Tuesday, August 11, 2009

A New Civil war? A Conversation on Religion and Health Care

My Brother wrote:

Your site (http://www.whitehouse.gov/realitycheck) sounds very hateful, resentful and condemning, oh, and demeaning to me. Because I don't hold the same ideals that you do, doesn't mean I'm less a person or should be condemned.

There has never been a national health plan, why now? Is it cheaper, less strings, more ability, more science, why? Should everyone pay for all the needs of others; personal needs, cars, housing, food, etc.
Jesus said, "a willing heart". He didn't say you have to. All through the bible it talks about choice. Adam and Eve had a choice, Noah had a choice, Moses, David and even Jesus had a choice. God may not have agreed with their choices, but He can them a choice. Sounds like you're condemning people for not believing in what you think is right. What if others consider your thoughts on health care injustice, should God condemn them?

Throughout America's and the world history many people(s) didn't have a national health care plan and people survived. I didn't have it for years, until I got the right job. I wasn't telling others to pay for a plan for me. Why the need for a national plan now...cheaper, better science, a richer country, more diseases, people dying earlier? God tells us to care about the windows, orphans, poor and those placed in jails unjustly. But He still gives us as choice to do it and a choice to choose the people to help.

Don't let this debate destroy your love of family or country. There's so much more to do.

There seems to be more than the health care issue that frightens you. What are you afraid of? Are you lacking faith? Are you so worried that your wife or your kids might end up caring for a cripple that you've lost your Faith in God. God is in charge, not us. Even if the health care plan passes and I suspect it will, many may still die, Then what? Will you blame me, mom, or others. God cares for His people no matter what their circumstances, the difference between them and most of us is, they have a trusting faith in God and we, as Jesus often said, " are of little faith".

Faith is believing that God not only cares, but will do what He says. I don't know what He has in store for us. We're considering visiting either Ethiopia (sponsor a child there), Philippines, or Israel and Jordan. But what if we go and something happens to one of us. We only know this, that God loves us and cares for us, and will watch over us. We may just sell everything and become missionaries.

The most important thing is to place our trust in God and our salvation in His son's work on the cross. God loves this country with all it's faults, including yours and mine. Each one of us are called for a particular duty or duties, but the most important is to demonstrate Gods love to as many as we can and take His word to the world. From there, His spirit will guide us.

God said that He will judge and we must leave it up to Him. We simply need to do what He asks us to and if trying to convince others of the need for the health care plan is what you were called to do, then do it. But if He's called me to something else, then I must do that.

Trust God first and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matt 6:33)

I replied:

Hate is wanting to let people die. I don't condemn you for not wanting "Obama's Plan" with the proviso that you know what the plan is. I watch the town meetings on Faux New's, CNN, and others all day. Those people shouting down everyone else look like a collection of local town bullies. I think their conduct is indefensible. I know that when I was a protester I would have been drug out and beaten for acting that way, so maybe it is a better world now, even if you can't hear the non right wing side.

God will judge you and I. I have always listened to evangelical's call down hellfire on everyone else, so maybe they need to hear the same for the evil of killing uninsured people. It is as simple as that. I watched it for 34 years. I know you are a loving and caring brother, but your allies are telling lies and distorting the facts by calling this socialism. There is no plan for the government to be a single payor, or to own the hospitals and clinics. There is no mandate to pay for abortion. There is no plan to kill people when they get too old. The truth is that the distortion artists are carrying water for the people and corporations that want to bleed us and treat health care like a product to market - can't afford it - go out and die. I ask you again, what is Christian about that? I keep asking and no one gives me an answer.

Yes I am mad about what I am seeing with the orchestrated bullying tactics of the TEA Party and others. I think it is a righteous anger. My children's future hangs on the line. I can pay my daughter's health care insurance premiums only so long, and then I have to let her go into the darkness of this country's ignorance, perhaps at the cost of her life. Same is true for you and your children. It doesn't have to be government run, but I know that there is no sincerity on the other side to do a thing for the uninsured, the under-insured, or for us. When they kill Obama's initiative, which he is more than willing to compromise on, they they will bleed us and run us into national bankruptcy. Doing nothing as I tried to show is the surest way to national bankruptcy. I love my country and I am sick and tired of the arrogance of right wingers in thinking that they are the only one's that love their country. You just said it about me now!

I have great faith in God. I believe he can do righteousness in this world in a real sense with us as his instruments. Faith without works is dead because God calls us to work for his good. I am doing what I believe God wants me to do. God didn't say fight against health care. God directs us to see that the poor and needy are cared for. A willing heart would try to get that done, either in your way or in mine. Mom said to me that this should be done by charity and free will giving, but which of us or any collection of us as churches could bear the burden of one members short illness and the hundreds of thousands of dollars it would cost? Government exists to do good and to do the things that are too big for individuals or small groups to do. Government exists to make laws that bring justice. That is why our country passed Medicare in the sixties with the same sort of misguided opposition that we see now. Ask yourself, what would mom do without it? Would you be worried if she didn't have it or would you say "well, nothing to worry about because I have faith". That would be making faith a rationale for injustice and death. God doesn't want to you be oblivious because you have faith. At least I don't think he does. Why go to Ethiopia if you can just say God will take care of it. No, we must be Gods instruments for good in this world. For you it means volunteering and going to Ethiopia, for me it means volunteering at the food pantry, community garden, church, and working real hard to get everyone access to the care God wants all his ill children to have. You don't think God doesn't want the sick to be healed do you? If he does want healing, wouldn't he want it done by those with hands that can do it? I love my country enough to believe that it can do better. Carl Shurz said: “I confidently trust that the American people will prove themselves … too wise not to detect the false pride or the dangerous ambitions or the selfish schemes which so often hide themselves under that deceptive cry of mock patriotism: ‘Our country, right or wrong!’ They will not fail to recognize that our dignity, our free institutions and the peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism: ‘Our country—when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.’”




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