WHEN PREACHERS AND PROFESSORS AGREE ON SOMETHING, BEWARE! | 2002-01-26
It is essential that we understand the enormous similarity between the year 2000 and the year 1800.
The year 1800 introduced a century when medicine marched a hundred times farther in a single century than it had in all of previous history. In 1800, university authorities in medicine were untied against this revolution. They were defending bleeding quarts of blood from sick people as the main treatment for disease and fighting the idea that doctors need to wash their hands, along with everything else that might save lives.
In 1800 as now, the preachers and professors were on the same side. Preachers were fighting vaccinations against smallpox. In fact, I do not know of a single medical advance in the entire period from 1800 to 1900 that preachers did not use the Bible to oppose.
The same is true today, and once against the whole thing is so obviously absurd only a respectable conservative would fail to notice it.
Just a few years back all the professors were pushing moral relevance. There were no absolute rules, they said.
But then came cloning and the biological revolution. Instantly they invented a field call "Ethics." Suddenly they have PhD's who were concentrating on moral relevance yesterday and who are now "biological ethicists." And exactly as in1800, academics are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the preachers against the coming revolution.