Should we beware of "Christian nationalism"?

Due to its comtemporary usage, nationalism has become, as it ever was, a threat to some, and a blessing to others. As in the case of the USA, being 'american' (whatever that means, since I am also an american, although I wasn't borne in the USA) means being white, European descent, and above all, a Protestant Christian.

This forum I hope will deal with the issues that Christian nationalism poses in today's world. I hope to comment about it when it is aired.

Until it is published, I would like to make you aware of it

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Should we beware of "Christian nationalism"?

Recording date: Thursday 31 May 2007, Transmission date: Sunday 3 June 2007
Barry Thorne
21-05-2007

The efforts of some evangelical Christians to influence American politics have produced sharply divergent reactions.

Just this month, the passing of American televangelist Jerry Falwell - known for his outspoken views on political and social issues - prompted glowing tributes and fierce criticism of his life in equal measure.

Evangelicals are often given credit for helping to ensure the re-election of President Bush in 2004, in the belief that his policies would better reflect a conservative Christian agenda.

Secular voices have been quick to raise the alarm over what they see as the rise of "Christian nationalism", especially its influence on Bush's Republican Party.

For their part, many evangelicals are equally alarmed by what they see as the spread of secularism at all levels of American society.

Have your say
It's a sharp dividing line in American society. It divides America and Europe as well - evangelical Christianity has no comparable influence on European politics.

In her book Kingdom Coming, Michelle Goldberg argues that American democracy is under attack: in particular, she says the separation of church and state enshrined in the American constitution is being threatened.

This week Amsterdam Forum is exploring and testing her conclusions, and we want to know what you think about the relationship between religion and politics.

The panel
Michelle Goldberg - freelance writer and journalist, author of Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism.

Dr. Hans Krabbendam - assistant director of the Roosevelt Study Centre in the Netherlands, which focuses on twentieth century American history.

Talking to God gives body a boost

APP

Communicating with God or other spirits can improve your physical health, Australian researchers suggest

A new report has reviewed controversial scientific evidence that religious or spiritual prayer can boost a believer's emotional and physical wellbeing.

The review, published in the Medical Journal of Australia, states that 74 per cent of Australians believe in a higher power, with many praying regularly as part of their worship.

"Some studies have shown a positive association between prayer and improved health outcomes," wrote lead author Marek Jantos, Director of the Behavioural Medicine Institute in Adelaide.

Mr Jantos, a clinical psychologist, said there were four ways prayer could have a positive effect on the body.

The first was through its "meditative" effects.

He said prayer was a Western form of transcendental meditation that worked in a similar way, slowing the breath and lowering the heart rate and blood pressure, thereby enhancing physiological wellbeing.

It also boosted positivity and improved mood, both of which had positive health-related spin-offs, Mr Jantos wrote.

Praying could also have a placebo effect on health.

For instance, in a study of heart patients, the half being prayed for by others made significantly better health improvements than those who were not prayed for.

But the most controversial benefit claimed by believers is through direct supernatural intervention from above.

Mr Jantos and co-author Professor Hosen Kiat, from the University of NSW, said the Bible offered several references to making a sick person well and Jesus himself was known for his personal practice of prayer and for his miraculous "super natural" healings.

The researchers warned that while this area was often dismissed as being beyond the reach of science, it should not be underestimated.

"Irrespective of whether scientists seek to attribute the benefits of prayer to the relaxation response, placebo or positive emotions, the most common reason people turn to prayer is their belief in a divine being that transcends the natural universe and hears and responds to prayer," the pair wrote.

They quote a chronically-ill elderly woman who believed God took her pain away every time she prayed.

Other researchers writing in the journal's special spirituality supplement call for more work to explore the link between religion and health and its relevance for Australian doctors and patients.

The death of Jerry Falwell and what kind of legacy he left

Jerry Falwell, died this week at the age of 73 has created many to write both and against what he has done during his life. Even one of my 'heroes' Albert Mohler has written about him. However, I find that he, as with others, have risen the guy above what others percieved of him, at least, within the Conservative Christian camp.


I would not say that Falwell was one of the greatest among us, but he tried, as do many of us. But the eulogies have been off the scale sometimes. To cite Mohler, he claims, ''The death of Dr. Jerry Falwell brings an end to one of the most fascinating lives of the twentieth century."


To say that of somebody who said that the attacks on 9/11 were the fault of those he saw as not being in par with God. This is what he said, "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen." Falwell also said that he needed gay and other who protested against his views to gain publicity, would not make him a person I would trust to head an organisation that represents Christianity in such a scale as Falwell did.


I have found an article on the The New Republic which, although does not praise Falwell as does Mohler, I think gives a good balance as the what sort of innovator Falwell really was. As the article says, he wasn't in the line of Martin Luther King Jr.


I post the article, which I find goes better to my way of viewing the legacy that Falwell has left behind, which differs greatly from Mohler's and I am sure, others. I thank God for Falwell, but Falwell will not be remembered as the likes of Martin Luther King Jr, or be held among the greatest among the American of the last century. Great, no doubt, but not among the giants. The legacy, must be embraced by all, not only by those who said yes to all you wanted. On with the arcle:
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Jerry Falwell's nasty contributions to American political life.
Farewell to Falwell
by Damon Linker Only at TNR Online Post date 05.17.07

Jerry Falwell's friends and allies on the right tell us that he was a force for democracy in America. This is true. Thanks to Falwell, millions of conservative evangelical and fundamentalist Protestants now actively participate in the political life of the nation, consistently mobilizing on the far-right side of the Republican Party. This makes Falwell historically important. But was he an admirable figure? Did he contribute to elevating the political culture of the United States? Have evangelical and fundamentalist Protestants proved to be thoughtful citizens, adding to the seriousness, depth, and rigor of public debate? Or have they, instead, injected superstition and sectarianism--in short, religiously based illiberalism--into the political life of the nation? More than six years into the failed evangelical-Protestant presidency of George W. Bush, the answer is obvious.

Defenders of the religious right like to link it to earlier examples of religious activism in American history--above all, abolitionism and the civil rights movement. Evangelicals supposedly follow in the footsteps of William Lloyd Garrison and Martin Luther King Jr. Yet the inconvenient fact is that Falwell and most of his fellow evangelicals sat out the civil rights movement. Back then, the segregationist Falwell thought that preachers were called to be "soul winners," not politicians.

What led Falwell join the political fray was not indignation at racial injustices but disgust at the sexual liberation of the 1960s and early 1970s. In the starkly Manichean outlook of Falwell and his followers, post-'60s America seemed to be (as he put it in his autobiography) a "war zone where forces of God do battle with forces of evil." For Falwell, it was the duty of all genuine Christians to take sides against Satan in this theological struggle.

At first, evangelicals hoped that one of their own--Jimmy Carter--was the right choice to lead the charge. But Carter quickly proved to be a disappointment. Few today remember that Falwell and other organizers of the Moral Majority were definitively persuaded to abandon Carter and embrace Ronald Reagan in 1980 because of a seemingly insignificant misjudgment on the part of the Carter administration. Under pressure from his fellow evangelicals to stem the tide of immorality in the nation, the president formed the White House Conference on the Family in 1979, hoping it would mollify his religious critics.

But, as with so many initiatives of the Carter administration, the plan backfired. In order to placate feminists and gay rights activists who feared that the executive branch would be holding up a single form of family life (the "traditional family") as legitimate and therefore denigrating "alternative lifestyles," the president quickly moved to pluralize the title of the conference (from "Family" to "Families")--an action that infuriated Falwell and his allies. It was only a matter of months before evangelicals withdrew their support from Carter and began actively campaigning against him. Reagan, they now believed, would be much more effective at combating the growing secularism and depravity of American life. The Moral Majority and its successor groups--Ralph Reed's Christian Coalition, James Dobson's Focus on the Family--have been fierce Republican Party loyalists ever since.

Approximately one-third of Americans describe themselves as evangelicals. Those millions of votes give them tremendous leverage with the GOP. In order to guarantee their continued support, the party has taken increasingly strident stands on the right flank of the culture wars, and never more so than under George W. Bush. The Bush White House has appointed right-wing justices to the Supreme Court. It has come out in support of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. It intervened in the right-to-die case of Terri Schiavo. It defends its foreign policy in quasi-theological terms. The president himself has even gone out of his way to portray himself as a born-again Christian whose decisions are guided by his personal relationship with the Lord. And as we've learned with the ongoing Justice Department scandal, Bush has packed his administration, at all levels, with conservative evangelicals--including numerous graduates from Falwell's fourth-rate Liberty University.

Those are Jerry Falwell's distinctive contributions to American political life. Falwell's death should serve as an occasion to reflect on the ambiguous goodness of all political ideals--very much including democracy.


Damon Linker is the former editor of First Things and author of The Theocons: Secular America Under Siege.

Just days after reporting that 90 percent of all babies diagnosed with Down syndrome are now aborted, Amy Harmon reports in The New York Times that the real reach of the question goes far beyond Down syndrome. Now, some babies are aborted for virtually any trait considered undesirable by the mother or parents -- and ethicists seem unwilling to draw any clear lines.

As Harmon reports:

Abortion rights supporters -- who believe that a woman has the right to make decisions about her own body -- have had to grapple with the reality that the right to choose may well be used selectively to abort fetuses deemed genetically undesirable. And many are finding that, while they support a woman's right to have an abortion if she does not want to have a baby, they are less comfortable when abortion is used by women who don't want to have a particular baby.

"How much choice do you really want to give?" asked Arthur Caplan, chairman of the department of medical ethics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. "That's the challenge of prenatal testing to pro-choicers."

We knew this was coming, and the expanding availability of genetic testing will make the situation ever more complex and the options even more ominous. What about those who would abort a baby of the wrong sex . . . or eye color . . . or likely intelligence?

Here is a frightening section of the paper's report:

But Kirsten Moore, president of the pro-choice Reproductive Health Technologies Project, said that when members of her staff recently discussed whether to recommend that any prenatal tests be banned, they found it impossible to draw a line -- even at sex selection, which almost all found morally repugnant. "We all had our own zones of discomfort but still couldn't quite bring ourselves to say, 'Here's the line, firm and clear' because that is the core of the pro-choice philosophy," she said. "You can never make that decision for someone else."

There is a brutal honesty in Kirsten Moore's candid admission that her inability to rule out any reason for an abortion is inherent in her pro-choice philosophy.

That same point is made by Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America. She provided the paper with a statement that included these lines:

"This issue underscores the importance of families making personal, private decisions without political interference . . . The decision should be with women, their families, and their doctors."

As Amy Harmon reports, there are a good many people who consider themselves pro-choice who cannot go along with this logic. Ann Althouse, a law professor who considers herself a supporter of abortion rights, asked the key question: "Shouldn't they have moral standards about what reasons are acceptable for an abortion?"

The answer coming from groups like NARAL is a simple "no." And they apparently mean it.

Professor Althouse should talk to Dan Neil, whose argument for unrestricted abortion rights sends chills down the spine.

Neil's column, "The Abortion Debate Brought Home," was published in the May 6, 2007 edition of The Los Angeles Times.

Here is how he begins:

My wife and I just had an abortion. Two, actually. We walked into a doctor's office in downtown Los Angeles with four thriving fetuses -- two girls and two boys -- and walked out an hour later with just the girls, whom we will name, if we're lucky enough to keep them, Rosalind and Vivian.

Rosalind is my mother's name.We didn't want to. We didn't mean to. We didn't do anything wrong, which is to say, we did everything right. Four years ago, when Tina and I set out on this journey to have children, such a circumstance was unimaginable. And yet there I was, holding her hand, watching the ultrasound as a needle with potassium chloride found its mark, stopping the heart of one male fetus, then the other, hidden in my wife's suffering belly.

Neil and his wife aborted two boy fetuses in order to increase the chances for two healthy girls. All of this resulted from an IVF procedure and the option of "selective reduction" that is urged upon parents by many doctors.

As Neil explains, "We don't feel guilty. We don't feel ashamed. We're not even really sad, because terminating these fetuses -- at 15 weeks' gestation -- was a medical imperative."

That is a redefinition of "imperative," and the claim completely side-steps the moral responsibility of using a technology that is almost certain to present this awful choice.

Furthermore, Neil and his wife used advanced diagnostic testing to determine which fetuses to abort.

Added to all this, Tom Strode of Baptist Press reports that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority in Britain has allowed human embryos to be tested for eye squint. As Strode explains, "The news marked an ominous milestone -– supposedly the first embryo screening for a cosmetic flaw."

More:

The director of the London Bridge Fertility, Gynaecology and Genetics Centre, which gained the license from the HFEA, told BBC News it was more than a cosmetic condition.

"Whereas we all know somebody who's got a squint, in this particular condition the muscles that control the gaze of direction of the eyes [are] grossly abnormal, so the gaze of the eye might be 90 degrees different from the direction which one might be looking, so to speak, the direction of one's face," Gedis Grudzinskas said.

Grudzinskas is not opposed to using PGD for cosmetic reasons, however.

"We will increasingly see the use of embryo screening for severe cosmetic conditions," he said, according to The Telegraph, a British online newspaper.

The clinic director said he would be willing to try for permission to test for any genetic factor that would produce severe distress in a family.

When asked about hair color, Grudzinskas said, "If there is a cosmetic aspect to an individual case I would assess it on its merits. [Hair color] can be a cause of bullying which can lead to suicide. With the agreement of the HFEA, I would do it.

There is no honest way to deny the slippery slope toward the wholesale denial of human dignity. We are frighteningly far down that slope already.

http://www.albertmohler.com/blog_read.php?id=943

Where Have all the Liberals Gone? -- The Riverside Church Seeks New Pastor

New York City's famous temple of Protestant liberalism, the Riverside Church, is looking for a new pastor. As The New York Times reports, the search committee is not having an easy time of it.

The paper describes the historic church as "the Vatican for America's mainstream Protestants," but also as "the capital of a theological movement that has been slowly eroding."

As reporter Samuel Freedman explains, the church's storied past has given way to an uncertain future:
Yet now, as Riverside prepares to search for a new senior minister for only the sixth time in its history, mainstream Protestants are struggling to reverse a decades-long pattern of losing numbers, vitality and influence to their evangelical Protestant competitors. Between 1990 and 2000 alone, mainstream denominations like the Episcopal, Presbyterian and United Methodist Churches and the United Church of Christ lost 5 percent to 15 percent of their members, according to the Association of Religion Data Archives. Riverside is interdenominational but is affiliated with the United Church of Christ and the Baptist Church.

The confluence of challenge, opportunity and visibility, then, makes Riverside's selection of a new leader important not only for the 26 million adherents of mainline Protestantism but also for the shape of American religion as a whole.

Thus, the Riverside Church's search for a new pastor becomes a metaphor for the future of liberal Protestantism -- and a reminder of its past.

The church was built in order to provide Harry Emerson Fosdick with a place to preach. That explanation is overly simplistic, but accurate. Fosdick's liberal theology ran into controversy as he was the preaching minister at New York's First Presbyterian Church. After that controversy cost Fosdick his pulpit, a group of prominent New Yorkers established Riverside Church and John D. Rockefeller, Jr. led in the construction of Riverside's massive and elegant edifice in Manhattan's neighborhood of Morningside Heights. The church sits adjacent to New York's Union Theological Seminary, another symbol of liberal Protestantism.

The church's main sanctuary is one of the nation's most beautiful Gothic structures. Fosdick and Rockefeller envisioned the church as a fortress of sorts for Protestant liberalism. As a preacher and controversialist, Fosdick pulled no punches. His denials of central Christian doctrines and his reputation for theological revisionism were infamous. But, at the same time, he was one of the most powerful pulpit orators of his day.

Fosdick defined preaching as "pastoral counseling on a group scale," and his liberalism set the trajectory for the future. He was followed in the pulpit by Robert James McCracken (1946-1967), a former professor of theology. The Scottish-born McCracken defined his approach as "life-situation" preaching. His tenure, like Fosdick's, was 21 years.

McCracken was followed by Ernest T. Campbell (1968-1976). Campbell, oddly enough, was a graduate of Bob Jones University. He was later to graduate from Princeton Theological Seminary. Like Fosdick, Campbell considered himself a modernist in theology. He was followed in the pulpit by William Sloan Coffin (1977-1987).

Coffin, like Fosdick, was well-known before assuming the Riverside pulpit. He had previously served as chaplain at Yale University, where his liberal views and anti-war activism were legendary.

The most recent pastor at Riverside was James A. Forbes, Jr. (1989-2007). The church's first African-American pastor, Forbes came from a Pentecostal background in North Carolina. He was Professor of Preaching at Union Theological Seminary when called to the Riverside pulpit.
Forbes continued the Riverside tradition of theological liberalism and social activism. Reflecting on his pastorate, The New York Times observed that he had been successful at integrating the church racially and ethnically, but that he had also run into significant opposition with some members of his "highly educated, highly involved congregation."

The search for Riverside's new pastor reveals the troubles faces by Protestant liberalism. For one thing, there is no long list of well-known preachers. As the paper reports:
At this early stage, the most notable aspect of the search is the dearth of names being bandied about. If Riverside wanted to break the sex line, it could look to the Rev. Vashti McKenzie, a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal denomination, or the Rev. Suzan Johnson Cook, former president of the Hampton Ministers Conference. Both of these women are African-American, as are two prospective male candidates -- the Rev. Calvin O. Butts, pastor of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, and the Rev. Michael Livingston, outgoing president of the National Council of Churches.

"Compared to Bill Coffin or Harry Emerson Fosdick, neither Jim Forbes nor anyone else in mainline Protestantism cuts that kind of profile," said Mark Silk, director of the Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College in Hartford. "Who are the big dogs today? It's true in Catholicism, too, for that matter. Where's the Spellman or the Cushing? The religious leaders worth listening to have to make the case for themselves -- running their own organization, writing books, being in the media

."

The challenge faced by the Riverside Church is indeed the challenge faced by Protestant liberalism as a movement. Once the vital content of the Christian faith is removed, denied, or marginalized, all that remains is a vaguely Christian spirituality and an agenda of social activism.
The problem for liberal churches is this -- Americans have learned that they do not need churches for "spirituality" or social activism. They can find these alone, in their yoga group, in political involvement, and in a myriad of other places and institutions. As the Times reports, liberal churches and denominations have been losing members for decades. Movements in such a pattern of decline are not likely to produce long lists of well-known preachers. There is no Harry Emerson Fosdick in the wings.

Beyond this, many liberal churches and denominations have become, in essence, collectives of special interest groups. These different groups are likely to hold very different expectations for a future pastor. As one nominee to the church's pastor search committee admitted, the congregation will have to "face up to the fact that Riverside has had a fairly public reputation of irritating our last two senior ministers to the point they got exasperated."

The basic problem with liberal Protestantism is theological. The movement's subversion of biblical authority and denial of basic orthodoxy lead, inevitably, to a sub-Christian message.

Professor Peter J. Paris of Princeton Theological Seminary once described the Riverside Church as "the world's most prominent institutionalization of Protestant liberalism." Where does it go from here?

Schism in the Episcopal Church of the USA

I have always enjoyed reading and hearing to Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Seminary, who usually posts very interesting articles in his blog, as well interesting podcasts from the same blog.

Since the next couple of weeks I will be very busy doing my essays for the end of the semester, I may not write a lot, but I will keep you informed of those news and issues that are of a Christian interest.

I thereby offer you an interesting blog entry by Dr. Mohler.

William Bennett once observed that America was fast becoming "the kind of nation civilized nations sent missionaries to." In truth, that is what America has now become, with the installation of Martyn Minns as "missionary bishop" for the Convocation of Anglicans in North America (CANA).

The schism in the Anglican communion was visible for all to see when the Nigerian primate, Archbishop Peter Akinola, installed Bishop Minns in a ceremony held in northern Virginia. According to press reports, the event was held in a 3,500 seat facility next to Potomac Mills. Bishop Minns will exercise episcopal oversight over 34 congregations in the U.S. -- with about one third identified as ethnically Nigerian.

As Michelle Boorstein of The Washington Post reported:
A powerful Nigerian Anglican archbishop defied top church leaders yesterday by coming to Northern Virginia and installing as one of his bishops a local minister who recently broke with the U.S. church after accusing it of being too liberal.

The festive ceremony thrilled those who believe the U.S. church has become too permissive but highlighted divisions that threaten to crack the Anglican Communion.

Church leaders in the United States and Great Britain had asked Archbishop Akinola not to come to America at this time and not to install Martyn Minns as bishop of his new group. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church USA, even released a letter asking Akinola to stay away. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, did the same [see here].

Nevertheless, he came. And his coming indicates one blunt truth that cannot now be denied: Archbishop Akinola no longer considers his church in communion with the Episcopal Church USA, at least as the American church is represented by its elected leadership.

This was made clear in a letter from Akinola to Jefferts Schori released May 2, 2007. Note this excerpt:
At the emergency meeting of the Primates in October 2003 it was made clear that the proposed actions of the Episcopal Church would "tear the fabric of our Communion at its deepest level, and may lead to further division on this and further issues ..." Sadly, this proved to be true as many provinces did proceed to declare broken or impaired communion with the Episcopal Church. Since that time the Primates have established task forces, held numerous meetings and issued a variety of statements and communiques, but the brokenness remains, our Provinces are divided, and so the usual protocol and permissions are no longer applicable.
And:
It is my heartfelt desire - and indeed the expressed hope of all the Primates of the Communion - that The Episcopal Church will reconsider its actions - and make such special measures no longer necessary. This is the only way forward for full restoration into fellowship with the rest of the Communion. Further, I renew the pledge that I made to your predecessor, Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold, that the Church of Nigeria will be the first to restore communion on the day that your Province abandons its current unbiblical agenda. Until then we have no other choice than to offer our assistance and oversight to our people and all those who will not compromise the "faith once for all delivered to the saints." (Jude 1:3)

The Washington Post observed that Archbishop Akinola now presides over the largest province of the Anglican Communion -- and a province experiencing rapid and continuing growth. Meanwhile, the Episcopal Church USA continues to lose members.

An interesting comment came from one of those who observed the new bishop's installation. Marie Penney, described as bouncing her baby happily in the foyer, said this:
"To me, this movement combines the best of all worlds -- to be banded with all these brothers and sisters from Nigeria. I can't imagine another group of Christians I'd rather be with," said Pinney, who grew up Baptist and worships at Truro. "I feel so much more in line with Archbishop Akinola. There are hardly any bishops in the Episcopal Church that I'd even want my children in Sunday school with."

That last sentence is stunning in its force and clarity. "There are hardly any bishops in the Episcopal Church that I'd even want my children in Sunday school with."

That kind of frustration with liberal theology and liberal church teachings is what produced the installation of Bishop Minns. Archbishop Akinola came to the United States as, among other things, a missionary to a land that desperately needs the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Tragically enough, his visit was necessary because far too many of our churches and denominations need to be evangelized as well.

A blessing and a curse? Synthetic sperm and being human

In the last post, I posted the news that scientist have finally dealt with the problem of sterility in men, by creating what it seems a proper way of self reproduction, and not taking into account third party options, such as donors, as for men to be able to father children.

I guess that this is good news for those couples, a man and a woman, who are unable to have children. This is a chance that they are getting so they can fulfill their dreams on becoming parents, when the affects of sin have not allowed them to fulfill their God given mandate, to multiply, Genesis 1:28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."

However, as with other scientific advances, this discovery may be used for the wrong reasons. Among the first people that were glad to see such a discovery were lesbians couples. They now had a chance to raise a family which would be of their own, not having to bring a third person into their relationship in order to procreate.

I hope the law makers will make good judgments in order to maintain the integrity of the family, which apart from the children, are made up of a dad and a mom, and at best, when something unforseen has happen, of one father or one mother. The family has never been envisioned to be two dads or two moms, living under one roof together.

It is my hope, my prayer, that this discovery, as with stem cells research, will be treated with the care and wisdom needed as to not temper with the family structure that has served humanity for so long.

Luis A. Jovel

German scientists "manufacture" human sperm

24 April 2007
Hamburg (dpa) - A team of scientists in Germany have "manufactured" human sperm from bone marrow, raising the prospect of mass-producing sperm that can be used in IVF treatment or to restore fertility to men made sterile by cancer therapy.

Such applications are still many years away. But scientists hope to grow fully formed sperm cells in as little as three years.

The research, conducted in Germany, has been published in the journal Reproduction: Gamete Biology.

The team led by Professor Karim Nayernia, from the University of Goettingen, first took bone marrow from male volunteers. From the samples, they isolated mesenchymal stem cells, which have previously been shown to grow into body tissues such as muscle.

Stem cells are immature cells that can be made to follow different functional pathways.

Using a form of vitamin A, the scientists coaxed the mesenchymal cells to become primordial germ cells (PGCs) - the first stage in the genesis of sperm. Specific genetic markers showed that some PGCs had further developed into more advanced spermatagonial stem cells.

Under normal circumstances, these cells eventually turn into mature, functional sperm that can fertilise an egg.

About 3 per cent of the original bone marrow stem cells were able to reach the point of being spermatagonial cells. In earlier work, Prof Nayernia derived sperm stem cells from mouse bone marrow and transplanted them into the animals' testes. Here they multiplied and began to differentiate further, without actually becoming fully formed sperm.

Nayernia said: "We are very excited about this discovery, particularly as our earlier work in mice suggests that we could develop the work even further.

"Our next goal is to see if we can get the spermatagonial stem cells to progress to mature sperm in the laboratory, and this should take around three to five years of experiments."

A priority will be to investigate why the cells fail to enter meiosis, the final stage of cell division before they become fully formed sperm.

One possibility is that they need to be accompanied by sertoli cells - special "nursing" cells found in the testes that have the job of nurturing growing sperm.

Producing sertoli cells from bone marrow, as well as sperm, is another avenue being explored.

Nayernia hopes in future the research will lead to new male infertility treatments. In particular he wants to look at the feasibility of restoring fertility to young men who have undergone chemotherapy for cancer.

This could involve culturing early-stage sperm cells in the laboratory from samples of bone marrow, or testes tissue. They would then be implanted back in the testes.

"We now have the first step, but the cells don't enter meiosis," said Nayernia. "If we could solve this problem, and I think it's scientifically possible, the next stage will be to produce functional sperm."