.
● ELCA Youth Gatherings, confirmation materials, women’s Bible studies, and the like will be larded with food myths and environmental agendas.
Is “natural” (whatever that means) always better, as the ELCA suggests? John Stossel notes here that grass-fed, free-range beef costs twice as much, has a much larger carbon imprint, and there’s no evidence it’s better for the environment or better for your health. It’s just another food myth.
The ELCA is nothing if not predictable. In genetics, as in sex, economics, education, peace, death penalty, health care, and the like — it spends a lot of money to produce an ambiguous statement that will be used as a political club.
Congratulations Anselm-Trinity Lutheran – You’re free at last.
[1] The Task Force on Genetics had only one farmer.
[2] Emphasis added here and below.