Yesterday, a couple of things were intriguing enough to inspire me to type. First, a good friend sent me a link to a story on yoga and Christianity, which calls to account a man for whom I have the greatest respect, Dr. Albert Mohler. And so I was off in the direction of spiritual and physical connection- will, intellect, emotion, body- distinct and yet one…

Oops! Suddenly called away from this train of thought as when on my lunch break I am made aware (thanks to a tweet) of Mississippi’s Initiative No. 26 and the highly interesting language used therein: “…from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.” Awesome! Maybe Dr. Seuss is right- A person is a person no matter how small!

Now what was it that I was thinking over… that I was going to blog over? Oh, yeah! Dr. Mohler’s aggravated assault on yoga… Never mind that, now! What about human cloning?!

Wait just a minute here… Are these two things truly so unrelated? Is anything truly unrelated? Think. Think. Think.

We humans are definitely a combination of will, intellect, emotion, and according to faith- spirit, all housed within and inextricably intertwined with a physical body- until that moment in which the physical body dies… And even should teleportation become possible we would still be simply a collection of physical particles soon to be reassembled (hopefully), in the proper order (again, hopefully). This means that we would still maintain physical property.

And isn’t an embryo, or a newly made fully developed human body, according to Holy Scripture, the physical house of will, intellect, emotion and spirit for someone? Where is the evidence, Scriptural or otherwise to support the theory that the house has to be developed to a certain point before it contains these other elements common to a human? Or that the house must go through a certain order of development to become the house of the man? And we thought abortion was an ethically tough issue to wade through! For our children and our grandchildren: I hope we’ve been thinking on this cloning stuff…

And Dr. Mohler, surely we must admit that yoga does not present a real threat for a True Christian, as he is, according to much Scriptural evidence, currently and for eternity possessed by the Holy Spirit of God and therefore is undergoing a transformation that will not fail- a transformation that will result in His own likeness.

I know that when I practice yoga… okay… I don’t really practice yoga, but I know that if I practiced yoga… I would be terrible at it… but that’s not the point. The point is this: I would not connect in a spiritual sense. It could not possibly be anything but a physical exercise for me, as I belong to One who governs my spirit with His own, and should my will decide to participate in yoga, or whatever- my spirit remains yoked with the Spirit of God. This is the primary reason that I hate my own sin.

Those who participate in yoga without His indwelling presence, those who do not know Him, are risking a spiritual connection, but not to The One True God. They may get connected to something … I mean- have you seen Poltergeist? Wandering around spiritually without Jesus is definitely risky!

But, back to this cloning thing and MS Initiative 26… what is the functional equivalent thereof anyway?

As the church, we need to be ready with some hard Scriptural evidence to support the ethical stance we will take as the church on the primary issue of human cloning and on all of the secondary issues which will flow from it. God has given us everything that we need in His Holy Word and we should be a step or two ahead of the world- not a mile behind it.