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Obama's Healthcare and Conservative Christianity
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Photo Credit: Foxnews.com
As President Obama prepares to give one more speech tonight on health care, it is important to note the dilemma that exists for many conservative Christians, of which I am one. I will confess my biases up front: I do not want a public option for health care, I do not want the government taxing me if I do not have health insurance, and I believe all we really need to do is fix the few small problems that exist (among them, health insurance portability and tort reform) instead of overhauling the entire system.
Given that, a dilemma exists. If the government does not help those who are not insured, who will help them when medical needs arise?
Christians in this country used to be part of the solution. For years, communities of Faith gathered together to help those who struggled, were out of jobs, and who needed health care. However, with the rise of the Social Gospel in the early 20th century, many conservative Christians pulled out of social ministries. They feared a slippery slope would emerge and lead them into the liberalism that they viewed plagued many mainline denominations who embraced the Social Gospel. This created a vacuum within social ministries, and with the rise of the liberal Progressive movement, which influenced American presidents such as Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, government filled the void. The abandonment of social ministries by many conservative Christian groups allowed the government to increase their involvement in its citizenry through medicaid/medicare, and welfare.
Conservative Christians do not want the government to intrude more in the lives of American citizens. Today, Richard Land, head of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, will join with conservative talk show hosts and others to present 1.2 million signatures on a petition sponsored by the National Center for Policy Analysis and Salem Radio Network to leaders in Congress. "This petition is indicative of a spontaneous grass roots eruption of protest against a government takeover of the American health care system," said Land. "Anyone who doubts the strength and vitality of this movement needs only have attended one of the thousands of town hall meetings to know that this is real."
However, if government were to get out of the business of welfare, medicaid/medicare, and health care - which it will not - who would fill the void? Will Conservative churches?
Some churches have taken the words of Jesus seriously. First Baptist Church in Leesburg, Florida developed the Christian Care Center. There they have an emergency children's shelter, pregnancy care center, men's residence, women's care center, benevolence center, thrift store, and a community medical care center. Fellowship Bible Church in North Little Rock, Arkansas restructured their entire structure around community investment and ministry.
However, many conservative churches have simply outsourced social ministries. To deal with social ministries, many have empowered the Salvation Army, developed parachurch denominational entities, or ignored the issue altogether. A small number of state conventions affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention have hospital systems and some have developed inner city mission centers to help with poverty and the plight of the homeless. Yet simply giving money creates a forgotten people. It is easy for churches to lose sight of those needs when all that is done is check-writing.
Most churches lack the infrastructure to deal with social issues. While they may be capable of helping someone with a spiritual issue, assisting with job training, providing child care, child and adult mentoring programs, and transitional housing are not part of their ministry. In our church in Delaware, we sought to develop a "third place", something like a coffee shop where families could gather, local artists could sell their art and groups could meet together during the week. We wanted to use the profits from that third space to buy a duplex, offering one of the homes for rent and using that money to allow someone transitioning from destructive lifestyle to a productive lifestyle to have a clean place to sleep at night. At the time, we had the resources that could help with parenting skills, budgeting skills, and to counsel them through the process. We also wanted to use the third place to provide job training and income for them, so they could get additional education and training for the marketplace. We would also use some profits to plant churches and do other ministry. We are a small church, so we sought out resources to set up the infrastructure. Most churches and pastors had a glazed-over look as we described the plan for which we could never securing starting capital.
Early Christians in the first three centuries after Jesus' resurrection were known for taking in those with the plague, those who were sick, and those who had no one to care for them. If conservative Christians do not want the government to intrude, which is my desire as well, then conservative churches need to change how they use the monies they receive.
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