SIR
am not altogether surprised that some of Your correspondents seem to desire 'the entrails of the last priest' employed for some useful purpose, even are that purpose be not regicide! But not all clergy quite so unawakened as thoSe quoted. Members 3.1, the Modern Churchmen's Union hold extremely liberal and progressive views on subjects akin to (Pe matter under discussion, such as contraception gnci artificial insemination, which are both matters where interference by human agents in processes of creation and birth are involved. The MCU as a hole has for long favoured a wise use of contra- fe_ePtion; and their 1959 memorandum on Al certainly '4voured this practise when the 'donor was the bus- nand: and urged a cool and unhysterical approach h the consideration of the pros and cons of AID. The real trouble seems to lie in the failure to appreciate the principle behind our interference with rtoral causes—namely that man is a creator him- self „and must take full responsibility for his creations. vr u4PPeR to believe in an overshadowing divine tnvidence, but I also realise that many fields of IvitY, agriculture, biochemistry, etc., which were or tinder) days inscrutable mysteries, are now more ess ard r understod and we no lone vine ke the tertility oin crops or herdsger orinv humokans,di but appropriate action ourselves. In this matter o"elive, with one who would not otherwise line crepaw,;" Me, Sir Julian Huxley, that evolution in- of CrIglY must become the conscious responsibility the Lir ManitY. As a theologian I would say that as Wise raethbecame more adult, and instructed, the sonal Cr had entrusted them with greater. perr- doin_, sPonsibility. The thalidomide tragedy is o.th Cgu and the result of our faulty interference wih hnris hderstanding of natural causes. If only t e and itlan theologians would devote a little more time bird, nvestigation into the conditions of life before sotoe instead of after death, we might make
pro s
Stich ar. „ ogress. s. We might even come to a .belief of inat held by Origcn and other leading thinkers carn'actioAlexandrine school in pre-existence and rein- what , n, and this would make the problem of to do with these unfortunate babies perhaps
a good deal simpler. It would then certainly be a debatable point as to whether, having the responsi- bility for having ruined the bodies in which these spiritual beings have to pass through the space-time continuum, we do not owe it to them to send them back whence they came, and give them another chance to inhabit a less damaged body. However this is my own point of view, and not that of the MCU. If we condone the termination of pregnancies where infection of German measles or other virus
&Poi has almost certainly damaged the foetus, one may well ask, as Mr. White does, whether there is any- thing metaphysically fundamental in the actual emergence from the womb when the embryo shortly before birth is to all intents identical with the new- born baby. However, this is a matter for theologians, though Protestant theologians have shown them- selves singularly disinterested in such matters as when the soul enters the embryo or, indeed, if it exists, or pre-exists. why it enters at all!
JOHN D. PEARCE-HIGGINS
Chairman of the Modern Churchmen's Union Putney Vicarage, 5 Mal brook Road, SW15
Previous page
