Collateral Damage

"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel!”

Matthew 23:23-24

We need to be absolutely clear that in the Christian Church’s war on LGBTQ persons, our LGBTQ siblings have borne the overwhelming weight of the suffering. The Traditionalists often claim that they have had no desire to hurt anyone, but that does not mitigate the pain they have inflicted.

But there has also been collateral damage.

And the collateral damage should not be underestimated. It is wide and deep and it will have lasting effects on the whole church.

We have trivialized our understanding of the Bible.

We are straining out gnats and swallowing camels.

There are seven passages in the Bible that are typically used to “prove” that the Bible condemns same sex relationships. They consist of a few hundred words; a small fraction of the total word count of nearly a million.

And these seven “clobber verses” are all problematic in one way or another. When Christians act as if an authoritative biblical witness can be found by lifting these seven passages out of context we trivialize the whole Bible.

Those who read the Bible this way become de facto literalists and they make it much more difficult to appreciate the Bible as a guide to faith. It becomes a rule book rather than an inspiring narrative. Instead of being a book of big ideas, it becomes a book of isolated verses.

And those who have tried to counter the condemnations of the traditionalists have typically joined the debate on those same terms. We counter one series of passages with another. We cite verses. And even though we may be using those verses as illustrations rather than as proof texts, to the secular world it looks like proof-texting.

It is more like a game of biblical trivia than an honest exploration of the biblical witness. And the result is that we diminish the meaning of the Scriptures.

We appear to care more about archaic and anachronistic rules than we do about actual human beings. The traditionalists may claim to be honoring Scripture. And that may be their honest intention. But in practical terms, they achieve a high view of Scripture by making a few verses more important than the people for whom the whole biblical witness is intended.

We have trivialized the meaning of sin.

Paul Tillich, one of the greatest theologians of the twentieth (or any other) century, questioned whether the Christian concept of sin could survive in the modern world. He argued that for modern people a more helpful word for sin is separation.  In his famous sermon, “You Are Accepted,” he described sin as a state of separation: separation from God, from others, and from ourselves. And he defined grace as the acceptance which overcomes that separation and reunites us with God, with others, and with ourselves.

If sin was a difficult concept in the middle of the twentieth century, it is nearly impossible now.

The traditionalist focus on the “sin” of same sex relationships is spectacularly unhelpful.

In the 21^st century we do not see sex as inherently sinful. Forced sex is sinful. Unfaithfulness we can see as sinful. But sex between consenting and committed adults is not seen as sinful. Almost every couple I have married has been living together. And those that weren’t living together were typically splitting time between houses or apartments.

Focusing on the sin of same sex relationships comes off as hypocritical.

But that is not the biggest problem.

When we try to identify sin with same sex relationships we lose focus on the sins that are central to the biblical witness: economic and social injustice. The Bible is far more concerned with how we treat poor people than with our sex lives.

The focus on sex is petty and hypocritical and it takes away from issues that really should concern us as Christians.

We have made it look like we do not believe in science.

The American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality as a mental illness from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) approximately twenty minutes after the United Methodist Church declared it to be “incompatible with Christian teaching.”

Those of us who actually believed in the Wesleyan Quadrilateral (Scripture, Reason, Tradition, and Experience) assumed it would not be long before the Book of Discipline caught up with the science and revised our understanding of same sex relationships. But we underestimated the growing influence of right wing theology and selective biblical literalism.

We are at odds with the best insights of science and medicine.

We appear backward, primitive, and superstitious.

And United Methodists find themselves lumped together with those who think the world was made in seven days five thousand years ago, and evolution is a hoax. Not surprisingly, this costs us credibility. But it goes far beyond sex and biology. The bad science undermines the biblical witness across a broad spectrum of ethical and moral issues.

It makes us appear irrelevant.

And then. Finally. We just look stupid.

Traditionalists can talk about being counter-cultural, and that could be a good thing. We should be counter-cultural in our rejection of violence, and greed, and selfishness.

At its core, Christianity is profoundly counter-cultural.

But this. Is just. Stupid.

As a wise person once observed, “Just because you are a fool does not mean you are a fool for Christ. Sometimes you’re just a damned fool.”

Those of us who are still affirming a faith that is open and accepting might hope that we would not be affected by the loud condemnations of the traditionalists. But it just doesn’t work that way.

Those who condemn our LGBTQ siblings do not speak for the whole church. They certainly do not speak for the whole of the United Methodist Church.

They do not speak for the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church, The Presbyterian Church USA, the United Church of Christ, the Unitarian Universalists, and others.

And in a broader faith context they do not speak for Conservative, Reform, or Reconstructionist Judaism.

But to much of the secular world, and among many casual Christians, those voices of condemnation sound like the official voice of Christianity. And, in a general sense, condemnation seems like the singular voice of organized religion.

In the war on our LGBTQ siblings, Christianity is just collateral damage.

*It is important to read the 23^rd chapter of Matthew within the context of our understanding that Jesus was himself a Pharisee and that what he describes is an internal conflict.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 

The "Conservative" Lament

Speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.
Ephesians 4:15

I do not like the terms “conservative” and “liberal.”

They are at times a necessary shorthand, but they are labels. And even the best labels tend to tell less than the whole story.

That is true when we talk about someone else’s politics and particularly true when those who claim to follow Jesus use those labels to describe the politics of other Christians.

The Bible is an intensely political book. Hebrew Scripture is focused on the life of the people of Israel. The prophets proclaim God’s expectations of the nation and they are not shy in describing the consequences of injustice and oppression. Jesus’ message was about the good news of the Kingdom of God; an alternative to the violent injustice of the Empire.

But when we try to translate biblical ethics into current social and political context, we need to be clear that the Kingdom of God is a concept that transcends our current political parties.

With that disclaimer, I will venture into these troubled waters with the hope of making a useful observation.

A colleague, who describes himself as a conservative, recently posted a commentary on Facebook that has much in common with many others I have seen, and it illustrates a trend in both politics and religion.

He writes:

“It makes me sad (kind of) to realize I was a happy well adjusted person who accepted people just because.... but now
If I use a gender specific pronoun I offend people
If I talk about working in law enforcement I offend people
If I talk about my deep faith or even mention Jesus I offend people
If I dare have a conservative political opinion I offend people
I even offend by things I have no control over. I am male, I am straight, I am white, or I am older
If I laugh because I think it is crazy kids need a label not to eat Tide Pods or that changing the color will change that.
Being patriotic offends
Owning guns offends
Eating meat offends
Having pets offends
If this post offends you I need to speak truth in love to you. The problem is not me or the millions like me. The problem is that you might have been lied to that in the real world nobody will ever offend you. You have not been given the tools to survive and when the SHTF you will be in trouble. In fact you may be in trouble right now. This is not a joke post. This doesn’t dismiss that we all need to respect diversity and various opinions. In fact it is just the opposite. I am not putting you down I am lifting you up. There is no disclaimer at the end of this post. Suck it up and let’s get to work on the real issues that matter.”

In truth, if you think of yourself as a liberal (or if others label you that way), you could post your own list of things that others say offends them. But this seems to be almost entirely a conservative phenomenon.

So let’s just stick with the conservative lament.

Conservatives currently control:
The White House.
The House of Representatives.
The Senate.
And the Supreme Court.

They control both chambers in thirty-two states.
And they have thirty-four Governorships.

That last one could be argued. Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker is a Republican although he is not in the mold of current conservatives. But thirty-three is still a huge majority.

So the question is, how is it possible that the people who control pretty much everything in this country still see themselves as victims. In the words of my conservative colleague, “suck it up.” If you are that easily offended maybe the problem is you.

Tax Reform (The Magnificat in Reverse)

He has brought down the powerful 

from their thrones, 

and lifted up the lowly; 

he has filled the hungry with good things, 

and sent the rich away empty.

Luke 1:52-53

The new congressional tax bill is not tax reform. It is just tax cutting. And it is not just cutting taxes; it is distributing the overwhelming majority of those cuts to the wealthiest among us.

And it is not just at all.

The wealthiest 1% of all Americans already control substantially more than the bottom 90%. Under the new tax bill that top group will gain a little bit more.

This is the Magnificat in reverse. The rich are filled with good things and the poor are sent away empty.

Of course the theory-- and we should be clear that this is a political theory without any economic evidence to back it up-- is that if the wealthiest people have more money they will invest it in enterprises that will benefit everyone. Right now the wealthiest individuals and corporations are sitting on a lot of capital. The theory is that if they had more capital they would create jobs and raise wages.

This has not worked in the past, but (apparently) hope springs eternal.

For at least four decades the American economy has been devoted to a massive redistribution of income from the bottom to the top. The gap between the richest Americans and the poorest Americans has been growing, and the middle class has been shrinking.

And let’s be clear. This gap has widened under both Republican and Democratic presidents. There have been different rates of increase but there have been no great reversals.

President Obama made income inequality a major policy priority. He was able to reverse the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans while maintaining those cuts for the middle class, and he was able to expand healthcare for middle and low income families. But those modest policy changes were more than offset by the massive gains in pretax income that went to the wealthiest Americans as the economy recovered from the crash of 2008.

The new tax bill will deal a possibly fatal blow to the Affordable Care Act. By repealing the individual mandate, the bill will result in 13 million more Americans without health insurance. That number could rise if the increase in premiums caused by the repeal of the individual mandate causes premium costs to rise dramatically. We know that premiums will go up. We don’t know how much they will go up. 

This is not unintended. 

In a celebratory gathering on the White House lawn, Mr. Trump deviated from his prepared remarks to offer a candid assessment: “I shouldn’t say this, but we essentially repealed Obamacare.”

As Dana Milbank reported in the Washington Post:

“Trump, in a Cabinet meeting earlier Wednesday, let his fleeting encounter with honesty get the better of him when he read aloud the stage directions that called for Republicans not to advertise that they were killing Obamacare. ‘Obamacare has been repealed in this bill. We didn’t want to bring it up,’ he said. ‘I told people specifically, "'Be quiet with the fake-news media because I don’t want them talking too much about it.”’ Because I didn’t know how people would —.’ Trump didn’t finish that thought, but he said he could admit what had been done ‘now that it’s approved.’”

Unfortunately, the Affordable Care Act may not be the only casualty.

When the deficit increases, and we know it will, lawmakers will be “forced” to “reform entitlements.”  By “entitlements,” they mean Social Security and Medicare. And by “reform,” they mean cut.

So the rich will have their taxes cut and the poor and the middle class will have their Social Security and Medicare cut. 

Merry Christmas.

Happy United Nations Day

Let Us Beat Swords into Plowshares
by Yevgeny Vuchetlich, 1959

In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it. Many peoples shall come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. O house of Jacob, come, let us walk in the light of the Lord!

Isaiah 2:2-5

At the United Nations building in New York City there is a statue of a man beating a giant sword into a plowshare. The sculpture, titled, “Let Us Beat Swords into Plowshares,” was created by Evgeniv Vuchetich and given as a gift by the Soviet Union in 1959.

When President Reagan addressed the United Nations General Assembly in 1987, he began by describing the journey that brought the delegates and the nations together as a kind of pilgrimage, and then he said, “We come from every continent, every race, and most religions to this great hall of hope . . .” 

Near the conclusion of his address, speaking specifically to the Soviet Union as well as to the whole assembly, he asked, 

“Cannot swords be turned to plowshares? Can we and all nations not live in peace? In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences world-wide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world. And yet, I ask you, is not an alien force already among us? What could be more alien than war and the threat of war?”

In tone and in substance, President Reagan's speech stands in sharp contrast to the speech recently given by our current president in which he vowed to "totally destroy" North Korea if the United State had to defend itself.

"Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime," Mr. Trump declared. "The United States is ready, willing and able, but hopefully this will not be necessary. That's what the United Nations is all about; that's what the United Nations is for. Let's see how they do."

The United Nations Charter was ratified on October 24, 1945. Today is United Nations Day. When I was a boy we celebrated United Nations Sunday in church every year.

My guess is that most people don’t know that today is United Nations Day. And we do not have many political leaders who would speak of the U.N. assembly room as “this great hall of hope.”

Over the years the United Nations has been relentlessly vilified and marginalized by politicians. Some see it as simply ineffective and others see it as a threat to our sovereignty. In a book called “The Black Helicopters Are Coming!” political commentator Dick Morris’ claimed that President Obama was plotting to have the United States invaded by the United Nations. Morris admitted that “it sounds crazy,” but insisted that it was really going to happen.

It doesn’t just sound crazy. It really and truly is crazy. But this is where we are.

The truth is that the United Nations has not lived up to our highest hopes, but its achievements have still been significant.

Over the last seventy-two years small wars have been constant and the resulting deaths and injuries have been staggering. On the other hand, we have avoided massive world wars, and that is no small achievement. The second half of the twentieth century was much more peaceful than the first half. And the United Nations must take some share of the credit for that.

In spite of its obvious limitations, the world is a better place because of the United Nations, and on United Nations Day I want to touch briefly on a few of the U.N. organizations that have fostered international progress and understanding.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is organized to reduce hunger worldwide through improving agricultural productivity and raising levels of nutrition. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is similarly targeted to reduce rural poverty in developing nations by funding relief efforts.

The International Maritime Organization (IMO) promotes global cooperation to improve maritime safety and decrease marine pollution.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) acts as a forum for discussing global financial issues and provides loans to developing countries.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) promotes world peace and security by fostering international cooperation in education, science and culture. They promote the fundamental freedoms endorsed in the UN Charter.

And then there are some UN organizations that require no further description: the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Trade Organization (WHO), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), and the World Bank Group (WBG) which includes five sub-groups focused on promoting development and reconstruction.

It is an impressive list. Together they promote an international strategy for beating swords into plowshares. 

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 

*An earlier version of this post was published on October 24, 2012.

Shiphrah and Puah Resist the Transgender Decree

The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, “When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women, and see them on the birthstool, if it is a boy, kill him; but if it is a girl, she shall live.” But the midwives feared God; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live. So the king of Egypt summoned the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and allowed the boys to live?”
Exodus 1:15-18

In the modern day version of this story Pharaoh tells the women that they should enforce his decree that transgender men and women should be forced out of his army, but here as in the original, they do not do as the king commanded them.

In today’s story the women are United States Senators rather than Hebrew midwives, but like the women in the ancient text, they love justice more than they fear the king (or his political operatives). 

Justice is a bipartisan issue.

Republican Susan Collins and Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand have proposed a joint amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that would prevent the Department of Defense from enacting the President’s ban on transgender persons serving in the military.  

In July, Mr. Trump issued the ban in a tweet that came as a surprise to his own administration, including the Secretary of Defense, James Mattis.

Senator Gillibrand tweeted in response, "To all trans men and women serving bravely in the military: I plan to introduce legislation to fight back. We'll keep raising our voices." Senator John McCain, the chair of the Armed Services Committee called the decree a "step in the wrong direction."

The amendment introduced on September 11 would prevent the Department of Defense from discharging current transgender service personnel "solely on the basis of the member’s gender identity.”

“Any individual who wants to join our military and meets the standards should be allowed to serve, period. Gender identity should have nothing to do with it,” said Senator Gillibrand in her statement.

“If individuals are willing to put on the uniform of our country, be deployed in war zones, and risk their lives for our freedoms, then we should be expressing our gratitude to them, not trying to exclude them from military service," said Senator Collins.



Thank you for reading. Please feel free to comment here or on Facebook. Please share on social media as you wish.

Wealth and Poverty and Taxes

Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days. Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you.
James 5:1-6

I do not generally think of myself as a rich person. I think in household income we are outside of the top quintile, but we are still comfortably above the median. That’s in the United States, of course. 

In global terms, I am rich.

And that is an uncomfortable thought, because the Bible is hard on rich people.

The Letter of James is especially hard, but the theme is consistent. When Mary announces the coming of the Messiah, she sings about the poor being filled with good things and the rich sent away empty. Jesus says that it is harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God.

In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus tells the story of “The Rich Man and Lazarus.” The rich man does not directly refuse to help poor Lazarus, he simply ignores him. And for that he is consigned to eternal darkness.

For the Bible, the problem is not wealth, but the juxtaposition of wealth and poverty, and the disparity between rich and poor.

There are warnings about focusing too much on possessions and not enough on justice, and it’s clear that we don’t really own things; we are only stewards of what ultimately belongs to God. But the biblical ideal is for everyone to have enough, “every man under his vine and fig tree.” No one should have “too much,” but the definition of “too much” is flexible and the real emphasis is really on “enough.”

All Christians live with a certain amount of tension on this. We are not called to renounce everything and live in poverty, although some embrace that calling. We are called to live life fully and abundantly, to accept and rejoice in the good gifts of life. 

But if we are sensitive to issues of global poverty and inequality, then our thanksgiving for our own comfort includes a concern for those who have less. And we need to be good stewards, setting aside a portion of what we have to do God’s work in the world.

Within the United States, the gap between rich and poor has increased dramatically over the past three decades. Almost all of the gains in economic growth over that time have been funneled to the wealthiest among us. The middle class is stagnant. The poor have less. And the rich have more. 

We have been redistributing income from the bottom to the top.

The richest 1% of Americans have more wealth than the total combined wealth of the lower 90%. At the same time, the tax rates for the wealthiest Americans are lower than they have been in decades.

Increasing the tax rates for the wealthiest Americans would be a good idea even if we did not have concerns about debt and deficits. A tax increase would slow the rate of increase in the gap between wealth and poverty, and reduce the upward redistribution of income.

Opponents of increasing the taxes of billionaires point out that the richest one percent of Americans now pay approximately 40% of all income taxes. That sounds like a lot until you realize that the richest one percent also have 40% of the wealth. In other words, the amount they pay in taxes is about average. They pay more dollars but they don’t pay at a higher rate. When we compare wealth (not just annual income) to taxes paid, the tax rate for billionaires is about the same as for average Americans.

Raising the marginal tax rate for the richest Americans would make a significant contribution to reducing the deficit. It would be fairer. But it would also be good. And it would be good for the rich as well as for the poor. In the words of the prophet Isaiah:

If you offer your food to the hungry,
and satisfy the needs of the afflicted,
then your light shall rise in the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.
The Lord will guide you continually,
and satisfy your needs in parched places,
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.
Isaiah 58:10-11


Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish. 

*A slightly different version of this post was first published on July 15, 2011.

A Parable about Healthcare in the United States

Budget Director Mick Mulvaney holds a copy of the 2018 budget proposal.

When he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them. Then some people came, bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” 
. . . . “Stand up, take your mat and go to your home.”And he stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”
Mark 2:1-5, 11-12

This story is a wonderful parable about some of the key issues in the current debate about healthcare in the United States.

But I need to begin with a footnote.

The healing stories in the Gospels are always problematic texts for preaching, because all of us know people who have not been healed. At least, not in the way that they would wish. 

And it is important that Christians never, never burden those who are already suffering with the notion that if they had more faith they would, in fact, be healed. The healing power of God must always remain a mystery. And the forms of God’s healing must also be a mystery. But in spite of that caution, these stories speak to us in a profound way about our need for healing and about God’s vision for our lives.

In those days, in Palestine, houses were often made with a mud and thatch roof. Sometimes they were built into the side of a hill, so that you could actually around he side of the hill and up on top of the roof. And that’s what they did. When they couldn’t get in through the door, they went around the side and up the hill onto the roof. Then they set their friend down and began digging through the thatch and the mud.

The scripture says, “He was teaching them the word,” which probably means he was teaching Torah (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, what we call the Pentateuch, the Books of Moses). 

Suddenly, things begin to fall from the roof. 

Things begin to fall. First dirt and dust sifts down. Pretty soon Jesus can’t even tell his story. Everyone is looking up at the roof, and by now large chunks of things are falling on them. People scramble and cover their heads. And then the roof opens up. 

Jesus looks up there where there are these four guys looking down, probably pretty proud of themselves. What a great opportunity! They have been able to engage in an act of vandalism and do a good deed, a mizpah, at the same time. It just doesn’t get any better than that!

Before Jesus can say anything, the four guys are lowering a fifth guy down into the house right in front of Jesus. They lean down as far as they can, and then pass him to those in the house.

Jesus is amazed at what he sees. Mark observes, “When he saw their faith . . . .” Not the faith of the paralyzed man. He is marveling at the faith of the four guys who carried him through town and ripped up the roof. 

What a risk they took! 

“When he saw their faith, he said to the man, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven.’” 

Somehow, Jesus understands that what is paralyzing this man is an overwhelming sense of guilt. There may be fear also, but guilt apparently plays a major role. He is so scared and so guilty, that he cannot even move. Jesus understands that the only way for the man to be healed is for him to feel a sense of grace and forgiveness. 

Jesus turns to the paralyzed man and says, “Take up your mat and walk!”

The man stands up. And takes his mat. And walks out of the house. People are in shock. The crow gathered around the house saw the man carried up onto the roof, and now they see him walking out the door. They are excited and amazed, and they shout, “We never saw anything like this!” Which is the only proper response to the church in action. 

When the church is really the church, when we are really being the people God has called us to be, the only proper response is, “We’ve never seen anything like this!” It is always amazing to believers and non-believers alike. 

In terms of the current healthcare debate, the story makes at least three important points.

First, when people can’t walk, we need to carry them.

The basic theory of health insurance is that the healthy people carry the sick people. And when we are dealing with serious illnesses like cancer and heart disease, where the costs of treatment are measured in hundreds of thousands of dollars, we need a lot more than four healthy people to carry one sick one.

The proposed American Healthcare Act, says that healthy people should not have to carry sick people, at least they should not have to carry as many or carry them as far. According to the Congressional Budget Office, 23 million people would lose their health insurance under the AHCA.

In a Sunday editorial, The New York Times describes it this way:

“Consider the fate of Medicaid, a program that provides health insurance to more than 74 million people, among them 60 percent of nursing home residents and millions of people with disabilities. Trumpcare would slash Medicaid spending by $834 billion over 10 years, according to the C.B.O. The president’s budget would take a further $610 billion from the program under the pretext of reforming it. Taken together, this amounts to an estimated 45 percent reduction by 2026 compared with current law, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says.”

Second, some people cannot be healed unless we carry them.

Jesus’ first response is not to the paralyzed man but to the guys who are carrying them. It is their faith that moves him to bless the paralytic.

If they had not carried him, he would not be healed.

The Times observes that the proposed AHCA, “would make it impossible for millions of people with pre-existing conditions like heart disease or diabetes to buy health insurance. That’s because the law would let states waive many of the requirements in the Affordable Care Act, the 2010 law known as Obamacare. It would also greatly increase the cost of insurance policies for older and poorer people, no matter where they live. By way of illustration, a 64-year-old earning $26,500 a year and living in a state not seeking waivers would have to pay $16,100 a year for coverage, nearly 10 times as much as she would under Obamacare.”

We can debate the exact numbers, but we know that without health insurance thousands of  people will die sooner and a much larger group will have their quality of life reduced dramatically.

And this will be done in order to reduce the burden on those who are healthiest and wealthiest. The healthy and the wealthy will not have to carry as many poor people.

The third point is counter intuitive.

In the parable of the paralyzed man the happiest and healthiest people are the four guys carrying their friend. Human beings are happiest when they are helping others.

To be fair, the four guys are probably happy about more than helping a friend. They get to parade him through the village against his will, and they get to rip up a roof and terrorize the people inside the house, and be praised for it. It doesn’t get any better than that.

The theory behind the AHCA and the budget being proposed to congress is that the happiness of the wealthy and the healthy can best be achieved by doing less for others and keeping more for ourselves. As the Times editorializes:

“Apart from inflicting hardship, what would Trumpcare and the president’s budget achieve? Mainly a windfall for wealthy families. The administration has not provided enough information to make good estimates, so it’s hard to say how much the rich would gain from the budget, although it would be a lot. We know more about Trumpcare. The Tax Policy Center estimates that almost all of the tax cuts in that legislation would flow to the rich: The top 1 percent would take home an average of $37,200 a year, while people with middle-class incomes would get a measly $300.”

Maybe Jesus is wrong. Maybe what really makes us happiest is having more money and doing less for others.

But I don’t believe that’s who we really want to be as individuals or as a country.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.

This Is Going to Hurt

Robin Ridenour and Bishop Karen Oliveto

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Romans 12:2

Last July the Western Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church elected the Rev. Dr. Karen Oliveto, formerly the Senior Pastor of Glide Memorial UMC in San Francisco, California, as Bishop and assigned her to oversee the Mountain Sky Area. Dr. Oliveto became the first openly gay bishop to serve our denomination.

For those who dream of a more inclusive church it was a high and holy moment. In a letter to her “Sisters and Brothers in the Western Jurisdiction,” Bishop Oliveto wrote:

“I stand amazed at this new thing God has done, and give thanks to you, my dear sisters and brothers, at the careful and prayerful way we responded to the Holy Spirit and allowed our fears to fall away so we could joyously cross the threshold of this new thing together. I am overwhelmed by the outpouring of love I have received from around the world—it is more than my heart can hold.”

But even before the songs of celebration could echo their last chorus, other voices were raised in opposition. In a letter to the Mississippi Conference, Bishop James Swanson wrote: 

“. . . after a spiritually blessing and joyous jurisdictional conference concluded, we received word late Friday night that our sisters and brothers serving as delegates of the Western Jurisdictional Conference elected The Rev. Dr. Karen Oliveto as a new bishop. Dr. Oliveto is identified as a self-avowed practicing homosexual.

“As a result of her election, The South Central Jurisdiction Conference, in seeking clarity around her election, voted to petition the Judicial Council for a Declaratory Decision concerning Dr. Oliveto's election. A Declaratory Decision is a ruling by the Judicial Council on the constitutionality, meaning, application or effect of an action taken. This is now in the hands of the Judicial Council.”

Just to be clear, when he says that they are seeking clarity, he doesn’t really mean that they are seeking clarity. He means that they want her election nullified. 

On Tuesday the Judicial Council of the United Methodist Church will convene in Newark, New Jersey to hear oral arguments on the motion brought by the South Central Jurisdiction asking that the election of Bishop Oliveto be declared invalid. 

The contention of the South Central Jurisdiction is that since Bishop Oliveto is married to another woman, Robin Ridenour, she must be considered to be “a self-avowed practicing homosexual.” That would mean that she was in violation of the United Methodist Book of Discipline and therefore, they argue, she should be ineligible to be elected Bishop.

The Western Jurisdiction holds that since the election of bishops is the responsibility of the jurisdictions, the South Central Jurisdiction has no standing to challenge what the Western Jurisdiction has done. She was an elder in good standing and she was fairly elected. That should be the end of it.

Each side believes they have a strong case. But the Judicial Council, as constituted by the 2016 General Conference, is dominated by conservatives, so that gives the edge to the South Central Jurisdiction.

Whatever they decide, we can be certain of one thing: this is going to hurt.

If the Judicial Council decides in favor of the Western Jurisdiction (Lord, hear our prayer!), then the traditionalists will be more determined to split the church. And if the decision favors the South Central Jurisdiction then then traditionalists will still want to split the church and more of the progressives will agree with them.

At first glance, schism does not seem like a bad option. And it has historical precedent.

In the 1844 the Methodist Church split over the slavery issue. And it only took us a century to come back together.

If the division is done by conferences, then there will be many churches that find themselves out of step with their conference. Traditionalist churches will find themselves in progressive conferences and vice versa. And if the division is church by church it will be even worse. Most churches are far from unanimity on this issue. Those on the losing side of a vote may well feel betrayed by people they counted as friends. 

It will be ugly. And painful.

Of course, if we are honest about it, we know that the United Methodist Church has been an ugly and painful place for LGBTQ persons for decades. In the words of the old Confession, “We have not loved our neighbors as Christ hath loved us.”

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.

Money Talks in North Carolina Bathroom Controversy

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal, be ardent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints; extend hospitality to strangers.
Romans 12:9-13

North Carolina legislators may not love what is good and hate what is evil as Paul admonished, but they do love money more than they hate their LGBTQ neighbors.

And in this case, that is progress.

Legislators have repealed HB-2, the controversial “Bathroom Bill,” in an attempt to reverse the outflow of businesses and the cancellation of concerts and sporting events growing out of a widespread revulsion at the discrimination and hatred embodied in the original bill.

As he signed the replacement bill into law, newly elected Governor Roy Cooper commented, "For over a year now, House Bill 2 has been a dark cloud hanging over our great state. It has stained our reputation. It has discriminated against our people and it has caused great economic harm in many of our communities."

In a classic understatement he called the new bill “not a perfect deal.” And to his credit, he said it was “not my preferred solution.”

The good news is the repeal of the most egregious part of the original bill, which required everyone to use the restroom conforming to the gender assigned on their birth certificate. The revised bill means returning to the previous norm by which each person chose the restroom corresponding to the gender with which they identified.

So far, so good.

But apparently fearing that goodness might get ahead of them, the legislators prohibited municipalities from enacting their own ordinances protecting the rights of LGBTQ persons. In other words, in North Carolina it will remain legal to discriminate against LGBTQ persons. You can be fired or denied housing because you are gay or transgender.

Whether the new bill will be enough to bring the NCAA back to the state remains to be seen.

Shannon Ryan, writing for the Chicago Tribune, notes that the NCAA has been waiting for the North Carolina legislature to address the issues of discrimination before deciding on host sites for 2018-2022.

NCAA President Paul Emmert said at a Final Four news conference Thursday that the site selection committees “have to wait and see whether or not the board of governors will determine whether or not this bill that was recently passed is a sufficient change in the law for the board to feel comfortable going back to North Carolina."

CNN reports that the NCAA listed four factors in its decision last September to move their events:

"North Carolina laws invalidate any local law that treats sexual orientation as a protected class or has a purpose to prevent discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender individuals.

 "North Carolina has the only statewide law that makes it unlawful to use a restroom different from the gender on one's birth certificate, regardless of gender identity.

North Carolina law provides legal protections for government officials to refuse services to the LGBT community. 

"Five states plus numerous cities prohibit travel to North Carolina for public employees and representatives of public institutions, which could include student-athletes and campus athletics staff. These states are New York, Minnesota, Washington, Vermont and Connecticut."

The revised law addresses just one of those factors. And it enshrines discrimination by prohibiting municipalities from enacting their own anti-discrimination laws until 2020.

My hope is that the NCAA will see that the revision does not go far enough. It does not even restore the status quo.

The NCAA decision means $3.76 billion to the state over the four years from 2018 to 2020. The legislators may have no understanding of equal protection or of what it means to love your neighbors. But they apparently understand money.

The NCAA huge influence. 

And they should use it for good.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.

Healthcare Is a Universal Human Right

Thus says the Lord GOD: Ah, you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings; but you do not feed the sheep. You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them.

Ezekiel 34:2-4

Healthcare is a universal human right.

The libertarians will disagree, but from a Christian perspective there is broad consensus that the conclusion is unmistakable.

Healthcare is a universal human right and most Christian denominations would agree with the United Methodists that, “it is a governmental responsibility to provide all citizens with health care.”

The United Methodist Discipline states:

“Providing the care needed to maintain health, prevent disease, and restore health after injury or illness is a responsibility each person owes others and government owes to all . . . Like police and fire protection, health care is best funded through the government’s ability to tax each person equitably and directly fund the provider entities.”

In case you missed the meaning of that statement, we are talking about single payer insurance.

On the other side of the argument, writing for Freedomworks, Julie Borowski makes the libertarian case against the Affordable Care Act. “The dangerous philosophy behind the law,” she argues, “is that too many Americans now see health care as a human right rather than a good.”

“The Declaration of Independence states that we have an unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That doesn’t mean that other people should be forced to sustain our life or make us happy,” she writes. “These legitimate rights do not place obligations on anyone except to not infringe on the rights of others.”

Of course, when you boil it all down, the issue is money.

On Vox.com, Matthew Iglesias characterizes critics of the ACA this way:

“They think it taxes rich people too much, and coddles Americans with excessively generous, excessively subsidized health insurance plans. They want a world of lower taxes on millionaires while millions of Americans put ‘skin in the game’ in the form of higher deductibles and copayments. Exactly the opposite, in other words, of what Republican politicians have been promising.”

“What they fundamentally did not like is that the basic framework of the law is to redistribute money by taxing high-income families and giving insurance subsidies to needy ones.”

This, they believe, is immoral. The ACA, they argue, was never about healthcare, it was about the redistribution of income.

Whether intended or not, the ACA does redistribute income as this chart from Gary Burtless and Henry Aaron of the Brookings Institution shows, the Affordable Care Act enacts substantial income redistribution in the United States.

For those who care about economic justice and narrowing the gap between rich and poor, the redistribution does benefit the bottom two-tenths on the income chart. The bad news is first that it does not help a great deal. And second that as a percentage of annual income, the gains at the bottom come at the expense of the middle class. In raw dollars, of course, those at the top contribute the most, but the highest percentage is borne by those at the lower end of the middle class.

The ACA made some real gains in healthcare by making health insurance available to more than twenty million Americans who previously were uninsured. And it did modestly affect the distribution of income.

The plan presently being considered in congress will decrease Medicaid funding, throw millions of people off of insurance plans, make insurance more costly for those who are least able to afford it, and give tax breaks to those who need them least.

We can do better.

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.

Making Vulnerable Kids More Vulnerable

People were bringing even infants to him that he might touch them; and when the disciples saw it, they sternly ordered them not to do it. But Jesus called for them and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs."
Luke 18:15-16

Recently the Trump administration rescinded the guidelines given by the Department of Justice and the Department of Education requiring that public schools allow transgender students to use the bathrooms and facilities corresponding to their gender identity.

This means that the students most vulnerable to bullying and harassment are given less protection.

Those already most vulnerable are made even more vulnerable.

Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, called it “a mean-spirited attack on hundreds of thousands of students who simply want to be their true selves and be treated with dignity while attending school,".

For decades, maybe centuries, transgender adults have been using the bathroom corresponding to their gender identity. Most transgender folks dress and look like the gender with which they identify. And the rest of us don’t think very much about it.

The situation for transgender kids is more difficult. Before they understood their gender identity as different from their biology at birth, classmates may have known them as a different gender. The trans male may have been known previously as female, or vice versa. This makes them uniquely vulnerable to bullying and harassment.

The goal of the original guidelines, put forth last year, was to give kids protection at this very vulnerable time in their lives.

In rescinding those protections, the Trump administration presented the actions of the Justice and Education departments as simply affirming the rights of the states to develop their own guidelines.

"As President Trump has clearly stated, he believes policy regarding transgender bathrooms should be decided at the state level," the White House said in a statement. "The joint decision made today by the Department of Justice and the Department of Education returning power to the states paves the way for an open and inclusive process to take place at the local level with input from parents, students, teachers and administrators."

Although the directive was presented as the shared product of Justice and Education, the
initiative came from Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Publicly, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was in agreement, but she was a reluctant participant.

She told Sessions about her reservations, but she was called in to the White House for a meeting with Sessions and Mr. Trump and was told to get on board.

"It was the President's decision," a source told CNN. "When the President tells you to do something you don't want to do, that is a hard spot to be in."

CNN reported that “DeVos reminded Trump that both of them had publicly promised to protect all students, and she felt that withdrawing the guidance ran counter to those promises. She was concerned that some people may interpret the action as removing protections.”

DeVos asked for clarification in the directive affirming that the rights of students would continue to be protected and assuring them that the Office of Civil Rights of the Education Department would investigate any complaints.

After the directive was released, Devos reaffirmed the Education Department’s responsibility "to protect every student in America and ensure that they have the freedom to learn and thrive in a safe and trusted environment.”

"This is not merely a federal mandate, but a moral obligation no individual, school, district or state can abdicate," she said in a statement. "At my direction, the department's Office for Civil Rights remains committed to investigating all claims of discrimination, bullying and harassment against those who are most vulnerable in our schools."

According to the Trump administration the guidelines protecting transgender students were withdrawn because the president believes that “policy regarding transgender bathrooms should be decided at the state level.”

In other words, the administration is claiming neutrality, which is another way of saying that they side with the bullies. 

As Bishop Tutu observed, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”

Thank you for reading. Your thoughts and comments are always welcome. Please feel free to share on social media as you wish.