Wednesday, October 27, 2004

Jews, Palestinians, And a Divided Christian Community

Recently, The Institute of Religion and Democracy began wondering whether mainstream Protestant denominations are tilting toward anti-Semitism. Four groups in particular --- Presbyterians (USA), Episcopalians, United Methodists, and Lutherans (Evangelical) --- look suspicious to the Institute, primarily for how they criticize human rights abuses world-wide, often through the World and National Councils of Churches. What arouses the suspicion is not the clearly justified criticism itself. The issue for the Institute is the disproportionate criticism of Israel by leaders of these four denominations and two Councils, in comparison with their less frequent and softer criticisms of nations such as Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, and Sudan.

The Institute's concern is worth a closer look. This country has for a very long time given preferential treatment to Israel in the Middle East, through both liberal and conservative administrations, and in the process has devalued Palestinians' legitimate claims to respect, land, and opportunity there. Israel's egregious violations of the Camp David accords by building settlement after settlement in the West Bank (when you see them for yourself you'll know exactly what I mean) typically arouse very little ire from our leaders. And conservative Christian churches continue to proclaim from the steeple tops Israel's never-annulled role in the salvation process itself. If, then, there is now a credible anti-Israel sentiment building in our churches, that would constitute big and important news.

Recent polling data (more reliable than what's been coming from political pollsters) shows pretty well that (a) liberal mainstream Protestants ("liberal" by their own designation) have gradually been moving away from the view that the United States should favor Israel's cause and people over those of the Palestinians, and that (b) in the process they have been arguing for stepping up criticism of Israel's violations of Palestinian rights. All this in spite of the Palestinians' own terrorism in the form of suicide bombings and incitements to violence in general.

It is interesting that liberal Protestants may now be aligning themselves more closely with the position on Israel that Roman Catholics have maintained consistently for some time. Since conservative Protestants (again, self-designated) are likely to remain more favorable to supporting Israel, the beginning of a widening division among Christians on the Arab-Israeli conflicts in general could have a growing influence on foreign policy decisions in the next administration. How the Catholic/Liberal Protestant alliance plays out against the Conservative/Fundamentalist Protestant one may have new and major effects on more Middle East strategies than just our approach to the Palestinians.

What seems to be getting most deeply under the skin of the Institute of Religion and Democracy is the dominance of liberal leadership in the mainstream Protestant denominations. The Institute is right in noting that the rank and file members of these denominations include conservatives and moderates who are less critical of Israel than their liberal counterparts are, and that their leaders have become. But the Institute is almost certainly wrong in conjecturing that liberal Protestants might become full blown anti-Semites. A closer look at what their leaders in particular have been saying makes plain that the attacks on Israel's policies and actions toward the Palestinians does not in any way come from anything like a growing hatred of the Israeli people. It comes from an urgency to hold Israelis accountable for the shocking incongruities between their purported values and their concrete actions. In essence, liberal Protestants and Roman Catholics are holding Israel to a higher standard of behavior than they are now applying to other nations, and arguing vehemently for the appropriateness of doing so.

Why? Because Israel's place in the world requires it. A nation that has known oppression, slavery, and persecution first-hand for millennia, as part of a divine plan, simply has no business imposing any of the same on those over whom it gains power, both within and beyond its borders. From at least the eighth century B.C.E., the Hebrew peoples' greatest prophets saw this with stark clarity, as they did the divine-ordained relationship between the peoples' troubles and the peoples' apostasy. Their prophesying had less to do with predicting than with interpreting the future: bad things will continue to happen because God wills them to happen, and God wills them to happen because his people have not been faithful to their covenant obligations. Israel's right to exist is a God-given right to exist as a covenant people, not as a conquering nation belligerent toward its enemies and paranoid about the loyalty of its friends.

And what of America's "right to exist?" It should be keeping us awake at night to contemplate that America, too, has divinely-defined conditions that God expects us to meet. And that posturing too much like the ways Israel is posturing may not be the best way to meet them.

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

The Right to Health Care

If current campaign rhetoric is any indication, neither Republican nor Democratic leaders will come even close to working out a better approach to health care in this country than the one we now have and that we have long bemoaned. Part of the problem is us. For most Americans, "better" must include at least three things not achievable in combination: universal access, unlimited choice, and low cost. The other part of the problem is the politicians. They are unwilling to own up to the facts conveyed in the previous sentence.

Is there a Christian way to think about this two-fold problem? Sure. The second part of the problem is easy. One thing that it means to acknowledge that "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God" is that we put our own concerns first more often than we should, and that we are generally unresponsive when others, temporarily in better control of their own self-centeredness, try to persuade us that we need to be better in control ourselves. Today's political fall-out from humanity's primordial falling-out is that greedy leaders continue to get themselves elected by promising equally greedy citizens what, deep-down, everybody should know they should not have: the best things of life at somebody else's expense.

The first part of the problem is harder: if it is true that our society cannot provide everyone affordable health care that also offers complete freedom to choose one's caregivers, then what will our society provide? Juxtaposing can/can'ts with will/won'ts is deliberate here. Sometimes, what we say we will do really is something that we just cannot do; other times, what we say we can and cannot do turns out to be merely what we will and will not do; and at all times, it is the better part of wisdom to respect the difference. If this is not complicated enough, an even more important question will make it so: if it is true that our society cannot provide optimal health care for all its citizens, then what should our society do instead?

From the standpoint of the Christian faith, it is difficult to find any justification for a system of health care that does not provide equitably for the needs of all, especially a system that makes needed care more readily available, and at a higher quality, to people who can afford to pay for it than to people who cannot. Further, it is difficult to find any justification for allowing the health needs of the poor in any society to go unmet while further enhancing the general well-being of that society's wealthiest members. Does this imply that financing universal health care in America will have to include the systematic redistribution of at least some of the country's wealth? Of course. Can it be done equitably? Possibly. Current redistribution efforts are strongly directed toward the already-have-a-lots. Given the momentum, changing the direction will not be easy.

It may well be, as some economists contend, that we can provide affordable health care for all Americans, as long as we put the primary emphasis on preventative care and restrict freedom of choice somewhat. If an approach like this is sound financially, is it also justifiable "Christianly?" It would seem so. The God of the Bible is a God who most certainly is interested in the well-being of each and every creature --- human and non-human --- that make up the world he is continuously creating. But this God is also, and more so than a ruggedly individualistic American society is, interested in the well-being of the whole society, even if its individual members do not always gain everything to which they consider themselves to be entitled. One unpopular implication of this perspective is that the rationing of health care for some may be necessary for the good of the whole. The alternative, though, is just about what we have now: the rationing for some --- the poor --- for the good of the still fewer --- the better off.

In spite of the unwillingness of government leaders across the political spectrum fully to ensure it, the right to health care will still exist in this society for all the generations to come. From the standpoint of the Constitution, it derives from "unalienable" rights to life and the pursuit of happiness. From the standpoint of faith, it derives from the promise of Christ himself, that we shall not only have life, but that we shall have it "abundantly."