Isn’t this a pro-life issue?
That seems to me a question that never gets asked in the health-care debate. The conversation seems to get bogged down talk of economics and insurance regulations and bureaucracies, but the powerful moral dimension gets little play. At least on my news. And I wonder why.
When it comes to abortion, the pro-life movement is impossible to ignore. Now, where tens of millions of Americans are going without needed medicine and medical treatment because they simply cannot afford it, where 14,000 men, women, and especially children lose their health coverage every day, where life and death questions are being decided by a profit and loss statement in some insurance company’s boardroom, where are the posters and bullhorns and the new conferences?
Thou shall not kill. It says it very clearly in my Bible. In more than one place. Every person who suffers and dies for lack of access to health care is blood-guilt on us all. Every sick child. Every missed surgery. Every pill not taken because it could not be purchased. It is not just statistics, not simply someone else's problem, it is a poor reflection on the world we have made and fight to maintain, it is our great and shared shame.
It is a great sin that our neighbors are doing without necessary medical care because someone else cannot profit from it.
I hear it said that it’s too expensive. We can’t afford it. It will overload our national debt for years and years to come. Is that what we truly want to say? That we are willing to sacrifice the health and life of our neighbors because we are unwilling to pay a few more dollars in taxes each year? How shall we explain that to St. Peter at the inevitable time?
I fear that too many of my pro-life brethren are silent now because, having sold their soul to the one particular political party, they are not capable of taking this stand against them. I’d like to be wrong about that, but probably am not.
There is a constant hue and cry over the lack of morality and decency in our politicians and our government in this country. Here is a first and easy step toward a more godly world. That we should stand up for the ideal that every person has the right to the medical treatment they needs is undoubtedly a very Christian notion. Let us honor our God by doing this necessary and right thing.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Plains folks have lost a hero.
The most trusted man in America. Not a bad nickname to have.
Walter Cronkite, gone now to join the creator, enjoyed this appellation for many years. And rightly so I believe. But I wonder what it was that made him so. What particular characteristic, what mannerism, what wisdom did he possess or share entitle him to such respect?
Imagine that you would consider to offer any of the current television news celebrities, broadcast or cable, the honorarium of “most trusted.” Add in all the print journalists you know as well. Imagine calling most of them even trusted at all! You should be laughed off of the screen.
It is not just that they do not bring the same gravity to their work, though that is part of it. There is a flippancy of manner and a looseness with facts about today’s news media that truly frightens me. There is altogether too much willingness to share unsubstantiated gossip and untested rumor as if it were gospel in all the media, from mainstream to internet. I think it the a most dangerous ingredient in the decline of our public conversation.
But Walter Cronkite was more than just accurate in his reporting. It was something else about him, about his approach, about his person, that lent him the bearing which attracted our trust. There was a sense of genuineness about him, a authenticity that is much missing in our reality TV age.
He cared about the news. He knew it mattered to people, to all people, not just to the people who were on his side of the political spectrum. He respected the institutions of our society, the politicians, even the ones he disagreed with. He spoke in the same tenor of John Kennedy and Richard Nixon. He had more than objectivity, he had integrity, a very rare trait these days. You cannot imagine him speaking in the same words or tones about any person in the way a Bill O’Reilly or Glen Beck regularly speaks about our president.
And in that way, he was always right.
Not just accurate or correct, but right. Right in his decorum, right in his language, right in his being. He celebrated great accomplishments as they deserved, he mourned great tragedies as they demanded. He was not there to sell us, to berate us, to persuade us, but to tell us, to show us, to serve us. He was not concerned with explaining the news or interpreting the news or even making the news, just with sharing the world “the way it was.”
To watch over mouth and tongue is to keep out of trouble. The proud, haughty person, named “Scoffer,” acts with arrogant pride. Proverbs 21:23-24
Goodbye, Walter. We wish you could come back and make it be “the way it is” all over again.
Walter Cronkite, gone now to join the creator, enjoyed this appellation for many years. And rightly so I believe. But I wonder what it was that made him so. What particular characteristic, what mannerism, what wisdom did he possess or share entitle him to such respect?
Imagine that you would consider to offer any of the current television news celebrities, broadcast or cable, the honorarium of “most trusted.” Add in all the print journalists you know as well. Imagine calling most of them even trusted at all! You should be laughed off of the screen.
It is not just that they do not bring the same gravity to their work, though that is part of it. There is a flippancy of manner and a looseness with facts about today’s news media that truly frightens me. There is altogether too much willingness to share unsubstantiated gossip and untested rumor as if it were gospel in all the media, from mainstream to internet. I think it the a most dangerous ingredient in the decline of our public conversation.
But Walter Cronkite was more than just accurate in his reporting. It was something else about him, about his approach, about his person, that lent him the bearing which attracted our trust. There was a sense of genuineness about him, a authenticity that is much missing in our reality TV age.
He cared about the news. He knew it mattered to people, to all people, not just to the people who were on his side of the political spectrum. He respected the institutions of our society, the politicians, even the ones he disagreed with. He spoke in the same tenor of John Kennedy and Richard Nixon. He had more than objectivity, he had integrity, a very rare trait these days. You cannot imagine him speaking in the same words or tones about any person in the way a Bill O’Reilly or Glen Beck regularly speaks about our president.
And in that way, he was always right.
Not just accurate or correct, but right. Right in his decorum, right in his language, right in his being. He celebrated great accomplishments as they deserved, he mourned great tragedies as they demanded. He was not there to sell us, to berate us, to persuade us, but to tell us, to show us, to serve us. He was not concerned with explaining the news or interpreting the news or even making the news, just with sharing the world “the way it was.”
To watch over mouth and tongue is to keep out of trouble. The proud, haughty person, named “Scoffer,” acts with arrogant pride. Proverbs 21:23-24
Goodbye, Walter. We wish you could come back and make it be “the way it is” all over again.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
But Independent of What?
Is Bernie Madoff an American Hero?
Consider the facts! He battled against the tyrannical oppression of mindless over-regulation and exercised the very best of capitalist ideals. He bought low and sold high. He single-mindedly pursued the good of profit. He improved himself and the lifestyle of his family. He crushed the cause of socialism by bankrupting bleeding heart liberals who only existed to redistribute the wealth of the hard-working few to the undeserving many.
Well, perhaps not.
But tell me - when did hatred of government come to pass for patriotism? This past holiday, while many gave thanks for the forming of this nation, too many others gathered in protest of its very existence. Has our public education system failed so drastically that we no longer understand that one cannot be a nation without government? Do we no longer understand that the existence of a public body which regulates common life for the best good for the most people is the very definition of what the Declaration meant to accomplish when the founders signed it in 1776?
And do they not know that it is also a Godly thing that they defy?
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval … Romans 13:1,3
This is the Madoff question. If you suppose him to be an aberrance, one occasional quirk in the human gene pool, then you might argue that government is the enemy. But if you are clear-headed and honest and have even the slightest experience with people or familiarity with news headlines then you know that a tiny Madoff seed lives in each of us. Few of us climb to such dizzying heights of evil and carnage. Mostly of our bad is petty and pitiful, but bad nevertheless, and destructive for its own sake, and for the sake of the good of all, worthy of restraint.
Do we imagine that God does not know this? Do we grieve grace so much that we cannot accept the gift of government, to aid us in our struggle to uphold his vision of peace and justice? Do we doubt his redemption so much that we would rather allow evil free run than be put out in joining the battle to progress toward his kingdom, if only in small, insignificant steps?
What exactly are we protesting against?
You will remind me, of course, that it was a Declaration of Independence that they signed in Philadelphia that hot summer long ago. But independence of what? Of common humanity? Of mutual responsibility? Of society at all? It was taxation without representation they feared, not taxation at all, not shared sacrifice, not the very hard work of the grand vision of what could be accomplished when all humanity joined its one work.
The founders loved government. They loved it so much that they dared to imagine it embracing not just some the people, but all of them.
For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, busy with this very thing. Pay to all what is due them—taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due. Romans 13:6-7
America is so much - her people, her industriousness, her role in history, her works both good and bad. But it is the height of ignorance to suggest that we can be American without our government. Human institution, fragile, occasionally incompetent and far-too-often corrupt, yes, but the American government it is. There is none like it in the world. It is that institution that men and women have died for, and that we all should aspire to love.
And it is the birth of that government we celebrate. It is what it means to be an American.
Consider the facts! He battled against the tyrannical oppression of mindless over-regulation and exercised the very best of capitalist ideals. He bought low and sold high. He single-mindedly pursued the good of profit. He improved himself and the lifestyle of his family. He crushed the cause of socialism by bankrupting bleeding heart liberals who only existed to redistribute the wealth of the hard-working few to the undeserving many.
Well, perhaps not.
But tell me - when did hatred of government come to pass for patriotism? This past holiday, while many gave thanks for the forming of this nation, too many others gathered in protest of its very existence. Has our public education system failed so drastically that we no longer understand that one cannot be a nation without government? Do we no longer understand that the existence of a public body which regulates common life for the best good for the most people is the very definition of what the Declaration meant to accomplish when the founders signed it in 1776?
And do they not know that it is also a Godly thing that they defy?
Let every person be subject to the governing authorities; for there is no authority except from God, and those authorities that exist have been instituted by God. For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Do you wish to have no fear of the authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive its approval … Romans 13:1,3
This is the Madoff question. If you suppose him to be an aberrance, one occasional quirk in the human gene pool, then you might argue that government is the enemy. But if you are clear-headed and honest and have even the slightest experience with people or familiarity with news headlines then you know that a tiny Madoff seed lives in each of us. Few of us climb to such dizzying heights of evil and carnage. Mostly of our bad is petty and pitiful, but bad nevertheless, and destructive for its own sake, and for the sake of the good of all, worthy of restraint.
Do we imagine that God does not know this? Do we grieve grace so much that we cannot accept the gift of government, to aid us in our struggle to uphold his vision of peace and justice? Do we doubt his redemption so much that we would rather allow evil free run than be put out in joining the battle to progress toward his kingdom, if only in small, insignificant steps?
What exactly are we protesting against?
You will remind me, of course, that it was a Declaration of Independence that they signed in Philadelphia that hot summer long ago. But independence of what? Of common humanity? Of mutual responsibility? Of society at all? It was taxation without representation they feared, not taxation at all, not shared sacrifice, not the very hard work of the grand vision of what could be accomplished when all humanity joined its one work.
The founders loved government. They loved it so much that they dared to imagine it embracing not just some the people, but all of them.
For the same reason you also pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, busy with this very thing. Pay to all what is due them—taxes to whom taxes are due, revenue to whom revenue is due, respect to whom respect is due, honor to whom honor is due. Romans 13:6-7
America is so much - her people, her industriousness, her role in history, her works both good and bad. But it is the height of ignorance to suggest that we can be American without our government. Human institution, fragile, occasionally incompetent and far-too-often corrupt, yes, but the American government it is. There is none like it in the world. It is that institution that men and women have died for, and that we all should aspire to love.
And it is the birth of that government we celebrate. It is what it means to be an American.
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