Someone call a doctor: Is there a place for theology in the healthcare debate?

In my pastoral theology class yesterday we attempted to discuss the theological dimensions of the groundbreaking healthcare legislation which has been such a point of high contention in our nation over the past nine months or so. As our professor pointed out, evangelical leaders have been remarkably silent on this issue. Certainly we would agree that items which turn into a national obsession, prompting hours of discussion around water coolers and dinner tables, are never exempt from being brought into the pulpit, and yet we are left with deafening silence from our leaders on the theological justifications or concerns of nationalized healthcare.

Perhaps one explanation for this silence is the fear of partisan backlash from congregants or admirers. After all, I can't think of a more politically polarizing week than what we just had in this country. Every single Republican in the Congress voted against the bill the president just signed into law; if a politician supported this bill, he or she was a Democrat, and most likely not a so-called Blue Dog Democrat. Pastors and denominational leaders understandably should enter this politically and philosophically fractured debate with trepidation.

But I think more is going on here. At issue for many must be the theological tension which exists in this debate due to the biblical understanding of social justice and the hard lessons of recent human history. Church leaders must be aware of the remarkable injustice of the healthcare system as we have known it. And there must be a point at which we cringe at the avarice which was displayed by all sides of this recent debate. Whether the sticking point was our national debt, my increasing taxes, or grandpa's Medicare, greed absolutely propelled a debate which should have only been about the greater good of our society.

At the same time, we Americans who took advantage of collapsing Socialist governments of the 20th century to stake our own claim to world domination are keenly aware of what happens when society depends on government structures to do our good work for us. With a population of over 300 million, the structure necessary for a complete overhaul of medicine must have the most integrity of any social structure in history if it is to stand the test of time in any positive way. A House vote which hinged on pro-life Democrats abandoning their ethical ship in the waning moments of the 11th hour already says something damning about the integrity of this particular structure.

Consider this lengthy quote from the German theologian Helmut Thielicke:

Milan Machovec has classically described the resistance to the fall in the Marxist-Leninist system (in his “A Marxist Looks at Jesus”). As he points out, Marx and his first disciples sharply criticized the social system which left the alleviation of human suffering to private initiative and therefore to chance. Three or four generations of Socialists knew very well what G.B. Shaw portrayed in his plays, namely, that “private Samaritans” do not alter the foundations of exploitive capitalist society but simply promote the allusion of the pure and the pharisaism of the rich—a double deception which has to be radically dispelled. Socialist states, then, set up a system of social security to care for the sick and handicapped and unemployed. But how could these noble 19th century Socialists foresee that in the 20th century a situation would arise in which thousands of people would believe that official institutions alone are responsible for the needy, that the state has taken over everything, that the compassionate and self-sacrificing heart has been replaced, and that at the last resort individuals would feel no discomfort for others suffering around them? Thus the ancient egoism and cowardice and pharisaism come back in new garb. The devil cannot be banished or outplayed by institutional safeguards. The fall cannot be organized away, for it transcends organizable structures. The resistance of the bad as it occurs in a new form gives the lie to the dream that love can be institutionalized and that this institutionalization will give rise to non-alienated man.

Ultimately there is an incredible tension which we believers face between all that is right about affordable healthcare and all that is wrong about the relatively short history of government-structured socialism. This is what our intellectual and theological leaders must wrestle with in the days and years to come. One thing is certain: silence won't cut it any longer.