An Evangelical Invocation

Team Obama has announced that Rick Warren of Saddleback Church, Riverside, CA will deliver the invocation for the Obama/Biden inauguration ceremony in January. You will remember that in August the Obama/McCain debates began with a forum moderated by Mr. Warren at his church.

Mr. Warren, also a best-selling author, represents the next generation of Evangelicals. He claims to be, not "pro-life,"but "whole life." His mega-church has a relatively broad perspective, concerned with issues such as AIDS and global warming. But he also opposes same-sex marriage and abortion.

Some on the left who supported Mr. Obama feel betrayed by this choice. In a similar fashion those on the social and religious right feel that Mr. Warren shouldn't lend support to the Obama agenda.

In my estimation this choice supports my contention that Barack Obama is the most integrally religious president since Woodrow Wilson. (Mr. Obama's faith is influenced by the Prophetic Tradition of the Black Church.) It's beginning to appear that in this regard, Mr. Obama is right of center on the American religious spectrum. I'd judge the Warren Invocation more of a personal faith choice by Obama, rather than a matter of political expediency.

Resurrecting a Neanderthal?

Last week in Nature magazine a pair of scientists speculated that it is now feasible to resurrect extinct species (60,000 years and less ago) through genetic engineering. The first resurrected animal might be the Mammoth. Soon the Mammoth genome will be mapped from clumps of Mammoth hair frozen for millennia in sub-arctic regions. Next a cell from a contemporary elephant could be altered (painstakingly) on some 400,000 differing genetic sites to make it resemble the Mammoth genome. The altered cell could then be converted into an embryo and implanted in an elephant's womb until term. Voila! A resurrected Mammoth.

The Neanderthal genome will soon be mapped. And in a similar way a human cell could be altered on differing sites to result in a resurrected Neanderthal. Now this strikes secular as well as religious ethicists as unthinkable, something of an abomination against nature.

However, would it be unethical to take a Chimpanzee cell and alter it so as to produce that same resurrected Neanderthal? For some, this seems less odious or more justifiable.

In my estimation this ethical quandary--from chimpanzee to Neanderthal or from human to Neanderthal--is an exquisite ethical conundrum to tease out what is possible versus what is right and good.

I cringe at resurrecting a Neanderthal from either a chimpanzee or from a human. But I'm fascinated by the possibility of a Mammoth or group of Mammoths once again walking the earth.

Right now we have a window to speculate, to ponder in depth the meaning of Nature and Human Nature. What resources do we have to resurrect a Mammoth or a Neanderthal? And having those resources for what reasons do we proceed. And ultimately whose decision is it?