(Updated in case anyone wants to share it with others)
So let’s get specific about applying the principle that faith and politics go hand in hand for religious people.
Despite what conservative Christians believe, voters – Christian and non-Christian – have proven that America is not a Christian nation.
How? By electing and re-electing politicians who want to repeal the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.
Polls continue to show that a majority of Americans don’t support the new law. The caveat, enigmatic as it may be, is that the majority don’t want it repealed either. But the fact remains that the majority have yet to say they support Obamacare.
What does that have to do with being a Christian nation? Here’s what: You can’t be a Christian in practice and not support an effort to make healthcare universally available regardless of one’s ability to pay.
It is quite easy to understand why I would say this.
For all its weaknesses, the Affordable Care Act was and remains an attempt to create a just and compassionate healthcare system. In other words, the new law was and is an act of social justice.
The system we had before the law was passed created this need.
What we had was a for-profit free market system that made healthcare available only to people who could afford it, and in the process was the primary factor in 45 thousand Americans dying every year because of the lack of medical care access. Forty-five thousand!
How in the name of Jesus can anything be Christian about that?
The Affordable Care Act was passed to try to stop that carnage, to undo something that was morally wrong, at a time when nothing else of substance was being done.
We were and still are the only developed nation in the world with a for-profit healthcare system. The only one.
No Christian nation can believe treating sick people only if they can afford to be treated and making medicine available only to people who can pay for it is morally right.
That is why I say opposition to the Affordable Care Act is unequivocal evidence that we are not a Christian nation, officially or unofficially.
Instead, we are a nation where a majority of people continue to believe the free market can take care of everything and everyone if the government would just get out of its way, even when history proves that is not true.
But there is one exception to what I am saying – people who oppose Obamacare because they have a better plan for universal healthcare. I’m not talking about tweaking the old system with a few incentives here and there that will still leave millions without coverage.
I’m talking about opposition to Obamacare because there is a better way to achieve the same goal. Otherwise, it is opposition for the sake of opposition.
So at this point the way Americans vote, including Christians, shows a stunning lack of concern and compassion for those among us who do not have healthcare or access to medical treatment.
That, I believe, is proof positive that whether or not we were intended to be a Christian nation, the fact is we never have been and apparently never will be in actual practice.
linnposts.com 
I recently watched a TED talk on Cuba’s Latin American Medical School, now the largest medical school for training doctors in the world! It host students from 123 countries including the U.S. and has graduated over 20,000 doctors since 2005. These young doctors, a majority being women, return to their countries of origin and save thousands of lives, often with minimum supplies and facilities but loaded with tremendous passion and excellent training!
I also am reminded that it was in Cuba where Michael Moore, in his documentary Sicko, took a small group of Americans with illnesses to finally get good and low cost treatments (typically 1/20th less) after confronting numerous financial hurdles or rejections at home!
No wonder the U.S. continues its illegal embargo of that country year after year. Its socialist ideology, in practice, justly serves the needs of all its people at very low costs and even extends its work beyond its own shores. (There are over 100 Cuban doctors working on the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.) Regardless of other shortcomings many of its socialist precepts are working for the greater good. (Its a threat to capitalism!) It does not allow a “capitalist cartel” of bankers and mega-merchants to subjugate the entire country except for moneyed elites as happens here and in many other countries.
On this front Cuba looks far more Christian than America.
Thank you for this poignant commentary.
Now that’s a telling comparison!
I agree with you 100%.
Old saying – “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” – hence the AHC Act. As a Christian I would love to see everyone have coverage. I don’t think the Fed Gov’t is a qualified facilitator. Let Wash pass laws that put the specifics in place that accomplish the desired results. Let them stop there. My interpretation of the candidates I had to choose from offered less or more government. I guess I am saying that I disagree with your basis for comparison. I would even offer that it is the Christian influence in America that voted for a change in direction. It is my understanding that the consensus is that the AHC Act needs to be fixed, not abolished.
Thanks, Ed, for your comments. They are thoughtful and too important to ignore.
If the consensus among Republicans is to fix Obamacare, not abolish it, then you are hearing news I am not. All I have heard from McConnell, Cruz, and others is to repeal it, with nothing of real value offered in its place. Also, I don’t understand your statement, “Let Wash pass laws that put the specifics in place that accomplish the desired results. Let them stop there.” I think that is not only what it does, but all it can do. More clarification would be helpful.
Further, I agree our country needs to go in a different direction. The question is what that will be. Given the worsening income inequality in our nation, and the fact that new jobs are paying on average 23% less than old ones did, it seems to me that talk about more corporate tax cuts, less Wall Street regulation, repealing Obamacare, greater voter registration restrictions, deeper cuts in social spending, including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid do not constitute the way Christians would want the country to go, but apparently a majority do. I just don’t believe an argument can be made that such things are consistent with social justice and Christian ethics.