written by Dr. Todd Daly

The quest for longer life has been around as long as humankind has. Having been thrown out of the Garden and barred access, we have been trying to forge pathways back to the Tree of Life through hygienic practices, alchemy, and now technology. While Ponce de Leon’s quest for the fountain of youth proved futile, the mythical nature of longevity has steadily eroded over the last decade in the face of stunning scientific breakthroughs. It seems that hyper longevity has gone from legend to the laboratory, as researchers continue to both discover and modulate the mechanisms of aging.

Indeed, while none of the ‘anti-aging’ products on the market actually slow the aging process, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Chicago S. Jay Olshansky and Bruce A. Carnes have observed:

Scientists are on the threshold of discoveries about aging that are likely to have consequences for personal health and longevity that we could only have dreamed of just a few decades ago. We are optimistic that aspects of the aging process will eventually fall within the control of the biomedical sciences—permitting humanity, for the first time, an opportunity to influence the biological forces that govern life and death.[1]

Recent scientific breakthroughs with six-fold lifespan extensions in nematode worms and mice have been splashed across the pages of Science and The Wall Street Journal, echoing what Olshanksy and Carnes predicted ten years ago.

What exactly are the mechanisms of human aging, and what are the real possibilities that we may one day experience health spans of 150 years? How should Christians respond to this quests? How might these successes alter our understanding of death, including our ability to know when to forgo further treatment? On December 10^th you’ll have the opportunity to hear S. Jay Olshanksy speak to both the science of longevity, and some new work on the religious aspects of living longer. Dr. Todd Daly of Urbana Theological Seminary will offer one Christian response to anti-aging science, and Dr. Robert Cranston of Carle will speak to the issue of knowing when to ‘say when’ with regards to care for the dying.

This unique one day interdisciplinary conference affords a rare opportunity to explore the quest for hyper longevity from scientific, theological, and medical perspectives, and will include a panel discussion directed by your questions. Registration information is available at http://www.urbanaseminary.org/events/

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[1]S. Jay Olshansky and Bruce A. Carnes, The Quest for Immortality: Science at the Frontiers of Aging (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001), 14.

Written by Dr. Todd Daly, Assistant Professor of Theology and Ethics at Urbana Theological Seminary

Last week, the world lost a revolutionary, a giant in the computer industry who has forever changed the way we relate to one another. Immediately after his passing, tributes to Steve Jobs flooded the internet. The major news networks chronicled the life and success of this modern day ‘Thomas Edison,’ praising his innovative way of thinking, his flouting of standard business practice for success, his near impossibly high standards of excellence, his unflinching insistence that his products were exactly as he thought they should be, and his marketing genius. Sure, Jobs may have been unconventional, overbearing, demanding, and difficult to work with, but one cannot argue with the results—products that have changed the world, while generating profit margins that all but the most hardened capitalist would consider obscene.

This of course was to be expected. I was troubled however, to find so many Christians readily joining in the unanimous chorus of praise to the god of Apple. Some echoed the poem on fakesteve.net, extolling the joy created by Jobs, the childlike sense of wonder that he restored, and ‘the belief that something magical was just around the corner.’ Without a doubt, Apple produces amazing products. Whether Christians should so willingly embrace the wonder created by these products is another matter. That we need technology to reinvigorate our sense of wonder bespeaks a malady that was formerly known as sloth, understood as the inability to enjoy true leisure, the inability to be moved by the ‘mundane.’ In a world which increasingly reflects the image of homo faber, it appears that nature is so ‘over’; creation is so ‘yesterday.’

This should not be read as a Luddite rant. Technology has transformed our lives in many positive ways. What I find deeply troubling however, is the way Christians have so readily and unreflectively embraced and even celebrated the pseudo-world we now inhabit. The many comments posted by Christians on the passing of Steve Jobs lead me to believe that too many of us have uncritically become disciples of Steve. The Rapture has indeed come, and those of us who have not been swept up, or at least feel as though we ought to first consider how these technologies may shape us, have been left behind (all apologies to Larry Norman), scorned and ridiculed by Christians who don’t see what the big deal is. Make no mistake, Apple is the perfect religion in a culture that celebrates consumption. And too many Christians have failed to grasp this.

We wait in line at our local Apple store at midnight in expectation of receiving the latest release, celebrating the euangellion with others—the ‘good news,’ boasting of our unflinching devotion to the next evolution of technology that will once again bring us that rush of joy that the current product has long stopped evoking. To be sure, consumption on one level may indeed just be a matter of semiotics, but there is a deeper, metaphysical aspect to our consumption of apple products, a participatory ontology at work which befits the notion of sacrament. Just as for many Christians the bread and wine are a means of grace, signs that point to and participate in the reality to which they point, so the iPad is the new sacrament of this latest ‘Great Awakening.’ To possess one is to participate in a movement bigger than oneself, to become a follower of ‘The Way.’

We fail to see how we have been ‘schooled’ under this pedagogy of desire, trained to want things that will restore our sense of joy and wonderment in a fallen world. This too is deeply ironic. The marketing campaign ‘think different’ is built on the assumption that we must be trained to think alike—that we simply can’t manage without the i-Whatever. Jobs succeeded in convincing us that we’re unique and alike simultaneously, and at the core, consumers. When we dare to ‘think different,’ we are joining the company of revolutionaries like Gandhi, so the commercial suggests, which would be downright laughable were it not so deeply offensive.

It is certainly right to mourn the passing of Steve Jobs. But we should be cautious against praising everything he stood for. While owning Apple products is not necessarily antithetical to being a Christ-follower, we cannot be disciples of Christ and Steve at the same time. It is good to be reminded however that as Christians we follow a true revolutionary, One before whom everyone—including the great Steve Jobs—must give an account. And there’s no app for that.

Last week we discussed the link between longevity and obedience in the Old(er) Testament, noting that the resurrection suggests that the significance of one’s earthly life is somewhat relativized—to live is Christ, and to die is Gain (Phil. 1:21). Hence, while it is not wrong to desire a long life, Christians know that a better life awaits, and should live in light of the reality of the resurrection. These conclusions however leave the question of arresting aging unanswered. For while Christians might oppose attempts to indefinitely extend earthly life (however far-fetched this notion is), it is more difficult to formulate a response to the hopes of gaining fifty or sixty additional years of health before one dies.

While Christians commonly assert that God has irrevocably established the number of our days, this need not be interpreted as an indictment against the technological quest to slow aging. Indeed, the belief that the human lifespan was largely intractable—as sin and death are irrevocably linked in the Christian tradition—was not the only perspective on aging and longevity. Some of the Desert Fathers asserted that aging could be slowed down through the discipline of fasting.

Athanasius of Alexandria provides us with one example. He discussed the condition of Adam and Eve before the fall as one where the body was ruled by the soul, and the soul was in perfect submission to God. In this state, the body itself was preserved by this order, and capable of remaining healthy several hundred years. When Adam sinned however, this body-soul disorder was disrupted, bringing heightened corruption (aging) to the body, brining an early death. Christ’s Incarnation however set to undue this corruption, to a degree. When the Christian engages in the disciplines of prayer and fasting, she is able to slowly bring the body and soul back to their proper order—as it was before the fall—and hence slow down aging. Fasting was a way to ‘regain Eden’ before the fall. Athanasius saw this played out most fully in the desert ascetic St. Antony, who lived to 105 years old, dying in a state of relative health.

It is interesting to note then that Athanasius and other Desert Fathers were aware of a link between fasting and longevity well before this was ‘discovered’ by modern science. But this is not the main point. This early Christian construal of aging and sanctification does however give us a theological lens through which to examine contemporary attempts to slow aging by engineering a pill that mimics the effects of fasting. In short, we can critique the technological attempt to attenuate aging with the theological project of the Desert Fathers. First, it is important to note that the primary goal of fasting was not longevity, but to be transformed into Christ’s image—a healthier, more slowly aging body was a byproduct of a theological goal. Second, they recognized that the path to spiritual transformation began by first attending to the body. There could be no real spiritual formation unless one engaged in bodily disciplines. And this, once again, proved a way to re-order body and soul, to bring one’s desires in line with God’s.

From this perspective, attempts to produce longevity by taking a pill that mimics fasting can be seen as a practice which only further divides the body and soul by attempting to bypass any potential formative practices of the body altogether. For the modern biomedical project is fuelled by the notion that our bodies are at best morally neutral, subject to the whims of our wills and desires, profoundly shaped by the negative, liberal understanding of freedom as freedom from limitations. Thus, insofar as our aging bodies serve as a reminder of our finitude, they must be met with the quest for technological control.

While Christians may one day have to wrestle with taking such a pill, we should be wary of doing so, lest we come to view our bodies as subject only to our will, failing to see the significance of our bodies—most especially the discipline of fasting—in our character development. Indeed, it is very likely that while fasting may slow down our aging and grant us more healthy years on earth, it may also transform us into people who are more willing to live the kind of lives that are marked by suffering and even early death, all for the sake of Christ.

by Dr. Todd Daly, Assistant Professor of Ethics and Theology

So what are we to make of the aging process? Is it ‘natural’ for us to grow old and die, or is aging a result of the fall, precipitated as it was by human sin? Can scripture give us any guidance with respect to aging? Is there any normative age mentioned in the Bible? Can it be wrong to desire a long, healthy life?

In trying to formulate a theological understanding to the origins of aging, we are best served by turning to the creation narratives in Genesis. Where did aging come from? Within Western Christianity, it has commonly been assumed that aging and death resulted from the fall (Gen. 3, Rom. 5:12-21), where, to put it somewhat cumbersomely, Adam and Eve were ‘demoted’ from a state of “being able to not die,” to “not being able to not die.” But does this mean that Adam and Eve were free from aging before the fall? Many theologians believe so. It is worth nothing however, what Adam and Eve lost in the fall. The text never tells us that they were immortal before the fall, only that they had been barred access to the Tree of Life, lest “they live forever” in the sinful state of knowing good and evil (Gen. 3:22-24). In fact, St. Augustine believed that they ate from this tree before the fall, “lest age decay them.” This is significant, for some Christian bioethicists have argued that biotechnology is best used in overcoming the effects of the fall. If aging is one of these effects, then we would seem to be warranted in waging a technological battle against aging.

To assert that aging is natural to our humanity is not to suggest however that sin is utterly unrelated to our growing old. The first eleven chapters of Genesis reveal that God gradually curtails human longevity on account of sin. Indeed, the brief story of the ‘Sons of God’ and the ‘daughters of men’ in Genesis 6:1-4 is paradigmatic of the transgression-punishment cycle in first eleven chapters. It is interesting to note the progression of three Hebrew words in this narrative are the same used to describe the account of Eve’s sin: The Sons of God saw that the daughters of men were good, and took them for wives (Gen. 6:2). Eve saw that the fruit was good, and took it (Gen. 3:6). And in Genesis 6 we learn that God limits the human lifespan to 120 years.

By the time we reach the psalms, we find a plea for God’s mercy amidst a life of toil and judgment which spans no more than seventy years—or eighty, if one has strength (Ps. 90:12). But this could hardly be considered as any kind of moral norm. Moreover, the “prolonging of one’s days” is often listed as a reward for obedience (Ex. 20:12, Deut. 5:33, Prov. 3:1-2). In the New Testament however, we find the significance of long live relativized by the promise of a future resurrection from the dead (1 Cor. 15). Paul speaks to the very real tension between this life and the next—‘to live is Christ and to die is gain.’ (Phil. 1:21) Christians are to daily take up their crosses—which reflects a willingness to live the kinds of lives that may actually lead to an early departure from this world.

Are Christians then to eschew longevity research? It may depend on just how this longevity might be achieved. It is interesting to note that some early Christians believed that there was a way to slow down human aging, engaging in disciplines that would enable a return to Adamic life in Eden before the fall. For some, the idea of Methuselah-like lifespans was achievable. We’ll talk about this next week, and the implications it has for Christians today.

by Dr. Todd Daly

by Dr. Todd Daly, Assistant Professor of Theology and Ethics

We are living longer. The tremendous advances in technology and medicine have lead not only to an increase in life expectancy, but also our expectations for a long, healthy life. If we’re honest, most of us hope to live well into our eighties and beyond, so long as we remain relatively healthy and independent. Yet this simple qualification—wanting long life on our own terms—subtly suggests that the continuing development of medicine and life-extending technologies have the capacity to shape our vision of a good life and a good death in profound ways.

One could argue that medicine and technology are increasingly leading us to consider the length of life as a key criterion in determining whether or not life is good. Yet, while the likelihood of living into our ninth decade continues to rise, the human body imposes its limitations upon our limitless desires. Even with continued breakthroughs against cancer and other common diseases, scientists acknowledge that the 120 year biological limit will remain unassailable until we are able to slow the aging process itself.

Some scientists are working on just such a project, and have already lengthened the maximum lifespans of nematode worms and laboratory mice through genetic manipulation and other techniques. Last November Harvard scientists expressed their shock at having actually reversed the signs of aging in elderly mice by using an enzyme which allows bodily cells to replicate beyond well-established limits. Hoping to simply slow aging in the mice, researcher Ronald DePinho reported that “we saw a dramatic reversal—and that was unexpected.” These telomerase-enhanced mice actually generated new brain tissue and muscle tissue, recovering the physiological characteristics of younger mice. It is still not clear, however, whether this therapy will extend the lifespan of mice or simply enable them to live healthier into old age. Either of these scenarios however, are very appealing.

Indeed, while one goal of aging research aims at ‘adding life to years’ by reducing the period of morbidity before death—about two years on average for humans—a more enticing scenario involves the possibility ‘adding years to life,’ of living several hundred years before dying very quickly. In the words of Ashley Montagu, “the idea is to die young as late as possible.”[1] Drawing on the well-established link between fasting and longevity, researcher Kenyon is trying to engineer a pill that mimics the genetic expression produced by fasting. She has already doubled the life span of the worm C. elegans by altering a single gene that mirrors the positive effects of a reduced diet. Kenyon envisions a day when slowing down our aging will be as simple as taking a pill. No wonder then that some researchers believe that aging itself is a disease in need of a cure.

These recent scientific breakthroughs are equally apt to shape our perception of just what constitutes a good life, and pose questions to Christians and non-Christians alike: “Is there anything wrong with wanting to live a very long time?” “Should we treat aging as a disease?” “If life is good, isn’t a longer life better?” These are all important questions that need to be addressed. But from an explicitly Christian perspective, I think the basic question is this: “Does this quest for longevity accord with the Christian vision of the good life as narrated in the Holy Scriptures?” This question will require a biblical inquiry concerning human nature, and the desire for long life—the topic of next week’s blog.

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1 David Stipp, The Youth Pill: Scientists at the Brink of an Anti-Aging Revolution (NewYork: Current, 2010), vii.

Brian J. Sauder (MAR ’10), recently testified before the US EPA in Chicago regarding Coal Combustion Residuals (CCG), otherwise known as coal ash. He is currently the Central Illinois Congregational Outreach and Policy Coordinator for Faith in Place.

Brian is addressing issues of social justice and the environment, challenging the EPA to consider coal ash as a hazardous material, given the troubling rates of cancer in and around the Oakwood, IL area, where large mounds of coal ash continue to poison the ground and water. His testimony is a great example of how Christians can be active participants in working toward redeeming God’s created order.

Brian’s testimony is included below:

“I want to begin by thanking you for holding this public hearing on the proposed EPA rule for regulating coal ash. I have traveled three hours by bus from Central Illinois this morning to tell you that we in Central Illinois need the EPA to regulate coal ash as a hazardous waste under Subtitle C.

I work for Faith in Place, the Illinois affiliate for Interfaith Power and Light, as the Central Illinois Outreach Coordinator. We work with religious congregations in Illinois and across the nation to help them better steward the earth. As a part of my outreach in Central Illinois, I have talked with four churches in Oakwood, IL, home of three coal ash impoundment sites next to the Dynegy Coal Burning Power Plant, and the Bunge North American Corporation coal ash dump site located in the town of Oakwood. Oakwood residents, and their four coal ash sites, are also located next to the Middle Fork of the Vermillion River, a designated national Wild and Scenic River.

Illinois EPA testing around one of the dump sites in Oakwood have found lead levels 3.5 to 4 times the Illinois standard for ground water, as well as high levels of boron, iron, and manganese, all which have tested above the state ground water standards.

The pastors, congregants, and community members in Oakwood, all buy bottled water when they can, but rely on private wells for the majority of their water use. Despite warnings from the Illinois EPA, many homes continue to use their water, for no alternative source has been provided.

I recently talked to four pastors in Oakwood, two of them at the same time, and the other two independently. All of them, without me asking, expressed that they had not seen such high levels of cancer in their congregations since they moved to Oakwood to take their pastoral positions. An EPA draft risk assessment released in August 2007, shows that the cancer risk for exposure to coal ash is 9 times higher than the cancer risk of smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.
Coal ash in Oakwood, IL, is currently not handled in a way that regards the health and safety of the people of Oakwood. As a person of faith, and one that works with people of faith, we find in common a commandment to love our neighbor, to treat one another as we would desire to be treated.

Often throughout our faith histories, our traditions have failed in loving our neighbors. By grace, we have worked to denounced those unfortunate actions, and we have taken steps to repent and reconcile. The proposed Subtitle C by the EPA is a move in the right direction for coal companies to repent and begin to reconcile for the cancer and harmful health results of mishandled coal ash on communities. Subtitle C will begin this process in Oakwood and for the communities around the nation like Oakwood that have coal ash impoundments. As a person of faith I believe there is grace available, and categorizing coal ash as a hazardous waste under Subtitle C is a necessary first step for communities like Oakwood to recover from this injustice.”

Recent years have witnessed a massive growth of research on addiction. When the Yale Center of Alcohol Studies was moved to Rutgers University in 1962, it was the only research institution of its kind. Today, approximately one hundred addiction research centers are housed at major universities across the United States. Most of the work is being done by natural and social scientists. Theologians have written comparatively little on addiction, philosophers even less.

In short, efforts to understand and ameliorate addictive behavior have been unnecessarily limited by scientific accounts of addiction. In particular, because so much of the public discourse on addiction is conducted in scientifically reductive terms, many Christians who rightly sense the spiritual significance of addiction are unable to articulate this significance in theologically substantive ways. Such a theological articulation can be provided by attending to three broad theses.

First, that philosophical analysis of human action is required to clear up many of the conceptual confusions that plague the discourse of addiction studies. Within that discourse, addiction is construed as either a disease or a type of willful choice. Neither of those categories is adequate to the phenomenon of addiction. For instance, the disease concept obscures the extent to which persons may be expected to take responsibility for their addictions, and the choice concept obscures the distinctiveness of the addictive experience. Alternatively, the category of “habit” is indispensable for charting an intelligible path between the muddled polarities of “disease” and “choice,” permitting us to describe addiction in a non-contradictory way, without doing violence to the testimonies of persons with addictions.

Human persons develop habits in order to facilitate the pursuit of specific human goods. Thus, if addiction is appropriately characterized as a type of human habit, we may ask about the specific kinds of goods that draw human persons into habits of addiction. This is a strange way of speaking; we are so gripped by the destructive effects of addiction that we are not accustomed to considering its constructive appeal.

Secondly, I think that the prevalence and power of addiction indicates the extent to which a society fails to provide non-addictive modes of acquiring certain kinds of goods necessary to human welfare. Addiction is therefore an embodied critique of the culture which sustains it, and is therefore a peculiarly modern habit that can be viewed as a mirror reflecting back to us aspects of modern culture that we tend to overlook or suppress. Persons with severe addictions are in a sense contemporary prophets that we ignore to our own demise, for they show us who we truly are.

Christians must heed prophets. Christians, therefore, are called to appropriately describe the addictive experience and to consider how the church may be complicit in the production of a culture of addiction.

Finally, the theological category of sin is an inextricable element of addiction, and can only deepen and extend our understanding of addiction. Addiction is not identical to sin, but neither can it be separated from sin. The power of addiction cannot be adequately appraised until addiction is understood as a misguided enactment of our quest for right relationship with God. Thus, although it is true that the church has much to learn from “recovery groups” such as Alcoholics Anonymous, it is also true that the church has much to offer to the recovery movement and indeed to all of us who struggle with addiction.

Therefore, I believe that any theological treatment of sin must contain these three elements if we are to both help those who struggle with addiction, even these prophets both remind us of the vast areas of darkness within the deepest dimensions of our own souls, and serve as agents of warning to a culture that in many respects continues to spiral out of control.

written by Kent Dunnington, Assistant Professor, Greenville College

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.  He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Colossians 1:15-17 NIV)

The alarm blares at 6 AM, the coffee pot gurgles its last few steamy gasps as the aroma of Starbucks’ Anniversary Blend wafts through the air. I click the Weather Channel icon on the laptop for hourly updates on the temperature and the likelihood of precipitation before checking a national news site or two. A hot shower precedes the climate controlled ride into the office while NPR fills me in on the events that have already transpired in Europe and Asia. I check email, read, do some writing, grab some Indian food on Green Street, revise old lectures, check email again (and again), before heading home.

This rather mundane sequence of events could easily apply to Christian and atheist alike. In other words, in our very modern era, it is not always so easy to discern what difference God makes. Put even more sharply, it’s easy to live as if God does not exist.

Theologian Craig Gay has coined the rather troubling term “practical atheists.” He asserts that the pressures of daily life, our consumer-oriented culture, and our general technical efficacy encourage us to go about our daily lives without giving God much thought.

Stated bluntly, it is the assumption that even if God exists he is largely irrelevant to the real business of life. To put this somewhat more tactfully, contemporary society and culture so emphasize human potential and human agency and the immediate practical exigencies of the here and now, that we are for the most part tempted to go about our daily business in this world without giving God much thought. Indeed, we are tempted to live as if God did not exist, or at least as if his existence did not practically matter. (The Way of the Modern World, p. 2).

We now live in a world that is increasingly succumbing to technological control and expertise. The immovable boundaries of time and space are getting blurrier. Advances in medicine have us living longer than ever, promising a future when death will come on our terms. Communication technology enables face to face chats with friends and families several time zones away. Our food choices are no longer held hostage to the seasons. Gratefulness easily degenerates into expectation as what was once viewed as a gift of the earth is now perceived as ‘the made’ and manufactured. June strawberries may be a gift from God, but only human technology can make November strawberries a reality (or, at least make them look tasty).

In short, God is really only necessary for the things that we still can’t control. We’re not exactly sure how God should fit into our lives. But this is actually the wrong question. The real question is how we should ‘fit into’ or participate in God’s life. Either way however, we are hard pressed to describe how others might know we’re a Christian by the way we live—apart perhaps from our Sunday morning activities. We are practical atheists.

In reality however, God continues as the creator and sustainer of the universe through his Son. So, here are a couple of very open-ended questions that are worth asking of ourselves:

• What would your life look like if you began to routinely reflect on the reality of God’s provisional care?
• How might the very sustaining of reality by Christ impact the daily activities of your life?