Clearly Consistent

Clearly Consistent

by Rev. Dr. James I. Lamb

The president’s executive order, “Expanding Approved Stem Cell Lines in Ethically Responsible Ways,” requires that the activities called for in the order be “clearly consistent” with certain principles. Among them are:

“Maintaining the highest ethical standards and respecting human life and human dignity.”
“No life should be used as a mere means for achieving the medical benefit of another.”
“Human embryos and fetuses, as living members of the human species, are not raw materials to be exploited or commodities to be bought and sold.”

Such principles are “clearly consistent” with Lutheran theology. Indeed, Lutheran theology offers a view of human life and human dignity infinitely loftier than any presidential executive order! The incarnation of Jesus Christ as a human embryo says it all. The incarnation points to our sinfulness—and, therefore, our humanity—as an embryo. The incarnation points to humanity’s original creation in the image of God that Jesus came to restore. The incarnation displays the depths of God’s love for the human embryo from the moment of conception. The incarnation imposes a value on the human embryo that is validated upon a cross and made eternal through an empty tomb.

Lutheran theology enables us to understand that loving our neighbor extends to the womb and the fallopian tube, the Petri dish, and the fertility clinic. Our neighbors, those for whom God came in the flesh, can never be a means to an end, raw material, or a commodity to be bought and sold.

It is not the task of Lutherans For Life or the Church to provide incarnational language to presidential executive orders. But it is our task to help Lutherans make the connection between our positive, For Life theology and the human embryo. We do not craft executive orders, but we can engage and influence society so that the “clearly consistent” principles above become part of its fabric and the starting point for research that seeks to enhance human life. In the process of such influence, we will also have opportunity to point others to the reason for our neighborliness, the once-upon-a-time-embryo, Jesus Christ.

(Posted 6/22/07)