A last stroll through the tortuous ethical jungle that is IVF, genetic engineering and cloning…

Is there anything morally wrong with parents choosing the eye and hair colour of their children, or the inherent abilities they will have? Do we have the right to “play God” in this way? Or were we meant to just accept whatever God gave us?

 Throughout history, the whole human race has had to accept certain things in life as being beyond their control. That list used to include things like most diseases, accidental injuries, occasional starvation, the tyranny of distance and so on. But technological and medical advances have given us control over these aspects of our lives, and today we take that for granted.

 For example, no one who gets pneumonia today just goes to bed and surrenders the outcome to God’s will (OK, some lunatic fringe cultists do). Instead, they will seek medical treatment, probably consisting of powerful antibiotics, intravenous rehydration and physiotherapy to clear out the gunk from the lungs. In some sense, to apply this treatment is to take the matter out of God’s hands and into our own. Sure, the final outcome is still not certain, and if God chooses for that person to die, they will indeed die no matter how good the treatment they receive. People still die from pneumonia in first world countries today, and people survived it without all the treatment hundreds of years ago. But the fact remains that the human medical treatment has dramatically changed the outcome for patients with pneumonia: whereas you might have had a 70% chance of dying from pneumonia five hundred years ago, you only have a 1% chance of dying of it today.

 The medical treatment of pneumonia is an example of how we have taken control of many aspects of our lives today. A logical extension of this trend is for us to take control of life in the womb as we have taken control of life after birth, and perhaps even take control of life before conception itself. Rather than waiting for the person to fall ill with pneumonia and then strive to heal them, why not fiddle their genes before they’re born so that they are no longer susceptible to catching pneumonia in the first place?

 I find that to be a fairly convincing argument. But genetically engineering resistance to pneumonia is different to choosing eye colour or hair colour or ability to play the piano. Pneumonia is an illness and everyone would agree that we are committed to fighting illness in all its forms with all the means that God puts at our disposal. In Christianity, we see illness as a result of the Fall and the corruption of our lives and our nature. To fight it is to strive to return to that perfect state from which we fell.

 Yet even in Paradise, neither Adam nor Eve got to choose what they looked like or what they were “born” good at (I know they weren’t born; you know what I mean). Until now, this has always been the prerogative of God, and everyone had to just accept what they were given and do their best with it. Is there anything stopping us from changing this state of affairs and taking control of our children’s genes?

 I can think of a few arguments against it. Firstly, it is a huge responsibility. Imagine a man who always wanted to be a world champion boxer but never succeeded. He agrees with his wife to have their child born a boy and genetically engineered to be tall, wide and all muscle. However, their little boy grows up desperately wanting to be a concert pianist! Think of the resulting chaos. The parents will resent their child for letting all that money they invested in his genes going to waste. The child will resent his parents for giving him short stocky fingers that are useless for playing the piano, thus destroying his fondest dream. If this state of affairs had come about naturally; if the child had just naturally been born that way, he might have still felt resentment, but not at his parents – it wasn’t their fault. But now, it is. What parents would want to take so great a responsibility on their shoulders?

 Secondly, there is the fact of the very real limitation on human knowledge (not to mention wisdom!). Once you start playing with one thing, all sorts of other things might happen that you didn’t expect. Although we are capable of some fiddling with the genes of our children today, we are very, very far from understanding how the whole thing really works; the kind of understanding, I mean, that would allow us to fiddle and know exactly what’s going to happen. For us at the moment, genetics is more like the weather than it is like a mathematical problem. Our predictions have limited accuracy and often go wrong, and the more complicated it gets, the more often we are wrong. If this were nothing more than an experiment with lab mice, it might be acceptable, but we are dealing with human lives here. If the only way to learn to get it right is by making a lot of mistakes along the way, I think that is just too high a price to pay. Otherwise, what makes us any different to the deplorable human guinea pig eugenics experiments of the Nazis in World War 2?

 I will leave you with a few more hypothetical questions you might enjoy pondering and perhaps discussing with your friends.

 Is it acceptable to use the technology to improve the overall characteristics of the human race; encourage only good looking and intelligent babies to be born, for example?

 Is there anything wrong with breeding “specialised” humans: astronauts without legs, or pearl divers with waterproof skin and huge lungs, for example?

 Is there anything wrong with genetically engineering completely new and original organs in humans: wings or gills for example?

 As you can see, we have barely begun to scratch the surface of this topic. So many questions…

So few concrete answers…

 Fr Ant

 Cloning is an issue that raises many complex moral and ethical issues. There is any number of opinions on many of these issues, but it has so far proven difficult for the honest Christian to find certain answers on many of them. I am not sure that I have definite answers, but I will simply share some thoughts on a few interesting questions. No doubt you might disagree with some of the things I write, but feel free to comment and tell me why.

 If a child is diagnosed with an abnormality in the womb, should that child be aborted?

 We must begin with what we believe about that child in the womb. If we believe that the child is a human being (as we do) then we must treat her the same way we would treat her after she was born. The question thus becomes: if a baby is born and has an abnormality, should we put her to death? I don’t think there are many rational people in the world today who would answer yes to that question.

 It is not for us to evaluate the worth of a person’s life. Who can say that because a child with Down’s Syndrome may never have the intellectual ability to become a brain surgeon, or the athletic ability to become an Olympian, their life is not worth living? A disabled person is just as capable of living a happy life as an able one. Judgements about whose life is worth living and whose life should be terminated should never, ever become the prerogative of humans.

Is it acceptable to use IVF to give a gay or lesbian couple their own child?

 This is a little more complicated. If we begin from the premise that the Bible teaches that homosexuality is a sin, then we must doubt the advisability of a family with two homosexual parents. But again, analogy may be enlightening. Would we say that a heterosexual couple where both partners are constantly having extramarital affairs should not be able to use IVF to have a child? Biblically speaking, both adultery and homosexuality are grave sins, and in both these cases, if there is no repentance, the sin will continue. And yet, I think that many Christians would see far less of a problem with the adulterous couple having a child than with the homosexual couple, something of a double standard, perhaps?

 Another aspect worth considering of course is the psychological welfare of the child. Research has proven time and again that children are most psychologically healthy and well balanced when they have the influence of both a male and a female parent in their life as they grow up. But there are many other situations where children grow up in these less than ideal conditions – a widow or widower for example, or in the case of divorce or of one of the partners having to be out of town for long periods of time with the armed forces, and so on. Would we deny IVF to such families? Perhaps we might.

 Really, the question behind this question is this: should we make moral values one of the criteria for deciding who gets to benefit from a medical therapy? I would think that in the vast majority of cases, the answer would be a resounding “no!” It would be criminal to deny a thief a life saving blood transfusion just because they are a thief, and might one day reoffend. Nor do we deprive women of cosmetic surgery on the grounds that they are excessively vain. We may have to face the fact that if we live in a secular society, the benefits of that society must be available to all its members without prejudice.

 Can we use stem cell technology to grow whole organs in the laboratory for transplant?

 Foetal stem cells involve the destruction of a full and living foetus, which is equal to murder in the Church’s view. But what about using adult stem cells which have nothing to do with a foetus at all, to grow a liver or a kidney in the laboratory for transplantation?

We already allow organ transplants (which are encouraged by the Church) and the use of artificial organs like artificial hearts, cochleae, etc, and even the implantation of animal organs like pig heart valves. Thus, it is hard to argue against creating completely compatible, natural organs that derive from the patient’s own stem cells, or even from a donor’s stem cells. I see no difference between growing your own liver and the process of a surgery patient donating his own blood a few months before the surgery and receiving it again as a transfusion during surgery.

We have seen that cloning raises some incredibly difficult ethical and moral questions. But before we attempt to address them, it may be helpful to look at things from the perspective of the infertile parent, and also to survey various religious positions on the matter.

 It is important to appreciate that these are not just hypothetical questions that people in ivory towers can enjoy discussing over a nice cup of tea. They are questions that influence the lives of many people, real living people. I have encountered couples dealing with infertility, and I can assure you, it is no small matter. Until you have gone through the experience yourself, I don’t think you can really understand what it means to be denied the chance of having your own children. In the Bible, it was considered a terrible curse, a cause of shame and social ridicule, and perhaps even a sign of God’s disfavour. Just think of Hannah the mother of Samuel crying soundless prayers of desperation in the temple, or Sarah the wife of Abraham and Elizabeth the wife of Zechariah. We no longer see infertility as a sign of God’s anger, just as we no longer see disease of any kind in this light. But the personal, emotional and psychological damage it does is still tremendous.

So anything that can help to bring about a child for a childless couple is worth taking very, very seriously. Here, if anywhere, is the place to apply the Pauline principle of “All things are lawful for me, but not all things edify” (1 Corinthians 10:22). We should begin with the assumption that this new technology is a good thing, and see if there is anything to disqualify it, rather than beginning by assuming it is a bad thing and seeing if there is anything to redeem it. Let’s take a quick tour of the stated opinions of a selection of religious bodies.

 The “all things are lawful – first” approach is indeed to be found among some of the bishops of the Coptic Orthodox Church. Back in 1987, the forward thinking scholar, the late HG Bishop Gregorius delivered a lecture and subsequently published a book on IVF. In it he presents a beautifully balanced critique of this powerful technology, highlighting the benefits it offers to infertile couples as well as the likely problems with progress in this kind of medical technology. His words, summarised by Dr Botros Rizk (see link below) are strangely prescient, and the ethical and moral principles he outlines remain the foundation for our attitude towards the subject today, including the condemnation of commercial trade in eggs or sperm and surrogacy.

HG Bishop Moussa in a 2006 article (see link below) takes a “wait and see” approach: “We are now waiting to see what man will do with knowledge. Will he make it the means of human growth and development or will he make it a means of destruction and distortion?” On the other hand, HG Bishop Serapion of LA (see link below) takes a much harder line: “Cloning is against God’s plan for human reproduction. It is very hard to draw a line between therapeutic cloning for research and human cloning … Christians should oppose any proposition that advances embryonic stem cell research and therapeutic cloning.”

Given the differences in the opinions of Coptic Orthodox authorities on some of these issues, such as therapeutic cloning, for example, perhaps it is time for our Church to formally study these issues in depth and produce a definitive statement. On the other hand, a wide reading of the literature from all sources leaves one with the strong impression that no one has yet formulated waterproof arguments on many of these issues, so perhaps there is a wisdom in allowing the discussion to progress further before an official position is published by the Church?

 The Catholic Church has officially banned all forms of human cloning (see link below). This is consistent with its hardline pro-life positions on abortion, IVF, stem cell research and even contraception. In contrast, the Coptic Church’s pro-life position encompasses only the injunction to not kill; there is no injunction about preventing conception. Thus, while we are opposed to abortion (with the exception of situations where the life of the mother or the infant are in danger) and opposed to IVF or stem cell procedures that involve the destruction of embryos, we have no problem with any form of contraception that does not involve destroying an embryo. For those who are interested, that only rules out IUDs and the morning after pill, both of which have been shown to have a significant risk of acting by destroying an already fertilised embryo.

You may recall that Dr Savos gained the blessing of the senior Imam of Hammas in Lebanon for his cloning work. Interestingly, this is in direct contradiction to the publicly stated “official” Islamic position on the matter. At least one respected Islamic authority has declared human cloning ‘haraam’ (see link below).

 Next time, we’ll go back and bravely have a go at taming some of those really tricky ethical questions.

 Fr Ant

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 Links to various religious views on Cloning:

 http://www.bioline.org.br/pdf?mf05031 The views of the Coptic Orthodox Church on the treatment of infertility, assisted reproduction and cloning. Botros Rizk, M.R.C.O.G., M.D, 2005.

http://www.stmina.hamilton.on.coptorthodox.ca/index.php?action=view&id=29&module=newsmodule&src=%40random44d36c519a457 The Christian View Of Cloning. HG Bishop Moussa, 2006.

http://www.lacopts.org/articles/the-churchs-perspective-stem-cell-research The Church’s Perspective on Stem Cell Research. HG Bishop Serapion,

http://www.americancatholic.org/news/cloning/default.asp Roman Catholic position on Human Cloning, 2003.

http://daccess-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N04/493/06/PDF/N0449306.pdf?OpenElement  United Nations Declaration

http://www.islam-qa.com/en/ref/21582/clone Islamic Fatwa denounces Human Cloning as ‘haraam’.

 If you think the ethical questions raised by IVF are tough, you’ll be totally flummoxed by those raised by human cloning. Claims of human cloning have occurred sporadically since the turn of the 21^st century, yet none of them has been substantiated – with one exception. Dr Panayiotis Zavos, a Greek Cypriot immigrant to the USA, may soon go down in history as the person responsible for the first ever successful human clone. He has so far made a number of unsuccessful attempts, but with each one, the knowledge gained is bringing him and his team a little closer to success. I have included some links at the end of this blog for those who wish to learn more about him and his very controversial work.

Dr Zavos is an enigmatic figure who proves yet again just how much truth is stranger than fiction. He is a practicing Greek Orthodox Christian, and he puts forward arguments based on Bible verses in support of his work, even though most Christians would disagree with both the work and his interpretation of the Bible. Having been blocked by the laws of Western countries, he moved his work to Beirut in Lebanon where there are no laws to prevent human cloning, and he even met with the spiritual leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon to get his ‘blessing’ on the work of human cloning.

What sets his efforts apart from the other unsubstantiated claims of human cloning by secretive doctors and strange cults is that Dr Zavos has allowed independent journalists and a film crew to document his progress. A documentary was recently aired on pay TV and leaves no doubt that he is doing exactly what he says he is. This is not enough for others in the medical profession, though, who insist that Dr Zavos must open his work to the scrutiny of his peers, and accuse him of being after nothing more than fame and glory and a mountain of cash. Dr Zavos in turn responds that fame is not on his agenda, and that he is motivated mainly by the desire to help couples for whom every other avenue for having a child has failed them. His choice of candidates for his technique would certainly support this claim.

But we are not her to judge Dr Zavos, but to assess the process of cloning a human being. First we must turn to the ethical problems with the technique as it stands today.

One of the major objections raised against human cloning is that the procedure damages the genetic information in the cells, resulting in a very high rate of deformed individuals. Dolly, the famous sheep who broke open Pandora’s Box when she was cloned from a six year old sheep in 1997, took no less than 277 attempts before her creators got it right. Many of those were deformed sheep that did not survive. We may be willing to accept that attrition rate for sheep, but have we the right to do that to human beings? Thus, Dr Zavos is criticised for trying to do this far too early. Let us wait, his critics say, until we have improved the technique using animals. Once we have got it right, we can think about using it on humans, but to attempt it now on humans is criminal.

Then there is the risk of abuse. Earlier I compared human cloning to nuclear power, maintaining that both are technologies with tremendous potential for both good and evil. The horror of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was so terrifying that no one has used a nuclear weapon in anger ever since. And yet, we still live in fear for we cannot be certain that some rogue state will one day break this taboo, with dreadful consequences. Human cloning too has the potential for dreadful consequences. What do you think of the following potential scenarios:

-          A mother loses her 10 year old daughter in an accident. She saves a little of her daughter’s genetic material and has her cloned to ‘bring her back to life’ again.

-          A laboratory clones a number of human beings but only allows them to grow to about 30 cells, never implanting them in a womb. They remove cells whenever they grow to 30 cells and use the removed cells for research. If you consider life to begin at conception, is this any way to treat a human being?

-          A government decrees that the population needs to be ‘beautified’ or made smarter, and that henceforth, no natural children will be born, but only clones of the most beautiful or the most intelligent people.

-          A caste of human clones is genetically engineered to be a servant class with very low IQ but large muscle bulk and stamina. The company that produces them rents them out for $20,000 per year (plus food and board, but only the most basic needs, since they are bred not to complain).

-          Astronauts in weightless space have no need for legs – they use up energy and serve no purpose. Thus, NASA clones an astronaut race with no legs who can travel to far distant planets, happily living on spaceships for years with no legs.

-          A billionaire realises he is getting old. He secretly clones himself ten times and locks up the clones in a hidden complex underground beneath his mansion. They are given only the most basic of their needs – food and water and warmth. They are not educated, they never learn to speak or understand speech, they never see the outside world. When the billionaire’s heart or liver or kidneys start to give out, he simply kills one of the clones and, hey presto! Instant perfect genetic match for a donor!

-          Eventually, even the bank of identical organs can no longer keep the billionaire alive. His body is just too old. So he attempts a radically new procedure: he has his brain transplanted into the healthiest of the young clones, effectively giving himself another lifetime on the earth. If it succeeds, there may be no limit to how many times he may be able to jump into a new body, genetically, his own body.

Some of these scenarios are still science fiction, but some are possible today. The first one is the actual profile of one of Dr Zavos’ patients, and the second scenario is a reality right now in South Korea. The disturbing thing is that even the most fantastic of them may be a real possibility within the lifetime of people alive today.

Are we really mature enough as a human race to handle this kind of power? What will it do to the nature of our society, our families, and our relationships? If you cloned yourself, would the resultant human being be your brother or your son? What is the legal status of a clone? What inheritance rights would it enjoy over its donor? What are the psychological effects of being brought up by your genetic twin? How will the family unit be affected if cloning becomes widespread, and what effect will this have on society as a whole? We know that identical twins are more likely to suffer from heart disease and diabetes than non-identical twins: will there be increased health risks for clones? What about the danger of creating distinct classes in society based on genetics: what if we end up with a super race that considers all other humans their inferiors and servants? Are we willing to give up on the principle of the equality of all human beings?

The deepest of these questions lead us to ask perhaps the most basic question of all: what is it that makes a human being? Is it just the physical body, including its unique set of genes? Is it the experiences they go through in life, which have little to do with genes? And what about the unique spirit that God gives to each individual at conception: can it be transferred from one body to another as in the case of the brain transplant mentioned above? Is the spirit of a person linked to their genes, or their brain?

Should we clone human beings simply because we can? There are those who would say that human cloning is inevitable and it is foolish to think it can be stopped, as foolish as believing that one day all nations will destroy their nuclear weapons. If they are right, then we who are Christians need to come to grips with this bamboozling situation. Indeed, the whole world needs to, and fairly soon, too.

 In the last blog under this topic I will survey what various religions have said about human cloning and then bravely attempt to address some of these moral and ethical questions, and try to at least point the way to some possible answers.

Fr Ant

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Links to info on Dr Zavos and his attempts to clone a human being:

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panayiotis_Zavos

 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/fertility-expert-i-can-clone-a-human-being-1672095.html

 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-and-ethicists-unite-to-attack-doctors-clone-plan-1672701.html

 One of the major issues challenging our ethics in the 21^st century is the issue of human cloning. There are compelling parallels to the rise of nuclear energy 60 years ago. Whilst nuclear energy has given us a relatively clean source of incredible amounts of energy, and is even used in medicine to save lives, it also brought with it the ability to destroy the world as we know it. Would we have been better off if the power within the atom had never been unleashed?

Cloning today provides a stunningly similar set of ethical questions. Most people are happy with the idea of cloning plants or even animals if it will provide some benefit to humanity, but when it comes to considering cloning a human being, we run into a minefield of questions, for most of which we have yet to find satisfactory answers.

Nor is it a hypothetical question any more. At this very moment, as you read these words, there are serious efforts underway to produce the first living human clones, and they are getting closer and closer to succeeding.

Firstly, a few basic definitions. I am talking here about reproductive cloning, the production of a fully functioning living human being from the cell of another human. This is different to therapeutic cloning which only involves the production of groups of cells or even tissues from the cells of a human being. With reproductive cloning, the cloned individual is genetically identical to the donor, sort of an identical twin, except they might be born 30 years apart!

Now, we have had test tube babies (IVF) for a few decades. But IVF involves combining genetic material from two individuals to produce a baby, much the same as nature does. Even here, we find a multitude of ethical questions…

-          When does life begin?

-          Can we destroy unneeded embryos?

-          Is it right to implant an embryo in a surrogate mother?

-          If the husband is unable to provide viable sperm, is it acceptable to use sperm from a stranger? Could this be considered a form of adultery (although no actual adulterous relationship has occurred, the results are the same).

-          Is it acceptable to use IVF to give a gay or lesbian couple their own child?

The Coptic Church has a more developed position on these sorts of questions than it does about cloning, obviously because IVF has been around for a lot longer as a real world issue. We consider that life begins at conception, for that is the first moment at which the embryo has all the genetic information that makes her who she is. In a sense, the only difference between a fertilised egg and an adult human being is one of number, not nature. Both are individual human beings, but one has one cell, the other has trillions.

This answers the question of whether it is right to destroy unneeded embryos – no it isn’t, for that means killing a human being, one that is unable to defend itself too. With the issue of surrogacy we start entering muddy waters. There are many social and psychological pitfalls here, and most in the Church would say surrogacy is not an acceptable option. Certainly not for money. Others might say it is in a way an extension of the “wet nurse” that is even mentioned favourably in the Bible. Instead of another woman providing milk for a newborn baby, she is now providing a little bit more – sustenance and protection for the nine months before birth. Interestingly, there is an old Egyptian tradition that says that you cannot marry a person who has suckled from the same breast as you, for that is considered to have made you siblings. I wonder how that might apply to surrogate motherhood? Especially since breast pumps have made wet nurses obsolete these days.

Then of course there are extensions to IVF that haven’t yet happened, but are quite possible. Techniques are available today for finding out quite early whether an embryo has the genetic defects that lead to serious and sometimes life threatening hereditary diseases. Although the Church would not condone the fertilisation of a dozen embryos and then the destruction of those with the faulty gene, it can accept using genetic engineering to correct the problem in a gene and thus produce a healthy child instead of a sick one.

But imagine a donor catalogue where parents could choose the sperm or egg donor with the characteristics of their choice. Choose a famous concert pianist and get a child with musical genes! Genetic Engineering may open up the way to creating your own baby, much the way you create your own computer at a Dell website. Instead of choosing the specifications of your RAM and hard drive, you choose eye colour, height, physique and so on.

A brave new world indeed! Are we ready to cope with such power? Disturbing images of the Tower of Babel spring to mind. Do we have the right to “play God” in this way? Is there anything morally wrong with parents choosing the eye and hair colour of their children, or the inherent abilities they will have? Or were we meant to just accept whatever God gave us? How do the Christian concepts of humility and surrender to God’s will apply to these issues?

I will try to address these questions and raise some more regarding human cloning in coming blogs. In the meantime, your comments are most welcome.

 Fr Ant

"Drinker" by Paul Cezanne. In today's world, drinking is seen as a normal part of life. As Copts, we go against this trend and often suffer ridicule for doing so. Why do we take this narrow path?

What’s wrong with having the occasional alcoholic drink? Why does the Coptic Church make such a big fuss over this issue?

The Coptic Orthodox Church strongly recommends that alcohol not be a part of its member’s lives, apart from Holy Communion of course. Today, I’d like to take a look at both sides of the story.

Critics of this policy attack it on the following grounds:

- The Bible never condemns the drinking of alcohol, only drunkenness

- Jesus Himself changed the water into wine.

- Most other Christian Churches allow social drinking of alcohol. Even their clergy drink.

- The Coptic Church bans alcohol only because it exists within a Muslim society where alcohol is banned by Islam.

- Alcohol is not evil in itself. What counts is how you use it. People are responsible enough to use it wisely, so there is no need for it to be banned.

I will address these points below. On the other side of the debate, the following points need to be made:

- Alcohol is responsible for a tremendous amount of disease and death in our society.

- Alcohol is a drug. If it were only newly discovered today, it would never be released for use, not even on prescription, because of its incredibly toxic profile of side effects. It is far more harmful than many other drugs that have been scrapped because of their side effects.

- Alcohol is a drug of addiction. Research has shown that 10% of “social drinkers” will go on to become alcoholic at some stage of their life. Interestingly, this cuts across all social classes, both genders and all personality types. There appears to be no such thing as a ’strong personality’ who is less at risk of becoming alcoholic – we are all equally vulnerable.

To my mind, the most powerful arguments against the use of alcohol are the health issues. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Our health is a gift from God, a wonderful gift that we don’t appreciate perhaps, until it is taken away from us. Alcohol is a known poison. Yes, you can die directly from alcohol overdose – it is rare only because the drinker usually passes out before he can kill himself. Does it make sense for the faithful Christian to abuse this gift in this way?

On a statistical level, while I have no actual figures, I can say with some confidence that within our Coptic community the incidence of alcoholism is vanishingly small. It does happen, but it is very rare, and certainly nowhere near the incidence of the wider Australian community. I have no doubt that this excellent health outcome is due to the Church’s policy against even social drinking. Weigh it up: what do we lose and what do we gain? We lose a little bit of chemical stimulation at social events, but we gain better health for thousands of husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, who are allowed to continue caring for their families and living useful, fulfilling and productive lives.

In Biblical times, there was little choice in what a person had to drink. They didn’t have the rows upon rows of juices and soft drinks we have today. Nor did they always have clean water, and at times, alcoholic drinks were much safer to drink than water from a polluted source. Alcohol can have short term beneficial effects as well, and was often used as a medicine, but today we have far more effective and far less dangerous medicines available to us.

The Church also bans cigarette smoking. No one disagrees with that policy,even smokers, who spend most of their smoking life wishing they could stop. And yet, cigarettes and alcohol cause damage to the user of roughly the same magnitude. I wonder why there is a difference in the community’s attitude between the two?

In response to the arguments above in favour of drinking, think about this:

- Whilst the Bible never condemns alcohol in itself, it does teach us to be wise in how we use our Christian freedom. “All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.” 1 Corinthians 6:12. To be a social drinker is to put oneself at a 1 in 10 chance of being brought under the power of a drug. “All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful; all things are lawful for me, but not all things edify.” 1 Corinthians 10:23. Alcohol does not edify – it does not build us up or improve us as human beings, and it certainly does not help us to become better spiritually.

- At the wedding of Cana of Galillee, Jesus changed the water into oinos. This is the Greek word used in the Gospel of John. It actually denotes the juice of the grape in general and was most likely very low on alcohol content. Dr Morris writes: “This ‘good wine’ had been miraculously created by the Creator and was brand new, with no time to ferment and become old, intoxicating wine. The Greek word oinos was used for the juice of grapes in general, the same word for both unfermented and fermented wine, with the context determining which.” (http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/wine.html).

- Other Christian Churches do indeed accept social drinking. But is it good for them? I recall one day having a discussion with a teenager at Church on the topic. “I go to a Catholic School, Abouna,” she told me, “and we had a celebration there the other day. The Catholic priest was drinking alcohol.” She said this confidently, but then paused in thought. “Actually,” she went on, “he got drunk.” Why leave this door open? If even a consecrated and celibate clergyman can give in to the temptation of drinking to excess, why should I put myself in that position? What’s the point of asking God to, “lead us not into temptation” when I am going to live my life in a way that plummets me into temptation on a regular basis?

- Doubtless, the Muslim society in which the Church has developed for fourteen centuries has contributed to this no alcohol policy, but what difference does that make? Does it matter why we have the policy? Isn’t it much more important whether it is a good policy to have or not? I think that there are many public health workers today in Western societies who wish dearly that they could introduce a policy like this! Practically speaking, this is probably too hard, as the prohibition days of the 1930s in the United States proved. But imagine the health benefits if it were possible! We as a Coptic community already have this policy – who cares where it came from?

- It is true that alcohol in itself is not evil. That is why we can use it as the material which becomes the very Blood of Christ. It is a good antiseptic that can prevent nasty infections in wounds. Emergency doctors can use it to save lives – given intravenously, it is the antidote to poisoning with antifreeze. But we have seen that addiction to alcohol does not discriminate. Anyone, regardless of who they are, is vulnerable. The simple fact is that all of us will go through times of great stress in our lives. If alcohol is available, 1 in 10 of us will be drawn to it and find comfort and escape through it, thus falling in to the pit of alcoholism. If alcohol is simply not an option – it is not in our homes or on our dinner tables in the first place, then this solution to our problems with all its drawbacks will simply not even come up, and we will find other ways of coping.

Finally, think about the others in your life. You might be one of the 9 in 10 who could drink socially all your life and never become an alcoholic. But what if your child is among the 1 in 10? By allowing alcohol to be a part of your home and your family customs, you are partially responsible for his or her suffering.

Is it worth it?

Fr Ant

Australia's first female Prime Minister.

Angela brings up the topic of Australia’s new Prime Minister, Ms Julia Gillard.

She is right in saying that priests tend to stay out of politics, and so it should be, but I am going to offer a few non-political observations on the political landscape. I have always thought that faith ought to be applicable to every sphere of our lives, without exception. Politics is one area where perhaps we need to apply our faith the most, for it is the sphere where the major decisions that determine the external nature of our lives are made. Living in a democracy, we get to choose who makes those decisions, and thus have a responsibility to make the best choices we can.

Firstly, it is the first time Australia has ever had a woman Prime Minister. Someone actually pointed out to me that we now have a women-only government, starting from the Queen, the Governor General, Prime Minister, Governor of NSW, Premier of NSW and even the Lord Mayoress of Sydney – all of whom are women! In today’s world, the ideal of equal opportunity has, rightly I think, largely emilinated older ideals of the fragility of women. We should get the best person to do the job, regardless of race, colour, creed or gender. There are many who feel at the moment that Julia Gillard is the best person for the job, so let’s see what she can do.

There is no doubt poor old Kevin Rudd, until recently, Prime Minister of Australia, has been dealt with rather harshly. By most accounts (including his own of course) he has been a pretty good Prime Minister. Whether he was heading in the wrong direction in recent months is up for debate, and now perhaps we shall never know. He has always been an unusual politician: meticulous, excessively hard working, driven almost. Reportedly, he drove the people around him crazy with his high expectations of them as of himself. Thus he was never really so popular among his own party, which I find a little sad. One could almost say the reason he lost his job was because he gave too much of his attention to the job of running the country and paid little attention to the job of lobbying and playing the game and shoring up his support among his own party. This is one of the weaknesses of our democratic system as it stands today. Those who are most likely to reach power are those who play the political numbers game the best. If they are also wise rulers, that’s a bonus, but it is by no means guaranteed. There must be a better way to do things!

On the other hand, we have seen another pattern in Australian government that has been both disturbing and disruptive. Here in NSW, we travail under a government that has just been in power for too long. The bright lights that led it into power a decade and a half ago are all long gone, and they do not seem to have paid much attention to getting good people in to replace them – another of the drawbacks of our current political system. You see, if you are in power, you have to be careful not to recruit people to your party who are too capable, or one of them may one day rise up to take your place! This “King Herod” mentality has seen too many long running governments drop in the quality of their personnel and fall into the pit of corruption, hypocrisy, and ineptitude. Perhaps it is not such a bad thing to have a change of leader every few years? Perhaps that will help to keep the government fresh and on its toes? The years will tell.

I was certainly moved to tears for the man, standing at that podium with his family behind him, trying valiantly to keep it all together and go out with dignity. I was impressed with his appearance on the back bench in parliament the same day. It says a lot about his character. I don’t think we have enough of that in modern politics. Too many politicians who stand for nothing, really, except their own ambitions. No doubt there are admirable exceptions, but not enough.

As always, the real challenge for Julia Gillard will be to stick to her ideals and principles in the maelstrom of Canberra politics. Her opposition is formidable. Tony Abbot has long been renowned as something of a pitbull terrier in the political arena, something I always find sits uncomfortably with his openly Christian faith. How does he reconcile the two? Wouldn’t it be intriguing to have a quiet coffee with him one day and find out?

We once invited a group of politicians to Church for a panel discussion on just that topic: the challenge of maintaining one’s Christian faith as a politician. We were enjoying some illuminating discussion until they began to turn on each other and attack each other’s parties and policies, in spite of our clear agreement before the meeting that this would be an apolitical discussion.

Can they help it? Can Christianity be applied to politics, or can politics be played in a Christian way? I can’t help feeling that it can, but it must be incredibly hard. Other Christian politicians I have spoken to describe their bitter disappointment with the system; how those who do the right thing in the right way are almost always trodden down.

And yet, I wonder. If a genuine and sincere politician came along one day. Some one who always told the truth, even if it were against his personal interests. Some who gave his word and stuck to it. Some one who focused on the real issue rather than on merelygaining popularity and scoring political points. Could you imagine the respect and trust such a leader could command? Can you imagine the good they might do? But could such a person ever succeed in our current political system?

There was actually such a person in Australia. His name was Ted Mack, and he had to run as an independent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Mack_(politician) ). As mayor of North Sydney, he sold the mayoral Mercedes Benz and used the money to buy community buses.  He always spoke out against the huge superannuation payouts made to politicians, and then put his money where his mouth was by retiring one day before he qualified for his own parliamentary pension. He was a beacon of integrity for a number of years, but his usefulness was limited because of course, you can only do so much if you are not in one of the major parties.

Where are the Ted Macks of this world? All running away from politics as fast as they can, sadly.

Fr Ant

The moment you decide to go for it, the instant you steel your will and take up your weapons for battle, something has to happen to make your goal suddenly seem that much harder.

Last time I shared my intention to be more punctual – a brave thing to do. What followed was an illness that meant I had to not only not arrive on time for my next few days of appointments, but cancel them altogether! Talk about not keeping your word. The good news is that I’m back out of hospital now with little permanent damage done, and I’m not going to give up! It may well be some time before I can make appointments again, that’s true, but when I do, I am going to try to be punctual to them.

This kind of thing does not surprise me. It is for me one of the indirect proofs of the existence of God. If God didn’t exist, why should it prove so consistently darned hard to obey Him?

It is also good for the soul. Obstacles give us an opportunity to be stubborn in a good way, and that’s something most of us relish. At least you are sure whose side your on. Give me a clear path with lots of obstacles over a confusing path anytime.

Fr Ant

Time Stress...

I have a confession to make.

I am not always very punctual.

The more cynical among you may be thinking right now, “Isn’t that compulsory for a Coptic priest? Don’t they teach that during their 40 days of training?”

Of course, the reality is that Egypt lies at the junction of the Middle East and Africa, two regions of the world where puncuality as a priority rates somewhere between eating your greens and polishing your carburettor. If the West enjoys occasionally being ‘fashionably late’, everyone in the Middle East is a trend leader, while the dark continent loves to remind you, “No hurry in Africa”. No wonder that Egyptians, by and large, are not a very punctual people.

But here’s my problem: not only do I serve with a priest who is abnormally punctual, but I am married to one of the most punctual people I know! I am developing an inferiority complex! If they can do it, why can’t I?

Lateness is an attitude. If you are engrossed in the thing you are doing at the moment, it is easy to lose track of time. It is easy for the person you are talking to now to seem more pressing than the person you have not yet reached. Somewhere in the back of mind lurks the idea that nothing so terrible will happen if I’m a little bit late. And of course, the little bit becomes a little bit more, and little bit more, and… oops.

I can see spiritual benefits in this attitude, not to mention health benefits. Surely it is a good thing to give the person you are with your fullest attention? Doesn’t that let them know that they are important to you? It also means that you can do things properly, rather than leaving things half finished. Then of course, there is the valuable humility you gain from constantly apologising to people when you are constantly late. Healthwise, it is really good for you not to stress over the little details of life. Your blood pressure will thank you, even if the person waiting for you will not.

But my wife said something to me once that gave me pause: “Being punctual,” she said, “is keeping your word.” I had never really thought of it like that. If Egyptians are famous for lateness, Upper Egyptians (of which I am one) are proverbial for keeping their word – no matter what. So every time I am late, I am actually breaking my word to someone. “I’ll be there at 7,” I confidently tell them. When I eventually arrive at 7:30, not only have I kept them waiting for me for half an hour, but I have also broken my word. That’s not a nice thing to do. The message it sends is that the person waiting for you is not that important. Perhaps that your time is more valuale than theirs, so it is fine for them to wait for you.

Punctuality is often viewed as a cultural thing. But if so, I wonder why many of our Coptic youth who have been brought up here in Australia still seem to have the lousy punctuality of their parents. I begin to wonder whether there is not more to it than just culture. Maybe there is a personal choice to be made here. Can an unpunctual person really change? Can a Coptic priest really turn up on time? I have known some who do, on a regular basis!

Well, I’m going to give it a try!

I’ll let you know how it goes … some time …

Fr Ant

Trust is never an easy thing to attain...

Among the difficult questions in life is trust. We cannot survive without trust, but then again, we are constantly anxious about who, when and why to trust.

 On the simplest of levels, you trust that the glass of water you drank this morning did not contain some deadly germ, and that the brake pedal in your car is actually going to stop the car when you need it to. (I once owned a car where this was not always true, by the way. We developed a very close relationship, that car and I. We came to know each other’s limits intimately; I knew the distance the car required to stop on the flat using only the manual downshifting of gears and the hand brake, while it came to know what I sounded like when I thought I was about smash into a tree.)

 But it’s not usually the inanimate objects that give us grief with trust. Far more often, it’s the other humans. I think we are all born with an innate willingness to trust; an innocence if you like. You need only watch a three year old being tossed high into the air by her Daddy, see the huge grin and hear the cackling, to know that here is an example of absolute trust. Daddy drop me? The very thought is impossible!

 But by the time we are adults, we find it hard to take people at their word or completely depend on someone. Between innocent childhood and suspicious adulthood something changes. Of course, the change occurs through bitter experience. Once someone lets you down, you find it hard to trust that person again. If it ever happened that a Daddy did actually drop his daughter (surely not!) that daughter would no doubt be quite wary of games with Daddy after that. And so it goes on through our early lives: promises broken, agreements dishonoured, honesty repaid with humiliation, secrets betrayed…

 If it only happened once, perhaps we would have a fighting chance of maintaining our innocence. But when it happens many times, we naturally develop an instinct of wariness and caution that eventually comes to colour our personality and our whole approach to life. Shatter trust often enough and the person will withdraw into their own safe little world of lonely isolation where no one can hurt them anymore. How sad.

 Life a lot nicer when you can trust. To live in constant doubt about others is to live without peace. If we are ever to share a sincere relationship with someone, we have to let them in to our inner thoughts and emotions, share with them the experiences that made us who we are. But to do so is to leave oneself incredibly vulnerable to the other. he might go and tell someone else, or criticise me, or not like me, or worse of all, laugh at me! It is so hard to trust another person with your real self, and yet, if we don’t, we are doomed to a sad life of loneliness.

As a parent, you learn how important trust is in the relationship with your child. You cannot be with them twenty four hours a day, so they have to learn how to keep safe, how to be sensible in their choices, how to resist temptation and how to be honourable and remain steadfastly true to their principles. That trust is not easy to achieve. It involves a lot of heartache, not knowing how things are going to turn out, sometimes even running the risk that the child may be hurt in some way, but it’s the only way to develop true trust.

 And the trust has to work both ways. A child can only learn to be trustworthy if they have a living example of trustworthiness before them every day. The parent who takes the shortcut of telling a little fib to escape to buying those chocolates at the checkout today will find their child telling them fibs about anything and everything tomorrow. There are no shortcuts to trust, no discounted sales: it’s expensive, and part of the price is being utterly trustworthy yourself.

 God trusts us.

 He shows us His trust in the incredible degree of freedom He gives us. Yes, if I choose foolishly to eat unhealthily or to blow myself and others up as a suicide bomber, he doesn’t forcefully stop me. God grants every one of us genuine freedom of action, even knowing the consequences of a bad choice. Why does He do that? Why doesn’t He make the world such that no one can hurt anyone else? Perhaps He could enclose every human being in a sort of force field that is impervious to evil actions! Every time you tried to hurt someone, you couldn’t pierce the shield around you. Wouldn’t that be a much nicer world to live in?

 Or would it? I know many parents who would love to get their hands on an invention like that, and would love even more to get their children shackled inside one! But then, where is the freedom? Where is the chance to learn real lessons? Where is the trust? No, God does not deal with us like that. Instead He chooses to unleash us on the world and leave us to make our own choices, choices with real consequences not just for us, but for others also. Only in this way can we become the kind of creatures He wants us to be, or develop the kind of relationship He wants with us.

 Can you trust God?

 As life goes on, everyone goes through experiences that shake their trust in God, and in some cases, destroy it completely. “How could God have let such a thing happen?” is not an uncommon question. How can we trust God when things go so wrong in this world? How do we know He’s not going to drop us?

 Bu there’s the beauty of it. He never does! Oh sure, there are times when it really feels like He has. We see the ground screaming crazily towards us and we get that sick feeling in the pit of the stomach that this time, everything is not going to be alright. But then, it is. Maybe not when we want it to be, maybe not how we want it to be, but wait long enough and sure enough, there it is: the safe hands that reach out at the very last moment when all seems lost and gently hold us and draw us back into that powerful safe embrace.

 Those who have been up and down often enough learn to trust those powerful hands. They know that it simply cannot happen that He should ever drop one of His children.

“Can a woman forget her nursing child, and not have compassion on the son of her womb?

 Surely they may forget, yet I will not forget you.”

Isaiah 49:15.

Now that’s a promise worth trusting.

Fr Ant