Saturday, May 16, 1998

For pastors, genetics pose tough questions; cutting-edge science calls for new thinking

By Jeffrey Weiss / The Dallas Morning News

DALLAS -- Religion and science meet at the center of the human heart and in the heart of the human cell. Cutting-edge technology is pushing genetic counselors and pastors unexpectedly into each other's territory.

The pastor's tale: A woman comes to him and says a psychological counselor has told her that her condition -- bi-polar disorder -- is genetic, inherited from her mother. The woman wants to know what to do with the information.

"I have no idea whether that is even accurate or not," said Joe Stalcup, dean emeritus of the school of theology for the laity for the North Texas area of the Christian Church.

The genetic counselor's tale: A woman had an abortion after a genetic test revealed that her baby would have been severely disabled. After a month of group therapy, she has made no progress accommodating herself with what she did. She believes that she has been irrevocably damned to hell by choosing the abortion and that she will never see her never-born child or the rest of her family in heaven.

"Her issue was not how it happened or what the test results showed or how the genetics worked," said Jennifer Lee of Applied Genetics in Austin. "She felt she had sealed her fate."

The pastor and the counselor came together earlier this month to learn something about each other's work. The Faith and Genetics Conference held at First Presbyterian Church of Dallas brought experts on genetics and religion together to discuss how the two intersect.

About 100 participants -- Methodist, Baptist, Prebyterian, Lutheran, Catholic, Jewish, Disciples of Christ, Church of Christ -- from as far away as Austin, Houston and Abilene listened to the stories from people whose work concerns genetics and from people whose lives have been shaped by minuscule blips of genetic code.

This was the second attempt to get the two sides together. A similar conference a year ago drew only a dozen pastors. This event, sponsored by the Pastoral Counseling and Education Center, the Texas Genetics Network and the Greater Dallas Community of Churches, filled a banquet hall at First Presbyterian.

What participants got was a quick overview of genetics -- how things are inherited, which disorders and disabilities have been linked to genes, what tests can track those abnormalities.

And they heard some of the moral and ethical questions raised by the science: What sorts of abnormalities might be severe enough to justify an abortion? Should I get a test for a genetic problem if there's nothing doctors can do about it? How should I change the way I live my life if I learn about my genetic history?

Understanding the science -- or even knowing where to go to get the information about it -- will help pastors apply their own faith traditions in the search for answers, conference organizers said.

"I was glad that there was this much interest but not really surprised," said Mary Rixford, associate education director for the Dallas-based Pastoral Counseling and Education Center. "I think people were hungry for something like this."

In addition to the medical facts, participants heard something about how people of faith -- religious leaders and members of congregations -- work through the issues.

Nancy Fauber-Hoh has a child with "Fragile-X Syndrome." Her son's X chromosome has abnormalities that make it look, through a microscope, like one leg of the X is all but severed.

As a result, he has both physical and mental disabilities. His coordination is poor, and he can say only a few words. But she told a story about how the greeter at her church helped pull Alex, normally painfully shy, to a point where he also stands at the front door and welcomes people to Sunday services.

She also recounted the experience of a neighbor who has a son named Ryan who uses a wheelchair. Fauber-Hoh persuaded the neighbor to attend her church one Sunday. The woman said she would not return because "there was no place for Ryan."

"My church is missing a lot of people who would benefit if we could offer something to families with special needs," she said.

Organizers of the genetics conference plan to produce a similar event in Austin this year. And they hope to address related issues at other meetings in Dallas.

"I want to do a next step, here," Rixford said. "We want this to be an ongoing dialogue."

---

(c) 1998, The Dallas Morning News.

Visit The Dallas Morning News on the World Wide Web at http://www.dallasnews.com/

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.