Christians, Vaccines, and Moral Complicity (Part 1: Are we gaining life at the cost of death?)

So I started writing this while preparing to leave the US for a class in Feb. 2016. And this has brought a certain issue up in my mind: "Do I get the vaccines for Hep A and B before I go?" This is a question, because there is a particular moral question about vaccines that concerns me as I think about what I should do.

First of all, before I go on any further, let me tell you what this post is not about:

    1) it is not about whether vaccines as a concept are good or bad...because they are clearly good (no one I'm aware of is a fan of dying for no reason nor is suicide or killing someone by neglect anything close to what God calls Christians to do)

    2) it is not about whether there may be some medical risks associated with using a vaccine, since obviously all medical treatments involve risk (and thus one could discuss the ratio of risks, but to summarize my thoughts, cost-benefit analysis seems almost always to be in favor of vaccine use)

    3) it is not (at least directly) about whether choosing not to vaccinate puts others at risk (although you and I are responsible for the well being of others, disregarding this is called reckless endangerment or neglect)

Q: So then what are we going to discuss?

A: The relationship of some vaccines and abortion

While most members of the American public and thus most members of the American Christian community are unaware of this issue, it is actually an issue. Apparently, some vaccines, NOT ALL, have had to be developed using human cells to culture the virus in question, because the virus in question did not culture in animal cells well enough to be useful.

This leads us to the question of where exactly researchers got those human cells from to do their research and produce the vaccines we all enjoy the benefits of today. And that is where the vaccine issue arises. And unfortunately the answer is a murdered pre-birth baby.

(That abortion is murder is generally uncontested by the Universal Church, that is to say virtually all Christians agree that it is, if you want to discuss that issue, please comment one of my earlier posts about that issue.)

The way vaccines were produced from human cells was that certain cells were harvested in the 1960s from two aborted babies. Those cells, unlike most human cells, have the ability to replicate indefinitely, whereas most human cells can only replicate about 50 times. It is from those cells' daughter, grand-daughter, great-granddaughter, etc. cells that vaccine researchers produced vaccines by infecting them with a virus and letting the virus adapt to non-normal cell conditions over several viral generations. The result is a virus that is still the same virus but unable to be successful at infecting a real human body.

The human tissue harvested from those two aborted babies continues to generate new cells such that no new human tissue is required. However, the morality of using cells derived from murder for our own benefit is certainly a question worth considering.

Is it moral to benefit from the murder of someone else? Yes and no depending on the circumstances, right?

If you murder someone, you obviously do so for some personal benefit, even if you killed someone just because you could, you are still fulfilling your desire to kill and thus directly benefit from that person's death.

On the other hand, if someone gets murdered and you are given their liver so that you don't die, that is probably just fine, unless you are the one that killed the person to get their liver.

The issue with the fetal tissue is that the persons donating the tissue are the same ones who are killing the child. Moreover, while the tissue was harvested post-abortion, it should be asked whether the researchers solicitation of the tissue contributed to the decision to kill the children.

It is rather like one person telling another that they are going to kill someone, but instead of the other person turning them in or trying to persuade them not to kill the person, that person responds with "Hey, so when you've done it, can you give me their wallet?" or if we wanted to be a bit more grotesque "Hey, so when you're done, can I harvest some organs from the body? I know I could help a lot of people (and make some money in the process) with those parts."

A person like that would likely be considered some sort of accomplice in court even though that person never personally killed the victim. Moreover, if a person was still wavering on their decision to kill, it is very possible that the knowledge that the murder could have medical benefits derived from it would push the decision towards murder.

The question is whether that short story is the best parallel to the way vaccine researchers acquired the tissue they would use to produce a number of very helpful vaccines.

Obviously it would be best if all vaccines were made with non-human tissue, or rather made with tissue not acquired via an immoral act. Unfortunately that is not the case, although as Christians, we should advocate for that to become the reality.

However, we obviously have not really settle much of anything here...at least not yet. In the next part we will continue to consider whether users of vaccines share in the moral complicity of the abortion that made them possible by looking at the issue through the parallel of slavery. Hopefully, at this point there is a bit of discomfort simmering within, let's humbly walk together through the process of considering whether that discomfort should be brought to a boil or taken off the heat. 

Summertime! Posts!

Happy Summer everyone!

We'll call this past semester an imposed academic sabbatical from posting...haha...but it's summertime now and I've only got a mere 2 credit hours between me and my M.A. in Systematic Theology degree in the fall. So, the posts should be more consistent...famous last words...

That said, here is glimpse of posts (or rather series of posts) that what I am (and have been) working on.
   1. Christians, Vaccines, and Moral Complicity
   2. Depersonalizing the Body: Hyper-Mind-Body Dualism Today
   3. Contemporary Passivity of (United States) Christians and (Lack of) Boldness
   4. Christians and Drinking (Alcohol)
   5. Christians and Social, Cultural, Technological, and Artistic Engagement
   6. The Nature of Language and the Trinity
   7. Poetry

I'm also up for having some topics suggested to me, so comment if you've got a suggestion. Of course, it doesn't guarantee I'll be interested in writing on it, but I am open to ideas. Further, I am hoping to update the look and feel of the site over the summer, so be prepared for that. My desire is to have sections dedicated to various aspects, e.g. a section for theology, a section for academics, etc.

Happy Summer!
Grace and peace and hope in Christ alone!

Blog Update

Hey everyone,

Sorry for the massive amount of time between posts. My life has been pretty crazy the past few months.

I wrapped up 7 blessed years of ministry in Buffalo Grove at Lord's Love Community Church/Canaan Church in September. I started as a children's pastor at LLCC in Sept 2008. I later became the Children's/Youth Pastor. After LLCC merged with Canaan Church in May of 2013, I worked as the youth (including college) pastor. It was a wonderful experience with lots of wonderful people. After sensing from God that my work there was done, wrapping up my ministry there was a bittersweet process. I love the brothers and sisters of Canaan Church, especially the awesome students, volunteer leaders, and fellow ministry staff. Yet, at the same time, I also knew that my work there was done and following God's will is always the greatest delight of my soul!

After much prayer and seeking the Lord, I accepted the call to serve at great church in another Chicago suburb: Naperville Korean First Presbyterian Church. I am very blessed to be working there as the English Ministry Pastor. For those of you outside of the immigrant (Korean) church world, an English ministry pastor is NOT a pastor that teaches people how to speak English, but rather a pastor that serves the people of the church that speak English. I blessed to get to work for the good of a great group of people of different life stages and backgrounds. I love them all and I am excited to see what God uses us to accomplish for His glory in the near future.

I also had a pretty crazy academic season. After completing my M.Div. at the end of the summer, I began another program at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. I'm now working on an M.A. in Systematic Theology. Lord willing, I will finish that program within the next year. After that, my calling to get a Ph.D. God will hopefully bring to fruition. I'm also in the process of submitting a couple articles for publication in some academic journals.

On top of all the normal craziness of Christmas and New Years, I had the opportunity to speak at my friend's youth group retreat.

Anyways, I hope to be more on top of things moving ahead, posting an average of one post a week.

What if our Worship Music was as Multifaceted as the God we Worship? (Part 3)

One of my pet peeves as a Christian and as a pastor is that even though we serve and love and worship and trust a God Who is interesting, inventive, and unique, our worship music could hardly ever be described with those same adjectives.

There are three main areas that I find especially saddening given the God we worship. First, we looked at The Lack of Variety in Themes and Subjects. Last post we talked about The Dearth of Poetic Genres in Christian Worship Music. This time we will cover the absence of diversity of musical styles in Christian worship. 

What is the number one joke (that's funny only 'cause it's true) people tell about Christian worship music? It's actually the same as the number one reason I've heard people give for not enjoying listening to Christian music. 

...  "It all sounds the same."

True that. Ok, fine, to be fair there are some exceptions...there are...right? 

Average answer: "uh...there's...uh...yeah, well, just 'cause I can't think of any right now, doesn't mean they don't exist." True. but the fact that many people would face such a difficulty illustrates the problem. 

I know that Chris Tomlin and Hillsong do sound different, but they do in the same way that I thought Justin Bieber was Taylor Swift singing the first time I heard him on the radio. See, just like Bieber and Swift are both essentially pop music, Tomlin and Stanfill are both CCM. They may have some slight differences, but they both belong to the same musical style. 

If we are honest for the most part on Sunday mornings, in many if not most churches in the U.S., we only worship God from within one musical style. Ok, for some the one musical style is "Hymns" while for others it is "CCM," and perhaps for others it is "gospel." But the fact remains that despite the fact that we worship the God Who invented artistic expression including music, and Who radiates His multifaceted nature in the colors of love, justice, wrath, gentleness, power, patience, creativity, and sovereignty, we worship our God in the same musical style week in and week out. 

I'm not suggesting that God is bored (although if we are, perhaps He is too), more like He is being under-worshiped. You see the nature of musical styles is that they typically allow for/generate a limited set of emotive responses, and usually cohere with a limited set of subjects and poetic expressions. 

For example, one style of music is blues, one which brings up and allows for the expression of sorrow, disappointment, and loss. It is given to talking about those subjects, and lends itself to laments. Rap on the other hand allows for the expression of anger, frustration, and even pride (often as a means of pointing out difficulties faced and overcome). This takes the form of boasting, confrontation, and declaration of the way things are. The form is also given to covering a lot of content quickly and memorably. Screamo, for contrast, tends to allow for super angsty, angry, or depressed subject matter, expressed in the form of wailing or screaming, venting raw emotions. 

Yet, doesn't God deserve us to worship Him in loss, in frustration, and in raw unbridled emotions?  Doesn't He deserve to be worshiped for all that He is and does? Doesn't He deserved to be worshiped in a variety of poetic forms? Doesn't He own and deserve all the musical styles to be actively used in giving Him glory through our interacting through them with Him? That's my biggest issue. Our Multifaceted and Totally Awesome God, the Holy Trinity, is being under-worshiped.

The thing is that while we might not always think of different musical styles being that important, the truth is that the absence of different musical styles in Christian worship music may have lots of unintended consequences. It may be one of the big-picture reasons that Christian worship music lacks all kinds of subject matter and many poetic forms. And those lacks may have other connected unintended consequences. 

The lack of musical genres may be one of the reasons that people in many churches feel a deficiency in their worship experience. They need to "have the blues", they need to confront terrible realities, they need to vent their deep emotions to God, but the music styles they are being offered by their worship leaders is to some degree holding them back from engaging with God on the levels they need to. Their personal spiritual growth is being held back. 

Another possible result in the contemporary American church is an overly simplistic understanding of faith in God. In other words, maybe our music is what is reinforcing the patterns of flawed thinking that many people have about God, prayer, and faith. 

And maybe what the researches call "moralistic therapeutic deism" is not merely coming poor sermons, poor discipleship, poor parenting, and poor perspectives coming from the non-Christian world, maybe it is also coming from poor worship. 

It is my hope through this short series that Christians will feel free to worship God about all subjects, in all poetic forms, with all musical styles, so that they can grow in their relationship with God personally, and so that collectively as churches and the Church we will give God the worship He deserves.

Please engage through the comments or share this post with someone who you think would have some good input in the discussion. 

Short Poem: Christus Victor

Light from the Tome.
Life from the Tomb.
Hell cowers.

This poem is a modified haiku structure. It'd be great if you'd share your thoughts or your own poetic expressions in the comments.

What if our Worship Music was as Multifaceted as the God we Worship? (Part 2)

One of my pet peeves as a Christian and as a pastor is that even though we serve and love and worship and trust a God Who is interesting, inventive, and unique, our worship music could hardly ever be called by those same adjectives.

There are three main areas that I find especially saddening given the God we worship. Last we looked at the first, The Lack of Variety in Themes and Subjects. This week we will also talk about the dearth of poetic genres in Christian worship music, while next week we will cover the lack of musical styles in Christian worship. 

You've been there before. You're in church. The band is playing. They are playing a song. It's a good song. But it's not the song you want to be singing. No, I'm not talking about a cover for the newest Hillsong hit. I'm talking about that time when you are there and you want to be singing your heart out to God about something going on in your life, but you can't. Not because you don't know what you want to say. Not because you don't feel like singing. But because the praise team is playing a song of worshipful celebration, and you want to sing a song asking God to actually show up. Or maybe you're singing a song about love and forgiveness, but you want God to bring your enemy to shame. 

Some people will tell you the problem is probably with you: "You are too depressed or too angry to worship God." But while for sure sometimes you are the problem, what if the problem this time is not a lack of faith or a lack of forgiveness, but the lack of a song of desperation in your praise team's repertoire, or the lack of a song of justice on the lips of  your brothers and sisters? 

Last week we discussed how our worship music as Christians tends to lack many prominent themes of Scriptural worship, in terms of what is said/sung about God. This may or may not be related to the problem we're looking at today. Someone could suggest that it is precisely because Christian worship music lacks certain themes and subjects, that it also lacks certain poetic forms or genres. While I suspect there is at least some correspondence between the two, I think it is also the case that the problem sometimes with our worship music is that we really only have one kind of worship music: praise music. 

The problem is that the Bible has way more kinds of worship music than just praise music. That means that the longing in your soul to sing something else in a moment of pain or oppression may not be your lack of maturity as a Christian, but the mark of the Holy Spirit working in your soul to express yourself honestly in His presence. 

Jesus is famous for saying in John 4.23, "But the time is coming, and now is that time, when genuine worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, and in fact the Father is looking for those kind of people worshiping Him." But gives us two questions: 1) How can we worship in the Spirit, if we don't allow for the Spirit to express Himself however He wants? and 2) How can we worship in truth, if our hearts are not able to express in worship what truly is in them? 

This is not just a question of content or theme, because in fact you can sing about the same themes if very different ways. For example, I can praise God for the love that He always gives me, or I can ask God to reveal  His love to me, or even I can humbly remind God that because He loves me, He is committed to keeping His promises to me. 

The point is the Bible gives us a lot of kinds of poetic genres to use in worship, or in other words God wants us to be able to praise Him in worship (Psalm 150) as much as He wants us to be able to cry out in pain (Ps. 88) and desperation in worship (Ps. 22) as much as He wants us to reflect on the nature of the world (Ps. 1) as much as He wants us to cry out for justice/vengeance (Ps. 137) as much as He wants us to repent of our sins in worship (Ps. 51) as much as He wants us to beg for the needs that we have in worship (Ps. 86) as much as He wants us to celebrate Who He is and what He has done (Ps. 136) as much as He wants us to claim the promises He has given us in worship (Ps. 50). 

The book of psalms has many examples of all those poetic forms of songs. Sometimes a praise song is not want the community or an individual needs, sometimes we need to beg for God to avenge the wrongs done to us, other times we need to lament the wait of Christ's return or intervention into our problems. 

So don't be afraid to look for worship music that allows you to express all you need and want to God, and don't be afraid to demand it (humbly) from your church leadership, since they owe it to God and to you to open up the beautiful bounty of God's given forms of worship music, as much as they owe it to God and to you to worship God in all His Multifacetedness. 

What if our Worship Music was as Multifaceted as the God We Worship? (Part 1)

One of my pet peeves as a Christian and as a pastor is that even though we serve and love and worship and trust a God Who is interesting, inventive, and unique, our worship music could hardly ever be called by those same adjectives.

There are three main areas that I find especially saddening given the God we worship. Today we look at the first, over the next couple weeks, we will also talk about the dearth of poetic and musical genres in Christian worship.

First, unless we are singing about God's love, we Christians in the West seem to not know anything to sing about. Ok, so we also sing about His holiness and sometimes our commitment to Him. That's good, but we are still missing out on worshiping God for His other important attributes. But what could they be? How about His wrath? His Truth? His Creativity?  His Triunity? 

Someone just choked on their coffee and destroyed their keyboard--"HIS WRATH!?! Why would anyone ever praise Him for getting angry? Anger is bad. It isn't nice. I thought God was nice. I don't like thinking about when God doesn't act nice like good people should." 

Ok, well for us in the west, we have believed a lie abundant in our culture that all expressions of anger are bad. Sure, many are, but not all. On top of that, if anyone has a right to get angry at the world, I'm guessing it's the One Who created it to be good and now is watching fill with more and more evil. Make no mistake. Our God gets ticked. Angry. Enraged even. Throughout the Old and New Testaments this has been something that God's people have celebrated, just read Revelation 6, Revelation 11.16-19, or Exodus 15.1-21. 

His Truth and His creativity, subjects of such grand importance one would think that they captured more of our attention given Isaiah 44.6-20 on God's Truth/Reality and Psalms 19 and 139 on His creativity and reality. Not to mention His Triunity, which distinguishes Him from all other so-called gods. 

This subject has come up to my attention again and again throughout my years in ministry. It is pressing in upon me again right now because I am preaching through the book of revelation, which is not really about the love of God. Yet, I want the songs we worship with to resonate with the passage we will be listening to and meditating on. For the past couple of weeks, and for the next couple God's wrath will be the main focus of the passages, so I have looked all over for a song that celebrates God's righteous anger and praises Christ for His coming ruthless victory over all those who oppose Him. I have found this song, written by the worship team at Sojourn Community Church in Louisville. It's called Warrior. FYI the Warrior is Jesus. Please enjoy it. Please leave a comment on your favorite line in the song (or least favorite, if you want to be that person).