Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Dr Oz's Cadavers

I recently watched an Oprah Winfrey program in which Dr Oz was explaining, in such an excellent way, how the human body worked. It was a truly enlightening experience. As the program continued, he wheeled out two corpses both standing upright and preserved (he said rubberized) one of a male and the other of a female. These were human bodies which had been donated to science after the individuals had died. There was a wave of an astonished,  horrified gasp from the audience. It was a shock to Oprah and to many who watched and to myself and my wife as we looked on. The male torso had been split from the top of the scull to the bottom of the feet so that the internal bones and organs were revealed. The female torso seemed to be smiling, but her innards were opened outward for all to see.

This eerie experienced prompted me to think, "what if someone recognized the face of either one of these medical volunteers?" "What if a person was known to be some one's brother or mother?"

It reminded me of a true story I had read in a little book called "The Cemetery History Book" by Todd W. Van Beck, "tracing the history of burial and cremation practices from 62,000 B.C. to the present." It concerns John Scott Harrison, who was a President of the United States and who died in 1878 and was buried in the Congress Green Cemetery in North Bend, Ohio. "Soon after his death, a grave robber known as 'Dr Morton' stole the body and sold it to the Ohio Medical College in Cincinnati. School officials, who regularly bought cadavers on the black market for use in training medical students, did not realize that they had a 'famous' Harrison body until one of John Scott Harrison's sons turned up at the school on other business and to his horror accidentally discovered his father's corpse dangling by the neck at the end of a rope hidden in a closet." (page 37). Soon after this incident, the state of Ohio made grave robbing a serious crime. (see the website for another intriguing account of this incident.)

My question here is how we should treat a human body after death? Leviticus states that "the life of a creature is in the blood." (Leviticus 17.11) So presumably, once the blood has gone then the life has gone. This is the verse, by the way, that Jehovah Witnesses use to refute blood transfusions and the reason why Jews carefully drain the blood from any meat they are to consume.

Paul, in regard to our bodies, reminds Christians when warning against sexual immorality, "do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; You were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body." ( 1 Corinthians 6.19, 20),

Out of human decency, we should care for and honor our bodies both before and I believe to a lesser extent after we have died. The burial place for our body or its ashes should therefore be reverently marked with our name and the date of our birth and death. We are not just a creature but a human being made in the image of God.

I would also therefore urge the medical community to mark each corpse used in medical research with the identity of its former owner. Dr Oz could have introduced us to the man and woman he was to use to teach us about the human process. Giving one's earthly remains for the benefit of medical science would therefore be accompanied by respect, dignity and honor. I think its good that Dr Oz used these cadavers to explain human anatomy, but I would have been happier to have known who had so graciously donated them to medical science.

That's what I think anyway,

Rev Ron

Thursday, February 12, 2009

The Spirituality of Charles Darwin

The Beagle
Charles Darwin was born over two hundred years ago (12th February 1809) in Downe House, Kent, England. He is famous for his development of the idea of evolution, though many claim that it was his followers after his death who developed this theory from his work. He was an English naturalist who wrote two books, "The Voyage of the Beagle" and "On the Origin of Species"  After much thought about the fossils he collected on his voyage and discussions with several other naturalists he conceived his theory of natural selection together with a logical explanation of the diversity of life.

Many people neglect to realize that Charles Darwin was a deeply spiritual man who came from a wealthy Christian family. He was the son of a wealthy doctor and financier, Robert Darwin and grandson on his mothers side of Josiah Wedgwood, of Wedgwood pottery fame. He married his cousin Emma Wedgwood. His father who was a devout Anglican encouraged him to be a free thinker and enrolled him in the the Shrewsbury School as a boarder. In 1825, he spent time as an apprentice doctor with his father caring for the poor in Shropshire. He was sent to begin studies towards becoming a Priest in the Church of England at Christ College Cambridge, but was far more interested in plants and animals. He was impressed by Paley's book "Natural Theology" which"made an argument for divine design in nature" and "explained adaption as God acting through the laws of nature."

The Victorian era was one of great interest in all things natural. People were greatly interested in knowledge of the world stemming from a deeply Christian morality and belief. This was the backcloth to his epic journey on the Beagle and his subsequent writings. He never set out to create a theory of evolution which would be at odds with the Creation Theory, but simply to explain the natural world and its creation in his own words. 

On the voyage of the Beagle, he did not doubt the literal truth of the Bible but sought explanations in the laws of nature and saw adaption of species as evidence of design. He remained quite orthodox and would quote the Bible as an authority on morality. Like the rest of us, he questioned the cruelty of nature when seen in the light of an all loving God. One such example was  the ichneumon wasp which paralyzed caterpillars as live food for its eggs. Darwin still believed that God was the ultimate lawgiver.

Charles played a leading part in the parish work of his local church. In 1879, he said that he had never denied the existence of God. The importance of Charles Darwin lies not in the divide between Evolution and Creationism but more in the Christian atmosphere that enable him to think freely and challenge the assumptions of his day. He was brought forth by God to help us think more deeply about the environment in which we live and breath and have our being, and for that he should be remembered.

That's what I think anyway,

Rev Ron