The Image of God. Evangelical authors directly connect issues of diminished humanity and relationality embedded in human cloning with a violation of the imago Dei. One author, drawing on neo-orthodox theologian Karl Barth, delineates the imago Dei in terms of freedom for self-determination, equality, relationality, mutual respect, and solidarity. Scientific inquiry that issues in a research project to clone human beings violates individual freedom by subordinating self-determination to scientific predetermination. The imago Dei is substantively compromised in a clone because of diminished solidarity and the potential deprivation of equality and relationality. Human cloning risks devaluing the person by suggesting genetics is the essence of personhood, or by valuing the clone because of its replication of valued characteristics of another person. In evangelical understandings, society could grant the clone only derivative value, not inherent value. Religious thinkers within the Southern Baptist Convention also invoke the imago Dei as a bar against human cloning. As bearers of this image, human beings gain insight into self-understanding and human uniqueness and receive a distinctive status relative to the rest of creation. This sacred uniqueness is compromised by efforts at human cloning. On 6 March 1997, the Christian Life Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention issued a resolution entitled “Against Human Cloning” that supported the decision of President Clinton to prohibit federal funding for human cloning research and requested “that the Congress of the United States make human cloning unlawful.” The resolution also called on “all nations of the world to make efforts to prevent the cloning of any human being.” Evangelical ethicists contend that cloning can contradict human creativity and innovation embedded in the image of God, rather than express it (as claimed by some mainline Protestant theologians). Instead of reflecting an openness to the future, cloning in fact involves a replication of the past. Thus, it should not be interpreted as creative but rather as “reactionary biological conservatism” (Jones). Cloning perpetuates the past and thereby belies our unwillingness to accept contingency and the unknown. Cloning Research. Research on the human pre-embryo is assessed as “immoral” because of the ascription of personhood with full moral status to the conceptus. Echoing Ramsey’s concern, evangelical authors describe cloning as an immoral experiment on a person without his or her consent. Moreover, cloning procedures are likely to ensue in embryonic death due to abnormalities in the embryo or practical difficulties in transferring the embryo to a host womb. Cloning Research: Red Human Cloning: Red Protestant Christianity: Mainline The religious witness of mainline Protestantism focuses on questions of peace and social justice rather than the right to life. The seven principal denominations designated as “mainline” Protestant (American Baptist, Christian Church [Disciples of Christ], Episcopal, Evangelical
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