The United Methodist Board of Church & Society’s Oppressive Vision

Many prominent evangelicals who approve of contraceptives still understand the assault on religious liberty by COMPELLING Roman Catholic institutions to fund them under Obamacare.  Some evangelical schools have joined in litigation against the contraceptive/abortifacient mandate, understanding it poses a threat to all.

Sadly, the chief of the United Methodist General Board of Church and Society enthusiastically endorses this attack on the First Amendment.

“Why is it that the liberty of those who are denied basic health-care services is not at issue?” asked Jim Winkler in an article earlier this year (http://umc-gbcs.org/faith-in-action/word-from-winkler-its-not-about-religious-freedom): “Contraception benefits society. It reduces the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, reduces the need for abortions, and assists families to plan the number and spacing of their children.”

Winkler argues for contraception, but he doesn’t really admit the debate is not about contraception but about the federal government FORCING religious institutions to violate their own beliefs.  What other religious freedoms is Winkler willing to forego in favor of advancing the coercive federal Welfare & Entitlement State?

In typical fashion for many liberal Protestant elites, he claims that modernity makes traditional Roman Catholics and other believers morally irrelevant.  “There were those who argued that racial segregation was biblically mandated, that keeping women out of church leadership was sanctioned by God, and that destruction of the environment is approved by God,” he recalls. “All of these notions were and are wrong.”

Would Winkler have the government force female clergy on Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Southern Baptists, and many others in his coercive egalitarian vision?  If not, why not?  Perhaps there should be a presidential order commanding all clergy to read a warning against Global Warming from their pulpits.  And more plausibly, what should prevent the government from forcing churches to conduct same-sex unions?  Although he does not say, Winkler presumably would support forcing churches to subsidize full-term abortions, since he favors compelling subsidies for abortifacients.

Winkler complains that the current debate focuses on the “religious freedom of institutions and corporations” and not employees. “In a world where corporations are declared to be people —where corporations even claim religious freedom — is it possible that real human beings, employees, no longer will have the rights of human beings or the freedom to practice behavior they consider ethical?”

Where to begin?  If the owners, officers and share holders of large corporations do not count as “real human beings,” then maybe Winkler would at least acknowledge that small business owners might be human?  How about the principal at a small religious school, does he nor she count as human?  At issue is not legal access to contraceptives, most of which are very inexpensive, but compelling employers to pay for all of them, including abortifacients.

Insurance was once understood to protect against vastly expensive emergency situations that could be financially ruinous.  The entitlement mentality has decreed that even minor expenses now must be paid by others.  This most recent debate could be avoided if the federal government stopped encouraging or forcing employers to pay for health insurance and instead encouraged portability and vouchers, with individuals free to choose their own plans and make their own insurance decisions.

But for most of the last 80 years, official Methodism, like most of the Religious and secular Left, has equated social justice with federal government control.  Socialized medicine has been the long-time dream.  The United Methodist Church, unknown to most of its members, officially favors a “single payer” system, i.e. the virtual abolition of private insurance in favor of direct federal control. But Obamacare, with all of its potential for regulatory compulsion, has been an acceptable half way measure.

Winkler cites the United Methodist Social Principles’ affirmation of “access” to contraceptives. Yet even the Social Principles don’t demand free contraceptives for all, subsidized by employers.  For Winkler’s agency, “access” means making somebody else pay.

In this stern Religious Left vision, rooted in the utopian statism of the early 20^th century, there really is ultimately no room for religious freedom or for private society outside the centralized state.  Old style liberal theology denies the transcendent and reinterprets religion as simply ethics and justice. In this vision, the church no longer proclaims redemption or personal holiness but simply serves as handmaiden to the state by materialistically demanding equal distribution of good and services, including contraceptives and abortifacients.

It’s a grim, oppressive vision more similar to George Orwell’s 1984 than any book of the Bible.  Thankfully, most of American Christianity, including many liberal evangelicals and Catholics who otherwise support Obamacare, are standing against the contraceptive/abortifacient mandate.  Even many non-religious have recognized what Winkler and the General Board of Church and Society will not, that freedom is precious, and owed even to them with whom we disagree.