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Lord Harries is set to take on a professorship at Gresham College |
Ex-bishop gives science the soft sell at college
‘I’ve always regarded myself as communicating with general public thinking’
A FORMER bishop at the centre of some of Britain’s toughest life and death decisions has been appointed to a professorship at London’s oldest college.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth, the interim head of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) which regulates stem-cell research, human cloning, and IVF, is one of three new appointments at Gresham College in Holborn.
His role as Professor of Divinity will overlap his tenure on the HFEA, which ends in 2009.
As both a man of God and a strident supporter of science, the 71-year-old is a figure never far from controversy.
He believes there should be no upper age limit on women eligible to apply for artificial insemination (IVF) and supports hybrid animal/ human embryos to aid stem-cell research – labelled “Frankenbunnies” by some – but shuns the “liberal bishop” tag often applied to him.
Lord Harries, who previously chaired the House of Lords select committee on stem cell research, said: “It’s true that on issues to do with embryology I take very much a pro-science view. I wouldn’t call it liberal.
“I think that Christian believers should be fully supportive of science. Many of the greatest scientists have been religious believers, of course.”
He added: “I don’t think there are any insuperable ethical issues to do with a very early embryo. I certainly can’t take the view that in those first 14 days those cells have the rights of a human being. I think, personally, that’s nonsense.”
Some people, including many Roman Catholics, would strongly disagree.
It is one of the issues in the new Embryology Bill on which Prime Minister Gordon Brown has given Labour MPs a free vote as it passes through the Commons this week.
Lord Harries begins his college post on less polemic ground, exploring the interaction between literature and religious belief.
“Many people today actually find their meaning in life from literature rather than from religion,” he said.
“I’m interested in how the religious impulse expresses itself even in people who claim they have no religious faith and how believing writers have to find another way of talking about their faith in a time of scepticism.”
His second-year lectures will deal with the thornier questions of ethics and public policy issues.
By coincidence his colleague on the HFEA, Baroness Deech, has also been appointed to Gresham, as Professor of Law.
Lord Harries said: “I’ve always regarded myself as trying to communicate with what you might call the general thinking public rather than simply specialists, and I am particularly interested in the interface between religion and ethics. I think the Gresham professorship gives a very good opportunity for that.” |
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