October 22, 2015 Show with Dr. Nelson Kloosterman on “Medical Ethics & Abraham Kuyper’s Contributions to the Church”

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Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania and the rest of humanity living on the planet earth who are listening via live streaming.

This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron, wishing you all a happy Thursday on this 22nd day of October 2015 and I'm very delighted to have my old friend

Dr. Nelson D. Klosterman back on the program. He is one of my favorite guests and for more than 30 years,

Dr. Nelson D. Klosterman has taught courses on the graduate level internationally in ethics and several other theological disciplines.

In addition to writing numerous articles for academic journals and magazines, he has translated and published a number of books and essays from Dutch and Afrikaans to English in various theological disciplines.

Nelson serves as the executive director and as ethics consultant for Worldview Resources International, a service organization whose mission is to produce and provide resources designed to assist in understanding and applying a religious worldview to responsible living in a global culture.

Areas of interest include medical ethics, which is one of our subjects today, beginning of life and end of life decisions, business ethics, environmental ethics, ethics of animal food production, technology ethics, and the relationship between religion and culture in general.

And the website for Worldview Resources International is worldviewresourcesinternational .com,

that's an easy one to remember, worldviewresourcesinternational .com. It's my honor and privilege to welcome you back to Iron Sharpens Iron, Dr.

Nelson D. Klosterman. Thank you, Chris, I'm glad to be with you this afternoon. Yes, it's great to have you back, and as I announced, our first subject at hand is going to be medical ethics, and our second hour is going to be on Abraham Kuyper and his contributions to the

Christian Church. If you have any questions of your own for Dr. Klosterman, feel free to email us at chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

that's C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

First of all, tell us a little bit more about some of what you do with the organization that we just mentioned for you,

Worldview Resources International. Well, Chris, back at the end of 2010,

I made a career change. Although I am an ordained minister of the gospel and currently a minister serving inside the

PCA, Presbyterian Church in America, I left teaching on the seminary level, where I've been teaching for more than 26 years, and began this organization called

Worldview Resources International, which is a one -person organization at the moment.

And the backbone of my work is translation, but I'm able as well to branch out both in speaking and in writing, as well as in consulting in the area of ethics and the application of Christian doctrine to life.

Yeah, a lot of that involves the rubber meeting the road, if you will, when it comes to the most controversial and tough decisions in our lives as Christians, especially in the modern world.

Right, yeah, that's for sure. Well, first of all, under the umbrella of this medical ethics topic that we're beginning our two -hour interview with, let's start with one that Christians may be at a loss when they are asked if this is under the guidelines of appropriate behavior or participation from Christians in vitro fertilization.

There are a lot of married couples who desperately want to have children, and they cannot for some reason, so they very often, just like non -Christians do, begin investigating and even participating in in vitro fertilization.

If you could give our listeners a more detailed definition of what in vitro fertilization is, and what is your view in regard to a

Christian's participation in it? Well, before we broach those issues, let me identify four assumptions that we need to be clear about in the whole area of medical ethics, and then

I'll be pleased quickly to run into in vitro, okay? Yeah, that's fine. All right, okay.

Questionable assumptions that we need to be clear on are the following four. First of all, here's an assumption that many people are unaware of, and that's if it's legal, people assume if it's legal, it's moral.

And as Christians, I think we want to step back from that and take a very careful look, because more and more as the years go on, the law is permitting things that are clearly immoral.

And so we need to be clear in the area of medical ethics that just because something is permitted by law, that doesn't mean it's a moral option.

I think one of the obvious ones is abortion on demand. It's legal, but it's not moral.

So I'll just mention that and leave it at that, and we might come back to that in connection with other issues that we're going to approach this afternoon.

The second questionable assumption is this. If we can do something, we may do something.

That's what I call the technological permission. Technologically, we can do a lot of things. We can do things in the area of cloning.

We can do things in the area of, well, we're going to talk about in vitro fertilization and other genetic manipulation, genetic engineering, and so on.

And many people simply follow the line, if we can do it, well, what's wrong with it?

If we can do it, we may do it. And I think we have to question that assumption. We have to be very clear that just because we can do something does not yet mean we may do something.

Okay? Now, these can apply in a variety of issues, as we'll illustrate in a moment. A third questionable assumption would be what

I call the technological mandate, which says if we can do something, we must do something.

And this comes into play frequently in the end -of -life decision. When, for example, we have older people who have been chronically ill and who move from one disease to another disease, and oftentimes people believe that, well, if we can keep grandma alive, we must by any and every means possible keep grandma alive.

I think that's a questionable assumption, not because we wish grandmas to not be alive, but because there comes a point in time when we really need to accept the reality of imminent death and to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on medical technology that enables a body to continue functioning without a person really functioning.

Well, that's questionable ethics. So that's the third assumption we need to question.

If we can, we must. That's not always the case. And finally, oftentimes in this area of medical ethics, we face the question, may we play

God? And I would put the words play God in quotation marks because it's a very slippery kind of question and a slippery kind of argument.

Are we playing God when we take an aspirin? Are we playing

God when we take a rather experimental surgery to deal with a potentially life -threatening illness?

The question or the objection, well, we may not play God, is really thin.

It doesn't really work and have much substance to it, and it's a religious kind of objection that often shuts down discussions.

So I just want to alert our listeners to that assumption. Okay. Very good. Excellent. All right.

Now, as we move ahead into the question of in vitro fertilization, one of the things you asked of me is a definition.

Well, let me give you a definition by way of outlining a process. In vitro fertilization is a process, scientific medical process, first stimulating a woman's ovaries and then removing eggs, her eggs, surgically.

And a third step would be to fertilize a number of eggs in a Petri dish or what's called a test tube, thus we get test tube babies, but in vitro really means in glass.

Several eggs are fertilized, and finally one or more embryos, thus fertilized eggs, one or more embryos are transferred into the uterus.

Those are four clearly distinguished steps in a process of in vitro fertilization.

Okay. And would this be an option, in your opinion, for Christians who wish to be biblically faithful?

Well, that's, of course, the most important question and a very good one. And what

I'm going to identify now would be a number of conditions that have to be met in order for this to be used.

So I don't think the answer to your question is a straight yes, that's okay, go ahead, use it. Nor is it a no, under no circumstances may it be used.

I don't think it's either one or the other. Here are some necessary conditions. See, this requires moral reflection and consultation.

First of all, I think it's imperative that we use this technique within the context of marriage.

Unfortunately, it's not always used in the context of marriage. As you can imagine, given the technology that's available and given the ability to freeze embryos and then use them, they can be used, they can be implanted outside the context of a husband and a wife relationship.

And if we're talking here, as we are, about a means of artificial reproductive technology, then all reproductive technologies belong strictly within the context of marriage.

And so that's a necessary condition for using IVF or in vitro fertilization. Along with that would be that it's the genetic material from the spouses themselves.

And here we avoid introducing genetic material from either a man or a woman who is not party to the marriage.

And, of course, this speaks to the issue, another biomedical or medical ethical issue called artificial insemination.

And I won't go deeply into that subject except to alert our listeners here at this point that all reproductive technologies need to be used exclusively, that is to say exclusively within the context of marriage, exclusively with the genetic material of the husband and wife.

So that's the first necessary condition. All right. Second, the second necessary condition would be that the embryo transfer would occur to the mother, not to a surrogate.

In other words, the woman, the wife in this case, who has contributed her egg or eggs would be the one to receive the embryo, the fertilized eggs in that process.

And this, of course, would disallow surrogacy. We read about this oftentimes in popular magazines and we hear about it on the news that people are surrogates for their relatives or their friends.

And, again, I won't go deeply into that subject unless there are questions about this. But surrogacy is a very unwelcome and dangerous application of this kind of technology.

So that's the second necessary condition, or rather a third if we talk marriage, genetic material now transferred to mother, here comes a fourth.

And that is that all embryos must be transferred. I think as Christians that we don't wish to have any embryos frozen, saved, or stored away that later become either the subject of legal dispute or would be perhaps discarded as unused or unusable.

So that all embryos must be transferred. Now this may present for some people kind of a scare because what if you have six embryos that are fertilized?

Then must all six be transferred? And my answer would be don't fertilize six embryos.

So that's, you know, with the what -if scenario, it has to be already at the outset agreed upon as to how many will be fertilized.

And by the way, the technology is there. It's not that you just, you know, throw a bunch of eggs and a bunch of sperm together and let's see how many come out of this.

No. It's very, very technical. It's very specific so that one, two, three, or fewer, you know, fewer than three embryos can be transferred.

This is very important in connection with a position of being pro -life, a position of recognizing that human life begins at conception.

The difference is that conception here is occurring outside the womb, outside the uterus, and it's being done and effected or brought about technologically and therefore artificially.

And a final condition then would be that all embryos must be transferred as soon as possible.

That is to say we don't want to have them around for experimentation. We don't want to have them around for any kind of use other than what

I call procreation. So those are the conditions that would be important.

Now let me ask you about some of those conditions or at least a couple of them. Some might argue, now wait a minute here, you said that only one of the spouses in a married couple may have any contribution to the in vitro fertilization process.

How do you know? No, no, no. I mean, I suggested that the genetic material for the process has to come from both spouses.

That's what I meant. I'm sorry. Okay. And so you have if a husband is sterile, for instance, you would say that there is no way that they should naturally conceive a child and adoption would be the only answer then.

Yes, you're right. That's what I would say. And I'm sorry. Well, that means then that artificial insemination by donor would,

I would consider that to be the introduction into the procreative process of a third party.

And though it's not what we would understand as passionate sexual adultery, it is,

I wouldn't call it adultery, some would, but I would call it the introduction of a third party into the relationship.

So that by the way, it's obvious, I think to you immediately that a child born through artificial insemination by donor belongs differently to the child's mother than to the husband of this woman.

The husband of this woman has no genetic investment or genetic claim in this child that is born into their marriage.

So how would you respond to somebody that's that would be saying that since there is no adultery occurring here, there is there's no sexual sin involved.

Isn't it just your personal revulsion against a third party participating in this through artificial insemination, etc.

Uh, isn't it just your personal view or opinion rather than anything that we can be biblically informed about?

Because that kind of a thing didn't exist when the biblical writers were alive. Well, I understand that question.

And I agree such a thing didn't exist when the biblical writers were alive. But if I could ask you and your listeners to imagine if they close their eyes and imagine a triangle with the point of the triangle at the bottom being the child.

And I would call the husband on the left point of the triangle and the wife on the upper right corner.

The wife becomes mother of the child. The husband is not the father of this child. And though I recognize the artificiality of my claim, that is the artificiality of a third party involved in this process.

Nobody sees him, perhaps nobody knows him. I mean, it happens in a lab, and so forth.

Nonetheless, the result of this process of now we're talking artificial insemination by donor.

Okay, let's be clear about that. The result of that process is lifelong.

And it's not simply confined to a laboratory. It's not confined to a technique. It happens to involve relationships.

And therein lies my objections. Now, the biblical account of Abraham and Sarah, with the concubine

Hagar, we know that there was sin involved, because Abraham actually had sex with Hagar.

And we know that there was sin involved, because there was a lack of trust in what

God had promised them. But other than that, do we have a clear biblical notion that the idea of a concubine in and of itself is sinful and wrong?

Well, that's the broader question that needs to be asked as a context for your question,

Chris, has to do with the revelation in Scripture concerning the exclusivity of marriage and procreation.

Because in addition to your question, let me double down and remind you of the so -called

Leveret Law. The Leveret Law provided that a woman whose husband died, leaving no sons, leaving no children, that the deceased man's brother was instructed by God to marry the widow in order to produce offspring to carry on the deceased husband's name.

So in the Old Testament, for example, you have Leveret Laws, you have property laws, you have family name, and so forth.

And what Abraham did was sinful for the two reasons you gave, though not uncommon.

David had concubines, Solomon had a lot of them, and a lot of wives. However, by the time we come to the

New Testament, we recognize that all of this seems to have been a permission given by God, granted for the sake, in part, for the sake of the coming

Christ. That is to say, that Bethlehem had not yet occurred.

Christ had not yet appeared among us. And the purpose of these permissions was not to thereby approve them, but to use them in God's sovereignty for the coming of his son to earth.

There are many, many examples and stories in the Old Testament of such sovereign permission without being sovereign approval.

I think of Tamar. Tamar, who was a daughter -in -law of Judah back in Genesis 38.

Well, she was a mother of Christ according to the flesh, and the Lord used her and other women,

I'm thinking Rahab and others, without thereby approving their wrongdoing.

And I don't know if you have anything else to say about the reproductive issues underneath the umbrella of medical ethics, but I'll move on to it.

No, no, I would like to, because I think as a pastor, may

I talk for a moment about Christian family planning? Oh yeah, excellent, excellent. I'm sorry,

I forgot. The reason I like to talk about this with your listeners is because many

Christians seem to be, as I would like to say, paddling their own canoe in this area.

That is, they're not certain that what they're about to embark upon is correct, it's biblical, it's moral, some of them have second thoughts, and so on.

And when I do pastoral counseling, in terms of premarital counseling, I always broach this subject in depth with the prospective husband and wife, and it's called

Christian family planning, which is my term. I dislike using the term birth control.

I think the phrase birth control is a piece of language given to us by the secular society, and it is negative, birth control is a negative formulation, and I think that birth control belongs to what

I would call the abortion mentality. The Bible tells us in Psalm 127 -3 that children are a heritage of the

Lord, and the fruit of the womb is a reward, and thereby it teaches us that children are not a burden, they're not a surprise, they're not an accident, children are a gift from the

Lord. Well, then, Christian family planning is, in my judgment, a responsible type of discussion to have between husband and wife with respect to the number of children that they plan,

Christian family planning, that they plan to conceive and procreate. And I think it's a responsible type of discussion.

I don't think that we need to be afraid of that discussion, but it belongs within certain contexts.

It doesn't belong on the pulpit, it belongs within the context of marriage. Now, having said that, my question, my frequent question to young couples intending marriage is the question, how many children do you plan to have?

And oftentimes they look at each other, some are sometimes a little bit embarrassed, well, he wants five and I want three, or he wants eight and I want four, something like that.

To be quite frank with you, Chris, I don't really care what the answer is, I don't care how many numbers, what the number is that they wish, because I have a follow -up question.

And my follow -up question is, why? Why do you want that number? Why don't you want that number?

I'm interested in the motive. If motives go along these lines, well, you know, we'd really like to get settled first and get have a first house, get our education student loans paid off, and have all of these things in order before we have kids.

Well, then we're going to have to talk a little while, okay? We're going to have to look at that in the light of the Bible, because I'm convinced the

Bible teaches that marriage is for procreation. I make no bones about it.

I believe that's what the Bible teaches. However, that does not say, and I might step on a couple of toes here, but I think that's iron sharpening iron, the

Bible does not say that husbands and wives, in particular wives, are to bear as many children as they physically can.

I don't believe that. I don't believe the Bible says that. There are considerations that come into play in a family, like the ability of a mother to care for the children, the ability of father and mother to care for children, the psychological health of the mother, and I believe at certain points, in certain circumstances, finances are a consideration with respect to responsible stewardship.

So I want to leave measure of freedom. There certainly is a measure of freedom with respect to Christian choice and deliberation.

By the same token, I want to expose motives that may be sub -biblical.

Let me just jump in there, because it's a very important issue, because I know that there are disagreements, even amongst

Christians within your denomination and my fellowship of Reformed Baptists, in regard to contraception.

There are some that believe that is permissible, as long as you're not doing anything that would end the life of a fertilized egg, but the issue of whether or not contraception is acceptable, some say that you are playing

God when you're doing that, and some would say that it is the duty of those who are healthy and fertile married men and women to be fruitful and multiply, as God commanded

Adam and Eve, and therefore they would say as many children as the

Lord brings to them, that is what they are accepting.

Now, if somebody is convicted of that theologically, would you still say that they are in sin, if they are really on a poverty -level income, or no income at all, and they've got 10 children, and they keep reproducing, having children?

What is your opinion on that? Well, I wouldn't call it sin.

I would suggest that they need to be pastored, and they need to be counseled with respect to stewardship.

Now, stewardship involves not just the stewardship of one's body, and thus I do think the mother's health and well -being are important considerations, but it also involves the stewardship of relationships.

In a family, whenever a new child comes into a family, the new relationships that arise because of that child's birth are geometrically expanded.

So if you have four children, and another child enters the family, that child is related not only to mom and dad, but each of the preceding four children, and those relationships need to be cultivated, they need to be discipled, mentored, and so on, and I believe a question of stewardship involves a matter of time.

Are you, as father and mother, able to devote time to the discipling and mentoring and rearing of your children, or, and here's a very sharp rebuke, or are you simply going to let those tailenders, after a whole line of children, be brought up by their siblings because you're too tired to do it?

That's a strong statement, but by the way, I want your listeners to be clear here.

I am not condemning large families. I have known well -ordered, godly families with nine children, 11 children, okay, but I have pastored and I have seen families for whom five children is too many, because mother and father, by too many, of course, that's, some might say, well, they might hoot at that and say, well, that's my judgment, that's my opinion, but what other judgment or opinion can one come to when one sees a father and a mother unable, and sometimes unwilling, to manage their children, to manage their household, and to bring them up in the fear and discipline of the

Lord? See, those are issues that I think bear on pastoral care and counseling, so I'm not prepared to say smaller is better or larger is better.

I'm simply suggesting the notion of saying to others and to yourselves, well, we're going to have as many babies as God gives us is not necessarily biblical.

It's not the only biblical position, and I'm suggesting Christian family planning is a viable biblical position.

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Again, 717 -254 -6433. Welcome back.

This is Chris Zarnes, and if you've just tuned us in, we have had for the last half hour, and will continue for the next 90 minutes, as our guest,

Dr. Nelson D. Klosterman, who is the Executive Director and Ethics Consultant for Worldview Resources International, whose website is worldviewresourcesinternational .com.

For the first hour, we are discussing medical ethics in the Christian. The second hour, we are going to be discussing

Abraham Kuyper and his contributions to the Christian Church. If you'd like to join us on the air with a question for any of those topics, our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

chrisarnsen at gmail .com. That's C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

And please include at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside of the

USA. That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com.

And Dr. Klosterman, we were talking right before the break about reproduction amongst married couples.

Is there any form of contraception that you believe is a violation of orthodox biblical ethics that does not jeopardize the life of an unborn child?

Yes, I think that there are permissible forms of contraception and there are impermissible forms.

But we need, again, to be clear on terminology. In my teaching and writing,

I find that terms, defining them, is the first essential step to clear thinking.

Unfortunately, there are many things called contraceptives which are not contraceptives.

They are rather, they simply prevent implantation of an already conceived embryo.

Let me give you an example. Genuine contraception means that whatever this instrument is, it prevents conception such as a condom, a diaphragm, or certain other kinds of devices or techniques.

However, I want to hasten, and here's the burden of my teaching and counseling in this area to people, particularly younger people, there are pills, there are allegedly contraceptive pills that are not contraceptive at all, but rather they have a backup mechanism which prevents the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus.

And that is abortifacient. And a lot of young people and husbands and wives,

I'm afraid, are not aware of this kind of function of what are called contraceptive pills.

And it's a misnomer. It's a mistaken idea because pills are not contraceptive.

They are rather contra -nidational. That is, they prevent implantation. And as far as all the other known contraceptive means, you believe that they're acceptable unless they do prevent or damage the life of an unborn child?

Right. Yeah. And there are far more negative examples and means and instruments than there are positive ones.

For example, the IUD is an abortifacient technique.

Progestin, morning after pill, RU486, all of these are abortifacient.

And a number of so -called contraceptive pills are abortifacient.

However, when it comes to things like condoms and spermicides and things like that, they can prevent conception.

Again, study, careful reflection, study of these means has to be done as well to determine their success rate and be responsible in that area too.

Now, what would you say about the Roman Catholic understanding which prohibits all artificial means of contraception?

And I don't know how studied you are on exactly what they mean by their prohibition of contraception, but if you could comment on that.

Well, I don't pretend to be an expert in Roman Catholic moral theology, but my reading suggests that Roman Catholic moral theologians are inclined to recommend natural methods that do not make use of these artificial methods, some of which

I have spoken positively about, because they believe that the intention of the sexual act must be procreation, and that without that intention being present, or if that intention is compromised by use of artificial means, the sexual act becomes blameworthy and it becomes culpable, morally culpable.

I happen not to believe that. There are many Christians, by the way, perhaps among your listenership as well, who believe that every sexual act must intend and aim at procreation.

I don't believe the Bible teaches that. I believe the Bible permits us to see and understand and enjoy sexual activity within the bounds of marriage, only within the bounds of marriage, for things like pleasure, and things like companionship, and so forth, without intending at every time and every point to procreate.

So the Roman Catholic position as I understand it is that without the intention to procreate, and intentionally preventing procreation, makes the act morally culpable.

We do have an anonymous listener in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, who asks, you mentioned earlier that marriage is designed with the purpose of procreation.

Would you, as a minister, marry a couple when beforehand one of them is known to be sterile or impotent, etc.,

perhaps one is even in a wheelchair, quadriplegic, due to an accident or illness?

Would you marry such a couple that is in love and is devoted to each other and wants to live with one another as husband and wife for the rest of their lives?

Presumably they're Christians, yes? Yes, I'm assuming. They didn't even say that. Well, my answer would be yes,

I would marry them. I believe that their inability to conceive or to procreate is a limitation, but it's not a disqualification.

It's a limitation on the purpose and fullness of God's created design for marriage.

However, I hasten to add that there are other limitations, unlike, say, physical inability that can render

God's creational design unfulfilled and incomplete. So, to answer the questioner's query,

I would say yes, I would marry such people. And if they're able,

I don't know that they are, but if they're able, I would encourage them to, if they wish to have children, to pursue matters of adoption and definitely not go in the realm of artificial reproductive technology that involves third parties outside the marriage.

You mentioned, as our listener brought up, that you believe that procreation is the main design for marriage, but doesn't

Paul indicate that appropriately using marriage as a release for one's sexual drive is a motivation?

If somebody believes that they cannot control themselves and they're in love with a person, that they should marry them in order to keep their sexuality pure?

Well, I believe that the Apostle Paul's advice there and counsel is perfectly in place and legitimate, but I think as Christians that we do not want to define that as a primary motive for marriage, namely because I can't control my sexual appetite.

I think that his advice is biblical, that is to say it's Holy Spirit driven, it's

Christian, and it's applicable, but I don't put that as a central motive, as the central motive or a central motive for getting married.

It is one, and I don't mean to discount it, but I would think that a

Christian husband would not really want to say to his wife -to -be, look, honey, the reason that I'm marrying you is because I can't control myself.

Okay, so I would counsel people who are struggling with sexual urges,

I would counsel them in the direction of marriage and try to, as a church community, also bless them in that way, but that's a little bit different than using it as a motive for marriage.

All right, I want to let our anonymous listener know that if you email me your mailing address, I assure you

I will not violate your desire to be anonymous, but if you email me your mailing address, you're going to receive a free copy of Wisdom and Wonder, Common Grace in Science and Art by Abraham Kuyper, which was translated from Dutch into English by our guest today,

Dr. Nelson Klosterman. So if you give us your mailing address, we will shoot you off a copy of that book free of charge, compliments of the publishers,

Christian's Library Press, who are kind enough to provide these free copies for our listeners who send in questions.

Have you basically touched all the main points that you wanted to on this subheading of our discussion, the procreation aspect?

Yes, I have. Yes, I have. Thank you, Chris, for obliging me on that. No, it was probably the most important and relative of the subheadings that we could address, obviously.

We do have a listener, Dan in Idaho City, Idaho, who says,

Hello, I just discovered your show. I love it. My name is Dan. I'm from Idaho City, Idaho. I'm a

Reformed Christian attending The Well in Boise, Idaho. And his question for you,

Dr. Klosterman, is with all of the horror surrounding vaccines in regard to the presence of toxic metals, as well as even material from aborted babies, and when we know that vaccines are the direct cause of massive autoimmune deficiencies such as autism, the mountains of evidence of which have been issued and otherwise suppressed with prominent whistleblowers being defrocked, how can we as Christians allow our children to be dosed with such poison, and what is the best way to take vocal public stands against them?

Well, first of all, let me compliment the writer of that question because there's very little wiggle room in that question.

I have to say, I have read, I have discussed over the recent years, this issue of vaccination, and I have family members who are in the nursing profession and the healthcare profession.

I have 17 grandchildren, whose lives and well -being I'm concerned about. So I'm not trying to escape the pinch of the question, but there are a lot of assumptions embedded in that question with regard to cause and effect, you know, that things like autism and other immune diseases are directly caused by vaccinations and so forth and so on.

I do think that we really do need to have a kind of, and here's a challenge

I would lay down to the Christian Medical Society, and there is such an organization as you and your listeners may know,

I would ask the Christian Medical Society, if they haven't already, and I don't know that they have or not, to study this matter and publish a position paper to help

Christians think and work through this issue of vaccinations for the very reasons that your questioner adduces.

I am not a competent researcher or clinician in this area, and by the way,

I could insert this sideways into my comments, I am no fan, I am no fan of the

CDC, Centers for Disease Control. I do not believe everything that our government tells us by way of the

CDC. I think we need to be our own advocates when it comes to these things.

I am very concerned about laws that require parents to vaccinate their children in violation of their biblically informed, factually informed, medically informed consciences.

But this is a very warm, very warm subject in various locales.

On the other hand, there's a public health issue here, and I believe the government does have a responsibility, and here again, our libertarian friends may disagree on this.

I believe the government has a responsibility to protect public health, and one of those ways is through vaccination.

So I understand, and I'm sympathetic to both sides of this question, and I would plead with Christian experts, practitioners, researchers, and clinicians in this area to give us some help, please.

I'm not the guy to do this. Do you know anything about his accusation, the listener's accusation, that material from aborted babies is used in vaccines?

I do not know. I cannot speak with any kind of intelligence on that question, so I'd have to research that before I gave a comment.

Okay. Well, Dan in Idaho City, please send us your full mailing address so we can also send you a free copy of Wisdom and Wonder, the book by Abraham Kuyper that has been translated by our guest,

Dr. Nelson Klosterman. Chris, if I may give Dan also a shout out here to my friend in Nampa, Idaho, nearby

Boise. He should, may want to take up contact with, Dan said he's reformed, he's just discovered your program, and I think my friend at the

Nampa United Reformed Church would be very glad to meet him. So anyway, there's a shout out.

Oh, great. And in fact, going back to the reproductive question, we do have another listener.

We have Arnie in Perry County who says, I understand that since you are a

Christian, you are pro -life, and my question is, is there ever a legitimate way when the life of a mother is in jeopardy, especially when the death of the baby is certain, to do anything such as provoke premature delivery and other methods of ending a pregnancy that would not violate the scriptures and would not be an actual murder of a child?

Oh my, oh my. Of course, this is a borderline issue that's being raised, and many people know ethics the best with borderline cases.

I'm afraid that the so -called health of a mother stipulation for permissible abortions can be, it can be as wide enough to let a truck go through.

Anything now becomes a matter of the mother's health, whether it's mental or psychological, etc.

I think one can set up a scenario, one can imagine a scenario where, as the listener has written, the death of the infant in utero is certain, given medical standards, practice is certain, and the mother's impending or imminent death is also certain, unless intervention is made and done.

These are tragic situations, but I do believe that the gospel and the blood of Jesus Christ atones for and covers tragedies, tragic situations where we must choose, as it were, between the lesser of two evils.

And in this situation, that may well be the case. However, I want to add, and hasten to add, that we've got to be careful not to expand that exception into a kind of rule, into a kind of box or category or basket of, well, now, if this can, then we get 14 other illustrations, and pretty soon it's so wide that it is no longer an exception, but it becomes sort of standard practice, that we shouldn't have that.

Okay, now, the other issues that may be found under the umbrella of medical ethics,

I think that the attention that the media has given, Bruce Jenner opened up a can of worms for discussion.

The issues come up every time I've heard a Christian in the media opposing what

Mr. Jenner did to his body, to alter it, to give it a more female appearance.

The issues of hermaphrodites and things like that inevitably always come up.

Very rare cases, medical cases, are blown up to be the rule of practice for everything else.

What do you do in those cases where you do have a child born that is a hermaphrodite or something to that nature where the gender is not able to be determined?

You know, that's a good question, Chris, and I had that question put to me when

I gave this material in a conference down in Florida at Holy Trinity PCA in Tampa, Florida, and I had a question put to me from a resident, a physician resident, and several nurses who were with him, and they were talking to me about this.

This is a reality. This is real stuff. This isn't just made up. This stuff occurs, and I, as a

Christian ethicist, I want to be, first of all, compassionate toward those people and families,

I might add, who experience this kind of difficulty and tragedy.

I think it's tragic to have one's sexual identity and sexual gender a matter of confusion already at birth.

I think it's very, very difficult, and I think as a Christian ethicist,

I would want the best of psychological and medical as well as spiritual counsel given to such parents.

I don't think there are easy answers. I don't have a particular formula in answer to your question.

You mentioned Bruce Jenner. I think Bruce Jenner's situation is different than the child who is born with an indistinct sexual identity.

I think those are two different things. Let me move over to talk about the

Bruce Jenner situation. Here again, I begin with a word of compassion for people who live, who really experience gender confusion, and for whatever reason, it may be in their upbringing, it may be in their environment, in the friendships and relationships they've cultivated throughout the years.

I don't want to be insensitive to that. However, having said that, having expressed compassion,

I would urge that we not alter our bodies to enter into another sexual identity.

I think that creation is broken. We agree on that, and that brokenness includes sexual identity, and that sexual identity includes psychological, emotional, and mental conditions.

It's not a repair, it seems to me, that's being made here. There are other avenues to repair such confusion and such confused identities than physical alteration of genitalia and things like that.

I have a similar response to this as I would to certain forms of cosmetic surgery, namely that Christians ought to be stewards of their bodies and stewards of their money and so forth.

Sometimes they need to be simply happy or satisfied or content with what

God has given them for bodies. And we're going to be going to a break. When we return,

I'd like to continue the medical ethics discussion until you've exhausted all the main points that you wanted to address, and then we can pick up on the

Abraham Kuyper topic whenever you've completed that, because we could always return to another program on Abraham Kuyper if need be.

But if you'd like to join us on the air with a question of your own for Dr. Klosterman right now on the medical ethics issue, you can always email us a question about Abraham Kuyper that we could keep on the side and address that question when that topic arises.

But our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

that's c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail .com. And please include at least your first name.

We'll in fact include your whole mailing address so you can receive one of these free copies of Wisdom and Wonder by Abraham Kuyper, which was translated from Dutch into English by our guest

Dr. Nelson Klosterman. Even if you want to remain anonymous, if it's a personal or private matter regarding the medical ethics topic, we will not obviously reveal your name or identity on the air, but we will mail you the book nonetheless.

That's chrisarnsen at gmail .com, chrisarnsen at gmail .com. Don't go away, we'll be right back with Dr.

Nelson D. Klosterman and your questions on medical ethics.

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arns. And if you've just tuned us in for the last hour, we have had as our guest

Dr. Nelson Klosterman, and we've been discussing medical ethics in the

Christian. We're going to continue that topic until we've exhausted all the primary issues that Dr.

Nelson wanted to address. And then we will continue on with our discussion on Abraham Kuyper, as we promised initially, a great figure from Christian history.

I do also want to announce that tomorrow, on Iron Trump and Zion, God willing, we have a guest for the first time,

Jenny Reese Clark, who is a living testimony of what true faith in Jesus Christ can bring.

As a multiple felon of various drug charges, including unlawful manufacturing of methamphetamines,

Jenny is no stranger to breaking the rules or suffering their consequences. And today, thanks be to God and the mercy of his grace, she is a born -again believer and a

Christian author and the wife of a military chaplain. So we're going to be looking forward to hearing more about Jenny Reese Clark, about her testimony, and about this

Christian novel that she has written, which is basically patterned after her own life story.

And we hope you join us tomorrow on Iron Trump and Zion for that interview. If you'd like to join us today with a question for our guest,

Dr. Nelson Klosterman, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Dr. Klosterman, I'm assuming that you would view all gender dysphoria, as it's been labeled, as not being a reason for any kind of sexual alteration or any kind of even alteration in dress and appearance, then that the only situation in that category that is really a genuine, benign or neutral problem that doesn't involve sin is that which involves birth defects.

I'm assuming that somebody like where there's no physical evidence of anything like that, this is just sin, pure and simple, and perhaps even serious mental illness.

Well, I think that given the massive publicity of this case in our country and in our culture, the undiscussed and the undisclosed matter of mental illness,

I think remains top of my list as something to be researched and discussed and reflected on.

I mentioned to you earlier that there may be other solutions to what you called,

I think, sexual dysphoria. Gender dysphoria, I think, is what they are calling it.

I think that's what Bruce Jenner has called it and what his counselors have called it. I see. Well, I am rather concerned or rather certain that other alternative solutions to that dilemma need to be explored and exhausted, and I don't find that physical alteration of one's gender identity is a very helpful and a very long -term successful solution.

What would you suggest in a case like that? Well, I would suggest some very, very intensive, compassionate, long -term counseling and communal support.

I'm talking as a Christian now. You're not talking about accommodating, though, the desire to be an opposite gender, though.

No, I'm not. I'm talking about finding a way, a mode to cope with the brokenness of that condition that will respect the gift of one's own body.

I believe that one's body as given at birth, aside from that tragic confusion we spoke about earlier, the gift of one's body comes from God at birth.

I have to say that I've never counseled people in this area.

I've never participated in any depth of reflection on this, but this is my intuition as a

Christian ethicist. We do have an anonymous listener from Suffolk County, Long Island, New York, who wants to know, is it inappropriate or sinful for a

Christian man, if he is married, to use Viagra or anything similar? That's an interesting question, because I had a

Roman Catholic friend. He's now deceased, but he, at one time, I'm not saying that he was speaking for the

Catholic Church, but he said that it was sinful to use anything like that, and I remember being perplexed by that, because why would it be if the person was married?

I don't even understand why someone would view it that way, but what's your thoughts on that? I have never, ever encountered that question before, and so my response would be that, given the kinds of biblical norms and stipulations that pertain to sexuality, such as marriage, such as mutual consent, and those kinds of things,

I do not find the use of Viagra, for example, to be objectionable, morally objectionable.

I'm perplexed by the position of your Catholic friend as well. Yeah, and as I said,

I don't want to get my Catholic friend's listening upset with me now, saying that I'm misrepresenting Catholicism.

He just happened to be a Roman Catholic, and he was a very serious conservative

Catholic, but for some reason, he found that objectionable, and I didn't know why. What are some of the other subcategories that fall underneath this medical ethics heading that you wanted to address?

Well, just to give your listeners somewhat of a preview here, before we move on, I'd like to talk a little bit about organ donation and about certification of death, but before we do that,

I know if they've listened and they've hung in here with us, with you and me during the past hour, they have heard my line, my mode of conversation with you, and I want to say a couple of things about how we use the

Bible in making these kinds of decisions. And I want to recommend to our readers, with examples now, this will take about five minutes, recommend four kinds of uses or ways to use the

Bible, and they may never have thought about this, but let me illustrate. For example, the first way that we use the

Bible in making moral decisions like these would be using the Bible as a guide, and this is where the

Bible is very explicit, it's very clear, it has certain stipulations about things, and I'll give you an example.

Active euthanasia is where people actively, intentionally seek to put a person out of this life for reasons of suffering, perhaps, or pain, or depression, or unwillingness to live, and so on.

Active euthanasia is gaining ground throughout the world. The Bible, I think, prohibits this, in the sixth commandment, which says, thou shalt not kill.

So that's the Bible as a guide. On other issues, however, the Bible functions as a guard, and this is the second way we use the

Bible. I spoke earlier in the last hour about in vitro fertilization, and I will be the first to admit there is no

Bible verse about in vitro fertilization. There are Bible verses about sexuality, there are

Bible verses about human life, and therefore, when we work our way through the process of in vitro fertilization, we discover, uh -oh, this has to be within marriage, or it has to be between spouses, or we may not destroy conceived, begun human life.

Well, so those are second -order considerations that then help us to use in vitro fertilization in a careful way.

There, the Bible is serving as a guard. Thirdly, the Bible serves as a compass. It points out direction and gives us orientation points.

Here, I'm thinking of genetic engineering. We don't have time this afternoon to talk about this very much. Genetic engineering is a wonderful field of study and developing using the techniques and the secrets of one's own body, really, to combat disease and to perhaps even cure disease.

I have a personal testimony here that my wife, who is suffering significantly from the effects of chronic

Lyme disease, hopes to undergo stem cell therapy within a month or two, and that stem cell therapy, of course, comes from her own body.

Now, the Bible doesn't say much about this. So the Bible tells us, look, if you're going to go in this direction, here are some considerations you want to keep in mind, and that's using the

Bible as compass. See, I don't think we want to cross genetic breeds or things like that, but again,

I'll just leave it at that. Finally, it's using the Bible as an example. Here it comes to play.

Patience, humility, contentment, as well as sacrifice, and so forth.

These virtues that I'm speaking about are all exemplified preeminently in Jesus Christ. We're called to follow him.

We're called to be like him, and that can happen in medical ethics as well, where we don't have any specific direction, as in the

Bible is guide. We don't have any warnings, as the Bible is guard, nor do we have little direction in terms of the

Bible as compass. So I hope those distinctions are helpful for people to understand why, for example, I don't use a proof text when it comes to Christian family planning or when it comes to in vitro fertilization.

All right, well, let's go to one of the things that you mentioned, euthanasia. You have people who have incurable illnesses, cancer, etc.,

and some of them are in excruciating pain that is equivalent to torture, and they are pleading with someone in their family who loves them to pull the plug or whatever the issue is to end their life.

The thing that is interesting is that we who are

Christians, we are typically opposed to something like that, and yet, just like in the old

Wild West movies, when an animal, like a horse, breaks its leg, you know, the first thing that the cowboy does is he shoots the horse in the head because he doesn't want it to suffer, and people will say, who are advocates of euthanasia or mercy killing, as it's sometimes called, they'll say, how can you have more compassion and sympathy for an animal who's suffering than a human being, especially a human being that this person or this family loves, like a spouse, a mother, a father, a child, etc.,

adult child, that is. How do you respond to that?

Well, first of all, I know you do not at all ever intend this, but I want to keep distinct matters of animals and matters of people when it comes to medical ethics, when it comes to ethics in general.

I think that we're living in a culture, and I'm just going to go on a little bit of a rant here, we're living in a culture that has sometimes more esteem and value for animals than it does for people.

If you want a good career, if you're just starting out in a career, you may want to check out pet cemeteries, pet counseling, pet food, and all this kind of stuff.

I'm being a little bit facetious, but not a lot. Let's be honest, a cowboy shoots the horse as much for economic reasons as sympathy for the horse's suffering.

He doesn't want to feed that beast that is of no use to him any longer because it's got a bum wag and he can't ride it, and he's got to feed the thing for the rest of his life.

People are not like that. People are created in the image of God, and I know you agree with that.

However, let me express sympathy for the cries that you gave expression to.

You gave expression to cries of pain, bordering on torture, of futility, of uselessness in terms of suffering, and so on.

I think we have to be clear again on our definitions. Euthanasia is a very slippery term, and I restrict that term to what

I call active euthanasia, where people intentionally and purposely put a person to death.

However, let's distinguish that from discontinuing treatment. I want to plead for the moral permissibility of discontinuing treatment in some cases.

In cases where, according to prevailing medical standards, such treatment would have no other result than to postpone death.

Sometimes treatments do nothing positive, but they only retard death. I would say that ending medical treatment is different than ending human life, although the former may result in the latter.

So you're like contrasting removing somebody from a respirator with somebody being injected with cyanide or something?

Right, exactly. Precisely. And for example, before my father passed away, he had a choice.

The doctor said, you have a choice to undergo a series of chemo treatments, and we will effectively extend your life for a year by means of these treatments.

Without these treatments, maybe six weeks. We had a family conference, and we talked about this.

There are legitimate kinds of conversations to be had about these matters of treatment, extending life, continuing life, and so forth.

My father chose to take the treatments, and the doctor's word about an extended year almost to the day came to be true.

It was a good year for my father and for our family. However, again, we cannot require people to undergo treatments in such cases.

We do have to leave a certain measure of patient autonomy in place here.

But what I think we need to be very concerned about today is the so -called physician -assisted suicide movement, and the assisted suicide movement as in California and other states of the

Union that is gaining ground. And what else would you care to put under the umbrella of the medical ethics that we haven't addressed yet?

Well, I would like to say a couple of words about cremation.

I think that cremation is another of these issues that can be confusing for Christians.

I want to begin by saying that the Bible's arguments—well, first of all, let me rehearse a couple of arguments that people use for cremation.

One is the economic argument. Funerals are very, very expensive. Cremation is less expensive.

So why don't we become stewards of our money by choosing the less expensive mode of disposing of a body?

That's one argument. I'm not suggesting it's the best or a good one, but it is one. Another is the hygienic argument, where people say we need to burn bodies in circumstances where there's a threat of disease, a threat of epidemic, a threat of defiling the atmosphere, and so forth.

A third argument is the ecological argument in terms of space required for cemeteries, space required for underground graves and vaults, and those kinds of things.

A fourth argument is the aesthetic argument. People would far rather be burned to ashes than—and

I'm using a metaphor here that is not very pleasant—than have worms eat their bodies up or have their bodies decay.

Aesthetically, cremation is more appealing to them than burial because of that decay factor.

I think that as Christians, the Bible's example—remember what

I talked about earlier in terms of the use of the Bible? The Bible's example is that fire applied to the human body was always used in context of divine judgment.

And I think that as Christians, we can still use burial as a testimony to the gospel of the resurrection of the body.

It's hard to do that, although it's not impossible. It's hard to do that with cremation. The metaphor of resurrection with the body is one of sowing and reaping.

As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, what we sow is perishable, but what is raised is imperishable.

So I believe that cremation, though I'm not, as a

Christian, I'm not going to call it sin. I'm going to suggest that a Christian testimony with respect to burial can be a more effective, pleasing testimony.

And so I just want to offer those thoughts in connection with this discussion. And, of course, nobody needs to be worried if, against their wishes, someone in their family who they love or someone that they know who they love was cremated, they don't have to worry that that's altering somehow the person's afterlife.

No, no, that's correct. Nor should they doubt God's ability to restore to that person a new body, the new heavens and a new earth.

Because we know that throughout history, people's bodies have been consumed and destroyed and eaten in all manner of treatment.

We have another listener with a question. We have

Norseman, I believe that's how it's pronounced. Norseman in Carlisle, Pennsylvania wants to know, is it ever wrong to perform surgery when you have, for instance, a case like conjoined twins who are joined at the head where brain tissue is being shared or some other vital organ, where you know with certainty or the doctors know with certainty that when such a procedure is completed, one of the twins will certainly die?

Oh my, oh my, that's a very good question. Is it morally permissible?

I would suggest that, look, here's the question.

Let's suppose that without surgery, both twins will die. With surgery, one twin will die.

This is the lifeboat ethic kind of dilemma that we face, so what do we do? It's a choice between the lesser of two evils.

No surgery, both die. I can see parents opting for that. I can see that as a morally acceptable decision on their part, out of love for both of their children who happen to be conjoined in that way.

And I think it would be very difficult for Christian parents to sacrifice one of their children to keep the other child alive, although at this point,

I cannot attach moral judgment or to that choice.

I do want to say that medical practice advances through techniques, through protocols and procedures that at one time were often thought to be certainly lethal or fatal, but the more they were practiced, the more they were put into place and refined, the more benefit came from them.

So I hope I'm not talking around the issue. The person asked for a yes -no kind of answer, and oftentimes

I find that yes or no cannot be the simple, straightforward answer.

And there is a question by an anonymous listener from Long Island, New York that some may be offended that I even allow this question to be read on air, but I think it's probably something that comes up in households.

So forgive me if you're offended by this, but the anonymous listener from Long Island, New York says, is it sinful for a woman to have breast enlargement surgery?

Well, I alluded to that earlier in the program when I talked about being content and satisfied with the body that God has given us.

I don't believe it is necessarily sinful. However, having said that, here's what

I'd want to stipulate. I would want to stipulate that a person who pursues that, if the person is a

Christian, that they do undergo some kind of counseling that explores with them their relationship to their body and the need they feel for that kind of surgery.

Personally, I believe that far too much of such kinds of cosmetic surgery is going on.

I'm thinking of Botox. I'm thinking of other kinds of cosmetic surgeries that seem to me to border on the vain, the vainglorious, looking for the appearance of the body that is youthful, that is glamorous, and perhaps even sexually appealing.

Again, I'm sympathetic and compassionate towards such people, so I don't say yes or no.

I would want to investigate further. I'll give you probably a less hot kind of question, but similar, and that has to do with someone who believes and is convinced their nose is too large.

I mean, they have real, deep -seated psychological issues because of the appearance of their face.

Should they be permitted cosmetic surgery? Well, again, I think compassion would suggest, first of all, let's get into some counseling conversations about one's relationship to one's body and thereafter pursue certain kinds of options.

I can't rule that out simply as a yes -no kind of deal. I can't rule that out.

Right, and of course, on the flip side of that, a woman getting breast reduction surgery sometimes involves health issues.

Right, yeah, and by the way, you know, listeners should know that neither of these is a very pleasant experience.

I mean, people who undergo these kinds of things, you know, they may be talked about, perhaps joked about,

I hope not, but these are not pleasant experiences when one's body is a source of discontent, emotional trauma, and persistent self -image problems.

And whenever it becomes really a point of obvious vanity and sin,

I'm assuming you would agree, is when you see a woman who is absolutely stunning to begin with, who is getting just more and more surgeries because she wants to reach some level of perfection that she thinks is attainable through surgery in her mind, or perhaps it's even her husband or her boyfriend that's urging this or something.

Well, yes, yes, yes, yes. And of course, now, you know, now we're bleeding over in terms of our discussion even into genetic therapy, you know, where we genetically modify our offspring to produce certain desirable traits.

And now we're into not only the bionic man or bionic woman, but we're really bordering on playing as creator.

You know, we want a boy who's six foot five so we can play basketball or something like that.

We have our final half hour that we're approaching after the break. Dr. Klosterman, would you like to continue with medical ethics if you want us to switch gears over to Abraham Kuyper?

Well, now at this point, I'm afraid we would not give Abraham Kuyper sufficient time. And I'd be willing to come back for another hour later with you,

Abraham Kuyper. So I have enough material to continue this medical ethics discussion. That's fine with me.

And we're going to be right back after these messages with a continued discussion of medical ethics with our guest,

Dr. Nelson D. Klosterman, right after these messages. So don't go away. Linbrook Baptist Church on 225

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Welcome back. This is Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in for the last 90 minutes, we have been interviewing

Dr. Nelson D. Klosterman on medical ethics and the Christian. Dr.

Nelson D. Klosterman is the Executive Director and Ethics Consultant for Worldview Resources International.

The website for that organization is worldviewresourcesinternational .com.

Worldview Resources International .com. We are going to put off the discussion of Abraham Kuiper to a future program since there was far more to discuss on the medical ethics topic to be contained within 90 minutes.

We are delighted that Dr. Klosterman wants to return to discuss Abraham Kuiper in the near future.

You don't want to miss that because Abraham Kuiper is a very significant figure from the 19th and 20th century whose teachings and practices have a lot of impact on the

Christian Church today, whether we realize it or not. I think that you should tune into that program and we'll let you know as soon as possible when that will be.

Our email address, if you'd like to ask other questions involving medical ethics and the

Christian, is chrisarnsen at gmail .com. What would be another subheading underneath the umbrella of medical ethics that you wanted to address?

Well, Chris, I have a burden on the show, on the program today to talk with you a little bit about organ donation.

I do that in part because, again, I'm afraid far too many

Christians are either uninformed or badly informed about this particular issue.

Let me begin by saying that when we talk about organ donation, we have to begin by talking about what are called the criteria for death.

And I have a burden here to share with your listeners the potentially deceptive criterion known as brain death.

Let me explain. Your listeners can go to LifeSite News.

LifeSite News back in 2009 had an article entitled, Brain Death as Criteria for Organ Donation is a

Deception. And it documents a woman whose son had suffered a gunshot wound.

And as he was in the hospital, he was declared brain dead when they arrived at the hospital and was immediately prepared for the removal of his organs.

And his mother testified that they sensed that their son may still be alive.

And they followed that intuition. And they really rescued their son, having put him on a respirator for 20 hours and so on.

Unfortunately, in many situations of stress and trauma like this, people's permission, people's consent is not requested.

It's not obtained or procured. Necessary forms are not signed. And afterwards, some people come to wonder, well, what happened here all of a sudden?

I want to alert your listeners also to this practice of signing their driver's licenses with permission to harvest organs upon traumatic accidents and things like that.

You have to think carefully about the kind of permission that you're giving to people because medical professionals like EMTs are trained certain ways.

And when they see such a permission, or when hospital personnel see such permissions, they tend to act quickly and they don't ask too many questions.

And unfortunately, please let your family members know about all of this kind of permission that you have given by way of either power of attorney, health care power of attorney, or by way of driver's license, or that kind of thing.

That's pretty frightening news. That's pretty frightening news, because I signed my driver's license for an organ donor.

Well, I think it is rather disconcerting to many, many people.

And the reason is, is because a number of years ago, the medical industry, note my choice of words there, the medical industry moved from a respiratory criterion of death to a brain death criterion.

And unfortunately, scientists have discovered brain activity that occurs beyond a deep coma.

And so a person can be very, very unresponsive, and the brain can even indicate or rather fail to indicate any responsiveness.

And yet, and yet, people have been known to recover after such signs.

So I want to alert the listeners to do their reading, be their own advocates, don't believe everything you hear or read, do your study.

And that's more than the first internet website you come to just drill down and make it something of a project.

So are you saying that I mean, obviously, it's a very wonderful and good and noble thing to want to donate your organ.

So are you saying that that should be left, that information should just be left in the hands of loved ones you trust who know for certain that there is no possibility for your life to continue to then give their permission to have your organs donated?

Well, I think if you're inclined to that, that is to organ donation, that is by far the preferable mode of activity.

And we could get into the discussion of durable power of attorney, healthcare power of attorney, and those kinds of things are legal instruments that people ought to have drawn up right alongside their will, their last will and testament legal instruments that authorize family members to make judgments on the ground, so to speak.

That is don't, don't write all of this out so much as trust your loved ones, your next of kin to make these decisions about you.

All right, but I have four, four qualifications, again, conditions for organ donation that I think

Christians ought to take a look at. Number one, prior written permission has to be obtained from the donor, from the donor.

So if a donor has never left word, either on a driver's license or in a living, living will, as we call it, then we're not permitted just to go in there and harvest the organs.

Sorry, I mean, that person has has rights to their body, even though they may be dead.

Just the fact of being dead doesn't release those rights to the medical industry.

The second condition for organ donation would be that they should be made without financial remuneration for the organ.

In other words, people who donate their organs shouldn't make money on it. You could, you could part with a kidney, for example, and, you know, maybe pay off a few loans over there with that donation.

But, you know, that, that kind of a marketing of organs has to be discouraged about it seems to me outlawed.

We can't go in that direction. Now, should a I've heard this come up, it doesn't come up a lot, but I've heard this discussion come up.

Should a Christian ever support a law that would provide the authorities with the right to harvest an organ from a convicted murderer on death row after they're executed?

Well, my answer to that is no, they should not support such a law. I think that that that is, look, a person who is executed, presuming such capital punishment still exists somewhere in this country, and will continue for a time.

A person who is executed is executed for their crime. And there should be no law requiring that such a person who is executed surrender after death postmortem surrender their organs.

I think that's not, that's not honorable. That's not within the realm of the state's jurisdiction, let's say, let's put it that way.

So I think no Christian should support that kind of law. Is it ever permissible for a

Christian to be involved with the transplant of an animal's organs into a human body?

Well, of course, yes, it is. And I say that, of course, yes, it is. It's not obvious, but for decades, if not a century, we have used materials from pigs for repairing defects in the eye, or the heart, or the heart valve.

We have used products of animals or organs of animals, tissue of animals, to correct human maladies, and we've done it for a long, long, long time.

The larger question comes when you begin implanting other kinds of organs into humans than, say, a heart, or a valve, or things like that.

So I think there are limits in terms of maintaining the integrity of the human body.

But that is not at all a prohibition against using animal parts where human parts have failed.

Now, some people are convinced that I've had a brain transplant from an ape, but what are you specifically talking about that would be a prohibition in that area?

Well, the brain is one area. I mean, not that it's even possible. You know, one has to ask the question, where is one's person located?

Where is one's personality located? You know, we might say the soul, but where is the soul located?

Well, if there's anything in the human anatomy that houses that, it would be the brain.

I mean, the brain is what makes a person the person in terms of reflexes and so forth. But I also think that with respect to sexual organs and those kinds of things, that we have to be very, very careful and cautious about transplanting animal parts into humans in those areas.

Excellent. Excellent answers to all of these questions. There are two more conditions that I want to identify here.

Yes, sure. Yeah. One condition for organ donation that I hadn't mentioned yet is the question of subsequent insurability.

I think that when we have a living donor, somebody's going to donate a kidney, somebody's going to donate, perhaps even donate a lung.

They need to investigate their insurability. Some insurance companies might not be willing any longer to continue their insurance policy.

That's an economic consideration that I think is valid, and some people might not think of that. And finally, this may be a source of some humor, but it's worth talking about.

The donor may not specify or restrict who the recipient may be. For example, a

Christian might say, I wish my organs to be used only for the welfare of a fellow Christian. I think that's not in the cards.

That's not what we're going to do here. If we're going to have organ donation, it could be for a family member.

Of course, you may specify that, like a kidney for a brother or a sister or something like that.

But if you're upon death, if you have granted permission for your organs to be harvested at death, that permission should not stipulate that it could be given only to Christians.

Would it be inappropriate to stipulate that it not be used for someone who is an alcoholic or drug addict or something like that?

No, no. It would be inappropriate to do that, though we would not enjoy that or like that.

I think that the moment you begin putting stipulations on who the recipient may or may not be is the moment that you're controlling things from the grave, so to speak.

I think those decisions and deliberations must be left to the professionals who are dealing with the transplanting of the organs.

Yes, I brought that up because those of us who are old enough to remember who Mickey Mantle was, there were people who were very upset that he received a liver,

I believe, and he was not repentant at the time of his alcoholism or drunkenness.

So people felt that that was an abuse of his notoriety or his fame,

I should say, and that he got special treatment and wasted that organ, if you follow what

I'm saying. Yes, I quite agree. I understand the criticisms, but again,

I think that the decision not to have helped him should have been, would have been, and was in the hands of the professionals, medical professionals, not the donor per se.

I do want to say that I don't want to disparage the memory of Mickey Mantle because I think that there is some evidence that he did ultimately repent and so on, so I don't want to totally disparage his memory because he even admitted that he had a very horrible, rebellious lifestyle in his younger years, especially.

But do you have any of the most primary things that you want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners before the program ends?

I don't want us to run out of time before you address those issues. Well, particularly as we now come to the end -of -life decisions that we have talked about,

I want to urge listeners to be proactive in obtaining legal documents that certify and provide for durable power of attorney for healthcare, which means they appoint a representative to make decisions if they should become incapable of making those decisions about healthcare.

I believe that as Christians we have an obligation to have some kind of legal instrument to dispose of our material assets, and I think that as Christians we have an obligation to have at the ready a legal instrument that will carry out our wishes with regard to healthcare because some of these decisions, choices, and situations too easily fall out of our hands when we become unresponsive or incapable, and we need to legally protect ourselves along these lines.

Amen. Is there any of the other subcategories of medical ethics that you care to address before we run out of time?

Not at this point. I think I've pretty well covered it.

I want to encourage Christians to make these matters a matter of not only a

Bible study and prayer. I didn't mean, I do not mean to exclude any consideration of the

Bible in these things because when we live well before the face of God, then we can prepare to die well before the face of God as well.

So commit these things to prayer as well, but I'm urging them also to commit this to a communal discussion.

I think we need to be a community of moral discourse, moral discussion, so that we help each other face these issues, particularly younger folk with regard to artificial reproductive technology, and then at the end of life when we face some lonely decisions that we are surrounded by Christians and have our consciences formed and shaped by each other.

We do have a listener in Lindenhurst, Long Island, CJ, who asks,

I know that there is debate even amongst conservatives regarding the legalization of marijuana for medical use.

It seems to me that many who are opposed to the legalization of marijuana for any reason do so for what appears to be superstitious reasons and perhaps a connection that marijuana has with the hippie culture rather than using common sense.

And many of these same people would be opposed to the making of alcohol illegal, which was obviously a failed experiment in our nation's history.

I'm looking for the question in there, but I guess it would be the question. Whether or not you think that the use of marijuana even for medical purposes, we'll just stick with medical purposes, people who are having chemotherapy and that kind of a thing, should

Christians be opposed to the legalization of medical marijuana? My answer is no.

My answer is that marijuana, and I've never ever used it, so I don't know if I experience its properties, but I have read about it and I've studied it in connection with certain chronic diseases.

And marijuana has great potential with regard to pain management and with regard to symptom management of some kinds of neurological and physical ailments, chronic ailments.

So I do not think Christians should be opposed to the legalization of marijuana for medical use.

Of course abuse can be made of it, but I hasten to add that people are able, scientists are able to extract certain properties from marijuana that would make it objectionable.

You can extract certain properties so that marijuana is rendered somewhat harmless by way of hallucinogenic or anything like that, but nonetheless be a very good palliative and pain management technique.

So I believe that it ought to be advocated.

And before we go, since we are going to be doing our next interview,

God willing, on Abraham Kuyper, I want you to let our listeners know the projects you are currently working on.

First of all, tell our listeners who Abraham Kuyper was and what these current projects you are working on involve.

Well, Abraham Kuyper was a significant figure in the history of the

Netherlands. He was an intellectual. He founded a political party. He founded a university.

He was a pastor and he left the pastorate to enter the realm of politics and served as the

Prime Minister of the Netherlands, something equivalent to our President, from 1901 to 1905.

He developed as a reformed Calvinist. He developed a theology for public life and particularly through his exposition and defense of two important doctrines or theological ideas, the first being

Common Grace and the second being the Kingship of Jesus Christ. Now that leads me, my segue into the projects that I am working on.

I am serving as a sort of a supervising editor of the translation of his three -volume work on Common Grace and I am serving as the editor of his three -volume work on Pro Rega or the

Kingship of Jesus Christ. In addition, I am serving as editor of his multi -volume work on the

Heidelberg Catechism. And so let me indicate that the publishers of these are

Christian's Library Press, but it's an announcement of recent vintage that Lexham Press, associated with Logos, Lexham Press has agreed to be publishing about 12 volumes of Piper's works, including

Common Grace and Pro Rega, 12 volumes in a series on public theology.

Piper is public theologian. And if you know anything about Lexham Press and Logos Bible Software, you know that they have been in business for a while and are very cutting edge in terms of digital technology and they have produced and sell, for example, the work of Herman Bobbitt, Reformed Dogmatics, and the work of Gerhardus Voss, His Dogmatics.

And they want to add to that collection now these works of Abraham Kuyper.

So we're very excited about that development. Now was not Abraham Kuyper, even as an ordained minister, initially a liberal and did he not become a true, regenerate, born -again believer after he was already a minister?

That is true. That is true. There are a number of biographies of Abraham Kuyper that are accessible for your listeners.

One is a recent one by James Bratt, published by Eerdmans, but there's also a very handy one by Frank Vandenberg and another one by McGoldrick, which is a very handy biography.

And all these biographers will give you the narrative of Kuyper's youth and his education and his entering the ministry as a liberal.

By the way, liberal means doubting the possibility of miracle, doubting the divinity of Christ, doubting the supernatural, things like that.

So I mean, he was a card -carrying liberal, and it was in his first charge that he encountered the

Lord through the help of a parishioner. Wasn't she an elderly woman? Yes, yes.

She was an elderly woman in his first congregation who continued to pray for him and told him she was praying for him.

And praying for his conversion. Well, I hope that that whets the appetite of our listeners to listen to your next interview.

And by the way, I think I'll try to squeeze this one in. We do have a listener, Arnie from Perry County, who wants to know what your opinion was of the

Terry Schiavo case that was going on in the media from 1990 to 2005, where the ex -husband of a woman who considered brain -dead had her feeding tube removed against the wishes of the family.

I think that was morally disastrous. I think that was morally disastrous. I think Terry Schiavo should have had far more public advocacy, and I think it was a disgrace.

And I just want to let all of our listeners know that submitted questions that have not yet given me your mailing address.

Please give me your mailing addresses. Just a couple that haven't given me their mailing addresses, so you can get a free copy of the book

Wisdom and Wonder by Abraham Kuyper, which was translated from Dutch into English by our guest,

Dr. Nelson Klosterman. Any final words before we go? We've got about 30 seconds, brother.

Well, I want to thank you, Chris, for hosting these couple of hours and pray the

Lord's blessing on Iron Sharpens Iron. I know that you're trying and working very, very hard to reach

God's people with the truth, and I want you to know my support and prayers for you, too.

I really appreciate that, brother. I also appreciate your wonderful Christ -like demeanor, your humility, your humor, and I just look forward to spending some time of fellowship face -to -face again in the near future.

Thank you, Chris, and I do, too. I enjoy this very much. And I want everybody listening to always remember for the rest of their lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater

Savior than you are a sinner. We hope you tune in tomorrow to Iron Sharpens Iron for our