Yesterday, Ed Schultz posed a question on both his radio program and his MSNBC show: Where is the religious community on health care?
Ed, a Christian who admits he is not a regular churchgoer, sees the issue in pretty simple terms. Jesus healed the sick. For free. Period. Why aren't churches out on the front lines arguing for a compassionate government that will care for the infirm, ill, and dying? After all, don't these same people understand that America is somehow a Christian nation?
Hey, Ed, I'm a fan. And since I was driving to the beach, I listened to you for two hours get more and more heated--and take some pretty heated calls--on the issue. I was with you, buddy. But I think you missed a thing or two. Let me help you get the religion story straight.
First, many mainline and liberal churches are on the front lines with this issue. For example, the Episcopal Church's policy office issued an alert to Episcopalians to contact their members of Congress and has tried to answer questions regarding the current legislation. And they aren't the only ones. Most American mainline denominations have policy offices working on this issue (and some have for quite a number of years now, around SCHIP and other health concerns). In addition to denominational efforts, on August 10, cooperating groups across a theological spectrum kicked off "40 Days of Health Care Reform" campaign to rally faith communities to support new health care policies. There are lots of Christians--mainstream, mainline, moderate, liberal, emergent, and progressive ones--who care about healing as a social and spiritual issue.
Second, and I say this quite ruefully to you, Ed: mainstream religion is of little interest to most of the media. Ed, while you may be quite supportive of the Episcopal Church or the 40 Days Campaign, you really wanted to know where James Dobson, Joel Osteen, Rick Warren, and Franklin Graham stood on health care. Ed, you wanted to know about the leaders of the conservative evangelical community--the big TV preachers and religious right political types.
I can tell you where they are. They are hiding. Some people think that evangelical opposition to abortion is keeping them away from the health care bill (the abortion issue is a factor worrying some Roman Catholics). But I think that many conservative evangelicals are using abortion as a way to duck addressing the issue. In Washington, religious leaders know that abortion is pretty much off the table in regards to the health care bill. The Hyde Amendment will keep the government from paying for abortion (as long as the Hyde Amendment remains in force) and private insurance companies will--or will not--pay for abortion as their policies dictate. As you rightly pointed out, Ed, abortion stays status quo in the current discussion.
The real thing keeping these leaders from speaking out is that large segments of their audiences suspect that President Obama is the Antichrist, the long-predicted evil political leader who will usher in a universal socialist state, complete with a false religion that will doom untold millions to eternal damnation with "666" stamped on our foreheads. "Becoming Russia" is code language for these fears--whether overtly or intuitively understood.
In other words, Ed, this isn't a health care debate. This is the Apocalypse.
The most chilling aspect of the apocalyptic fever gripping the Bible Belt right now? I can't think of a time when American fundamentalists believed that the Antichrist was the President of the United States. Typically, fundamentalists have identified the Antichrist as someone outside the United States--Hitler, Stalin, Gorbachev, or Saddam Hussein to name a few recent candidates. A few fundamentalists thought Bill Clinton might be the Antichrist, but he was more often seen as the "forerunner" the real bad guy, a kind of wicked John the Baptist-type preparing the way for the big apocalyptic show. And for whatever perverse reason, Barack Obama is seen as the real thing. Some Christians have turned inward for the Antichrist; President Obama is the darkness (and I mean "dark") within.
In other words, Ed, don't expect any sort of rational discussion--or even biblical argument about a compassionate Jesus--to convince these folks. This isn't rational and sophisticated theology is out of the question. This is pretty much the worst kind of religion that can be imagined--apocalyptic fervor and biblical literalism stoked by the fears of racism and xenophobia--the sort of stuff that makes me think that the neo-atheists have a point. Wonder why the town halls are so heated? It isn't that religion isn't in the room. Bad religion--and lots of it--is present in the room. It just isn't the sort of religion that you or I approve of Ed. It isn't about healing the sick; it isn't about caring for the least of these. It isn't really about Jesus. It is about wide-eyed fear over the end of the world as some people know it.
And the only thing that can possibly speak to it is sane religion, the simple teachings of Jesus: Heal the sick, care for the poor.
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Subscribe
Mr. Ed says Jesus healed for free. If the government charges us anything, fines, fees, taxes for health care, will Mr. Ed take care of those bills for us? Will he protest and say it's blasphemous?
I think Mr. Ed's model is probably how they care for horses. Not one horse has ever had to pay taxes or copays. Mr. Ed has the Mr. Ed model, but I doubt he understands how human system works.
Should Christian Scientists be taxed for health care, when they never use it?
Brian West,
It is so very unusual for a conservative Christian to actually engage in discourse, I do confess to being shocked. Wow! And you actually put your money where your mouth is! Better be careful, you'll end up in a progressive church soon at this rate.
I am a fiscal conservative and a social liberal, Ronald Reagan's famous 'scariest words in the English language': I'm from the government and I'm here to help you' have some truth to them.
But only some truth.
Having had the privilege of living in both cultures, Europe and the US, I have seen the results of government involvement in health care. It works.
The mess we have here in the US shows that private solutions just don't work. Don't forget, rational people are all saying that health care expenses will soon reach the point in the US where even folks earning in the 200K range every year won't be able to pay for them.
GM, among many others, tried throughout the Bush years to get the government to reconsider the employer based system we have in the US.
I understand that Americans are not very interested in seeing how the rest of the Western civilization solves many problems of interest to us as Christians, but in this case, everybody is doing it better than us.
Given the role conservative Christians took under the torture and civil rights disaster of the Bush administration, I have no qualms about us taking a positive role for a change. I don't believe Jesus called us to lay our hands in our laps.
I hope your mom never needs to find out which of us is right.
Obama is NOT the anti-Christ. Though he is just as bad. He is a Humanist.
Read the Humanist Manifesto [s] . . .
. . . and watch it describe this man and his goals perfectly.
Christians know what is opposite to The Church.
Great post, Diana. I especially wanted to thank you for noting that *some* Roman Catholics struggle with the abortion issue. Lots of bloggers and political writers talk about Catholics as a huge monolith that agrees with whatever the Pope says. We're more diverse than that, I promise!
Are the President's proposals really about socialized health care? They seem to me to be more about consumer protection in the health arena. Doctors, hospitals, drug companies and insurance companies remain private but they are given directives that require offering affordable services to all citizens. Nothing that comes into my home - food, water, electricity, appliances, TV etc. comes without strong consumer protection regulations to protect all citizens. Shouldn't the same apply to another fundamental right of being a citizen, affordable health care?
The church throughout history has honored individual care for the poor along with the robust development of social institutions to do the same across society. Individual compassion just doesn't scale up the way it should in an ideal Christian society. All Christians should support the foundational principles of the proposed health plan.
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.