This may sound like a rhetorical question but it’s not- I truly don’t get it: Why are so many churches and rightwing Christians so opposed to Healthcare Reform?
Some qualifications:
I’m not talking about conservatives in general but specifically those church groups and self-identified conservative Christians who are so adamantly (some [including me] might say irrationally) opposed to it. I am not talking about people who are opposed to it for solely political or financial reasons or with those who think it can’t work, but about the absolutely zealous and loud HRC opponents who are affiliated with churches.
The Bible preaches constantly on providing for the poor- moreso than any other instruction. Jesus Christ spoke constantly about taking care of the least of His brethren, of selling your spare coat- sometimes not even saying spare but “sell everything you own”- and giving it to the poor, and at the same time he instructed people to pay their taxes and render unto Caesar that which is Caesars.
It would seem that making quality healthcare more easily available for the poor (a term here including “those who cannot afford it without help”) could scarcely be a more Christian concept or value or goal. While I completely understand having problems with whether this can feasibly be done through government intervention, why do so many churches and clerics screaming and ranting and raving against it?
For me to donate money to the poor fits that first sentence. For me to pay my taxes so Caesar can provide for the poor fits the second sentence. For me to vote for Caesar to take someone else’s money, against that person’s will, isn’t justified under either.
Similarly, a Christian should turn the other cheek when smacked upside the head; does that mean a Christian should therefore authorize this or that second person to smack a third person upside the head?
:rolleyes: Since when has the Christian Right showed the slightest reluctance about forcing their beliefs upon others? That’s practically their main defining quality. If they believed that UHC was the Christian thing to do, I guarantee that forcing everyone else to go along wouldn’t bother them in the slightest.
They don’t give a shit about health care reform per se. They’ve been brainwashed to vote and campaign against their own best interests by the conservative media complex’s successful manipulation of social and religious hot buttons (along with generous helpings of outright disinformation and lying, of course). They think they’re in a holy war with a Negro, Muslim Antichrist.
In the world in which Christ lived the money was being taken by Caesar involuntarily to support everything from the military occupation of Israel to the building of pagan temples to the building of the emperor Tiberius’s pleasure palace where he molested young boys to the upkeep of Pontius Pilate who executed Jews by the score without the slightest qualm to the luxuriating of Herod Antipas and his niece/wife/sister-in-law in Galilee. The pagan worship that was state supported had long since begun to cause problems in Israel: Pilate (or the procurator’s office) was there because of a revolt under Antipas’s half-brother Archelaus over this matter (specifically a Roman eagle over the temple gates that reeked of emperor worship to the zealots), and even the image of Caesar on the coin was offensive to Jews, so this was in fact a highly charged political question that was exactly about people being “robbed” by the government to fund things they found many times more distasteful and that were many times more immediately and legitimately threatening (again, we’re talking occupied country where bloody Roman officials and puppet kings live in palaces) than any sane person would fear from Obama. (You wanna talk death squads? When Rome sent one there was no symbolism.)
That’s not the point. That is, in fact, the exact opposite of the point.
The Christian Right should, as per said doctrine, refrain from forcing their beliefs upon others; as you say, they routinely don’t. You’re now faulting them for the one time they are urging Christians to refrain from authorizing a new use of force.
Again, that’s utterly beside the point. The point of saying “render unto Caesar” in that context, and in this one, is to say that once such a law has been passed, Christians are supposed to pay their taxes; in neither case is a Christian told to vote in favor of said tax. Whether the former laws are worse than the latter is irrelevant; it doesn’t matter which situation involves ‘people being robbed by the government to fund things they find many times more distasteful and threatening’; it only matters that Christians aren’t supposed to authorize such stuff regardless of degree.
Of course, they often do authorize such stuff; fault them then, not now.
Do you have any evidence for the proposition that right-wing Christians have been more vocal about not supporting health care reform than right-wingers in general? Because I haven’t seen it.
Because it’s all of a piece. They have no regard for the rights or needs of others. They want the government to ram their beliefs down the throats of everyone else; but they don’t want other people to be helped by the government.
I’m faulting them for the same thing in both cases; they regard the government as a weapon to be used to crush everyone else into going along with them, and nothing else. They have no concern for the welfare of others.
I actually don’t think it’s a good idea to look at what Jesus says in the Bible for political guidance. Rather, a Christian should look in the parts of the bible where the political nature of the advice being given is explicit–namely, the christian should be looking to see what the Prophets said.
The prophets who strongly criticized governments in no uncertain terms for their failure to use government power to aid the poor were addressing the rulers of those governments.
But in the USA, the rulers of our government are supposed to be us. You’re supposed to be one of the rulers of our government. The voters are supposed to be people with power to make decisions about what the government should do with its stuff–the voters are supposed to be (at least some of) the rulers.
So when a Christian is figuring out how to vote, I think he’s committed to looking to the prophets for guidance. And what he finds there is absolutely clear–the Christian should be doing what he can to make sure that the government is one that provides for the poor, that does what it can to prevent disasters from being occasions for hopelessness, etc etc. It’s all in there–just not in the new testament. It’s in the Old one.
You characterized this as voting for caeser to take money from someone else and give it to a third party. But in theory anyway, in the US, there is no Caesar. There’s just us. In voting for some kind of guaranteed health care, you’re not voting for some other guy to take something from some third guy and give it to some fourth guy. Rather, you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing (according to the prophets) as a ruler–using the power that’s been vested in you for the good of the whole and especially of the poor, rather than chiefly for your own good.
A ruler always decides goods should be transferred from some other guy to some other guy. That’s what being a ruler is all about. The question for you (since you’re a ruler) isn’t whether you should do that or not. The question can only be, which guys, and how much?
The OT gives clear guidance on this. Rulers should be taking substantial (but not necessarily huge) amounts of money from people who have it, and redistributing it in the form of goods and services to those who don’t have it.
Oh, no! Instead of actually doing something to make a difference here in the real world, they’re instead praying for God to do something! Albeit in an indirect manner that you say doesn’t rise past the level of plausible deniability! The horror!
Would that all idiots were so obliging.
Well, sure – but, as per the OP, only the part before the semicolon involves an inconsistency with regard to the Bible verses in question.
I’m afraid I don’t see it that way. If, say, Jesus said we’re not to strike back even when attacked – well, then, regardless of what the OT says about eye for eye or whatever, Christianity apparently mandates that I’m not supposed to strike back even when attacked; I’m supposed to forgive trespasses and resist not evil and turn the other cheek and judge not and, again, not strike back. Thus, the question for me (since I’m a ruler) truly is whether I should do that or not.
Likewise, the question for me (since I’m a ruler) is whether I should vote in favor of taking stuff from people who don’t want to part with it. Sure, when it comes to paying taxes, Christians should render unto Caesar like the man said; when it comes to being Caesar and instituting taxes, shouldn’t Christians likewise do what Jesus said?
For one thing, the bit about not smiting anybody even if they smite you: turn the other cheek, resist not evil, all that stuff from Matthew 5:38 on, what with the Sermon on the Mount – which, of course, builds up to the following:
I take that as a blanket injunction barring authorizations of force in general; whether as ruler or private citizen, one isn’t supposed to smite anybody or judge anybody in general, sure as one isn’t supposed to justify a particular use of force – or anything else, really – in terms of taking thought about food or clothing or whatever for tomorrow; the Father already knows what’s needed, and is on the job. Your designated role is to refuse to fight back even if people are smacking you upside the head, much as Jesus did when he allowed himself to be nailed to the cross; he wasn’t in the business of nailing others to crosses, after all.
Was Jesus really more opposed to instituting taxes on those who would no sooner enter the kingdom of God than a camel would pass through the eye of a needle?
And if the critical moral issue is the government not spending money because that would amount to taxing people, how does that square with conservative fears of rationing, death panels, and cuts in medicare?
Oh, and what was the predominant position among the religious right with regards to invading Iraq? That it amounted to forcing people to pay for others’ liberation was only one problem.
Jesus, as near as I can tell, was opposed to initiating the use of force against anyone, whether rich or poor; he only ever said that we should forgive them their trespasses, and turn the other cheek if they smite us, regardless of how wealthy they happened to be. If anything, he told us not to judge such people.
I doubt that Jesus wanted Christians to vote in favor of death panels. I likewise doubt that Jesus wanted Christians to vote in favor of various cuts. I likewise doubt that Jesus wanted Christians to vote in favor of casting the first stone, any more than he wanted this or that Christian to hire a hitman or become a rapist or whatever; near as I can tell, he didn’t want Christians to (a) do such things, or (b) tell other people to do such things on their behalf.
That’s one of the times the Christian Right got it wrong. This time, they’re doing the opposite.
Wiley Drake is literally praying for the death of Congressional and Senate Democrats (even saying that Harry Reid’s wife and daughter being seriously injured in a car accident was the wrath of God)- and as I mentioned elsewhere he’s not a lone nut with a Winnebago ministry, he was the VP from 2006-2007 of the Southern Baptist Convention (with 16 million members). While Drake is unique in his degree of hatred, Hagee and Franklin Graham and the other usual suspects have only slightly muted positions. So yeah, it’s there.
So are you saying that when Obama signs this into law this week, all true Christians will accept it? Not rhetorical- I’m honestly not clear on your meaning.
Well, yeah. Isn’t that the whole point of the “render unto Caesar” quote? Once it becomes law, all true Christians are supposed to pay this tax just like they’re supposed to pay all the other taxes that likewise became law. I don’t see how that translates into figuring they should vote in favor of such a tax; it’s merely that they’re supposed to obey the law by paying any such tax.
Yes, Jesus spoke at length in every Gospel about the need to parse his words with the finest of combs for loopholes to help avoid the inconvenience attached to living according to the spirit of them.