Christian Faith and Universal Health Care

    Before you get into my analysis, it will be helpful to read through this piece.  The writer gives his opinion in the title:  universal health care is unbiblical because it is socialism and socialism is unbiblical.  Well, that's quite a claim, and as we find so often from "biblical scholars" like this writer, simply wrong.  Let's walk through the highpoints.
    When preparing to review an essay like the one linked, it is good to begin by asking what are the set of values taken for granted.  If, as in this case, one is claiming a "biblical" position, it can be very insightful to see if those values are, in fact, biblical.  In this case, one does not have to go too far into the essay to see that this piece embodies what Lakoff calls "strict father morality."  In other words, the basic presupposition is that humans are lazy and have to be motivated with "the stick."  If we do not use the stick to motivate folks, then people will become lazier and more irresponsible.  Justice is understood as "getting what you deserve" in the old sense of Plato's old school where what you deserve is based upon the value of your gifts and contributions to society.  Tough love and so-called "personal responsibility," then, become the driving factors. 
    Well, once we put it that way, the essentially unbiblical nature of the writer's position is exposed. Throughout the bible, God continually models giving people far better than they deserve (remember that his call of Israel was not because they were a "great people" but precisely the opposite).  In fact, if one looks at Jesus' own ministry wherein he feeds the hungry, heals the sick, and both characterizes and models God as one who blesses others without regard to merit (in the Sermon, God's goodness itself is characterized as blessing without regard to merit), the value system espoused by this writer would make Jesus, oddly, pretty unbiblical!  So, we can rest assured immediately that the writer has hardly met his objective of providing a "biblical" critique of universal health care, but let us consider other parts of his argument, for the problems are legion.
    First, the idea that socialism is an unbiblical concept is going to have to be developed quite a bit further before we can accept it.  One does not have to argue that socialism is the only form of economy Scripture allows, but to argue that it is precluded overlooks too much.  Oddly, this writer would have to  judge numerous of God's commands as "unbiblical."  For example, God commands years of Release, wherein debts are forgiven every seven years, as well as years of Jubilee, wherein lands are returned to their ancestral owners.  God commands that garments offered as collateral by the poor be returned at night, since the poor would require them to stay warm.  Amos 2 gives pretty harsh judgment of those who do not obey this command.  Scripture requires that profit maximization be set aside to allow food to be gathered from the fields by the poor.  Jesus commands that we give to those who ask from us, and in the Great Judgment of Matthew 25, he makes it quite clear that care for those on the margins is central to his assessment of our lives.  These aspects of Scripture were not missed by CS Lewis, who argued that, to be biblical, an economy would be more socialistic than not.
    Sadly, the one passage cited by this writer is taken very badly out of context.  The verse is Second Thessalonians 3:10.  Our regular readers will be wary when a single verse is cited and, hopefully, will go to the text to see if it will support the claim being made.  And, in this case, it clearly does not.  The first problem is that the context into which Paul is writing this passage is a community in which some have decided to do nothing but sit idly by while they await the return of Jesus.  These folks thought the return was going to occur right away, so why bother with work?  To take a passage like this and to generalize to some normative rule that is supposed to apply in all contexts is the worst of sort of exegesis.  Further, the writer totally ignores all of the passages that go in the other direction (only a handful of which were alluded to above).
    Next, this author does offer what seems to be grudging willingness to aid "those who cannot provide for themselves, despite every effort they can summon."  Unfortunately, the writer seems oblivious to some very important factors for this debate.  He seems to assume that it is laziness and sloth that preclude persons from having access to health care.  However, the vast majority of those uninsured in the US are hard working folks whose employer offers no program they can afford.  Further, the cost of health insurance purchased on the open market is priced well outside what can be afforded by the working poor.  In addition, the writer seems oblivious to structural injustices that exist within the health care system itself.  Perhaps most oddly, for a Christian, he expresses far more concern that health care professionals be allowed to maximize their profits than that those on the margins have access at all.
    The writer then wanders off into a discussion of forced economic redistribution.  Well, economic systems redistribute wealth, that is what they do.  For example, using health care access, if a person goes into the hospital for care, he or she will be billed whatever the hospital and care givers think appropriate. If the customer disagrees, the economic system will force monetary redistribution.  The question, from a Christian perspective, is whether or not they empower redistribution that is just.  This is a central concern of Scripture, and it is shocking that this writer would be so blind to that. 
    Next, the writer seems to think that the obligation Scripture imposes upon us to help each other is purely voluntary.  Well, according to Ezekiel, the failure of Sodom to hear the cry of the needy was hardly treated by God as a thing to be taken as purely voluntary.  Likewise, the Parable of the Barns shows God taking very seriously the farmers failure to see that his blessings were given to be a blessing to others.  We have already noted the Great Judgment of Matthew 25, again, God seemed pretty judgmental to those unwilling to care for those on the margins.  The writer's thesis about voluntarism simply will not pass biblical muster.  (Just imagine generalizing this to, say, murder--we should not have laws against murder, because that would preclude people from avoiding murderous thoughts???)
    We could go on, but you get the idea by now.  Once again, we have an individual driven by a pretty unbiblical set of pre-commitments attempting to argue that these can be made consistent with Scripture.  I think the piece from Brugemann that I mentioned the other day is important here.  In short, this writer has absolutized a particular (and, largely pagan) vision of economies and has missed that the what God intends us to make foundational is very different.  Rather than absolutizing markets and an abstract sense of freedom as the right to maximize profits, Scripture makes convenental relationships central.  In short, we are called both to model and to defend economic relations that make neither dependence nor independence primary, but which instead make central the idea of mutual interdependence.  It is the mutuality of relations that come from our owning our obligations to each other--whether embodied in governments or not--that determines whether a given system is biblical or not.  Sadly, the writer of the linked piece missed this altogether, and, thus, missed giving us a Christian analysis.

Comments

[evagrius]

Nothing to disagree here except the argument that the author absolutized a largely "pagan" view of economics.
I'm wary of the term "pagan". After all, the other traditional religions also share many of the economic values you describe as being normative for Christianity.
It might be better to say that he absolutizes a non-religious view of economics.
What's interesting is that the author only used one verse from the Bible to back his argument.
I'm quite curious to see what other texts he could use to back his argument.

[chuck]

Thanks, Evagrius, oddly, I wondered about the word as I typed it, but finally decided to leave it. I like your non-religious better, though.

[evagrius]

I think non-religious is a far better term now that I've reflected a bit deeper on what both Rev Creech and you wrote.
I think that that is exactly what is wrong about most thinking about economics; there's very little religion, even in the broadest terms, in it it.
Economists claim that they practice based on objective science but it's fairly clear, to me, that they don't.
That doesn't mean that what they have to say is not useful.
The author of the article would probaby be surprised to find that many economists could refute his points using just basic economic principles ,(The Ecomist's View site often has posts exploring universal health care). That's essentially because his argument is based on a faulty understanding of economics as well as a faulty theology.

[chuck]

Good points, Evagrius.

[Theodore H Voth Jr]

It amuses me to hear 'evangelicals' lamenting the 'secularization' of the world, Latin 'secula'. It's ironic when they speak of the US as a 'Christian nation', and then decry social programs like universal health care, for in fact if the US is a 'Christian nation' at all, it's not because of bunches of founding fathers who came over in order to establish their own particular varieties of theocracies, it's because for almost 2000 years Christianity was the nursemaid of European culture, and because the Christian notion of the worth of the individual with all its implications has sunk down deep into the soul of European society. I cannot imagine institutions like popular democracy or ideas like feminism or universal health care springing up in a Muslim, or Buddhist, or Hindu, culture, for example; and in fact they did not

[chuck]

Hey, Theodore, glad to have you with us and thanks for your comment. You make some interesting points, and in fact, you point out what I find to be the besetting contradiction of what passes for contemporary evangelicalism.

[JCN]

Chuck, I have just read another article referencing Jesus'(Matt 20) parable about the laborers in the vineyard which reminded me that God gives us what we need, not what we deserve. Your author seems to believe that we should only have what we can afford. Ouch! If it were possible for the Church to reform the healthcare system, I would say let's go for it. However, I believe that it will take (literally) an act of Congress to set things right.

[chuck]

Hey, Judy, Great to have you join us! Feel free to comment any time, and thanks for your thoughts on this one.

[ashleynoelle]

I love this article. It is funny that I stumbled upon it because I had just read the article you are talking about the other day and was absolutely disgusted. I am so embarrassed with what these evangelical Christians come up with sometimes and it can be so discouraging to feel like this is what Christianity in the U.S. has become. It gives me hope to see that there are others who disagree with these silly notions being biblical or Christ-like.

[Dydayfainny]

Two new studies show why some people are more attractive for members of the opposite sex than others.

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It has long been proven that mammals (including human) odor is one way of attracting the attention of representatives of the opposite sex. A detailed article about the journal Nature will publish.

[alux]

discovered this posting a little late, it would seem, but I want to thank you for your well-written piece and clear insight into what should be a no-brainer for Christians everywhere.

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