I am, obviously, not on the White House Rolodex. Regardless, they can be glad they did not call me. My Biblically undergirded Christian convictions lead me to conclude that a so-called public option would harm the people the Church is called to serve and lead the Church further from our missional call.
It should be said at the outset that the Church’s dereliction of duty has led the nation to this point. The Church of the 20th century cared more about building an institution than making disciples. We built bigger barns in which to store our harvest of members rather than sowing them out into the field to produce a harvest of righteousness. We have had a laser-like internal and institutional focus. This is a departure from our history.
There is a reason why most of the older hospitals in this country have the name Baptist or Methodist or Presbyterian or some various and sundry saint attached to them. The Church thought it was her job to take care of the sick whether or not they confessed Christ as Savior. If you gave Christians in the 1700s and 1800s the choice between raising money to build a hospital or a fellowship hall, they would at least consider the hospital. If you gave them a choice between building a sanctuary or a soup kitchen, they would choose the latter. Educating the ignorant was once the exclusive domain of the Church. We don’t see things like that now. Today, for the most part, we pay taxes so the state can do it for us.
It is common to say, among American Christians, that the European Church is weak because tax dollars help pay the salary of the clergy. This is truly pointing out the speck in our brother’s eye. The American Church has been weakened because tax dollars pay to care for the poor and the downtrodden, something Christ has commanded His Church to do. We have made Caesar Savior.
There is a problem when the Church delegates societal redemption to a secular government. Government is simply ill equipped for the task. She arrives at a moment of need, bringing to bear the full weight of her considerable resources. However, once present, she usually makes for herself a home and proves to be a stern master indeed. As an unwashed institution, her interest becomes more about her own preservation than that of those whom she ostensibly exists to serve. The Church properly conceived, is born to die. We have no interest in securing power or place; our power and place is already secure.
The prophet Samuel warned God’s people about the consequence of investing too much power in human governments (1 Samuel 8:11-17).
In the 20th century, oppressive, statist governments were usually preceded by a weak Church that refused to love the world. In Czarist Russia, before the Communists, the Church was rife with paganism. Sanctuaries were built upon pagan temples. Priests prayed next to healers as they cast spells. Christians worshipped trees and stumps. Cultural relativists battled Biblicists for the ecclesial soul. Most importantly, the poor starved and froze in the streets. One author described Christ’s bride saying, “The … church found itself in a condition of profound lethargy.” And when Russia fell apart, the Church was in no position to help. “The weak … church could no longer offer assistance in the event of catastrophe. The people did not trust it. Those who stood at the crossroads either went with their troubles in the direction of the revolution, or turned for help to holy fools …”1
Do we not see something similar today? The Church has lost her credibility. The world cries out to Caesar to make sure that the weakest and poorest receive what dignity demands. It is the failure of the 159 million Christians and 322,000 congregations to care as much about their brothers as they do their buildings that has brought us to the precipice turning over 1/6 of our nation’s economy to what history has proven to be an insatiable beast.
Hannah Arendt claimed that the aim of totalitarian ideologies “is not the transformation of the outside world or the revolutionizing transmutation of society, but the transformation of human nature itself.”2 Good health is absolutely dependent upon this kind of transformation. Self-esteem, depression, relationships, prayer, and a host of other personal factors dramatically affect health. A government that garners such far-reaching influence, even in pursuit of laudable aims, runs a very real risk of slipping into totalitarianism and repression.
The Church, however, is called to change lives. The Holy Spirit is the great redemptive Agent of the world. When the Church represses her call to be the Holy Spirit’s instrument of redemption, the world suffers and cries out “Save us” to anyone who will listen.
It is our response to this question about the role of government vis-à-vis the Church, not debates upon sexuality, which will define this era. Will “we love our neighbor as ourself” or will we pay an unwashed institution to do it for us, to the great harm of all? Let us reclaim our missional call to be the Holy Spirit’s instrument of redemption in the world.
1 Edward Radzinsky, The Rasputin File, tr. Judson Rosengrant, (New York, NY: Anchor Books, 2000), p. 37.
2 Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York, NY: Random House, 1996), p. 623.
Eric Laverentz is pastor of Presbyterian Church of Stanley in Overland Park, Kan.
