Explaining Health Care Reform & “Christian” Reflections Thereof [REPOST]
Can the common man understand this health care debate? Is there a particularly Christian perspective on health care? Also, a curious and unexpected memorial to Ted Kennedy. Read on.
[Editor's Note: This is a repost of an article posted in August. It was fairly popular at the time, and in light of the potential difficulties the current health care bill may be facing due to the fight for Senator Kennedy's Senate seat, I thought it might be helpful to post this up again. I'm also posting this to go along with a recent post I put up on my personal blog called "I sort of want this health care bill to die." It has to do with this Massachusetts's Senate race and health care reform. I hope these resources spur your thoughts on these issues facing our country.]
Below is a series of illustrations by Dan Roam and Dr. Tony Jones of Digital Roam explaining the current Health Care system and proposed reforms to that system. This is by far the best explanation I’ve seen. So much so, it is forcing me to break a bunch of my own rules concerning this site and perhaps even give some new freedoms for what I post up here. Take a few moments and look through this series of slides and familiarize yourself with these ideas. Analysis will follow below. A couple of things before you start: I have no idea why this guy calls these “napkins” nor do I know why he says there are only four. Don’t let that distract you too much. The quality is such that I am more than willing to forgive these minor lapses of clarity.
Explaining Health Care Reform & “Christian” Reflections Thereof
Can the common man understand this health care debate? Is there a particularly Christian perspective on health care? Also, a curious and unexpected memorial to Ted Kennedy. Read on.
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Okay, everyone up to speed now? So are there any uniquely Christian thoughts on this? First, of immediate concern for those Christians whose consciences are so inclined to view abortion as a fundamentally political and legislative issue (no sarcasm in that statement, by the way; it’s a totally valid way that the Holy Spirit moves in many believers); in Obama’s most recent weekly address, as he “debunks” various ideas being spread about the reform, he says: “Some are also saying that coverage for abortions would be mandated under reform. Also false. When it comes to the current ban on using tax dollars for abortions, nothing will change under reform.” So apparently (at least from what the carefully phrased political talk) it would seem that these sets of reform do not concern abortion.
So with the one health issue it seems Christians have anything to say something about out of the way (yeah, there was some sarcasm in that one), what else does the Christian have to engage with in this debate? Well, before we get quite there, two foundational things that have plagued my thinking about this:
John Piper on Obama & Abortion
by Reform & Revive
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This is a video by John Piper of Desiring God Ministries in Minneapolis Minnesota. This is powerful. I’m still kind of really from it. The are difficult times in which to live indeed.
Thanks go to Ryan Burns for the video.
Wickedness, Righteousness, & Changing Culture
“The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion. . . When the wicked rise, people hide themselves but when they perish, the righteous increase.” — Proverbs 28:1, 28
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Looking at the verse above, we see an interesting thing: wickedness and unity are negatively correlated. When the wicked rise, people “hide themselves.” In other words, wickedness and humanism go hand in hand. As righteousness decreases within a society, people begin to think less collectively and more in terms of self-preservation, self-exaltation, and self-esteem. Why is this? I think there is a principle within humans I’m calling “moral entropy.” The law of entropy is that “all things will move from a state of order to disorder, unless a greater force is acted upon it.” This is the state of all created things, and I would argue it is also the state of the moral state of human beings. Unless a force greater than the wickedness of humans is exerted upon them, people will move ever increasingly to further moral disarray. So what happens when this “greater force” is exerted on humans to such a point that their wickedness begins to perish? Not only does righteousness itself increase, but a righteous people characterized by unity is formed (see. the end of verse 28).
intelligent design–the new intellectual mccarthyism (intro)
For my term paper in RELG 362: Religion and Its Critics, I (as mentioned in an earlier post) am writing about the controversy over Iowa State University’s decision to deny tenure to Assistant Professor of Astronomy, Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez, who supports Intelligent Design. The paper will not (at least at the moment) come down on a particular side, but instead will discuss the relationship between intelligent design supporters, namely the Discovery Institute, and “modern” naturalistic science within academia.
Intelligent Design theory suggests that the biological aspects of life are too complex to have evolved randomly, but must have been produced by an unidentified (supernatural) intelligence. Contemporary Intelligent Design is an extension of the teleological argument for the existence of God, asserted by William Paley’ in his “watchmaker analogy” found in Natural Theology (1802).
The controversy–this potential “intellectual mccarthyism” (this is not my “official” stance on the situation, but an interesting statement that I have read recently)–does not merely stem from Dr. Gonzalez pro-ID stance, but also his expertise in his field of study, Astronomy. This would not be such an issue if Dr. Gonzalez was not so learned in the discipline. Dr. Gonzalez has the highest ranking among the entire I.S.U. faculty, according to the Smithsonian/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS), which calculates the scientific impact of scientists in astronomy. The ranking system is devised on how much a scientist impacts other colleagues’ research. The more times a person’s papers are cited in other scientific articles or research, the more weight that person receives. The citation index is normalized so there is a greater weight placed on papers that have a single author as opposed to several. Based on 2001-2007 publications, Dr. Gonzalez received a 143 on the normalized index. The next closest I.S.U. professor staff has a score of 103, and the next best tenured astronomer scored 68.
The Discovery Institutes website quotes Dr. John West, associate director of the Center for Science and Culture (CSC) saying, “In other words, Iowa State denied tenure to a scientist whose impact on his field during the past six years outstripped all of the university’s existing tenured astronomers according to a prestigious Smithsonian/NASA database.”
Gonzalez, who has written 68 peer-reviewed journals (53 more than the 15 required by his department to meet its standard of excellence in research) does not teach ID in class, however, and that it is purely outside research.
Well, I previously mentioned that I would not come down on a particular side, but it seems that I have–with substantial empirical evidence of his contribution to astronomy.
On June 1, 2007, Gregory Geoffroy, President of Iowa State University, rejected Gonzalez’s appeal and upheld the denial of tenure. In making this decision, Geoffroy states that he “specifically considered refereed publications, [Gonzalez's] level of success in attracting research funding and grants, the amount of telescope observing time he had been granted, the number of graduate students he had supervised, and most importantly, the overall evidence of future career promise in the field of astronomy” and that Gonzalez “simply did not show the trajectory of excellence that we expect in a candidate seeking tenure in physics and astronomy — one of our strongest academic programs.” Geoffroy noted, “Over the past 10 years, four of the 12 candidates who came up for review in the physics and astronomy department were not granted tenure.”Gonzalez appealed to the Iowa Board of Regents and the board affirmed the decision on February 7, 2008.
This should be an interesting situation to research.
[Contributed by Stephen Hess]
