If bioethics is understood to encompass technological and biomedical advances as they relate to human life and health, it should come as no surprise that bioethically relevant topics are constantly in the news. Just a few months into 2024, there have already been major issues raised on beginning- and end-of-life issues. The Alabama Supreme Court’s February ruling that the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act applies to embryos that have not been transferred into a womb provoked numerous questions around the practice of IVF and our attitudes toward creating children. At the other end of life, numerous states are debating adding or expanding legislation allowing medical professionals to participate in helping patients kill themselves through physician-assisted suicide.
Christian believers have a stake in the issues of life and health. No matter how cultural, political, and legal debates play out, Christians are called to live lives pleasing to God according to the principles set forth in Scripture. Society’s condoning or condemning of any specific practice makes little difference to the Christian who believes that “we must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29, ESV). Ideally, Christians should not have to determine their position on bioethics issues alone. Churches and their respective denominations should be part of formulating a Christian response to the issues of the day and instructing their congregants on how to think Christianly about them.
Unfortunately, churches are rarely able to offer this kind of help. Denominations are often far behind the times when it comes to issuing guidance or taking positions if they do so at all. Things are not better at the individual level. For example, pastors are frequently not even consulted by congregants facing reproductive issues, leading one to comment: “My congregation looks to their doctors and selves [sic] rather than me for info on these matters. Maybe I am doing something wrong?”[1] A survey on abortion found that “only 7 percent of women discussed their abortion decision with anyone at church. Three-fourths (76 percent) say the church had no influence on their decision to terminate a pregnancy.”[2] Some of the major reasons they kept silent included distrust that the church was equipped to help them or give accurate information and a perception that they would be given inaccurate, oversimplified responses.
The perception that churches are not equipped to handle bioethics issues or will provide incorrect information is troubling. However, the issue of how Christians should respond to the issues of the day is not a new one, and thus, there is guidance to be gained from believers in the past. For this article, I will focus on a controversial and often misunderstood moment in church history, the Council of Trent, and some of the lessons that we can draw from it. I recognize that the issues and the times are different. I am not seeking to draw one-to-one comparisons but rather to allow the example of Trent to serve as a springboard for thinking about how the church can respond to controversial bioethical issues today.
The Council of Trent
By the early 16th century, religious tensions were brewing throughout Europe. Increasing corruption within the church and disputes over Catholic doctrines led many to question the church and its authority. Most wanted merely to reform the church from within; it was not until the Catholic authorities proved resistant to change that Protestants began to split from the church. Despite the rumblings of discontent throughout the century, and Martin Luther’s famous Ninety-Five Theses in 1517, no general council was called to respond to the teachings of Protestantism or to enact reform within the Catholic Church. The delay was political—the pope, Clement VII, feared that calling a council of bishops could erode his own authority, and thus, he refused to do so. His successor, Pope Paul III, shared these concerns, but the situation had worsened to the point that he had no choice, finally calling for a council in 1537. Unfortunately, wars and further political maneuverings meant that the council did not convene until nearly eight years later, in 1545.[3]
There were those who hoped this council would heal the Protestant/Catholic rift and lead to significant reforms within the Catholic Church. Regrettably (at least from the Protestant perspective), this was not to be. Over the course of multiple sessions spanning nearly 20 years, the Catholic Church entrenched, rejecting most of the major reforms requested by Protestants and doubling down on traditional Catholic positions. The Council of Trent condemned differing views of justification, affirmed transubstantiation as an official doctrine of the church, declared the Latin Vulgate the only official translation of the Bible, upheld forbidding laypersons to partake in the cup during the Eucharist, and anathematized Protestants. While some ecclesial reforms took place to lessen corruption, this was far short of what Protestants had hoped for. Only several hundred years later, at Vatican II, would some of these decisions be revisited, such as encouraging the mass to be celebrated in the vernacular, allowing the laity to participate in the cup during communion, and, perhaps most importantly, changing the status of Protestants from heretics to separated brethren.
Lessons for Today
What lessons might Christians, Protestant or Catholic, take from Trent today when it comes to bioethics? From the Catholic side, one lesson is that responding to the issues of the day does not mean we must blindly accept new developments or doctrines. Although Protestants were not pleased by the results of the Council of Trent, for Catholics, it represented a commitment to orthodoxy and a reaffirmation of traditional beliefs. What Protestants saw as a refusal to reform, Catholics saw as remaining faithful. In the same way, the church today must remember that responding to the issues of the day does not mean accepting every new thing that comes along. Not every technological innovation can be used in a way that is pleasing to God, and sometimes that means forgoing something the world calls good in order to maintain a consistent Christian witness. There is a place for saying “no” even when that is unpopular.
A second lesson is that waiting too long to respond can be damaging. Despite the Church’s fears and delays, it was eventually forced to address Protestantism and its critiques; answering the challenges of the day became a necessity. Had the Catholics not waited several decades to address Protestant concerns, there would not have been as much time for entrenchment on either side; perhaps greater agreement could have been reached.
Similarly, churches today should not wait to think about or offer guidance on bioethics issues. On the issue of assisted reproductive technologies, many have not even realized that the use of IVF could be a moral issue.[4] Others have taken the church’s silence as tacit acceptance and made use of technologies they later came to believe were immoral.[5] Today, as reproductive technologies are gaining national attention, many remain uncertain about what moral issues are involved or what they should believe in order to stay consistent with their biblical convictions.
Some denominations are recognizing the need for a response: for example, the Southern Baptist Convention passed its first real statement on reproductive technologies in the summer of this year.[6] This is encouraging and should be commended. But, given that the first IVF baby was born in 1978, it also means that several generations of Southern Baptists have had to wrestle with the issues of reproductive technology without serious guidance from their denomination.
A corollary to not waiting too long to respond is the importance of thinking ahead about the technologies we might have to contend with in the future. Many people are inherently suspicious of “speculative ethics.” Sure, it might be interesting to think about potential futures or technologies, but why should we care about something that is not yet possible? Why waste time worrying about something that might never take place? Thinking about potential ethical issues before they arise is one way that the church can be prepared to help people when the need does arise. It might seem like science fiction to be able to do something like gestate a child outside the womb or extend the human lifespan to hundreds of years, yet research is currently underway to make these and other science fictions reality. Being ethically prepared for developments in science and technology is essential so that the church is not always playing catchup to our ever-changing technological landscape.
A third lesson the contemporary church can learn from Trent stands in tension with the first: we need not accept something just because it is new, yet we should not reject it for being new either. If we are too quick to condemn new ideas or fail to take into account the complexity of a situation, it can lead to embarrassing reevaluations. In condemning Protestantism, the Catholics at Trent entrenched into several positions that they would walk back later (or, as Catholics would probably say, these positions had to undergo further development). Examples include the use of vernacular in worship services, the reception of the cup by the laity, and the very condemnation of Protestants as heretics rather than their current status as separated brethren. How might the history of the church have been different if more substantial reforms had been allowed hundreds of years earlier? How many Christians—Protestant and Catholic alike—were injured spiritually, emotionally, or even physically because the church condemned something too hastily?
When dealing with the issues of bioethics, our first reaction is often to look for the problems and the slippery slopes—we tend to immediately focus on what could go wrong and imagine the worst-case scenarios. While it is certainly appropriate to be cautious about novel technologies (and Christians have in fact underestimated the dangers of many current developments, such as the ubiquitous use of social media by children and teenagers), a balanced, well-reasoned consideration is needed. Caution and even saying “no” should have an important place, but we need to be sure when we do so that it is for good reasons and not simply suspicion of something novel.
An ongoing case study of some of these principles can be seen in the evolving discussions around heritable germline modification. Historically, most Christian ethicists have been (and many remain) opposed to modifying the human genome in ways that could be passed on to future generations. However, as technologies have evolved, discussion has begun over whether germline editing could be acceptable in some limited capacity, such as for those with deadly genetic conditions.[7]
On this issue Christian thinkers are exercising a measured caution. They are not accepting this intervention just because it is new, and they have been thinking and writing about it even before it was being practiced, keeping a close eye on how the technology develops. At the same time, some thinkers are being sure not to simply dismiss the technology out of hand and are wrestling with whether and how it could be used safely and ethically, recognizing that if germline engineering is ultimately found to be morally illicit, that could involve denying treatment to someone with an otherwise incurable condition.
This leads to a final lesson: the importance of advancing a positive agenda. For many years, the dominant view of Trent was that the Catholic Church demonstrated an unwillingness to consider change or see the value of alternative viewpoints. It gave them a reputation for refusing reform and continuing not just in the theological positions but also the immoral practices the Protestant Reformers so loudly condemned. However, modern scholarship has come to see that Trent was much more than just a retrenchment. Catholics did in fact enact reforms at Trent while also codifying and clarifying their positions on numerous doctrinal issues, many of which remain Catholic distinctives.[8]
The takeaway is that tone and presentation matter. The loud condemnation of Protestantism at Trent has led to the perception that it represented “the religion of that part of Christendom which anathematized the rest.”[9] The positives of Trent, as well as the reforms that were made, ended up being ignored. As the church responds to developments in medicine, science, and technology today, this is an important lesson to bear in mind. Our presentation matters, and it is far easier to be remembered for what we say “no” to than for what we positively advance.
How do we avoid this? We need to do much more to present a constructive vision of how to live a life pleasing to God in the modern world. While there will always be scientific advances that Christians cannot participate in, casting a vision for and then living out a positive vision of the Christian life can go a long way to mitigating the perception of Christians as moral killjoys. We should want to be known for what we support, not just what we oppose. For example, in the realm of genetics, it is one thing to be against heritable genetic modification; it is another to actively love and care for those who are born with genetic disorders, seek to alleviate their suffering, and support the search for ethical treatments. In the realm of reproductive technology, it is one thing to oppose technological interventions such as IVF, which many Christians are coming to realize is fraught with ethical problems; it is another to support and actively research alternative treatments and seek to understand the underlying causes of infertility.[10]
Conclusion
While the issues of the day might change, the need to respond to them remains the same. The contemporary world, with its rapid developments and advances, can present an overwhelming number of things that call for a Christian response. Examples from church history, such as the Council of Trent, remind us that while the issues, and even the pace of development, may have changed, the church’s responsibility has not. The way the church responds can have a powerful influence on how its members think about and approach the moral issues of the day, and it presents opportunities for them to be salt and light to those living in a fallen world.
References
[1] Paige Comstock Cunningham, “Are Pastors Prepared? Results of a Survey on Clergy Awareness of Health Issues,” Dignitas 25, no. 2 (2018): 3–9, https://www.cbhd.org/dignitas-articles/are-pastors-prepared-results-of-a-survey-on-clergy-awareness-of-health-issues.
[2] Lisa Cannon Green, “New Survey: Women Go Silently from Church to Abortion Clinic,” Care Net, November 23, 2015, https://www.care-net.org/churches-blog/new-survey-women-go-silently-from-church-to-abortion-clinic.
[3] For an overview of the Council of Trent see John D. Woodbridge and Frank A. James III, Church History: The Rise and Growth of the Church in Its Cultural, Intellectual, and Political Context, vol. II, From Pre-Reformation to the Present Day (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013), 208–14.
[4] Jennifer Lahl, “The Overlooked Ethics of Reproduction,” Christianity Today, September 6, 2013, https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2013/september-web-only/overlooked-ethics-of-reproduction.html.
[5] Ericka Andersen, “How IVF Made Its Way into Evangelical Pro-Life Debates,” Christianity Today, January 8, 2024, https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2024/january-web-only/ivf-pro-life-ethics-christian-fertility-treatments-embryos.html.
[6] R. Albert Mohler, Jr., “Southern Baptists Take a Stand,” World, June 17, 2024, https://wng.org/opinions/southern-baptists-take-a-stand-1718619139.
[7] One Christian philosopher exploring these issues is Russell DiSilvestro, who has pointed out many flaws in arguments against germline engineering, although he is quick to acknowledge that this does not constitute an endorsement of the practice. “Three Christian Arguments Against Germline Engineering,” Christian Bioethics18, no. 2 (2012): 201–18, https://academic.oup.com/cb/article/18/2/201/348440?login=true.
[8] Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christianity, Vol. II: Reformation to the Present, rev. ed. (New York: Harper and Row, 1975), 866–71; Woodbridge and James, Church History, 208–14.
[9] Woodbridge and James, Church History, 212.
[10] One group involved in this type of work is FACTS about Fertility, https://www.factsaboutfertility.org/.