From The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser:
I started preaching at age fifteen, enrolled at Midwestern Baptist College to study for the ministry at nineteen, married my wife at age twenty-one, and took my first church job a few months before I turned twenty-two. I was young, full of life, and raring to go for Jesus. I also was clueless about what awaited me in the ministry. Little did I know, that life would not turn out as Polly and I envisioned; that our fairy tale would not be one of love, peace, and potluck dinners; that our vision of a future with a white two-story home with a boy named Jason, a girl named Bethany, and a white picket fence would turn into a 12’x60′ trailer, six children, food stamps, and a $200 station wagon.
It’s common for young marrieds to have all sorts of hopes and dreams. Polly and I thought that God would surely use us in a mighty way to bring countless people to Christ; that we would be respected and rewarded for our hard work; that our children would grow up, get married, and follow in our footsteps. As a young man, I believed Jesus would always take care of me. He, after all, gave me a wonderful wife, blessed us with children, and favored the work we accomplished in his vineyard. Though Jesus never personally appeared to me, I saw all my ministerial success as coming directly from him. Boy, was I wrong!
“I already have health care. It’s given to me by God. Eternal health care.” This is the vacuous argument against public healthcare from a Right winger.
Yes, wealthy reality TV stars have healthcare in this life too. Too bad millions of lower-income religious people DON’T have adequate healthcare.
They suffer and die because of their lower economic status. Let the “free market” decide. It’s the same thing as God’s will, amirite? That is, if Mammon is the god you serve.
Of course the free market is God’s will. To whom do you think the invisible hand belongs?
We don’t need God to provide healthcare for us. We don’t need the people of the body of Christ on earth to help us. We have government to provide for us all!
Be clearer. Are you suggesting that some god provides health care to people, despite the billions of people who go or have gone without it because it is unavailable or too expensive? Are you suggesting that “the people of the body of Christ on Earth” have the means and will to provide everyone with health care — again, despite those who have gone without it? Are you suggesting that our government should not do its best to guarantee health care for all who need it? Or were you being totally serious?
It is ironic that so many “people of faith” find it quite difficult to engage in good faith discussion.
I suppose it’s only appropriate for a vacuous argument against public healthcare to be supported by more vacuous statements. It may echo in the Right’s echo chamber, but not in rational discussion.
What about non-Christians in need of healthcare? Kick them to the curb for not being “religiously correct”? Perhaps instead of the “people of the body of Christ” we need to include all of us, as in “we the people” to provide and receive healthcare. Too radical? Or “Communism”? Only in the bubble of the American far Right.