Predictably the National Council of Churches (NCC) has quickly hailed the U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding Obamacare, which it likens to the work of Jesus.
“We as churches follow the bold example of Jesus, who healed the sick, sometimes breaking the religious law that governed society,” the NCC boasted. “Our members have always believed that health care is not simply another worthy cause to which we lend our name.”
Claiming to speak for 40 million church members, the NCC continued: “Christians believe that human beings—all of them—are infinitely-valued children of God, created in God’s image. Adequate health care, therefore, is a matter of preserving what our gracious God has made. That is why churches (and other religious communities) have established so many hospitals and other places of healing. And why we are convinced that health care is not a privilege, reserved for those who can afford it, but a right that should be available, at high quality, to all.”
And the NCC explained: “There is another principle undergirding our approach to this crucial topic: namely, a special concern for society’s most vulnerable members. The basic principles we have always supported require our nation to provide health care that has significant limits on cost sharing imposed on the poor, expands comprehensive coverage that low-income children and families receive through Medicaid and CHIP, ensures sufficient funding for safety-net hospitals and clinics, promotes preventative care, and prohibits denying coverage based on pre-existing medical conditions.”
The NCC also boasted that its Obamacare advocacy is “interfaith.”
Look for other Religious Left groups to tout their Obamacare support in the wake of the court ruling. Like the NCC, they reflexively assume that the federal government is the best provider of nearly all human services, without unintended negative consequences to quality and availability, much less overall liberty and the moral health of civil society.
The Religious Left supports Obamacare because it locates transcendent authority in centralized Big Government to the detriment of civil society and liberty. In contrast, traditional faith is more realistic about the moral and practical limits of a huge and coercive regulatory welfare state that aspires to solve every human need. The court ruling returns this debate to the political sphere, where competing religious visions of America will debate our future. Church goers can also ponder who the NCC and other organs of the Religious Left really represent. And they can ask whether such church officials really have a divine mandate for routinely detailed political pronouncements.
Comment by Dan Trabue on June 29, 2012 at 7:47 am
As someone who’s oft-described as a Left-ish Christian, I was/am ambivalent about the healthcare deal. I support healthcare, of course, and finding wise, just ways to deliver it to all people (or as many as possible). It’s a noble goal and I have no problems in theory with legislators (ie, we the people) attempting to deal with this.
My problem is that I come from the anabaptist tradition and we tend to not trust/believe in insurance companies as an ideal way to do things. That being said, many of my Amish and Mennonite (and others) brothers and sisters do not want to be forced to buy insurance by law. It runs counter to some of our belief systems.
I frankly am surprised that this part of the health care law is constitutional.