Gene-splicing, gene editing, gene drives, CRISPR, genetic biohacking. Altering the rudimentary building blocks of life. Correction, we're modifying them. Exact terminologies are going to matter in this series as words represent ideas...and some ideas are dangerous as Hell. We are now entering the astounding world of DNA and the biological double-helix. The literal spiral staircase leading to life. The irony being that the staircase can lead us either up or it can lead us down...
In today's field of Genetic Engineering we have already run square into a wall of monstrous ethical implications. In so doing we have barely scratched the surface of gene coding. We're now tampering with cutting edge science barely out of the realm of Science Fiction. Gene editing is now full-blown reality. Many Christians are blissfully unaware and ignorant of it too as are non-Christians. As a Christian I could find virtually no reasoned Christian debate or polemic for or against on this topic. I am trying to disentangle / unravel this topic because so few have from a Christian point of view. We're not talking about breeding heredity here...we're talking literal cut-n-paste DNA here.
Technology is beginning to outpace the Christian ability to give proper biblical commentary on it. This topic needs to be discussed and there needs to be sound reasoned answers theological and ethical. Not another round of emotive knee jerk shouting matches. Blanket answers, oversimplifications and generalizations by Christians won't fly here. Why? Because broad generalizations and oversimplification are fallacies of logic and God is a God of Order. He is also the God of the genome…and the genome is the divinely ordered biological information of life. My examination will focus on Scripture to reveal some answers to these perceived dilemmas.
Believe it or not it has seven years since 2012 that scientists first learned how to awkwardly but fortuitously splice the human genome using a tool called CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) which are a family of DNA sequences found within the genomes of prokaryotic organisms such as bacteria and archaea. CRISPR makes it possible to snip out disease-causing mutations and actually cure, once and for all, genetic diseases ranging from sickle cell anemia to certain types of cancer and blindness. Mind you, this isn't medicine with a scalpel but more with a butter knife. At times it is not exact as the creator of CRISPR Jennifer Doudna has acknowledged. A woman who has also vehemently and admirably petitioned for the ethical uses of it.
By definition, 'genetics' of properly functioning genes would be concerned with the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms. When I say unnatural in the title I mean in the biblical sense. It would be any behavior, use or order of the creation outside God’s mandated order that would constitute sin. Healing is not sin. It is expected in the Law by a side effect of adhering to holiness requirements and Jesus healed people. These are valid case-in-points. Already at this juncture I am attempting to draw a distinction. Capricious rearrangement of behavior, use or order that causes harm and suffering is a sin whether intentional or not. Sin of omission sin of commission. Its about intent of the heart. It always has been and always will be when it comes to what is proper in the eyes of a holy Sovereign God.
So...Pandora's box is now open....let's see what's inside....
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