Faith in Context

The Truth About Government-run Health Care

The majority of Americans seem to believe that government-run health care is undesirable. (It actually remains to be seen where the percentages will fall when the debate comes a close later this year.) A recently-published piece of research actually sheds a very different light on the subject.

This is actually a massive study: 400,000 individuals 60 to 70 years of age. This particular sample allows there to be two sub-samples of about equal size, one enrolled in a government health care program (Medicare) and the other using the private health insurance system, including a small portion who consequently have no coverage. Those in the government program are slightly older, age 65 through 70, while those in the private sector at slightly younger, age 60 through 64.

If the common opinion is factual, then the people in the private sector should have better health outcomes. The fact that they are younger actually gives this sub-sample a slight advantage, so certainly that should be the result. But, no, "Medicare recipients fare better than not only the uninsured, but also the privately insured." In fact, the privately insured had 25 percent more deaths (within a week of hospital admission) than the older group covered by government-run health care!

Evidently these data have been available to the health insurance industry before they became public. This may be the real reason that industry lobbyists and friendly politicians have mobilized so much pressure against competition with a public plan. They already know that on a level playing field, they will lose that competition. (In fact, some spokespersons for the industry have said as much.) Surprisingly, politicians who usually fight for more competition are against it this time. I can't imagine how that happened.

What does this mean to people of faith? What are the moral implications of supporting a system that results in the deaths of 25 percent more people? In this sample alone that is tens of thousands of your fellow Americans. Projected to the entire population, it gets into the hundreds of thousands. Can I in good conscience vote for a system that will result in many thousands of deaths? It would seem to me that those believers in the Pro-Life Movement are in a particular bind with these facts. Do they place less value on the lives of adults than the do on the lives of unborn children? How they respond to the current debate on health insurance reform will tell the tale.

Source: David Card, Carlos Dobkin and Nicole Maestas, "Does Medicare Save Lives?" The Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 2009.

End of an Era

Throughout my lifetime one or more the Kennedy brothers have held a high office and exercised significant political influence in our nation. With the death of Senator Ted Kennedy, an era comes to an end. Jack was the first Catholic to be elected president. Bobby became the clearest voice among top politicians for peace and social justi ce. Ted achieved the largest number of actual legislative accomplishments. That folk song, "Where are they ... John, Bobby and Martin" still brings tears to my eyes and causes my gut to clinch. If it were not for the Kennedy brothers and Dr. Martin Luther King, half our nation would still be without basic civil rights. That happened in my life time; I saw it with my own eyes and heard it with my own ears!

The Kennedy's stood for something that is rare and almost dead in America today. They stood up for the weak, the poor, those unable to have a significant voice in how the money and power in this country is distributed. They were sons of one of the richest families in America. They need not have gone to the trouble. They could have lived comfortable lives or made billions on Wall Street or done anything they wanted to do. But they remembered their Irish immigrant grandparents who lived in an America where the Irish were not really "White." Where the Irish were discriminated against, kept in poverty and out of the circles of power. Catholics were feared by a majority Protestant America. Cities were feared by an America centered in small towns and rural farms.

More than the Clinton or Bush regimes, the Kennedys became an American dynasty for a simple reason; They gave their lives for their nation. An older brother (Joe Jr.) gave his life in combat in World War II. Jack and Bobby gave their lives to assassins. Ted gave his life, to the last drop, to serving the poor, the ethnic minorities, the forgotten and pushed-aside in America. Jack is famous for that almost-forgotten sentiment, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." Some have tried to tie this to "personal responsibility," that sneaky little notion that allows the rest of us to wash our hands of the suffering of the least able among us. They forget that for the Kennedys this principle was tied to a Biblical notion, "To whom much is given, much is demanded."

The Kennedys believed and lived the simple notion that those with the greatest wealth, education and status should do more and give more to help the least-favored, the poorest, the most oppressed in our country and the world. You can bring up all their weaknesses; their drinking, their unsavory pals, Ted's involvement with the death of a young woman, Jack's womanizing and slowness to support the civil rights movement, and Bobby's political calculation as to when to come out against the Vietnam war. They were not perfect. They were flawed human beings. None of that takes away from their commitment to live their lives for "the least of these" as our Lord Jesus Christ asks for all believers. There are a great many who have never done anything as bad as the Kennedy brothers who have also never lived this fundamental commitment. Read Matthew 25:31-46 and you will see how God views the bottom line on this comparison.

It is my prayer that the next generation of Americans, the young adults who don't fully grasp why this is such an important moment to some of us old people, will rediscover the Kennedy ethic: Live life to the fullest and live it largely for those who have less than you do.

President Obama & Faith-based Initiatives

As he said he would during the campaign last year, President Obama has retained the "faith-based initiatives" emphasis at the White House, but restructured the organization that he inherited from President Bush. The new unit consists of two parts, where Bush's White House had only one: An Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships and a President's Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. The council is make its final recommendations in February next year (2010), so it appears that further changes may yet surface. At the same time it is clear that Obama is committed to some kind of working relationship with the nonprofit sector, including the large part of it that is related to religious constituencies.

The key staff person in the White House for this activity is Joshua DuBois, a 27-year-old Evangelical activist who served as Obama's liaison with the religious community during the campaign last year. DuBois was a student at Boston University and associate pastor at the Calvary Praise and Worship Center in Cambridge. This is a neighborhood that I am personally familiar with because in the 1970s, I planted a congregation there and worked in Boston as a community organizer. The congregation is small, not affiliated with any denomination, but Pentecostal in orientation, made up largely of African Americans and for a while, at least, shared space with two other Protestant congregations in Faith Lutheran Church. Pastor DuBois got the church involved with the Ten-Point Coalition, an effort by African American churches in the Boston area to prevent teen violence and gangs run by the National Ten-point Foundation, also located in Boston. DuBois maintains a mentoring relationship with a teen in Boston even as he takes on the very busy schedule of a White House staffer. He chairs the advisory council as part of his job. The other members include:

• Diane Baillargeon, CEO of Seedco, a New York nonprofit involved in economic development projects. She is a self-described secular member of the council.
• Anju Bhargava, president of Asian Indian Women in America, an immigrant women's advocacy and help group. She is also a Hindu priest.
• Charles E. Blake, presiding bishop of the Church of God in Christ (COGIC), one of the largest historically African American denominations in America.
• Noel Castellanos, CEO of the Christian Community Development Association (CCDA) and a well-known Evangelical leader.
• Arturo Chavez, president of the Mexican American Catholic College and a former prison chaplain who has worked as a community organizer and teacher. He is Catholic.
• Peg Chemberlin, executive director of the Minnesota Council of Churches and president-elect of the National Council of Churches and a minister in the Moravian Church.
• Fred Davie, an ordained Presbyterian minister and senior staff member at the Arcus Foundation.
• Nathan Diament, director of public policy for the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations and a key player in the interfaith coalition that has pushed for religious liberty legislation.
• Joel Hunter, senior pastor of Northland Church, a nondenominational megachurch near Orlando, and a board member for the National Association of Evangelicals (NEA).
• Harry Knox, a former Methodist pastor who is liaison with religious leaders for the Human Rights Campaign, a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender advocacy group.
• Vashti McKenzie, presiding prelate of the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME) in Tennessee and Kentucky.
• Dalia Mogahed, director of the Gallup Poll's Center for Muslim Studies. She was born in Egypt and is a practicing Muslim.
• Otis Moss, a long-time civil rights leader, retired pastor of a Baptist church in Cleveland and a board member for both the M.L. King Centerand Morehouse College.
• Frank S. Page, past president of the Southern Baptist Convention and pastor of Taylors First Baptist Church in South Carolina.
• Eboo Patel, founder of Interfaith Youth Core, a nonprofit that recruits young people to participate in interfaith community service. He is a Muslim born in India.
• Anthony Picarello, general counsel for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, an attorney and Catholic lay leader.
• Nancy Ratzan, president of the National Council of Jewish Women, an attorney and president of Reform Jewish congregation in Miami.
• Melissa Rogers, director of the Wake Forest University School of Divinity Center for Religion and Public Affairs. She is a lawyer and teaches courses on church-state relations.
• David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, and both a rabbi and an attorney.
• William J. Shaw, president of the National Baptist Convention, the largest historically black Protestant denomination, and pastor of White Rock Baptist Church in Philadelphia.
• Larry J. Snyder, a priest and president of Catholic Charities, one of the largest nonprofit social service agencies in America.
• Richard Stearns, president of World Vision; an Evangelical lay leaders with a long background in business before he joined the Christian humanitarian agency.
• Judith Vredenburgh, CEO of Big Brothers/Sisters of America, the largest youth mentoring nonprofit, and a self-described secular member of the advisory council.
• Jim Wallis, founder and president of Sojourners, and one of the best-known Evangelical social action leaders.
• Sharon Watkins, president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Protestant denomination.

The president has asked the council to focus on four priorities: (1) connecting faith-based and community groups to economic recovery, (2) promoting interfaith dialog and cooperation in the arena of community service, (3) encouraging responsible fatherhood and healthy families, and (4) reducing unintended pregnancies and the need for abortions, strengthening maternal and child health, and encouraging adoptions.

What does this mean?

President Obama hopes to avoid some of the mistakes of the previous administration, such as trampling long-held notions about the proper line between religion and government, and overly politicizing the involvement of people of faith, while continuing the necessary cooperation between government entities and religious charities which has been a key part of America from its founding. In many ways it is a return to the ideas that Colin Powell presided over in the 1990s in the aftermath of the Presidents' Summit on Community Service. In a time of need in a democracy, elected officials are always going to challenge religious leaders to mobilize their adherents to help out simply because religion advertises itself as being about compassion, love and charity.

Jimmy Carter and the Southern Baptist Convention

It is somewhat shocking that the president who is arguably the most sincere, dedicated follower of Jesus to sit in that office (at least in the last 60 years) is the first to visibly split with one of the largest Protestant denominations in America. Of course, one thing about the Baptist tradition is that he has plenty of other choices; denominations that are the same in all theological respects except for the social teachings that he has found disturbing and un-Christlike. It is unclear whether this means he will change his local church membership or whether his local church will change denominational affiliation.

Carter had some straight talk for the denomination. He could have said some harsher (but not less true) things. The claim of the denomination is that a literal reading of scripture demands that women not be permitted to serve as pastors, deacons or military chaplains. The text the cite in 1 Corinthians does not literally say anything about pastors, deacons or chaplains. If it were actually taken literally it would mean that the denomination would prohibit women from singing in the choir, teaching Sunday School (even to children) or making announcements. In fact all of these things are so embedded in the denomination's culture that the scripture in question is twisted to mean something that in interpretive and not literal.

He could also have pointed out that this is a denomination that came into existence because it believed devoutly that the New Testament supported slavery, a position that it recently repented for. In fact, that stand was closer to the truth. There is much more literal material in the New Testament supporting slavery than there is to support their present stand on women in ministry. One wonders if at some point in the future they will repent for this stand. If (and, more likely, when) they do, perhaps they will remember President Carter and reinstate him for his prophetic stand, even in posthumously.

Race and Police

A well-known Harvard professor is arrested in his own home, an African American professor arrested by a white police officer, and the first Black president of the United States is asked to comment. Once the question was on the table, it was inevitable that a debate would result. (Think what comments would be made if President Obama had refused to respond. How many millions of people would suddenly be certain they could read his mind?)

The president said that he did not know the details and the professor is a friend of his, so he might be biased. He pointed out the troubled history of the behavior of white police toward black Americans. He said that he thought the police behaved stupidly. Why would he make that last statement?

It is really very simple and anyone who does not get it really needs to ask themselves what it is about their thinking (perhaps even their subconscious) that moves them toward a different logic.

1. The police officer had determined that there was no break-in underway. The man was in his own home. At that point the task of the police was done. They knew the man was upset by the fact that they came to his home. It was time to leave. It was stupid to stay around longer.

2. The police officer says that he arrested the professor because the professor shouted at him, expressing anger. That was stupid. There is no law against shouting at a police officer or being angry with a police officer.

3. The police officer handcuffed the man, put him in a police car, took him to the police station, booked him and forced him to pay bail to get out. The professor is 58 years old and walks with a cane. He had made no physical threats and he had no weapons. If the officer was certain that shouting at a police officer is against the law, it would have been more appropriate to write a ticket. Even if he felt he must arrest the professor, he did not need to handcuff him. The way the officer handled this was stupid. It was a waste of taxpayer money.

4. The police officer, it turns out, has been teaching a course on race relations at the police academy for the last five years. Yet, he says that he did not know who Dr. Henry L. Gates is. What books has he read in preparation for the classes he teaches? How is it possible to study material about race and never have encountered the name of Henry Louis Gates? [Hint: There is a way to accomplish that feat, but I am sure the Cambridge Police Department does not want to go there.] Especially since Dr. Gates lives in Cambridge. The fact that the police officer did not know who Dr. Gates is; that is also stupid.

I do think that a dimension of this very probably does not have to do specifically with race. The police officer's ego is the source of the stupidity here. If he had behaved professionally he would have ignored the professor's shouting and anger, and simply driven away. He says that he thought the professor should have been appreciative of the fact that the police officer came to question him and demand to see his ID. Obviously, he is so caught up in the ego trip of being police that he does not understand how the average citizen perceives these things.

You come home from a very long day flying from China to Boston. You have been away from home for a week or longer. You arrive late at night and tired at your home and you discover that something has happened to your front door and you have to resort to extreme methods to get in and ask the cab driver to help you. About the time you get inside, the police show up and tell you that one of your neighbors thinks you are a criminal trying to break in. Tell me honestly you would not be annoyed at that point. The police officer makes you come outside like he's afraid of you despite the fact that he's decades younger than you are. He doesn't like the first ID you can put your hands on and insists on a second ID. The history of mistreatment by white police toward black men does not have to come into the picture for someone to be angry at this point.

The police officer does not leave. He keeps prolonging the interview as if he thinks you are lying to him and you are in your own home. If Sgt. Crowley cannot see why a black man would begin to think that race might have something to do with it, then how can he possibly be qualified to teach courses on this topic at the policy academy? If he does not understand why the professor might get angry and shout at this point, then the sergeant needs to be put on leave until he gets it.

I am not certain this is really about stupidity. The president could have said that it was about racism and there is certainly enough evidence to support that assessment. But my guess is that it is really about ego. Particularly when I observe how the police sergeant has handled things since the president's comment. This officer is so egotistical that he takes on the president of the United States, asks his fellow officers to hold a press conference and support him, refuses to acknowledge that he could have done anything differently. He has made himself the definition of self-righteousness while he is blind to the very kind of racial dimension that he is supposedly expert enough to teach to other officers. He may not have intended to be racist, but he needs to look objectively at this story, get his ego out of the way and learn a lesson.

Religion & Attitudes About Business

I have found a very interesting piece of research that seeks to identify the impact that religious faith has on the attitudes of individuals toward the behavior of business corporations. I have written before about the widespread belief in America that commercial corporations should be considered amoral entities without the same moral standards and ethical behavior that we generally require of individuals. This is an issues that, I believe, has played a significant role in the current economic problems in our country and around the world.

This study includes a large sample from 20 nations so as to generate significant samples for each of the world's major religions. Respondents were asked (among other things) to indicate if they think that business corporations should focus on profit, make ethics primary or take a middle path somewhere in between. Below are the results:

	Profit	Ethics	In between
Buddhists	19%	56%	20%
Hindus	51%	30%	18%
Muslims	31%	29%	37%
Catholics	24%	37%	38%
Protestants	23%	32%	44%
Orthodox	35%	33%	21%
No religion (“Nones”)	22%	36%	40%

Overall (including other data in the study) the three researchers who directed this study conclude that religion has only modest effect on attitudes about corporate ethics and social responsibility, but is difficult to see that religion makes any difference whatsoever on this fundamental question. As a theologian and pastor, I cannot believe that God does not care how corporations behave, especially those owned and managed primarily by believers. Why are people of faith so ambivalent on this item? Have the large business corporations become the contemporary idols of the 21st century?

Source: Brammer, S., Williams, G. and Zinkin, J. (2006). "Religion and Attitudes to Corporate Social Responsibility in a Large Cross-Country Sample."

Why Capital Punishment is a Moral Mistake

Troy Davis was convicted of murder in 1991. Prosecutors were not able to produce a weapon or any physical evidence that supported the allegation. The evidence against him was entirely that of the testimony of nine witnesses and now seven of the nine have gone on record stating that they lied; three of them have named another man who actually did the killing. Despite this new evidence, the Supreme Court of the U.S. has refused to even hear the facts and approved of Davis's execution.

Why such a cold-blooded attitude? What is accomplished by this? Is there any evidence that their decision is a moral one? What is most surprising is that seven of the nine justices are Roman Catholic and the Catholic church teaches that capital punishment is immoral in the same way that it teaches against abortion. Why do they lay aside their pro-life views in this case?

DNA testing has shown that about one in five capital cases are decided wrongly by juries. With such a high mistake rate, why is the Supreme Court (and many Americans) so set on defending the system?

Capital punishment is a moral mistake simply because once we take the life of a man (or woman) there is no chance to re-think the situation. It arrogates to human beings the all-knowing power that belongs only to God. In this case there is a high probability that the U.S. Supreme Court has ordered the killing of a man who did not commit the crime, while the real killer goes free. But we will never know because the justices have decided that killing is more important than truth.

Why do so many Christians support this kind of reckless disregard for the sanctity of life? What makes them so blood-thirsty? It certainly is not the spirit of Christ. What is it?

Denominational President takes on Environment Issues

"The environment [is] a topic that we, as a church, have not yet taken on in a significant way," writes Dr. Jan Paulsen, president of the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, in a major article in the July issue of Adventist World. He carefully explains that when the "political wrappings" are removed "care for the environment [is based in] ideas that resonate with our own deeply held beliefs and values." He draws connections with the Sabbath (a memorial of creation), vegetarianism (a diet that extracts fewer resources from the earth), and "our concern for the whole person." He deals with such theological issues as the nature of the "dominion" that God gave to humanity in Genesis, whether Adventists should care about the current world given their focus on the New Earth to come, and if environmental issues are "a distraction from our most important task---sharing Christ."

"We have hardly even embarked on this topic; we have a long way to go before it becomes a distraction," he writes. "Let's not forget that our mission ... has never been narrow." The Adventist mission has "always encompassed a wide range of activities---preaching, teaching, evangelism, healing, humanitarian care, community service, religious liberty and education. And this wholistic approach ... will only be strengthened as we highlight also our care for the physical world."

Paulsen, world leader of a movement with about 25 million adherents (one million in the U.S.), sees a linkage between the lifestyle changes necessary to control or reverse climate change and the Christian lifestyle that Adventists have always advocated. "When we choose a simple lifestyle and exercise restraint in our wants, when we emphasize the spiritual above the material and choose relationships before 'things,' we are following in the footsteps of our Lord. ... Pulling free from relentless consumerism, focusing more on people and less on acquisitions, building a life that is focused on Christ's priorities---these are the choices that deliver a wonderful sense of freedom, an indescribable feeling of liberation!"

Ideology vs Principle

Today's Supreme Court decision on gun laws in the District of Columbia illustrates why "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." Even Antonin Scalia is not immune to irrational ideology. He has staked his entire integrity on the idea that the constitution should be interpreted as it was originally intended some 200 years ago, yet that did not keep him from giving the National Rifle Association the new interpretation they have been pressuring for over recent decades. The language of the Second Amendment is very clear; there is a right for states to organize militia and provide ways of arming their citizens, which may include widespread ownership of weapons. There is no individual right to own a weapon spelled out in the text; that leap requires artful interpretation.

Whether Scalia and his colleagues gave away the "strict construction" principle out of self-deception or because of political pressure is unclear, and possibly will never be known. But it demonstrates clearly that you cannot depend on the integrity of even someone as rock-ribbed as Scalia to protect your rights. He will sell you down the river if you happen to be on the wrong side of his political ideology or associations.

The moral analysis of this decision is very clear. The justices who voted for it will, in God's eyes, have blood on their hands for every gun-shot victim who could have been prevented by the laws they have struck down. These men are so enamored with the past that they do not seem to understand the conditions that exist today in most of our cities, and even on high school and college campuses. They are so out of touch with reality that they have decreed that state governments cannot regulate guns to the same degree that we regulate automobiles. That makes no moral sense. These are men bereft of a moral compass, at least in the context of today's urban America.

The Needs of the Community: A National Context

A key element of ministry development in any congregation or local ministry is to understand the needs of the people in the local community. These must be put in a national context because most local communities have needs related to major social needs recognized across the country.

A recently published comprehensive study uses a simple index to represent lots of complex data. On this index 100 = the best level achieved between 1970 and 2005.

At or near best performance:

• 100 - Infant mortality
• 100 - Deaths from alcohol-related auto accidents
• 100 - High school dropouts
• 98 - Murder
• 97 - Poverty among senior citizens

Moderate performance:

• 81 - Unemployment
• 63 - Poverty among children
• 58 - Drug abuse among teens
• 56 - Suicide by teens
• 50 - Affordable housing

At or near worst performance:

• 24 - Wages
• 16 - Food stamp coverage
• 7 - Health insurance coverage
• 0 - Out-of-pocket health costs to senior citizens
• 0 - Income inequality
• 0 - Child abuse

How do these items compare to the needs in your community? What is your church or ministry doing to address the needs in the bottom third?

Source: Institute for Innovative Social Policy; America's Social Healthby Marque-Luisa Miringoff and Sandra Opdyke; "A Sick Society" by Mike Sharpe, Challenge 51:1, pp 110-115.