Speaking of the Groaning Creation…Part 2

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective

The subject of GMO foods is one I stayed away from for a long time. Quite honestly, I thought the whole hysteria about GMO was a bit of a tempest in a teapot. After all, I reasoned, we’ve been playing around with mixing genes for a long time – that’s why we have hybrid plants and 184 different breeds of dogs in the American Kennel Club. What’s the big deal? If you can genetically modify some types of rice so that they have more proteins, why would that be a bad things? – Jonny Bowden, PhD, CNS

Good question and thank you – Dr. Jonny Bowden – for asking it. Fortunately, he also answers it and other questions related to GMO usage in America and throughout the world. Remember, we are talking about the fact that the Creation itself groans under the weight of sin and death. This planet – like the humans, animals, and plants that inhabit it – is dying and Paul tells us in Romans 8:22-25 tells that there will be a resolution, one in which we look forward to experiencing. But for now, death rules, because sin rules. It’s really that simple.

You want to know where you will find sin? Follow the money. It’s also that simple. Money is such a useful tool of the devil because it promises fame, fortune, the high life, and most importantly, power. People like having power because power gives them control over others. Most people are suckers for that. Give them the opportunity to become wealthy and famous and they will grab at the chance as the many areas of TV’s “reality programming” can attest. Oh, and by the way, the original reality TV shows began because of greed.

Years ago, there was a writer’s strike in Hollywood, CA. Without writers, you cannot do episodic television. Actors don’t act. Producers don’t produce. Crews aren’t there to provide lighting and all the rest. Writers wanted more money and more guarantees. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that but because of the burgeoning Internet, which had not yet come into its own, people wanted to know how their residuals would be paid out with this new format. Everything seemed up in the air so writers went on strike.

But producers didn’t give up so easily. They decided they would have shows without scripts and the reality TV program was born, to the embarrassment and chagrin of us all. It was okay for a producer to “give notes” to reality TV “stars,” but you couldn’t use written scripts because SAG writers had to write them. Oh, but wait, they were on strike. Oh well. So here is just one more example of how greed pushed people to do something that caused society to lose.

It is the same with GMOs or anything that stands to make people rich. Monsanto is the biggest producer of GMOs and constantly push it. They have too many politicians to count who will play ball with them by creating legislation that will make it difficult to impossible to sue Monsanto or other GMO producers in spite of the now clearly known health risks to these “foods.” But the producers of these products don’t care about health problems and I doubt seriously that they eat the “foods” they push. They just want their money and they don’t like when someone steps in front of that money train. They don’t like it at all.

But fortunately, more and more people like Jonny Bowden are waking up to the actual problems connected to GMOs and are talking about it. Hopefully, they won’t see an early grave because of it.

In an article written by Bowden in the January/February 2016 issue of Clean Eating magazine, Bowden brings a number of things to the surface related to GMOs. He notes that what we eat is directly connected to the health of our guts. This makes sense but how many people actually take the time to even think about it much less be concerned?

The gut wall is a complex system of defenses against unfamiliar, and potentially damaging, compounds. You can think of it as a tightly woven mesh fence whose openings are just large enough to allow small, friendly, recognizable breakdownproducts (sic) of digested food (like amino acids or glucose) to pass through and enter the bloodstream. Simultaneously, the gut wall is charged with preventing stuff that doesn’t belong in the bloodstream from getting in.

In short, GMOs try very hard to replicate (make that, impersonate) good molecules, but still fail. Yet, we eat enough of them so that our bodies become overwhelmed with them and cannot fight them all off. Because of this, our health begins to turn unhealthy and we develop all manner of serious health problems because of it.

Bowden rightly notes that the main arguments in favor of GMOs are largely economic. It’s true that food products made with GMOs are normally much cheaper than organic or specialty products like gluten-free items. But should health be sacrificed for economics? I say no, but those who either own the GMO companies or stocks in them would disagree with me. After all, they want their dividends to keep rolling in, which means they amass more wealth and as we said, with wealth comes power.

Bowden seems to have done his homework. He talks a great deal about corn and how it is produced, noting that 93% of the corn grown in America is GMO. It’s been modified in the lab to be more “plentiful” and provide a greater harvest to feed more people. But at what cost? Again, our health. A lot of this corn is not sold as corn but used as a corn byproduct in vitamins, and a ton of products sold in stores every day.

One of the biggest problems with GMOs is that they are genetically modified to be resistant to Roundup (with the main ingredient, glyphosate). Are you concerned about that? You should be because only the plant itself is resistant to Roundup, which means when Roundup is sprayed on the GMO crop, it won’t kill the crop. What does it do? It kills insects that try to eat the crop as it grows. So when we eat/ingest a product that contains GMO plants, we are eating tons of Roundup.

Basically, we have to rely on Monsanto’s reassurances that their studies show that these new GMO crops are safe, and that the massive spraying of our crops with Roundup – and the insect-killing toxins in genetically modified corn – pose absolutely no threat to humans. Good luck with that one.

Of course, people, scientists, and even journalists continue to shout that GMO products are safe. Bowden did quite a lot of searching to try to provide as balanced an article as possible, especially knowing where he came from and couldn’t find much. He concludes with the following:

In the course of my career, I’ve run into more than a few of these debunkers of junk science. At first, they seem like the soul of scientific reasonableness, but when you follow the money, their claim to scientific objectivity suddenly becomes squishy. (emphasis added)

He then references his own book (co-authored by Stephen Sinatra) in which he states the following regarding a nine-member panel of the National Cholesterol Education Program.

[of this] panel that was charged with making new recommendations for cholesterol levels in 2004, eight of them had financial ties to the very drug companies that would reap immediate benefits from lowered cholesterol targets.

It’s always about following the money. Both Big Food and Big Pharma are playing fast and loose with our health. In the process, even the earth suffers, especially with the introduction of GMOs. Often, farmland, rather than be allowed to lie fallow, is overworked with tons of chemicals added to the soil so that new crops can grow back-to-back without let-up. Life wasn’t always like this because this country was formed on the backs of farmers and settlers. They ate what they grew and raised. Today, we have huge grocery stores and people have become fat, lazy, and essentially helpless, devoted to government freebies.

America’s current debt is around $19 trillion. We are bound to have a huge crash economically at some point. This cannot continue. But aside from our debt problems, the constant overuse of farmland, the poison in our food, and the general lack of responsibility of too many people today is creating a mountain of weight for America that really can’t be fixed. All of it has to do with greed, the desire of too many to have too much. I’m all for capitalism, the ability of someone to make something of themselves through inventions or otherwise that benefit people. Companies are created that provide jobs. Because people have jobs they can support their families. Things are better all around.

However, when people believe they should live like kings and do whatever they can to amass as much wealth as possible (while blaming all of society’s ills on capitalism), something is seriously wrong. It’s all greed and all greed is sin. Sin entered the world and created death. We shouldn’t be surprised yet many are that.

I’m one of those people who believes that it is too late to turn things around. We are heading toward the natural outcome of sin entering into God’s Creation. It has done exactly what God said it would do – create at least two forms of death.

I also believe things have been picking up speed tremendously and there is no going back. If you want to call me “negative,” that’s up to you, but I’ll simply defer to Scripture on this. Just like our national debt cannot continue as it is without at some point crashing, so too is the entire world on a collision course with God’s judgment. Read the entire book of Romans and let me know if you can find Paul coming to any other conclusion.

Yes, we are heading toward judgment. However, I also believe that God can help us make the right decisions for our health and our families for some time yet. In fact, I firmly believe He will uphold us to the end if we are willing to fellowship with Him. If you want to live like the Prodigal Son, God will be waiting for you when you turn back to Him, but please note that the father in that parable did not chase after his son. He only ran toward his son when he saw that son was returning. God won’t join you in your sin or rebellion.

You want to know God? You need to do it His way. You need to cast off the things that grieve Him and find out who He is and what He expects from us by reading His Word. You need to spend time with Him in prayer. You need to begin to see things from His worldview (so to speak) and you need to understand that while salvation is absolutely wonderful, it is fellowship with God (granted to us because of salvation) that allows us to live in step with Him daily.

If you do this, you will find that you are making more informed decisions for your health, for your family, and for your life in general.

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective