Dr. David Vandrunen Interview

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, "'But we did not yield in subjection to them "'for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel "'would remain with you.'".

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

We're here to take your calls as well. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio.

The Book of Bioethics and Why the Church Needs It

My name is Mike Abendroth, and today is Wednesday, November 18th. Mondays, we usually have a tape sermon from Bethlehem Bible Church. Tuesdays, we talk about issues in the local church with my co-host, Pastor Steve Cooley, and Wednesdays, we talk about books, books that you should either discard because they're not good for you, or books that you should read and read over and over again.

And today, we have the latter. We have an excellent book that I wanna talk about today, Bioethics and the Christian Life, subtitled A Guide to Making Difficult Decisions, published by Crossway, and we have live on air today David Van Drunen, the author.

David, welcome. Thank you. Tell us a little bit about the book in general, and why would it be good for the church at large?

Well, the book is really written for the church, for Christians who are wrestling with an area that has become one of the most difficult parts of many people's moral lives. When we're thinking about bioethics, we're thinking about these kinds of moral decisions that we are called to make that have to do with issues of life and death, of illness, of disease, of preserving our lives, or perhaps at times, when to let death come.

And especially due to the explosion of medical technology in recent years, this has become some very, very difficult issues for Christians to face as they wrestle with issues of contraception, or assisted reproduction, or how to care for a loved one who's approaching death.

So what my book is designed to do is to help Christians think through those kinds of difficult decisions by giving them a good theological, biblical basis for understanding who we are as human beings, and what death and suffering are, and also trying to think about the moral life more broadly.

What kind of people has God called us to be, and how is that going to impact the way we wrestle through these really difficult moral questions?

Theology Before Ethics: Virtue, Sovereignty, and Providence

Well, Dr. Van Drunen, I thought that was probably the most excellent part of the book. You see on page 15, to put it simply, those who wish to conduct themselves in an externally excellent way must strive to become internally excellent people.

And then you have, of course, the gospel and a good theological undergirding there. It's so easy today, isn't it, Doctor, to just say, give me a list of to-dos and don'ts, whether it's fertilization or adoption or euthanasia, just tell me what to do.

But you are stressing, of course, what to do, but what kind of people does God expect you to be? Why did you emphasize that?

Right, I think you're absolutely right that it's so much easier for us just to get told what to do. These are the right things, these are the wrong things. And for one thing, the whole subject of bioethics is not very readily amenable to such a list.

There are obviously some things that I, as a believer, and probably most people who are listening to this would agree are off-limits. These are things that clearly go beyond God's will. But there are so many decisions that Christians will have to make with regard to bioethics about how do you deal with the question of infertility and what kinds of assisted reproductive methods may be morally acceptable for us.

Or at what point do I stop treatment for a serious life-threatening illness? And quite simply, we just don't have biblical passages that we can point to to say this is absolutely right, this is absolutely wrong.

And so that really brings up the second reason why I try to write this book in the way that you described. And that's when God calls us to make moral decisions, he's not just calling us to make these kinds of isolated, discrete decisions.

A certain problem just sort of falls onto our lap and we have to deal with it. All of our moral questions and crises that we face come at us in the midst of a larger calling to be a certain kind of people.

God has called us to be people of virtue. And if we're not living an entire life that is seeking to be the right sort of people as we live under God's grace, then we're not gonna be the kind of people who are prepared to be dealing with these really difficult questions.

We're not gonna be people who have the love and the courage and contentment and the hope that is required to be able to think clearly through these kinds of issues.

This is Mike Ebendroth, it's No Compromise Radio at nocompromiseradio .com. We're talking to the author of Bioethics and the Christian Life. You can get more information on this book at crossway .org.

And we're talking to Dr. Van Droonen, who is the Robert B. Strimple Professor of Systematic Theology and Christian Ethics at Westminster Seminary, California. And you're an ordained minister at an OPC church there.

Dr. Van Droonen, I really was thankful, and I think I've said this just a minute ago, but just to emphasize again, I was thankful for chapter two, talking about the theological doctrines before you got to the Christian virtues, which actually would be before you got to what do we do about adoption and what do we do about euthanasia.

Has anybody else commented on how important these structures are to have theology, then we have virtues? I mean, we're not legalists, we're not moralists, and some would just probably run straight to the virtues instead of ignoring the doctrines of sovereignty of God and divine providence.

Yeah, there have been a number of people who have commented on that to me. And yeah, that's really my conviction. And I think that should be all of our convictions as Christians, is that what we believe and what we do should be intimately connected.

And that if we don't understand something about theological truths, we are not gonna be in a position where we're going to be able to make the right kinds of moral decisions. And that if I'm gonna be making decisions about life and death, then I need to understand something about who I am.

What does it mean that I am a creature? What does it mean that I am in the image of God? I need to know something about death. What's my attitude towards death? It's something, Scripture presents it as something that is an enemy, and yet also something that's been conquered by Christ and his resurrection.

I need to understand something about suffering and about our call as Christians to be living under the cross, to be enduring hardships in this age. And how could I possibly deal with bioethics questions faithfully when they involve great suffering as they often do?

Because they often emerge out of tragic situations. How can I be faithful in those situations if I don't know something about my call to suffer as a Christian? And so, yeah, I'm convinced that if we're well-informed about the truths of God and ourselves and God's relationship to us in this world, we'll be in so much of a better place to be able to think through bioethics problems.

Infertility in Scripture and the New Testament Hope

When a couple is having a problem with infertility, let's go from general themes of the book now to more specific. If there's a couple out there listening and they say, we've got some fertility issues, why would this, and it's almost self-promotion by you, I know, but why would this book be important?

What have you written that would give them insight into the issue of infertility?

One of the things that I've done is to try to place infertility in a broader biblical and theological context, because this actually is an issue that Scripture addresses in many places. We see all sorts of people in Scripture who are infertile and for whom it's a great trial to face, and so one thing that I do actually is try to trace this theme of infertility through Scripture and to recognize that infertility actually in the New Testament is not seen as such a great curse as it is in the Old Testament.

In the Old Testament, as God's people were being, as their eyes were being thrust ahead to expect the coming of Christ, there's this promise that a Savior was gonna come through the seed of Abraham, and so participating in that by having children, by having children and being able to have an inheritance passed along in the promised land, all that was very important for the Old Testament, and yet in the New Testament, when Christ has come, all the promises of God have been fulfilled in him.

The promised seed has arrived. All of a sudden, we see in the New Testament that infertility is not viewed as this great crisis the way it was in the Old, and I think there's an important sense in which all Christians need to rest content on the fact that that crisis comes, that we are not having children in a way that is pointing ahead or looking forward to the coming of Christ as it was in the Old Testament, but that now we have been brought into Christ's household.

We have been given a bigger and broader family than we could ever have. That's really only the first part of my study of this issue, and so the other very important thing that I think my book tries to offer for people who are struggling with infertility is not just trying to give them the right perspective on that, but to think through some of the options that are out there for trying to deal with infertility, especially something like in vitro fertilization, which is very popular but also raises a lot of pretty serious moral questions that I think Christians need to wrestle with.

Assisted Reproduction, Contentment, and Not Making Children an Idol

Now, let's talk about that. Let me just interrupt you just for a second, Dr. Van Droenen. Before we get into those specifics, let me read for our audience what you wrote on page 126 under Assisted Reproduction.

Quote, because of their faith, infertile Christians know that having children is not the most important thing. They ought not to approach infertility treatment out of a sense of desperation or be willing to pay any price in order to bear their own children, end quote.

I thought that was insightful and right because sometimes people, although, you know, I've been blessed with four children and I know those that struggle without having any children, but we don't wanna make that an idol, to have children at all costs, no matter what Christian stewardship would say, we must have a children.

That was an excellent point.

Well, thanks, yeah. And it's, I believe that I was making that point in the context of talking about contentment. And, you know, there's this, you know, we are commanded by Christ to be people of contentment.

And I think it's important to note that that doesn't mean that we can never seek to make anything better in our lives if something's wrong. But I think we are called always to have that attitude of resting content with what God does give us.

And if we have that, if we recognize what we have in Christ, we can seek to pursue other avenues to try to address problems in our life. But we can know that even if God does not will that we ever bear children of our own, that we have this great gift in Christ and in eternal life and in the fellowship of the church is that something that God gives us so that we need not think into despair if this disappointment is something that happens in our lives.

Excellent point. My name is Mike Ebendroth.

This is No Compromise Radio. We're talking to the author of Bioethics and the Christian Life, Dr. David Van Drunen, an excellent book by Crossway. I would encourage all the listeners today to get a copy of that book.

Third-Party Reproduction, Marital Bonds, and Family Harm

Let's talk about a specific Dr. Van Drunen. As I've counseled people as a pastor of a local church for many years, I personally, and I don't think very many evangelicals have a problem with a husband's sperm and a wife's egg put together outside of the body and then placed back in.

But what happens when a couple wants a child? What kind of moral dilemma do you think the couple has experienced when they use someone else's sperm with the wife's egg? And why do you think that is problematic?

Yeah, those kinds of situations are really difficult moral issues, and it's hard to know very briefly how to describe that. But for one thing, I think we don't want to underestimate that marital bond between a husband and a wife.

Of course, we, both of us who are Christians, would confess that adultery, sexual relations between a married person to someone who is not his or her spouse is wrong. But I don't think we want to be too quick to act as if there's nothing potentially problematic about one spouse's sperm or egg being united with someone who's not his or her spouse's sperm or egg, even if it's not done in an adulterous way.

I think we want to be very wise about the consequences and sometimes the emotional of the idea of someone else's baby growing in my wife's womb. That's something that I don't think we want to be too quick to condone or to think just because it's not adulterous, there's not going to be any kinds of consequences that are harmful.

Yeah, you said in your book, nevertheless, one brief observation seems relevant. Harmonious family relations certainly did not result from these third-party arrangements.

Right, yeah, and I was referring there to some of these stories in Scripture in which some of the heroes of the faith resorted to using concubines and that sort of thing for trying to solve their infertility issues.

And even though these are different in certain respects, of course, from the kind of in vitro situations that we're talking about, it's very interesting. And I think noteworthy that whenever they tried to do something like this, there were always difficulties.

Their family relations were always, they were always harmed in some way. And I think that's something that at the very least should make us very cautious about these things and to ask ourselves, are there certain fundamental realities about who we are as human beings, certain fundamental realities about the husband-wife relationship that should make us really, really cautious when we're thinking about going down some of these routes.

Cloning, Souls, and Death With Dignity

Just a few questions that are maybe more rapid fire in different subjects. What do we do with cloning? Let's say they clone a person. Would you think that cloned person would have a soul?

Well, yeah, I mean, that's a It's interesting radio. Yeah, I mean, that's a question that I've been asked sometimes. And personally, I don't see any reason why we would say that that person would not have a soul.

I'm not sure what a person without a soul is except dead. I mean, that seems to be the way scripture speaks. And so I would not argue against cloning because on that particular ground, I think there are all sorts of issues that are raised by cloning, like why is this clone being produced?

Is it for research purposes? Is it for purposes of trying to have my own life continue through someone who's just like me? Is it done because I don't want to have any kind of marriage relationship with someone else?

I want to have the benefits of children, but I don't want to unite with someone else. I mean, I think there are all sorts of really problematic questions that cloning raises, but I'm not sure that that soul question is one that I would want to pursue.

All right, how about this one? Let's see if you'll pursue this, Dr. Van Droenen. How about when people are going to discuss someone dying and they'll say the person's in a vegetative state and they appeal to what you call notions of mercy, or death with dignity.

What's wrong with that kind of language?

Yeah, well, I think one thing that scripture makes very clear is that we are never to seek someone else's death, whether that's our own or whether that's someone else's, and even if that's someone else's who's weak and vulnerable and maybe unproductive by society's standards.

And so that's really an application of the Sixth Commandment. And at the same time, I think, and I have quite a bit of discussion in my book about the fact that it's not always wrong. In fact, it may be morally righteous at times to let death come, not to fight death with every possible medication, every possible medical procedure.

But I think that's very, very different from the actual seeking to take someone else's life. Even if we have good motives like mercy, like compassion, we should never try to let our own perceptions of what's merciful and compassionate trump God's will.

Birth Control, Responsible Procreation, and Christian Stewardship

Well, that's excellent. This is Dr. David Van Drunen, and I'm talking about his new book, Bioethics and the Christian Life. Dr. Van Drunen, tell me a little bit about a couple who wants to have children, or they actually say, well, we don't know about having children yet, and I think it's tied into virtues and motives.

You said something that, I don't wanna say it doesn't fit in the book, but when I read it, I thought, wow, I wonder if Crossway tried to get rid of that quote. The key principle, page 107, is that a married couple's procreative life ought to be carried out thoughtfully and in harmony with the full range of their responsibilities.

Human beings are not bunnies in heat who simply follow their carnal impulses and deal with the consequences later. God made his image bearers morally responsible creatures who must answer for their actions.

Well, no, Crossway did not ask me to get rid of that. It is a little, yeah, maybe I was trying to be a little humorous there, and sometimes

No, I liked it. It worked perfect on No Compromise Radio. Okay, well, good.

Yeah, I mean, my basic point there is, we do hear a lot about the question of birth control and about when do you have children? Is there a time when, is it wicked to use contraception and those sorts of things?

And as you know, having read the book, I certainly, I think having children is a very good thing and that we have to be very careful about using self-centered motives to reason our way out of having children.

If it's to sort of suit our own lifestyle or if it's because of a concern to be able to have nice things that we wouldn't be able to have if we had children. But at the same time, when I said we're not bunnies in heat, what I've been trying to say is that, even in our reproductive lives, we're not simply driven by impulse, that we need to be responsible as we look ahead to parenthood.

There are certain times, I believe, when it is responsible to delay the having of children because of important other things or important other responsibilities in life. And so even in having children, I think we're always called to exercise wisdom and to seek to be responsible for all the things that we do.

Calvin, Providence, and Comfort in God's Sovereign Rule

Well, I'd encourage everyone to go get the book, The Purpose I Read and The Purpose Statement. It explores how ordinary Christians in the midst of their lives that they're called to live, how do you live them for Christ?

And so we don't have much time left, Dr. Vandroon, and tell the listeners some books that you would recommend on the sovereignty of God as they live underneath God's providence. I know you didn't talk about books in your book necessarily, but if someone wanted to say, I need a book on the sovereignty of God, a theological book to read, what would you recommend?

Oh boy, there are probably a lot of books that we refer to as systematic theologies that will have some very good explanations of that. And one that I always recommend is the systematic theology, you could find some good material on that.

But I might point someone back to John Calvin's Institute of the Christian Religion. And he has some very wonderful discussions in the Institute about God's sovereignty, about God's providence. And one of the things that I think is so nice about that, over against Calvin's reputation sometimes, is that he saw God's sovereignty as something that is for our comfort, for our encouragement, that God is...

10 seconds, Dr. Vandroon. Yeah, his providential reign extends for the good of his people.

This is Mike Abendroth. We've had the pleasure of having Dr. Vandroon on the air. Get his book, Bioethics and the Christian Life. God bless you.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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