DR. VIC McCRACKEN, Assistant Professor of Theology and Ethics
I disagree with my friend Cole Bennett’s recent article about Christianity and health care. Dr. Bennett falsely treats the issue as if it can be boiled down to the issue of individual need and private charity. The larger issue here is one of justice. What does justice require in a nation of abundance in which millions are unable to afford even a basic level of preventative care? The call for justice transcends the boundaries of the church.
We might consider, for example, how the prophet Ezekiel warns Israel of impending judgment by pointing to the “sin of your sister Sodom; she and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy” (Ezek. 16:49). The call for justice falls upon every nation. The question of what justice requires in the realm of health care is a difficult one, but it is most surprising that in a column devoted to the question of health care and the poor, Dr. Bennett discusses the topic nowhere.
Dr. Bennett claims, “Nowhere does [New Testament Scripture] tell us to create a system of government that takes money from people by force – even very rich people – and redistribute it according to such directives.” This is true. The New Testament is silent about many things. Nowhere, for example, does the New Testament call Christians to use the legislative or judicial systems at hand to fight against slavery or racial discrimination, and yet in our recent history, Christians believed justice entailed the abolition of both and used government to these positive ends. The New Testament is also silent about Dr. Bennett’s antagonistic vision of political community, a modern view that emerged out of the classical liberal tradition of the Enlightenment era. I find this vision of government decidedly less compelling than more democratic visions built on the ideas of human fraternity, equality and a commitment to the common good.
I am a Christian, and I join Dr. Bennett in his call to support those private charities and churches that do so much to minister to the poor. I am also one of those “leftist-Christians” Dr. Bennett points to, though I prefer to call myself a Christian who doesn’t believe our commitment to love and justice stops at the church or food pantry door, but extends into all communities of which we are a part.
