2009/03/21

whither ethics?

There's something very attractive about moral absolutes. We like to say that they are biblical. Maybe some are. But sometimes they seem just to be an avoidance of the real complexities of life, of the inherent ambiguity in some situations, and the downright confusing pace of medical advances.

Two such hard cases arose recently: firstly, the heartbreaking case of baby OT, whose parents wanted kept alive, and whose doctors said that it was kinder to cease the interventions keeping the child alive. In other contexts, perhaps the latter would have been confused with issues of cost, but the provision of the British Health Service meant that both parties could concentrate on what they thought best for baby OT. We'd probably agree that there are times when it's best to stop invasively striving to keep someone alive - but it's hard to come to that conclusion when you are close to the situation.

Secondly, there have been calls lately for an end to the criminalization of helping someone to commit suicide - at least in the context of facilitating travel to the so-called Dignitas clinic in Switzerland. Those cases are so hard: it's difficult to want to stop someone from deciding to end their own suffering, but it's near impossible too to address the danger of unwanted, subtle, unwitting even, pressure being applied to someone in a vulnerable state. For myself, I think the law has it about right at the moment: helping someone to die is illegal, but most people escape prosecution. I'd rather each case be considered on its merits, with a legal presumption that driving someone to their grave (almost literally!) is generally illegal.

And then there are increasingly complex issues which arise from in vitro fertilization, embryonic stem cell research, frozen embryos, and so, so many more. Not only does black and white thinking fail to lead to obviously ethical answers, it certainly does not give helpful advice to people who find themselves in complex situations. [When a couple created some frozen embryos, and then split, if the man withdraws consent for their implantation, what happens next? Does it matter if the woman is now infertile? For example. Or what if you consented to the creation of hundreds of embryos, but subsequently decide that the destruction of the surplus ones is unethical? And so on.]

In these hard issues - particularly at the beginning and end of life - it strikes me that we need a new ethic. One that values the image of the creator found in each person - old or young. One that takes account of the immense pain felt by people who find themselves in hard places. One that can celebrate advances in medical science, rather than finding each one a challenge and an evil to be resisted.

I wouldn't pretend that this is easy. But we are faced by a lot of questions that a previous generation was not. And they will continue to get more and more complex. Reducing them to simpler questions will make them easier to answer, but I truly doubt that doing so will really give satisfactory answers, answers that embody love and compassion, answers that meet people where they are, answers that really embody Kingdom values.

2009/03/18

de-baptism

Someone wants to be de-baptised. Or should that be dis-baptised. Or un-baptized? Can you be un-indoctrinated? Can you remove consent to have been photographed as a baby? How about un-learning your mother tongue? Could you be de-washed? Or un-fed that meat, having decided to become a life-long vegetarian? Can you be dis-educated if you never wanted to know any calculus after all?

I've never been much of a fan of paedo-baptism, but, really, if you want to disavow all that mumbo-jumbo (in the Anglican case, renouncing evil, etc. and making promises, all through the lips of your god-parents/sponsors), why is there more to it than that ? If you believe that baptism is effective ex officio opera, then I suppose it is; if you don't, then surely it isn't?

2009/03/15

Review: Cool It

Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming
Bjørn Lomborg

Everyone hates Lomborg, as far as I can tell. The true believers in the climate change lobby don't like him; the true skeptics don't like him either. The former are alarmed by the way that he takes the IPCC predictions as accurate, but then suggests responses which challenge the prevailing orthodoxy. The latter, well, think the IPCC are a bunch of scare-mongers, and so have no time for someone who believes the statistics in the 4th Assessment Report.

Lomborg argues, for example, that although it has been accurately argued that global warming will give rise to many additional heat-related deaths, most overlook the fact that the self-same warming would mean many, many fewer cold-related deaths. He argues similarly for water stress, and food production. He argues that the predicted rise in sea levels is best addressed through improved sea defences. And so on.

The book, published in 2007, is of course already out of date. [It's a little repetitive, too, but we'll overlook that.] The chief criticism of it that I've come across is that he assumes largely linear, continuous variations in impacts, rather than allowing for "tipping points" and sudden, catastrophic change. I think that slightly unfair: he uses, rigorously, the IPCC data and its scenarios. Some argue already that the IPCC predictions are in fact too conservative, and that the real out-turn will be even worse. But the point of having an IPCC is to ensure careful, balanced, measured assessments.

Out-of-date or not, the methodology is interesting. What is the moral response to these concerns? It is certainly true that the targets of the Kyoto treaty deliver almost no benefits by 2100, on the orthodox models. And the Kyoto signatories are struggling to deliver on its targets. To make a material difference to CO2 levels in the atmosphere requires a restructuring of Western society on a scale we can barely imagine. And it means depriving the developing world of the benefits of the industrial revolution.

All this is bound up with complex questions of economics. Although the statistics relating to planning for a hundred years hence trip off the tongue easily, it is salutatory to consider just how much of life today could have been predicted by the politicians and economists of 1909. The IPCC expectations of development, for example, mean that by 2100 Bangladesh should enjoy the standard of living of present-day Denmark. That is rather hard to imagine. But 100 years is a long time.

So Lomborg talks of the cost of implementing a massive reduction in CO2 emissions. And the relative benefit, compared to the cost of preventing the spread of malaria, say, or of providing clean drinking water for the whole world. And so on. This is a debate we don't seem to be having.

Or take the thought experiment a little further. If we are, as James Lovelock says, past the point of no return as regards run-away climate change, what is the moral response. Should we eat, drink, and be merry? Should we spend money on reducing emissions, or spend it on improving the lot of the world's poorest?

The whole debate seems to come down to a sterile is/isn't game. I think we can do better. Love him or loathe him, Lomborg is certainly a part of doing that.

Andrew Martin dead (apparently)

Ooops, didn't mean to shock anyone...

My namesake is dead. Perhaps he'll stop beating me on the Google search pages now. (Hm. I was first once, now various impostors seem to be getting in the way.)

2009/03/01

friends

When your friends give you birthday cards with a recurring theme, you begin to wonder...

There was one which quoted Benjamin Franklin,
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy
and another from a Dave Berry
Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly so well with pizza.
and another with pictures of rugby and beer. And then there was a mat/coaster bearing the text Beer only. No silly soft drinks. Ever. Folks, are you trying to tell me something?

There was also a copy of An Emergent Theology for Emerging Churches, which may or may not mix well with beer (it looks like it needs a clear head). There's also How to get things really flat, by, er, Andrew Martin. A good name for an author, if ever there was one: I wonder just how many of us there are...

future?

The last part of Christianity: A History today was presented by Cherie Blair - wife of the former Prime Minister, Roman Catholic, and leading human rights lawyer. Like the others, it was really frustrating, but also challenging.

First, she painted a picture of the church in the UK (and the rest of Western Europe) as being in sharp, and continuing decline. Her perspective was decidedly Catholic - as was her concern about the reasons why the church is seen as being out of touch with society - but I guess that many similar issues apply to the rest of us. The largely unspoken question at this stage was to ask whether the church has a future.

Despite a couple of references to the continued growth of the church in the developing world, she took as her counterpoint the church in the USA. We were treated to some interviews with very inclusive Methodists in Chicago, a chat with Laura Bush ("of course George and Tony didn't pray together when they met for summits" Hmm? why "of course"? If you share faith, and believe in its transforming power, why not bring it into professional life? I grant that I've so far largely failed to put that into practice myself, but I do have it as a goal), and an extended visit to Willow Creek, interviews with Bill Hybels, and the rest. Oh, there was an interview with Jessie Jackson, too.

Her point, then, was that the American church is going strong, and this is not least because it adapts its style and practice to the prevailing culture in a way that the British church has failed to manage. She argued, at some length, that there is no crisis of faith, but a crisis in the way it is practiced. This seems, well, naive and simplistic.

I'm not well-placed to know whether her analysis of the American church is right, but everything I read suggests that it is heading in the same direction as the western European church, just a couple of decades later. That's not to say that there are not encouraging signs (signs of emergence?), just that they do not necessarily point where she thinks. I have this awful fear that people of her generation (even if she's only about 15 years older than me) don't quite grasp how far things have diverged.

Of course, I'd have loved for there to be a final episode after this one, with interviews with McLaren, Bell, Driscoll, Kimball, Jones (x2), and so on. It seems as if there's a great deal more to be said. But perhaps that would be premature.

A way of believing is perhaps only ever one generation away from extinction. There is something quite alarming about the way the practice of Christian faith has collapsed in Western Europe. Even in the face of an age when more people on the planet own the name of Christ than ever before, is there something about social, economic, and cultural development that makes eventual decline inevitable?


[Oops! I lost this post: I wrote it weeks ago, but forgot to publish it! Here goes...Oh. Blogger inserted it at the date I wrote it. Will anyone see it?]