Where are All The Good Christians? – Part 1
03 Nov 1996
What are my credentials for having the gall to give a sermon on religion? I admit I’m not a graduate of any theological college. But I was once a choir boy and since then I’ve listened to hundreds of impassioned and often boring sermons.
Now, having returned from The International Congress of the Transplantation Society in Barcelona, I believe I’m qualified to give a sermon of my own. Theologians and their flocks have a major credibility problem. What they preach about brotherly love is one thing. What they do about it is another.
The Barcelona meeting emphasized what has been stated for several years. Today the crisis in human organ donation continues.
It’s estimated that every eight hours a patient waiting for a transplant dies in the U.S. because a human organ is not available. In Western Europe 40,000 people are in line for a kidney transplant and in North America over 35,000 need replacement of this organ. World-wide 400,000 patients would benefit from a renal transplant.
What is going to happen to these people? We know that less than 50 percent will receive the organ they require. And since the need for organ transplantation is growing at the rate of 15 percent a year the list gets longer each year.
Winston Churchill wrote that, “The truth is inconvertible. Panic may resent it. Ignorance may deride it. Malice may distort it. But there it is.” Today the truth is that transplantation offers the only hope for some people to lead a productive life. Or is the difference between life and death.
Years ago it was impossible to even imagine transplantation. Donors organ might be transplanted. But within hours the heart or kidney would be rejected and destroyed by the patient’s own immune system.
This started to change in the early 1970’s. Researchers at Sandoz Pharmaceutical Company in Switzerland discovered two strains of fungus in soil samples that were able to fight the rejection reaction.
The discovery of “Cyclosporin” and it’s new formulation “Neoral” has revolutionized transplantation. Now surgeons can transplant a variety of organs with the confidence that many will function for years.
Studies show that there are several reasons why families refuse to allow removal of a deceased loved one’s organ.
But one fact stands out. 75 percent of those who refused to donate an organ believe it’s important that the human body retain all its parts when buried or cremated.
One wonders why? I’ve never heard any theologian claim you can’t get through the Pearly Gates if you’re short one or two organs. And unless I’ve misinterpreted, isn’t it the soul that’s important in the next world?
The majority of religions support organ donation. Pope John Paul II said, “With the advent of organ donation man has found a way to give of himself and his body so others may continue to live.”
Many Protestants favour organ donation as do the Lutherans. Judaism considers saving a human life superior to maintaining the sanctity of the human body. And for Jehovah’s Witnesses it is a matter of individual consciousness provided the organ is completely drained of blood before transplantation.
Buddhism, Hinduism and the Greek Orthodox religions do not ban organ donation. And Islam claims that organ donation allows man to share, and to give, and what is more precious to give than life? If a cadaver organ is put to good use in a living person, this is indeed charity.
Yet day after day Christians and others place their loved ones in expensive caskets when patients are crying out for organ replacements.
Is there any solution? I’ve often wished we could occasionally attach the healthy to a kidney machine for several hours. Have them suffer the inconvenience of being immobilized and the side-effects of renal dialysis. And tell them they must return again and again for this treatment.
But I don’t see this problem being solved until people of all faiths encourage a little brotherly love here on earth.
I’d recommend that every Minister in this country preach a sermon on the virtues of organ transplantation. That they remind their congregations of the ABC’s of religion. That if they are indeed true believers the physical body on death could just as well be consigned to the city dump or used as fertilizer. After all, isn’t it the soul that goes to heaven? Or have I got it all wrong?
Next week why the only hope for the thousands who need an organ transplant lies in the pig.
