Food for thought

...more valuable for farmers and agribusito the dismay of American agribusi- ness than for consumers, improving ness and the Clinton administration...

...badly hurt by the growing interna- Over the next twenty years or so, the tional resistance, even if part of it has world will add 1.5 billion people, and been their own fault...

...It now says a second revfoods...

...seeds, food, and other agriculbiotechnology companies were fierce tural products offer the best way of opponents of labeling G.M...

...All of these struggles litical disaster...

...God food crops, and foods with enhanced food will bring...

...with a nonanswer: cause they are in real pain, and are gen- the sense that we ordinarily give that "I have no idea, except that he stood Commonweal 8 April 7, 2000...

...The American style also has been reserved for G.M...

...This sort of thinking should be resisted...

...How should we pro- being God here means God being the nutrients would be a blessing if safely ceed in the face of this uncertainty...

...While the Europeans have been and not necessarily decisive for resolvStates has shown a far greater willing- vocal and effective in their opposition ing safety debates-or simply plunging ness to run the possible risks than, say, to G.M...

...food, subject to number of American high-class restau- another feature of importance: it is far bans, boycotts, and public hostility, much rants are refusing to serve any G.M...

...What I want to suggest involves no more than a couple of THE HIDDEN GOD hints, and maybe that's as good as we'll All-powerful, & vanquished ever get...

...for it...

...Yet they may have acted als-expensive and time-consuming unclear...

...For the Western European countries...

...food, it was hardly noticed in ahead and seeing what happens...

...Christians too often see regimes, disorganization, and inequitable agribusiness companies their hold over the revelation of Jesus Christ as somedistribution underlie food shortages...

...The war over genetically modified agriculture Two serious problems persist, one bearing on the pertinent risk-benefit analysis, the other on the needs of de0nce again a genetics fight which once planted would not produce veloping countries...

...if God is good he is not God...

...For one search and field trials of G.M...

...as if we will be reward- some while others suffer horribly...

...American G.M...

...The only two ways to gain decisive developments when the evidence for and Monsanto has terminated the "ter- knowledge would be careful field tritheir benefit or harm is nonexistent or minator" seeds...

...He has collapsed the dis"How could this happen to me...

...Corrupt political ing problems that give the large need attention...

...God's presence is made manifest not only in acts of compassion and self-sacrifice...

...apparently supposed to get time off for not our ways...

...Jesus tells us that we will not be cause it is often true...

...Pest-resistant less than the sometimes overwrought formula, "If God is God he is not good...

...They have agreed to labeling, it...

...and that means a careful pressing for- making him less than completely powThere is surely something to this re- ward with G.M...

...Theodicy has been reduced to the content of various crops...

...such as mad-cow disease in Britain), American style might be described as Their greatest hostility, however, has has finally arrived here...

...Such attempts as process portable cash crops rather than food for that the benefit of any doubt, which theology or Teilhard's evolving cosmos the poor...

...food might just as well disapbuy them is a significant threat to pear with nobody much the worse American agriculture...

...The master...

...vote is for the precautionary principle way it happens, God as the scene deTo this contention there has been a re- but understood to include careful re- signer, playwright, director, puppetsponse, mainly from the Left...

...The potential ecological threat there will always be, should be given continue the attempt to explain God in of G.M...

...The "organic" food movement, not much noticed in the recent past except in relatively upscale stores, has found a FOOD FOR THOUGHT new momentum...

...food research...

...This has to be to discern God's presence and God's line-if indeed there is any dealt with pastorally and sensitively, but will only when we are, to some extent, line at all-between religion and super- it does confirm the agnostic view of re- like God...

...The atheist or agnostic looks forgiven if we do not forgive, that we form of religion which is akin to carrying at people crowding their way toward the are to love even our enemies, that whata lucky rabbit's foot or knocking on shrine at Guadalupe or venerating a ever we do for the least human being wood, and it is more pervasive in our wonderworking icon, and can't help con- is done for God...

...Religious people should be care- ligion as a crutch, a shield against the that-in explanation, in thought-is ful not to be too defensive about this, be- harsh realities of the world, a comfort- vain...

...on the cross...

...The Rockefeller Founarguing that, since there are no proven dation brings some credibility to its health threats, the public has no need contention...

...My one who makes everything happen the and equitably achieved...

...Life may be an auto- is no comfort, or even any convincing participate, and told that the consematic death sentence, but some of us are answer, in the idea that God's ways are quences will be serious if we do not...

...it is present to us only he rhetoric of some athe- uinely baffled: the God who is supposed when we place ourselves there, where ists and agnostics makes it to make good things happen if you are God has been in the flesh...

...If thing that radically inverts and chalcorporations, whose aim is profit and ex- there is an appropriate bias here, it is lenges it...

...We have to You have to sympathize with people Part of the problem with any theodi- answer, "How could a good God perwho ask this sort of naive question, be- cy is the notion that God is powerful in mit such suffering...

...products, feeding them...

...the refusal of many countries to G.M...

...Here and there can be found have a common thread: how should we The American companies have now hints of possible harm, but that's about respond to actual or potential genetic relented...

...Monsanto's push for what "My compliments to the genetic engineer...

...Three years further seeds and thus threaten poor tle evidence either supporting or refutor so ago it was human farmers who depend on gaining seed ing the worry about long-term genetic cloning, next stem-cell re- from their own crops for one generation harm, but it will also be hard to gain search, and now it is genetically modi- of crops after another-was another po- that knowledge in any quick or definified (G.M...

...willing to know nothing...

...but we are invited to ed for such things...

...trasting this with a starving child, whose vealed in absolute powerlessness (from You encounter it when people find them- parents are no doubt praying for her sur- our point of view), in the death of Christ selves in some personal crisis and ask, vival as fervently as anyone ever prayed...

...crops enhances the opposition to the needs of developing countries, ways that try to save his virtue, while argument...

...foods, especially soybeans and mer without corresponding benefits corn, are widely grown in the Unit- for the latter...

...There is, in fact, a ing illusion...

...I have It is easy to find something obscene in tance between divine immutability and always gone to church, tried to live a the idea that God arbitrarily rewards human suffering, and the initiative is Christian life...

...Hardly anyone seems to doubt No less important, American com- that the Western developed countries panies-particularly Monsanto-have could get along well without it...

...Not only is there lithas broken out...

...The search has been muted...

...There is something of this thing, most malnutrition and starvation Rockefeller Foundation is, moreover, picture of God in the Bible itself, but come from a maldistribution of food, not working hard to overcome the patent- there are other strands there that also an absolute shortage...

...There all from his side...

...They have been have a serious need for G.M...

...We can begin T appear that there is a fine nice isn't coming through...

...the productivity and profit of the forG.M...

...food, and various environmental groups have begun to target those foods for atDANIEL CALLAHAN tack...

...And once again, the United too late...

...olution is needed, to raise the flagthey called a "terminator" seed- ging yields from the first revolution Commonweal 7 April 7, 2000 and to increase the nutrient and vitamin sponse, but it rests on speculation no word...

...tive way...

...crops, pesticides that kill weeds but not claims about the likely bounty that G.M...

...God's strength is rechurches than we want to acknowledge...

...Those the United States until the past year...

...it is hardly an argument...

...ed States and are a major export prod- If that were the end of the story, uct...

...11 erful: the idea is that the picture is not yet complete...

...and any attempt to go beyond stition...

...food will put agreements between those companies all-powerful (in the directorial sense small farmers, responsible for local food and developing countries, and that cam- mentioned above), and not as someneeds, at the mercy of large multinational paign has met with some success...

...For G.M...

...A growing "go for it...

...The power revealed in Christ upJOHN GARVEY sets all ideas of power as control, even evolving control...

...Yet been in the lead in developing pest- there is a strong argument, advanced resistant plants by genetic modifica- by the Rockefeller Foundation and tion and pesticides that will kill weeds others, that the developing countries but not food plants...

...That stance was a political dis- through its research efforts, greatly aster, irritating the Europeans to the increasing the yield of rice crops in point of bans on the import of such particular...

...It aims to negotiate free licensing thing added to this picture of God as another, a reliance on G.M...

...It led "the green revoluto know about the genetic modifica- tion" in many developing countries tions...

...That's true, in spades, but Beyond this, I think we should be good behavior...

...The Europeans, what they call the "precountries were quick to ban cloning, debate in other countries, fed by the cautionary principle" has been influenand the enthusiasm about stem-cell re- media and some serious food scares tial: go slowly and be careful...