Researchers from Newcastle University announced in 2008 that they had created the first human-animal hybrids in Great Britain. By fusing human DNA with cow ova (eggs), they produced what have become known as cytoplasmic hybrids, or “cybrids.” Declared to be 99.9% human and .1% animal, the first cybrids grew for three days and consisted of 32 cells.1 The British Parliament backed the research by refusing to ban it. Prime Minister Gordon Brown even called the study an “inherently moral endeavour” and a “profound opportunity” to save millions of lives.2 Still, the cybrids were not allowed to grow beyond 14 days or be implanted in a human or animal womb.3

So what is a Christian to make of such developments?

While there is some acceptable cross-breeding in the animal and plant kingdoms, producing, for instance, loganberries (from raspberries and blackberries), human cybrids are “technologically mediated bestiality,” and this is a line that must not be crossed. God has established humankind as sui generis (“one of a kind”) among the other living creatures; human beings alone are made in His own image and likeness (Genesis 1:26-27). Not only do human beings compose a separate class of living species; they alone have been given the moral responsibility to steward the earth’s resources, including the animal world (see especially Genesis 1:26 and the covenant with humanity in Genesis 9:1-7).

Any technological intervention that blurs the species boundaries between human beings and other living organisms must be rejected, for this is to challenge God’s creation order, in which He sanctified the human species. It also clouds God’s plan of salvation, in which humans alone are the objects of Christ’s atoning death.

Beeson Divinity School professor Ken Mathews draws on Genesis 1:24-25 (with God’s creation of “kinds”) to observe, “Inherently, the created order possesses divinely imposed limitations that establish self-maintained and governed systematic categories… The great Architect of the universe does not permit the colors of his canvas to run together.”4 God Himself has established the “reproductive parameters” for His own creation.5

Mules are a case in point. Though they may prove useful as draft animals, they are sterile. As hybrids, they lack the ability to mate, and thus they reveal natural barriers to man’s creative vanity.

Everything we assume about what it means to be human is under assault today. Social engineers, scientists, philosophers, and even theologians are attacking traditional notions of human nature, the very foundations of Western civilization, including the human rights in law. Guerilla war is being waged against the doctrine of man, indeed, against man himself. This is an urgent time for bold, counter-insurgent answers and resolute response, beginning with the cry, “No hybrids from Newcastle!”
 
Footnotes:
 
1  Alok Jha, “First British Human-Animal Hybrid Embryos Created by Scientists,” The Guardian Website, April 2, 2008, http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/apr/02/medicalresearch.ethicsofscience (accessed September 14, 2009).
 
2  Subhajit Banerjee and agencies, “Gordon Brown Backs Animal-Human Hybrids,” The Telegraph Website, May 18, 2008, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1980250/Gordon-Brown-backs-animal-human-hybrids.html (accessed September 14, 2009).
 
3  “British Parliament Backs Human-Animal Hybrids,” Baptist Press Website, May 22, 2008, http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=28100 (accessed September 14, 2009).
 
4  Kenneth A. Mathews, Genesis 1-11:26, vol. 1a, New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1996), 157.
 
5  Ibid., 160.
 
 article form Kairos Journal

First Baptist Church of Perryville is located in Cecil County, one and a half milese east of Route 222.