by Sandy » Mon May 08, 2017 9:33 am
There are ideas and thoughts I see floated around in the Christian community that I find to be counter to the philosophical perspective of applied Christian living, particularly among those who claim they believe in the absolute authority, inerrancy and infallibility of scripture. I think much of that is simply a lack of information. Locked up inside the fantasy world of Christian and conservative "news" sources that are all commentary and very light on fact, the information they have is simply false. It's taken eight years of hearing from the real people who are most affected by this to get enough information out there to create the realization that if this goes away, they are back to square one, which is basically trying to scrape together the rudimentary health care they had, at exorbitant, profiteering prices, to try to treat symptoms and in some cases, stay alive.
The intricate, Biblical arguments for the pro-life position takes a philosophical stance on the sanctity of human life. Any Christian based pro-life organization most likely has a website that lays these principles out with a good assortment of Bible citations in support. If you simply accept the philosophical statements, you don't even have to insert any other language to make the same, strong argument that health care is an equally Biblical sanctity of human life issue. The part that deals with pregnancy and the unborn isn't really even half the argument if human life is valuable enough from conception to be protected. When does it lose its value, in this regard? Asking the government to protect the life of the unborn is the exact same philosophical ball park as asking the government to provide universal health care. It's antithetical to the pro-life position to legislate to protect the unborn, but not to legislate to protect a life, once born, from circumstances which either allow pain and suffering to become free market economic commodities to be exploited in a supply and demand system, or to allow quality of life to be regulated by a dollar amount.
In our "separation of church and state" culture, the government should not be expected to operate under religious principles, though the collective conscience of the nation certainly has the right to influence its actions. The government's acknowledgement that health care is a basic human right isn't establishment of religion. But the fact that a majority of conservative, Evangelical Christians are opposed to any government attempt to make health care affordable, and take it out of the realm of being nothing more than an economic commodity to be exchanged for as much money as "the market will bear" is an indication that they are exclusive and selective when it comes to applying the principles they use to insist on the rights of the unborn. Their view of health care rights also stands in contrast to those "godless, liberal" Europeans, and the secular Canadians, who long ago recognized that health care in the free market means that only the wealthy have access to it, and have developed high quality, well funded, nationalized health care systems with costs that run about half or less than what we have available in the US. Most American Christians, and virtually all of the self-proclaimed leaders, are fascinated by wealth, and are so bent on chasing after it to fund the capacious palaces and edifices they build to house congregations that use them for an hour once a week, that you can't expect them to hold a moral view in the face of an opportunity to make a buck off of someone's misfortune.