On April 9, the Bangor Daily News reported the birth in India of a baby girl who has two faces. Strange as it seems, a photo presented the portrait of an oddly beautiful child, a head with two complete faces side by side. The caption mentioned that baby Lali was doing well and was being worshipped as the reincarnation of a Hindu goddess.

Which goddess, I wondered. The Calgary Herald reported it was Shakti, the goddess representing sacred force, the personification of the divine feminine. On the other hand, CNN.com/asia reported it was “a return of the Hindu goddess of valor, Durga, a fiery deity traditionally depicted with three eyes and many arms.” About Durga, Wikipedia says that, “her creation takes place in the context of a cosmic crisis,” and goes on to say, “Though she is eternal, the goddess becomes manifest over and over again to protect the world.”

In the past few years, a number of religiously symbolic births have taken place. In 2006, a girl with four arms and four legs was born in India and worshipped as Lakshmi, the four-armed goddess of wealth (recently the girl’s extra limbs were surgically removed). Third Temple Jews were delighted with the birth of a pure red heifer (required to restore Jewish sacrifices to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem), and American Indians were excited by the birth of a white buffalo calf, a powerful symbol in their spirit tradition. Added to this are prophetic reports of the birth of the antichrist, to provoke the fears and hopes of end-times Christians.

Birth is a powerful symbol on many levels. The birth of Jesus is the most celebrated of American holidays, and has been tied by date to the winter solstice and the annual lengthening of daylight hours. Birth is a sign of hope mixed with the acceptance of responsibility. But whether it takes place has become a political concern as well as a natural one. Examples include China’s one-baby-per-family policy, and this country’s debate over the legalization of abortion.

On a more biological level, the threatened extinction of many species, coupled with humanity’s decreasing ability to conceive and bear children, represents a threat to the future of life on this planet. Probably because of environmental pollution, male fertility rates have dropped dramatically over recent decades.

Natural fertility is further co-opted, across the board, by

the genetic experiments of large corporations intent on patenting DNA codes for profit. Major crops, such as corn and soy, have largely become “Franken-foods” – genetically altered crops whose gene-spliced DNA is spreading into the environment with unknown consequences for the future. (Norway recently completed a “Noah’s Ark” for plant genetics – an arctic vault to house 100 million seeds against such potential doomsday disasters as a falling asteroid or the genetic manipulations of companies such as Archer Daniels Midland.)

And adventures in DNA corruption are not restricted to plant life. Nearly a decade ago, scientists began merging fertilized eggs from different species. Fertilized goat and sheep eggs were combined, brought to birth, and nicknamed “geeps.” They have the heads of sheep and the bodies and feet of goats, or vice versa. Each animal born combines the genes in different ways.

Greek and Egyptian mythologies are filled with the images of such combinations, including sphinxes, centaurs, griffins, fauns, minotaurs, chimeras, and the like. (Interestingly, biology has adopted the term “chimera” – the mythic combination of lion, goat and serpent – to name what we are talking about: an organism made from combining two or more fertilized eggs of different species.)

Several years ago, while traveling through Egypt, Turkey and Greece, I photographed many combinations of human-animal creatures portrayed in museum paintings and sculpture. At that time I began to suspect an earlier technological age had actually developed such monsters.

That possibility is reinforced by the apocryphal Book of Jasher. It reports, “The sons of men in those days took from the cattle of the earth, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and taught the mixture of animals of one species with the other, in order therewith to provoke the Lord; and God saw the whole earth and it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted its ways upon the earth, all men and all animals.”(Jasher 4:18).

Genetic science is once again merging animals, and possibly producing human-animal hybrids as well. Today, genetic scientists actually could produce a living centaur.

And then there’s baby Lali, an innocent child some call a goddess, others an accident of nature. She is possibly a “natural” chimera; that is, two fertilized eggs meant to be twins, who became merged in the womb. God permits such things to happen in nature from time to time.

Greater problems arise, however, when scientists play God with DNA. The potential for catastrophe is huge: for our food supply, for our capacity to reproduce, and in the threat of still more manmade cancers and manmade plagues. Given the direction we’re taking, the line between genetic science and terrorism grows thinner by the day.

Let me mention in closing that “Lali” means red; she was so named “on account of the baby’s red cheeks,” her mother explained. “Adam,” too, means red, in reference to the red clay from which God formed him. Lali, like Adam, is a strange new creation, born into a strange new world where science can make all things to its liking – but not necessarily to God’s.

Lee Witting is a chaplain at Eastern Maine Medical Center and pastor of the Union Street Brick Church in Bangor. He may be reached at leewitting@midmaine.com. Voices is a weekly commentary by Maine people who explore issues affecting spirituality and religious life.