Monthly Archive for March, 2010

On public health care (part 1)

Published on March 26, 2010. 10 Comments Tags: , , , , .

The recent bouts of earthquakes and other natural disasters have definitely taken a lot of air time, but especially since a few days ago the current hot topic in the US is definitely the Health Care Bill. I have read many arguments for and against, but few, if any, have approached the issue from a strictly Biblical stance, so I thought I would make an attempt. Because there are many theological implications involved in this discussion, it is a little longer than normal.

I don’t think that there is much argument in the church over whether Christians should be compassionate to the needy. Plenty of verses deal with this, from the the command to be generous to the poor in Deuteronomy 15:

I command you, saying, “You shall open your hand wide to your brother, to your poor and your needy, in your land.” (Deuteronomy 15:11)

To the release from slavery in the same chapter:

If a fellow Hebrew, a man or a woman, sells himself to you and serves you six years, in the seventh year you must let him go free. 13 And when you release him, do not send him away empty-handed. 14 Supply him liberally from your flock, your threshing floor and your winepress. Give to him as the LORD your God has blessed you. (Deuteronomy 15:12-14)

To the command to do good “to all people”:

Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers. (Galatians 6:10)

Probably the main verse which calls Christians to care for the poor and needy is:

Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. (James 1:27)

In fact, this point cannot be stressed enough. Consider the case of Sodom and Gomorrah, cities utterly destroyed for Lawlessness of every kind, but see what caused them to be given over to their own sinful ways, which ultimately led to their complete destruction:

Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. (Ezekiel 16:49)

Throughout the Bible there are commands to Christians to care for the poor, to care for the needy, and especially, to care for the widow and orphan. So I don’t think it’s useful at all, or correct, to argue that the poor are “undeserving”, or that, since they wasted their lives in unhealthy ways that we are not required to help them. “Let us do good to all people”, it says.

In arguing for public health-care, many Christians focus entirely on this point, and I think this is due to the churches recent lack of involvement in caring for the needy. This lack of involvement has not always been the case, many hospitals were at one time largely funded by churches—usually a whole denomination would pool resources together, since a single church would not have the necessary backing—as is evidenced by such largely known hospitals as the Methodist Hospital common to many towns, among others.

But a distinction must be made, for in reading various blog posts I noted that many Christians say that a government health care system is an acceptable substitute for Christians helping the poor. In fact, one blogger said that it was right to fund health care from taxes, because taxes were equatable with tithing:

“So not only is universal health care right, but it is right to fund it out of taxes (“tithes”).” (Khanya)

This equating of taxes with tithes is certainly esoteric, and most assuredly wrong: Biblically, tithe was always directed toward the church and never toward a government. Taxes of various kinds were levied throughout the whole of the Bible, but those funds always went to the government, while the church has always been the one commanded to care for the poor.

Governments may or may not be able to successfully assist the poor, in some countries it is done within a tolerable degree, but in other countries it is done so poorly that the whole idea should be scrapped. This inconsistency only serves as a reminder that our view of whether a government should do something cannot be based on whether a government is able to do something, or on how well the government can accomplish it. Our standard must be the Bible, and it alone.

Which brings me to the most important point: Public health care is entirely consistent with a theology that rejects the authority of the Bible to the area of civil governance. This point cannot be stressed enough, and will, I hope serve to bring attention to the fact that modern “Christianity” has rejected the Bible as the ultimate authority in every area of life.

Most people who argue against the public health care bill (even most Christians) do so from humanist principles. “It will never work, governments are too bloated.” “Taxing the people to pay for irresponsible behavior only yields more irresponsible behavior.” The list of quotes grows tall rather quickly, but all of them are lacking a true and consistent Biblical approach—all of them rely only on man-centered logic.

The arguments supporting public health care are only slightly better, and are marked frequently by such statements as “I believe…” and “I don’t like…”. At best, they might say something like “Jesus cared for the poor and sick, therefore we also should”, or perhaps “the general theme of the Bible is to care for those less fortunate”. This statement seems to summarize the whole argument:

The Gospels overflow with stories of Jesus caring for people in need–not only the fortunate few, but whole gatherings of people–hungry masses, gaggles of children, and scores of the infirm. In one instance, Jesus healed too many to count (Luke 4:40). If we take Jesus seriously, then our obligations to the naked, hungry, beaten, suffering, and vulnerable are hard to deny. (Washington Post, Aana Marie Vigen)

This argument, if only this section is analyzed, cannot be refuted. Jesus cared for the needy, for the sick, for the poor. As mentioned at the beginning, Christians are commanded quite clearly and in multiple passages to care for the needy. However, the argument goes “proof A, therefore B”. More specifically, “Christians must help the needy, therefore governments must help the needy”.

But this argument is entirely illogical as defined–it would be just as reasonable to say “foxes need food, therefore computers need food”. There is no necessary connection between the two, and the argument is particularly interesting when it is noted that the people arguing this point are also the same group of people who argue in favor of the “separation of church and state”.

Summary:

In part one we see that the Bible is ultimately clear that it is an individuals responsibility to care for the poor and needy. This personal responsibility is shown throughout all scripture, from James 1:27 stating that we must “visit orphans and widows in their trouble”, to Deuteronomy 15:11 which says “you shall open your hand wide to your brother, to your poor and your needy, in your land”. We also saw that the general argument for government control of “caring for the poor and needy” is illogical (although to be sure, other more careful arguments do exist) and faulty.

In the next part, I hope to explore more thoroughly the Biblical arguments in support of government run health care, and the theological errors (some of them stemming from clear heresy) which drive these arguments. Finally, since we apparently now have government run health care, I hope to present some Biblical principles for how we as Christians can go forward.

Movie Review: Law Abiding citizen

Published on March 20, 2010. 1 Comment Tags: , , , .

The movie came out in October of 2009 but I just now watched “Law Abiding Citizen”. I’ll be talking about the plot a bit, so if you have managed to avoid hearing about it and don’t want it spoiled, you’d better go somewhere else for a little while.

Many interesting points came up through the movie, but I’ll focus on a few points of the story which I thought were hyper-critical. The first point is that the father, Clyde, claims that the justice system is broken and his main purpose is to tear it down; I assume he thinks something better will come in its place.

This is a common theme, found also in the French Revolution: The only way to make things better is to create chaos. By tearing everything down, we are able to build something better. The French revolution was an attempt to overthrow the current legal system, and this desire came from a belief that not only was the current system corrupt (which it was, for various reasons), but also from the belief that a better system would inevitably emerge from the chaos.

Common to this view of chaos-to-order is the belief that mankind is basically good, at the core. “Current government systems are corrupt only because they have had the power too long.” By removing the current power, the innate goodness of mankind will create a government system that is better. Certainly it would not be likely that this created government system be perfect, but at least better.

This view was shown in the character Clyde, who could see the injustice present in the legal system, and thought that by tearing it down it could be rebuilt in a more fair way. However, can this really occur? Certainly, if one assumes the human nature to be basically good, it could be reasonably argued that such a thing is possible. Of course, Clyde might be going about it the wrong way, but his basic idea of chaos leading to good would have been right.

This view is held by the Roman church in general, and by many Baptists apparently. In fact, I would say that this view is one which has become pervasive through all political parties. But it is an entirely indefensible view: Scripture is quite clear in an overwhelming way, that the nature of man is to be predisposed toward sin. This predisposition has gone by many names, but the most common is what the reformers called “total depravity”—all of mankind is naturally inclined toward sin. This view is most clear in the following passage:

As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. (Romans 3:10-12)

The second view presented in the film is the answer to the question “What is justice?”, which is presented throughout in direct question by Clyde, but also in the willingness of the lawyers and mayor to “bend” the law in order to fulfill “justice”.

Clyde’s family was killed by terrible people and, according to Exodus 21:12 (and many other verses), the murderer deserved the death penalty:

“Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God He made man.” (Genesis 9:6) “If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.” (Leviticus 20:10) “Anyone who strikes a man and kills him shall surely be put to death.” (Exodus 21:12)

But in the case of this movie, the one who murdered did not get the death penalty, while the one who did not do the murdering did get the death penalty. The question of whether Clyde had authority to carry out the death penalty on the actual murderer will show us several other hidden problems with the current legal system.

Did Clyde have the authority? Consider this: Clyde directly witnessed the murder of his family, Clyde was (obviously) the direct and nearest relative to his family, thereby satisfying the requirements to be the “Avenger of Blood” mentioned in Deuteronomy 19:11-13 and others, and allowing for Clyde to legally kill the murderer. However, the Bible also requires for there to be “cities of refuge”, as mentioned in Numbers 35:25 and others, and in the United States we don’t really have those. Clyde says that the justice system is faulty, and he is right, but his reasons are wrong: The current legal system is at fault because it does not follow God’s Law, which gives Clyde the authority to kill the murderer if the murderer has not fled to a city of refuge.

However, even the avenger of blood had to follow legal proceedings so it could be said that, after the court decided that the actual murderer was not guilty of murder, Clyde could not legally kill him. But even in this we see a fault in our legal system, namely, if the murderer was truly found guilty of murder, the death penalty would still stand.

The final error in Clyde’s thinking was that a true justice system would be one which punishes all criminals. This argument is truly impossible: It is impossible to know in every case that a person is guilty or innocent, and it is true that in any system guilty people occasionally go free and innocent people are punished. This is even true in the legal system presented in the Bible, leading to the question I have heard from an atheist: “If God’s Law is not perfect, why do you support it so much?” But I would never say that “God’s Law is not perfect”, rather David says quite clearly that it is perfect!

Humans always have imperfect knowledge, and to expect that we will always be able to correctly carry out justice is to assume that we would somehow have perfect knowledge. We could, of course, simply execute anyone who is accused of a crime (much like the French Revolution period) but we would be in danger of killing people who were innocent. Likewise, we could let people do as they choose (pure anarchy) but we would have a society which would be entirely unsafe. Where is the balance? What is the right method of law?

Was Clyde right in desiring to kill the person who murdered his family. The Bible is quite clear that the answer is yes, Clyde’s desire was right.

Was Clyde right in what he did? The Bible is also quite clear that the answer is a resounding no. Even had the death penalty been able to be carried out, Clyde’s action was not to simply carry out the death penalty, but to exact maximum pain, both physical and emotional. This is not a Biblically allowed method.