> Following on from Rowland Crouchers post about Pharisees and moralistic

> “christians”.

>

> I also am uncomfortable with the way the word “Christian” is being used in

> political circles to justify moralistic crusading against secular society.

>

> Bishop Peter Jensen and Minister John Anderson (described on air as a

> Christian) have both spoken on the radio in the last two days condemning

> stem cell research on the grounds that they are Christians. What is the

> connection to Jesus Christ and his sacrificial death and resurrection???

<> > Thanks Rowland for that post. A very interesting perspective!

===>>> Reminds me of the question theologian Stanley Hauerwas (Notre Dame)

asked when confronting a medical researcher who was defending experiments on foetal tissue: ‘What if it were discovered that fetal (sic, American spelling!) tissue were a delicacy; could you eat it?’ He happened to believe that no amount of benefit to medicine could justify experimenting on foetal tissue: either it is human and deserves respect, or the door is open to all kinds of uses. (The medical researcher was forced to admit that, given the researcher’s own logic, there is no reason to forbid Hauerwas’s ghastly suggestion).

P.S. Hauerwas was famous for saying in his opening-day lecture to divinity school classes: ‘I don’t want you to think for yourselves. I want you to think like me.’ He believed theology is a craft learned by putting oneself under the authority of a master of the tradition. (But he would often return assignments to students with the comment: ‘This sounds too much like me!’).

Rowland Croucher

April 4, 2002