Human Affairs Issues Explored
Episcopal News Service. July 23, 1982 [82167]
NEW YORK (DPS, July 23) -- Taking advantage of its broad mandate, the Standing Commission on Human Affairs and Health has presented a lengthy and thoughtful report that is likely to provide a discussion basis for Episcopal Church people to begin to respond to issues ranging from economic exploitation to the sale of human semen.
The Commission has prepared a number of resolutions which -- if accepted by the Sept. 5-15 meeting of the Church's General Convention -- would provide the framework for institutional response and would clarify the Church's position on a number of issues but the format of the report makes it clear that the panel views those resolutions as catalysts for post-convention Church-wide engagement.
The Human Affairs and Health panel divided its work -- and the final report -- into two parts. It addresses issues of economics, peace, refugees and human rights in the first portion and those of birth control, abortion, prenatal diagnosis, artificial insemination and "in vitro" fertilization in the latter.
The first portion begins with a candidly gloomy assessment of the state of the world and the nation, an assessment that asserts: "The overall condition of the human race within this nation and throughout the world has deteriorated seriously. In many areas 'crisis' is too mild a term to describe what we face at this hour of history.
"Two potentially devastating possibilities now loom on the horizon of the global situation. One is the very real threat of world economic collapse, now the subject of increasing anxiety within the financial community. The other, the threat of thermonuclear war, is made more believable by the deepening struggle for economic advantage and the tensions rising over the likelihood of economic disaster. In fact, one feeds upon the other."
The report bears out this conclusion with an examination of the resurgent arms race, the vast movement of refugees, the growth in international economic disparity and, nationally, the continuation of oppression by race, sex or class coupled with apparent lack of direction in foreign affairs policy and the rebirth of economic policies that entrench advantage.
This catalog concludes: "These realities, and others by the dozen which can be cited, remind us that at home and abroad we find ourselves in a period of major social disintegration. An underlying reason for the crisis is that the resources of this small planet are being stretched to their limits. Until now, we have built our society on the assumption that these resources were generally inexhaustible. Coupled with this has been a curious "cut back" in emphasis on and funding for research, as well as a selfish resistance to measures which might distribute more equitably such resources as we have. The 'exploitive philosophy' which heretofore has undergirded the way we have developed our American economic style of life simply cannot now deal with the new reality of limitation. As a result and out of fear, we drive ourselves to spend more than half our allocable public monies to increase the military arsenal in a vain hope that through our armed might we can somehow hang on to what we already have and guarantee for ourselves continuing access to other parts of the world for those things we believe we need.
"Paradoxically, by constructing the most sophisticated and expensive weapons of war the world has ever known, we are only further undermining our faltering economy and escalating the prospects for human annihilation on an unbelievable scale. Competent studies demonstrate that a dollar spent on arms production creates an essentially useless item which, in turn, does not thereby stimulate further economic development the way a dollar spent on civilian goods does. Thus, our missile, or our neutron bomb, serves to stifle our domestic economy even as it multiplies the danger of a way that could very well end all human life on the planet."
Viewed theologically, the Committee agrees that: "we are in a time of spiritual decay, despite the popularity of cults and much of the religious 'born again' talk. Material wealth and military superiority have become the 'gods' that really motivate us, for they speak more loudly to our basic insecurities than the goods news of the gospel. Even our professed high value for human life often appears more like rhetoric than reality when we exhibit our contentment with urban wastelands, our passion for more nuclear weaponry, our willingness to let our schools decay, and our insensitivity to hungry people in underdeveloped lands."
Despite this view, the final thrust of the report is vigorous and optimistic in its call to the Church: "Social disintegration should not simply be viewed with despair. It can be, in fact, a sign of hope, when people lose their idolatrous belief in the current values being honored in the marketplace. It is only when disintegration leads to despair that our society is in danger."
To meet this goal, the committee points to tasks it feels the Church can take on in an effort to reverse these trends. These include a challenge to seek out systemic causes both as educational exercise and programmatic thrust, a call for a re-assertion of Incarnational theology as 'modus operandi' of any Church stance, identity with community action in concrete and material ways, the development of a process to help Church people take a role in matters of investment, empowerment and economic and peace policy-making and the weaving of these concerns into the fabric of the Church's corporate devotional life.
Following this thrust, the panel asks Convention to enact six resolutions as the basis for Church response.
The first is a call for imposition of "moral criteria" in reindustrialization decisions. This two-part resolution first spells out criteria that the Church would commend to industry, government and unions. The second, directed to the Church, urges congregational study and use of the criteria, action by dioceses and Church structures to bring them to public attention and a monitoring process that would be the responsibility of the Church Center staff.
The criteria themselves are elaborations of three themes: common good of the community, long range as well as immediate consequences and effect upon concentration of power and resources.
The second and third resolutions address peace issues with a call for an immediate mutual freeze by all nuclear powers on production, testing, deployment and delivery systems and a call for interreligious conference to follow up the initiatives of the Lambeth Conference, the House of Bishops, Presiding Bishop John M. Allin and the increasing unity of the religious communities in prophesying about the arms race.
Speaking to the issue of community action, the panel takes up the initiative of a Churchwide Conference on Racism held early this year which concluded the need for the Church to actively support organizations, coalitions and community groups which seek to redress oppressive systems. Speakers at that conference had held up the value of the Church's witnessing role in providing meeting space, funds, public support and assistance to groups that work in a non-violent -- although potentially confrontative -- way to effect change in local structures.
The report also speaks directly to the continuing "corrosive scourge" of racism in a resolution that calls for the creation of a special committee on racism within each diocese and congregation that would -- supported by the Church Center staff -- work to "demonstrate to the world that the promise of America is no longer a nightmare for some, but a viable dream for all."
Finally, the Human Affairs portion of the report proposes a broad refugee relief resolution that commends Church effort in local resettlement while urging a continuation of this effort, calls for fairer, more uniform federal handling of those who reach U.S. shores and developmental aid to those countries whose economic, political and social disruptions drive people to become refugees.
In the second major section of the report, the panel attempts the same kind of task of framing the discussion, offering guidance and resources and proposing action for the Church in areas of medical technology and reproduction and the nature of Christian marriage.
Regarding the challenges offered by new medical ability to effect the process of human reproduction, the panel lays down a general affirmation before proceeding to five specific issues.
"The priceless gift of God to man, the capacity to begin anew the life process, and to protect and nurture the child to beginning newness of life, is such an overwhelmingly awe-inspiring gift that a decision to interfere or alter the process cannot be entered into lightly. We suggest that careful and prayerful examination of motives and intentions are necessary to assure that man's intentions can and do submit to those of God. Repeatedly in recent writings, there is reference to the present environment of narcissistic individualism and 'self love' as a replacement for altruistic Christian love.
"In each of our individual decisions affecting the process of conception, development, and birth, one should prayerfully and thoughtfully consider one's intentions, one's motives, and one's values. The guidance of trusted counselors is essential to assure oneself that the chosen course can be tested against God's commandments and man's ethical values."
Working out of this theme, the panel speaks briefly to matters concerning birth control and abortion.
The Anglican Communion took up the issue of birth control at both the 1958 and 1968 Lambeth gatherings of bishops and, in both cases, affirmed the acceptability of most methods of preventing contraception. The Episcopal Church panel affirms that stand and finds "little cause for moral and theological concern" in newer methods of contraception that have been discovered if such decisions result from "prayerful, thoughtful consideration" of the needs of all concerned parties and after determining that the devices and drugs are not used for manipulative or exploitative purposes.
Concerning abortion, the panel also draws on prior work, reiterating the stand taken at the 1976 meeting of Convention.
The concept of "in vitro" conception is also discussed briefly with the conclusion: "The purpose of this process is to overcome physical difficulties preventing the uterine implantation of the fertilized ovum through normal processes. These have been voices raised already in objection to this procedure -- on the basis that one is grossly interfering in the reproduction process, a process or physiological function which some presume to have special protection. Is such concern warranted? We believe not, insofar as the normal or expected applications of the process are concerned. The normal parents, defeated in their efforts to achieve pregnancy by normal routes are using physical means to assist in a normal life process. This does not, on the face of it, appear to be subject to objections on moral, theological, or ethical grounds any more than the use of other prosthetic devices used to assist in life processes, such as artificial organs, limbs or implants."
The panel warns against the possibility of abuse of this technique, especially as it might be employed toward genetic manipulation, an area of concern that leads the panel to ask the Convention to condemn use of surrogate motherhood and the sale of human semen. The panel concludes that both of these techniques are not only manipulative but narcissistic and exploitative and likely to induce more suffering and the potential of greater abuse than their use warrants.
To help Church people make faithful and rational decisions on these issues, the panel is asking for the establishment of structures and resources that will make effective counseling readily available to the community.
More than half of the Health portion of the report is given over to a new examination of Christian marriage in which, the committee members concede, they are not following secular fashion.
"Everything that we have tried to claim here goes in the face of our culture's view of marriage as a sentimental romance of the like-minded, or of those with compatible 'life-styles' or coinciding or complementary professional objectives. Marriage is one more surprising, apparently improbable, place where we discover anew that each of us is Christ to our neighbor. In marriage there is that great opportunity, namely the opportunity to discover Christ in that other, who is also co-parent of one's offspring, lover, combatant, friend, enemy, brother, or sister.
"Marriage is the place -- the institution -- where it is constantly possible to discover daily that, in having thought that we chose each other in marriage, we learn that we chose more than we knew, that we chose other than we would reasonably have bargained for, that we are to be with one another till death, as Jesus has promised to be with the church to the end of the age, as God has been with the world since the beginning. Is there anything more common than this? Is there anything more splendid? When what is already good is made better than good, we call it not 'best' we call it 'glorious.' What is already good -- as we affirm that God has made us to be from the beginning -- when what is already good is made better, it is glory. What we want to hold out then in these remarks about marriage is that, while marriage is one of the special ways in which God works his redemption among us, it is also one of the primary ways in which God glorifies human beings; and in the glorification of human beings we understand, first of all, that glory is given to God properly."
The paper is designed as a basis for discussion of marriage that the committee hopes will be encouraged through a resolution calling for establishment of diocesan commissions on marriage which would examine "the redemptive and sacramental nature" of marriage, and explore the present and future of the canons, counseling techniques, education and parochial role in support of marriage. The committee hopes to coordinate this massive work for the review of the whole church during the 1985-88 triennium.
The 12-member Commission, chaired by Bishop Willis R. Henton of Western Louisiana, is one of 27 boards, committees, commissions and agencies that work between the triennial meetings of the Convention and whose reports become the major homework by which the Convention's own legislative committees and Houses debate and set policy for the Church. The Convention is under no obligation to accept the reports and often modifies -- or even reverses -- the course suggested by the panels. The reports themselves are published as companions to the Journal of the Convention's official proceedings and thus become available to the Church in acting on the policies that Convention sets.