by Amy Butler
David Phillips from Adelaide and Denise Cooper-Clark from Melbourne are leading by example in showing that Christians have an important role to play in public debate on moral and ethical issues.
The pair were among the delegates at last month’s Anglican social responsibilities conference held in Adelaide.
David Phillips became a Christian through the Evangelical Union at Sydney University while he was studying science. His interest in social issues was aroused during the time of the Vietnam War.
“Some Christians adopted a pacifist position but I concluded that the Bible allows just wars,” he explained. “This led to my involvement in public debate although I had never spoken in public and was terrified at the thought.”
Soon David, with his wife, Roslyn, decided they wanted to spend their energy defending marriage and the family. When former Dean of Sydney, Lance Shilton, then Rector of Holy Trinity, Adelaide, called an Australian meeting of the Festival of Light (FOL) in 1972, David and Roslyn became involved. David has now been chairman of the South Australian Branch of FOL for almost 30 years. It is through this organisation, and through his involvement in his Diocesan Social Responsibility Committee, that David seeks to ensure that the Christian voice is heard in public debate on matters such as the family.
Like David, Denise Cooper-Clarke has also committed much of her life to working out how God’s word applies to the complex ethical issues contemporary society faces.
After working as a medical researcher for a number of years, Denise completed a Bachelor of Theology at Ridley College.
“When I studied ethics it occurred to me that medical ethics would combine my two interests, as well as give opportunities for bringing Christian values and framework into a secular area,” she said.
After Ridley, Denise completed a masters in bioethics and health law. She now lectures at the University of Melbourne in medical ethics and responds to invitations from churches to speak about bioethics. She says every talk she was asked to give last year was on stem cells.
“I think what we need to show is how even experimenting on these embryos which would be ‘destroyed anyway’ represents a seismic shift in our attitude and respect for human life,” she says. “If research on embryos becomes something we can put in the utilitarian balance, then what’s to stop any human life, beginning with the smallest and most vulnerable, from being weighed up against its potential benefit to others?”
Denise is also about to begin a PhD.
“My topic is the difference between killing and letting die from the perspective of doctors who work with the dying. That is, some of those who would be asked to do the killing if euthanasia were legalised.”
