14: A Promising Offer: Unlimited Food
Three ways to genetically modify food.
Accepting and Blocking. There are appeals to GM foods for producers, consumers, and the feeding of the rising population. Reasons to block are many.
Question Givens.
A good summary at the end of the chapter: "“GM foods offer the world everlasting food, but God has given his people everlasting food through the Eucharist—the bread of life, spiritually modified food. The Eucharist is God’s word to the advocates of GM foods because its fellowship challenges the cynicism of their selfish world. The Eucharist is God’s word to the opponents of GM foods because its sacrifice challenges the naïveté of a world based on humanist assumptions. Most of all the Eucharist proclaims to all people that there is only one way to save the world—not through more food, not through pure food, but through shared food, the broken bread received from Christ’s body broken on the cross.
Analysis of the arguments for and against GM foods shows the debate to be principally one about power and who should hold it. Close regulation is clearly required to protect the interests of the poorer countries and future generations. Christians need have no problem with the transformation of food because it is a repeated theme in the gospel, but they need to renew their understanding of the Eucharist as a practice that transforms power relations as well as food if they are to understand how the church can embody God’s word on the issue.”
Excerpt From: Samuel Wells. “Improvisation.” iBooks. https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/improvisation/id473939687?mt=11