Calvin Synod Herald, 1998 (98. évfolyam, 1-6. szám)
1998-03-01 / 2. szám
CALVIN SYNOD HERALD- 3 -AMERIKAI MAGYAR REFORMÁTUSOK LAPJA Our ‘Bisfop's Basier Message In the early morn of Easter remarkable and almost unbelievable news travelled throughout all Jerusalem: Christ, the Man, who was crucified on Good Friday, was resurrected! The news was spread by the women of Jerusam lem and the disciples of the Lord. The people f would not believe their words; then came the Roman soldiers watching at the grave. They reported the resurrection of Jesus to the high-priests. The purse, however, jingled again, they were paid not to testify, but instead say: “He was stolen by his disciples while they were asleep.” Another story was spread: “There was no Resurrection! No resurrection is possible!” The proof of Resurrection was not the empty sepulchre, butthe/iV/ngChr/sf! They met the Lord resurrected - they saw him! The Easter Message unwillingly parts people into two groups: there are those who believe and there are those who disbelieve. The Easter Sepulchre calls you to decide: Which group do you belong to? Are you Thomas or are you Peter? Even if you do not want to decide, you already have! Not whether the Resurrection is true or not, but instead, about your own where you belong... Christ came to teach and declare, to die and to resurrect in order to bring you back from death and to lead you into Eternity, to life forever! Come now and let the cheering message ring through your heart: Christ is resurrected! With Him and through Him, I live forever! Francis Vitéz SCIEilCE HMD I ECHflOLOOEl The past couple of years have produced the greatest miracle of all ages passed: DOLLY and POLLY WHAT’S NEXT?!!! News of the first mammal ever successfully cloned from a cell from an adult animal was reported in the British press. Researchers at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh, Scotland, led by Ian Wilmut, reported directly on their work. In cloning, an organism is produced from only one parent, without fertilization; the resulting organism has a genetic structure identical to that of its parent. In the new experiment, the researchers fused an adult sheep’s mammary cell with the unfertilized egg of another sheep. The fertilized cell was implanted in a third sheep’s uterus. The clone, named Dolly, was born in July 1996. □□□ Cloned Sheep Has Human Genes The infant science of cloning took another step forward when the same team of researchers that produced Dolly at the Roslin Institute, announced that they produced a cloning breakthrough: they had cloned a sheep with human genes. Polly, a Dorset sheep, was created by fusing human genes and skin cells of human embryos. The cells were implanted in the womb of an adult sheep. The announcement of the successful cloning of an adult sheep prompted a debate over the ethics of human cloning. In 1994, President Clinton had banned the use of federal funds for human embryo research. NOW SCIENTIST PROPOSES HUMAN CLONING Dr. Richard G. Seed, a physicist, announced at a recent Chicago meeting on the ethics of cloning that he will pursue human cloning attempts in collaboration with an unnamed Chicago-area fertility clinic. The scientist’s claim that he will start cloning humans within two years set off a nationwide clamor from doctors who say it can’t be done, ethicists who say it shouldn’t be done and politicians who say they won’t let it be done. “I’m going to set up my own clinic with some of my friends,” he said in an interview. “The object is to produce the first human clone.” If he is blocked in setting up a U.S.based cloning clinic, Seed said “I’ll go to Tijuana, Mexico.” In the aftermath of the Scottish researchers’ announcement that they had cloned an adult sheep, President Clinton and the National Bioethical Advisory Council denounced the idea of cloning humans as unethical. A voluntary five-year moratorium on human cloning has been established by several scientific groups, including the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. When an interviewer asked if cloning human beings was in violation of God’s law, Dr. Seed silkily assured us it wasn’t. “I am a Christian,” he said. “And I believe man should be one with God.” Then he went on to say he was a Methodist. In a longer interview on public radio, Dr. Seed amplified his belief that man’s mission is to become as brainy as God. He spread the good news that we were gaining on Him. More unsettling is the personal philosophy Seed brings to the issue of human cloning. In a radio interview, he noted that since man is made in the image of God, it is man’s destiny to become “almost like God." To a believer, the echoes of the serpent in the Garden of Eden have to be chilling. Continued on page 7
