Mooing and Mooching Cows: Health Care Reform

"Nothing has contributed to the progress of the superstition of the Christians as their charity to strangers...The Galileans provide not only for their own poor, but for ours as well."
Julian the Apostate, Epistles 84

Well, son of a gun, they did it. On Sunday night, the House of Representatives passed the Health Care Reform Act and the President signed it into law today. If you think this fight is over, think again. The reconciliation bill is on its way to the Senate (how the House can pass a Senate bill, send it to the President for signature, and then have the Senate vote on a reconciliation bill to fix the previous bill is beyond me. Seems bass ackwards, if you ask me. But, hey. What do I know from nothin'?) Republicans hope to derail this legislation by sending the reconciliation bill back to the House for another vote. I think they're dreaming. Several states' attorneys generals have filed suit in federal court to block implementation of this law. This thing is going to be tied up in litigation for years. The only clear winners I can see in this entire mess are the lawyers.

What I have found most interesting during this year long debate (NOT the most interesting aspect, however) has been the rhetoric used by both sides of this issue. If you strip away the most objectionable speech, it seems to me that progressives and liberals believe opponents to health care reform do not care about the health and welfare of everyday, common American citizens. Representative Alan Grayson (D-FL) epitomizes this attitude best. He's the one who stated that the Republican Health Care Plan to America was, "Don't get sick. And if you do get sick America, die quickly."

On the other hand, conservatives seem to believe that liberals and progressives are intent on establishing a socialist economic system and spend and tax (which seems to be the historical order). Not to mention, conservatives believe that progressives and liberals seek a universal payer health care system and are determined to fund abortion on demand with taxpayer money. Representative Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) stated that freedom died a little bit on Sunday night. Representative Randy Neugebauer (R-TX) shouted "baby killer" during Representative Bart Stupak's (D-MI) floor speech during the last hour of the debate. On Monday, nobody remembered either Joe Wilson or what he said during the President's State of the Union speech.

If you thought the rhetoric on the floor of the House was abysmal, then I hope you haven't tuned into the cable news shows. Unabashed support or unflinching opposition have been offered by everyone who could get his or her face before a microphone. The day after afterglow or hangover, depending upon your perspective, was all the rage from Hannity, O'Reilly, Matthews, Olbermann (whose father passed away in the week before the House floor vote), Maddow, and others. And don't even get started looking at the internet. If you are a conservative, today was the day the four horsemen of the Apocalypse rode into town.

Civility in public discourse is dead. But no one has seriously asked the question, "What if they (choose a side) are fundamentally right in their criticism?" Perhaps it is too close to the vote and emotions are too strong to ask that question and answer it with anything approaching rationality. Perhaps the real implications of this law will come out during the litigation.

Someone made the comment to me that this particular bill was God's judgment against the United States, and we were doomed. Freedom is dead. I try not to take comments like this too seriously, but I have found myself wondering what if this is God's chastisement of the Church for not caring for the poor? I see a limited role for government in providing basic needs to its citizens. But, what about the role of the Church? I think that before we seek to remove the speck from the government's eye (or the Democrat's or Republican's eye) in this matter, we should examine our testimony to the country.

"But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. And all the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 'For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.' Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You drink? 'And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? And when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?' And the King will answer and say to them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.' Then He will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.' Then they themselves also will answer, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?' Then He will answer them, saying, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.' And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." Matthew 25:31-46

I have seen a lot of statements on the Internet from Christians proclaiming the sovereignty of God (the passage of this bill is in the sovereignty of God, no?) and the expansion of the Kingdom of his Christ, the Lord Jesus. I have also seen a lot of comments from others that the President ought to read this and that Scripture. While all these statements are true, they are arrows that fly past the target. What do the Scriptures say about the role of the Church in caring for the poor? What examples do we have from the Reformers and their descendants in caring for the poor? What of the diaconal ministries of John Calvin, Thomas Chalmers, George Grant, and others?

We can sit back and lament the current and future state of our nation (quite frankly, I think it is going to get worse, much worse. Don't forget who holds most of our public debt. Oh, and then there are those other guys who are busy enriching uranium in an underground facility.) and wait for Jesus to return, comforting ourselves in our indolence with Scripture. Or, we can quit ourselves like men, pleading with God to rule in the affairs of men and nations, prospering his people so that they may give sacrificially to the poor. We can adopt the mind of Jesus, who though he was rich, yet for our sake became poor, that we through his poverty might become rich.

Look, if Galilean Christians (Gee, I wonder how many seminary grads they had?) could so impress Julian the Apostate during his reign in the fourth century A.D. that he complained (in writing, no less) about the means by which the early Church grew, is it not possible for the present day Church, by God's grace, to do the same? Wow! Now wouldn't that be something?