Another KDCR Plumbline from this Summer
The Anti-Bootstrap Religion
I recently read a letter in the Sioux City Journal bemoaned the cost of government entitlements. By entitlements I assume the writer means programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, Veterans Administration programs, Food Stamps, school lunch programs, and the list goes on and on. The letter writer is rightly concerned about entitlements. Anyone serious about cutting down the national debt has to recognize the need to cut back the funding to some entitlement programs.
But the letter writer seems to have it in for all entitlement programs. He expresses the belief that everyone ought to swim on his or her own feathers without help from the government or anybody else. “We start with nothing, and no one owes us anything. Parents graciously give,” he says. And he concludes by saying, “America was built on self-reliance. It’s time we return to that value.” He’s wrong about parents and wrong about America.
Parents owe their children food, clothing, shelter, love, encouragement and training in righteousness among a host of other things. These are obligations that come with parenthood. Parental neglect of children will lead to legal consequences. Why even a farmer who neglects his cows can be imprisoned for his neglect. And while self-reliance played a role in America’s development, so did social responsibility. From the early society of Puritan America, a theocracy, the people of this country survived because they relied on God and on one another. In times of sickness, in times of danger, at harvest time and even when they simply needed festive joy and celebration, they joined together and gave of themselves to the community.
And that attitude has continued right into the 21st century. We provide health care for those who can’t afford it, food and other basic necessities for mothers with children but without the means to care for them. We provide books for use free of charge at our public libraries, and if our house is on fire, we can depend on our society in the form of the Fire Department to come to our aid. (Although I read recently that firefighters in Tennessee allowed a home to burn to the ground because a homeowner had not paid a $75 fee. Perhaps this is the America envisioned by the letter writer who extols self-reliance.)
Which leads me to my main concern in this Plumbline. The idea of a government that is socially responsible and takes social action has been under attack recently not just by the letter writer, but by that political force that came to be called the Tea Party. And of course conservative talk radio has been railing against the supposed socialism of President Obama. Conservatives who say they oppose big government usually have programs aimed at bringing about social justice at the top of their hit list.
So what should it be, self-reliance or social responsibility. I would guess that when it comes to health coverage, most conservatives would say self-reliance. Just the mention of the possibility of a public option in Obama’s health care proposal met with such vitriol from the right that eventually the public option was no longer an option. And still President Obama’s plan is hated for its perceived socialistic components.
John Boehner, the leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, said recently that the United States has “the best health care system in the world.” That explains his hostility to what he calls Obamacare. If it ain’t broke, why fix it. Why would you mess with the best system in the world?
However, it is not clear what world he lives in. According to the Central Intelligence Agency’s (that’s the CIA) World Factbook, the U. S. ranks 49th in life expectancy. That means the citizens of 48 countries have a longer life expectancy than those of the United States. In infant mortality we are ranked beneath 30 countries among them Cuba and Slovenia. And yet the U. S. spends 17 % of its GDP on health care while European countries with significantly better health care ratings spend about 8 percent. In other words we spend more than twice as much as the European countries for health care that by most measures is significantly inferior. And virtually all of the countries that offer superior health care are social democracies that have “entitlement” based health care.
The problems of healthcare as well as the other multi-faceted problems of poverty are extremely complex and I suppose that any plan that tries to fix them is going to be flawed. But I am certain of two Biblical principles that speak to this issue: First, governments are called to promote justice in society. Paul says in Romans 13: 4 that those in authority are “God’s servants for your good.” That good is public justice. In I Kings 10: 9 Solomon is told “the Lord has made you king to execute justice and righteousness.”
Jim Skillen of the Center for Public Justice says, “God does justice in the world by commissioning human beings to exercise justice in the world.” And one way humans do this is through their governments. “Nondiscriminatory governments,” says Skillen, “should not be identified as something secular, as if political governance can be built apart from God on human reason and good intentions.” A state that offers the same civil rights to all its citizens is a state grounded in Christ’s own governance. It is government established by God for our own good. Clearly such a state should not allow some people desirous of working to starve for lack of income to buy food, rent and heat, while others are well fed and housed. Nor would such a state force millions of its poorest citizens to go begging for health care, often experiencing denial when they seek care. That would be injustice. Governments are designed by God to restrain evil and promote justice. This probably means, among other things, that governments should see to it that both beggars and bankers have access to adequate healthcare.
A second Biblical principle that speaks to this issue of poverty and health care is this: Christians are called to love their neighbors. They must bear one another’s burden and thus fulfill the law of Christ. But how should we do that as citizens of the United States? Many Christians I talk to say that the church alone and not government should take care of the needs of the poor. Clearly Dr. Skillen does not agree—and neither does the great Mennonite scholar Ron Sider. Sider says that there is not a shred of Biblical support for those Christians who argue that the church alone is responsible for the poor and government has no role to play. Furthermore, the historic church over the centuries has supported the role of government in helping the poor.
I began this Plumbline by quoting someone who opposes government social programs and believes every individual must rely on himself. One of the most fundamental characteristics of Christianity is that it is a religion that does not focus on individuals as much as it does on a group, the body of believers. The focus of the gospels is always the kingdom and in the epistles it is the church, but in both cases, it is something much larger than an individual. Christianity is always about relationship, community, communion, the body of believers.
Rank individualism, the belief that people must lift themselves up by their bootstraps is simply not compatible with Christianity—nor is it compatible with a Christian concept of government. Christianity is the anti-bootstrap religion.
I recently read a letter in the Sioux City Journal bemoaned the cost of government entitlements. By entitlements I assume the writer means programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, Veterans Administration programs, Food Stamps, school lunch programs, and the list goes on and on. The letter writer is rightly concerned about entitlements. Anyone serious about cutting down the national debt has to recognize the need to cut back the funding to some entitlement programs.
But the letter writer seems to have it in for all entitlement programs. He expresses the belief that everyone ought to swim on his or her own feathers without help from the government or anybody else. “We start with nothing, and no one owes us anything. Parents graciously give,” he says. And he concludes by saying, “America was built on self-reliance. It’s time we return to that value.” He’s wrong about parents and wrong about America.
Parents owe their children food, clothing, shelter, love, encouragement and training in righteousness among a host of other things. These are obligations that come with parenthood. Parental neglect of children will lead to legal consequences. Why even a farmer who neglects his cows can be imprisoned for his neglect. And while self-reliance played a role in America’s development, so did social responsibility. From the early society of Puritan America, a theocracy, the people of this country survived because they relied on God and on one another. In times of sickness, in times of danger, at harvest time and even when they simply needed festive joy and celebration, they joined together and gave of themselves to the community.
And that attitude has continued right into the 21st century. We provide health care for those who can’t afford it, food and other basic necessities for mothers with children but without the means to care for them. We provide books for use free of charge at our public libraries, and if our house is on fire, we can depend on our society in the form of the Fire Department to come to our aid. (Although I read recently that firefighters in Tennessee allowed a home to burn to the ground because a homeowner had not paid a $75 fee. Perhaps this is the America envisioned by the letter writer who extols self-reliance.)
Which leads me to my main concern in this Plumbline. The idea of a government that is socially responsible and takes social action has been under attack recently not just by the letter writer, but by that political force that came to be called the Tea Party. And of course conservative talk radio has been railing against the supposed socialism of President Obama. Conservatives who say they oppose big government usually have programs aimed at bringing about social justice at the top of their hit list.
So what should it be, self-reliance or social responsibility. I would guess that when it comes to health coverage, most conservatives would say self-reliance. Just the mention of the possibility of a public option in Obama’s health care proposal met with such vitriol from the right that eventually the public option was no longer an option. And still President Obama’s plan is hated for its perceived socialistic components.
John Boehner, the leader of the Republicans in the House of Representatives, said recently that the United States has “the best health care system in the world.” That explains his hostility to what he calls Obamacare. If it ain’t broke, why fix it. Why would you mess with the best system in the world?
However, it is not clear what world he lives in. According to the Central Intelligence Agency’s (that’s the CIA) World Factbook, the U. S. ranks 49th in life expectancy. That means the citizens of 48 countries have a longer life expectancy than those of the United States. In infant mortality we are ranked beneath 30 countries among them Cuba and Slovenia. And yet the U. S. spends 17 % of its GDP on health care while European countries with significantly better health care ratings spend about 8 percent. In other words we spend more than twice as much as the European countries for health care that by most measures is significantly inferior. And virtually all of the countries that offer superior health care are social democracies that have “entitlement” based health care.
The problems of healthcare as well as the other multi-faceted problems of poverty are extremely complex and I suppose that any plan that tries to fix them is going to be flawed. But I am certain of two Biblical principles that speak to this issue: First, governments are called to promote justice in society. Paul says in Romans 13: 4 that those in authority are “God’s servants for your good.” That good is public justice. In I Kings 10: 9 Solomon is told “the Lord has made you king to execute justice and righteousness.”
Jim Skillen of the Center for Public Justice says, “God does justice in the world by commissioning human beings to exercise justice in the world.” And one way humans do this is through their governments. “Nondiscriminatory governments,” says Skillen, “should not be identified as something secular, as if political governance can be built apart from God on human reason and good intentions.” A state that offers the same civil rights to all its citizens is a state grounded in Christ’s own governance. It is government established by God for our own good. Clearly such a state should not allow some people desirous of working to starve for lack of income to buy food, rent and heat, while others are well fed and housed. Nor would such a state force millions of its poorest citizens to go begging for health care, often experiencing denial when they seek care. That would be injustice. Governments are designed by God to restrain evil and promote justice. This probably means, among other things, that governments should see to it that both beggars and bankers have access to adequate healthcare.
A second Biblical principle that speaks to this issue of poverty and health care is this: Christians are called to love their neighbors. They must bear one another’s burden and thus fulfill the law of Christ. But how should we do that as citizens of the United States? Many Christians I talk to say that the church alone and not government should take care of the needs of the poor. Clearly Dr. Skillen does not agree—and neither does the great Mennonite scholar Ron Sider. Sider says that there is not a shred of Biblical support for those Christians who argue that the church alone is responsible for the poor and government has no role to play. Furthermore, the historic church over the centuries has supported the role of government in helping the poor.
I began this Plumbline by quoting someone who opposes government social programs and believes every individual must rely on himself. One of the most fundamental characteristics of Christianity is that it is a religion that does not focus on individuals as much as it does on a group, the body of believers. The focus of the gospels is always the kingdom and in the epistles it is the church, but in both cases, it is something much larger than an individual. Christianity is always about relationship, community, communion, the body of believers.
Rank individualism, the belief that people must lift themselves up by their bootstraps is simply not compatible with Christianity—nor is it compatible with a Christian concept of government. Christianity is the anti-bootstrap religion.
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