wfn.org | Lutherans Author Book on Genetic Testing and Screening

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ELCA NEWS SERVICE

March 23, 1999

LUTHERANS AUTHOR BOOK ON GENETIC TESTING AND SCREENING
98-11-63-FI

     CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
(ELCA) has a "reliable and accessible guide into Christian reflection on
genetic testing and screening," wrote the Rev. Charles S. Miller,
executive director of the ELCA Division for Church in Society, in the
preface to a new book, "Genetic Testing and Screening: Critical
Engagement at the Intersection of Faith and Science."
     Genetic testing and screening are technological procedures that
analyze samples of human body fluid or tissue for the presence or
absence of specific genetic material.  Currently the most common medical
applications involve screens or tests that detect the heritable basis of
disease, defect or abnormalities during pregnancy or in infants. 
Criminal DNA testing is an example of a non-medical use.
     "Our society needs a church and a people who greet the situation
with informed thinking and with discernment for compassionate and just
action.  This book will have fulfilled its mandate if it equips the
reader to join in such a critical engagement," wrote the Rev. Roger A.
Willer in the book's introduction.
     Willer, while engaged in doctoral studies at the University of
Chicago, acted as director and editor of this writing project on human
genetic testing and screening for the ELCA Division for Church in
Society.
     "Genetic knowledge can lead to preventative medical therapy, allow
informed choice, set free the wrongly accused, and spin off whole new
industries that respond to the ailments and misfortunes of life," wrote
Willer.  "While we may celebrate these new powers, their application
also brings vexing personal crises and social dilemmas."
     Different ELCA members wrote each of the book's nine chapters. 
The first three chapters are organized into a section called
"Understanding Genetic Testing and Screening."
     Dr. Kevin Powell, a pediatrician for Carle Clinic and an assistant
professor at the University of Illinois College of Medicine, Urbana,
Ill., wrote the book's initial chapter, "A Basic Guide: Facts and
Issues."  Powell is a physician with an earned doctorate in medical
engineering.
     "Scientists are motivated by compassion to help others who are
suffering from genetic diseases.  These efforts increase social
justice," wrote Powell.  "The trade-off is that genetic technology also
increases power and places that power in fewer hands, which may decrease
social justice.
     "Science continues to increase knowledge.  Religion must increase
wisdom of how to use this knowledge.  These two functions cannot operate
independently but must interact," wrote Powell.
     Kirstin Finn Schwandt, a community-based genetic counselor in
Bloomington, Ind., wrote "Personal Stories: Cases from Genetic
Counseling."  A former genetic research lab assistant, she is trained in
medical genetics with an emphasis on counseling and ethical issues.
     "While genetic counselors are key members of the medical care
team, they are not usually trained to focus on the faith-related needs
of patients," Schwandt wrote.  "Spiritual issues often fall by the
wayside because a counseling session is devoted to the exchange of
information.  Many patients are left with unanswered questions like 'Why
do bad things always happen to me?'"
     "Science and technology have brought us into an era which requires
profound responsibility.  For Christians, this is not an affliction but
a gift from God," wrote Schwandt.  "If the church chooses to be present
to people struggling with genetic choices, it must become genetically
literate in order to understand and respond."
     John Varian, senior vice president for finance and administration,
Elan Pharmaceuticals, wrote "Genetics in the Marketplace: A Biotech
Perspective."  Elan is a pharmaceutical company based near San
Francisco.
     "Genetic test development will occur and at an increasingly rapid
pace.  I hope that my comments here will aid the kind of conversation
that we need to have in the church as these developments increasingly
influence our lives.  It is crucial that those of us in the church
become better educated so that we can enter into and attempt to affect
the ongoing debate," wrote Varian.
     "While the genes God has given us are a gift, he transcends our
genetic make-up.  We must affirm that we are more than just the sum of
our genes," Varian wrote.  "We must affirm that there is more to life. 
We must affirm the importance of God's plan for each of our lives even
though we can never fully fathom it."
     The book's middle section, "Engaging Worldviews and Proposing
Alternatives," includes four chapters by ethicists and theologians.
     The Rev. Philip Hefner wrote "The Genetic 'Fix': Challenge to
Christian Faith and Community."  He is a professor of systematic
theology at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago and director of
the Chicago Center on Religion and Science.
     The "prevailing worldview" is that all of nature is subject to a
human "freedom to define and shape it," Hefner wrote.  When it comes to
genetic testing and screening this viewpoint tends to blur "the
distinction between healing and 'fixing,'" and it "offers very limited
personal and spiritual support."
     As an alternative, Hefner called people "God's created co-creators."  Using Christian perspectives on humans as both creatures of
nature and shapers of nature, he illustrated that being created in "the
image of God brings with it possibilities and responsibilities."
     "I propose the image of 'Christian friendship' as a challenge to
our congregations as supportive communities," wrote Hefner.  "Such a
community will not be found in many places in our American society.  It
is the church's calling to be in fact this community."
     Elizabeth Bettenhausen explored issues of the human body and the
church as "the body of Christ" in "Genes in Society: Whose Body?"  The
social ethicist, theologian and author teaches courses at Hartford
Seminary, Hartford, Conn., and the University of Massachusetts at
Boston.
     "Remembering Luther's insistence that a person is best understood
as life in interacting relationships can help us in the church,"
Bettenhausen wrote.  "The need within the church is not for increased
specialization in conversations on genetic testing and screening. 
Rather, the church can be precisely a corporate communion in which
attention is always given to the specifics of a particular science or
profession but explicitly in the larger context of human society."
     "In terms of genetic testing and screening, how we analyze
interests, resources, benefits, and burdens will be affected from the
beginning by a strong bias in favor of 'the least of these,' meaning
persons with the fewest benefits and most burdens in society," wrote
Bettenhausen.  "Conversation in society is an opportunity for the church
to engage many more cultures and perspectives than exist within a
particular denomination or congregation."
     The Rev. Theodore F. Peters, a professor of systematic theology at
Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Berkeley, Calif., said he wished
he could have predicted a more optimistic future in "Love and Dignity:
Against Children Becoming Commodities;" instead he forecast "free market
eugenics."
     "Eugenics was a movement to use family planning to improve the
health and intelligence and productivity of the human race," wrote
Peters, a research scholar at the Center for Theology and the Natural
Sciences, Berkeley, Calif.
     "My theological and ethical concern is that free market eugenics
will set us up economically and culturally to view future children as
commodities, as merchandise.  Genetic discrimination in insurance and
employment will bring economic pressures upon families to eliminate
future children with undesirable -- read expensive -- genes," Peters
wrote.
     Dr. Hans O. Tiefel, a professor of religion and ethics and chair
of the Religion Department at the College of William and Mary,
Williamsburg, Va., wrote "Individualism vs. Faith: Genetic Ethics in
Contrasting Perspectives."  He reflected on "genetic ethics from two
perspectives: that of contemporary culture and that of biblical-liturgical faith."
     "American individualism as our cultural mainstream focuses on the
intrinsic worth of persons in terms of their rational capacities,"
Tiefel wrote.  "Biblical and liturgical traditions ascribe human dignity
to a transcendent source."
     "While both a secular individualism and Christian faith welcome
knowing what genetic testing reveals, faith confronts such knowing in
the presence of God and of the community, places these dilemmas into the
orbit of religious commitment, and bears its burdens as shared
responsibilities," wrote Tiefel.
     "Confronting Professional Challenges" is the book's final section.
     Dr. Robert Roger Lebel wrote "A Geneticist's Synthesis: Evolution,
Faith and Decision Making."  He is a community-based clinical geneticist
with Genetics Services, Elmhurst, Ill.  "God is at work in the evolution
of the universe, driving and energizing it toward its final goal of
unification in Christ," he wrote.
     "Each person confronted with a decision about genetic matters
ought to approach it prayerfully to discern how the inspiration of the
Holy Spirit is leading him or her toward the most creative and generous
response to the challenge," wrote Lebel.
     "We Christians believe that we shall see Him in the flesh, that we
will be resurrected, joining Him forever.  Yet we have no clear notion
of how this will look," Lebel wrote.  "We believe it will take place; we
believe the promise of Christ."
     The Rev. Lawrence E. Holst chaired the department of pastoral care
at Lutheran General Hospital, Park Ridge, Ill., for 35 years before he
retired and moved to Seabrook Island, S.C.  He wrote the book's final
chapter, "A Pastoral Perspective: Companionship Beyond Innocence."
     "Our current genetic dilemma: increased knowledge expands moral
choices and thereby imposes moral burdens upon the decision maker,"
Holst wrote.  "Such rapid developments are parting 'the veil of
innocence' by empowering us to understand more fully, and even to alter,
what nature has given us."
     "This chapter is an attempt to provide a pastoral perspective for
those seeking to provide care to loved ones and friends who will undergo
genetic testing and will thereby experience 'the parting of this veil,'"
wrote Holst.
     The book, "Genetic Testing and Screening," concludes with a five-page glossary of terms and their definitions.  It is published by Kirk
House Publishers, Minneapolis.  The ELCA Division for Church in Society
maintains a Web page about the book
(http://www.elca.org/DCS/genetic.htm).

For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://www.elca.org/co/news/current.html