Maybe God Doesn't Want America to Have Universal Health Care

The hottest issue in American society is health care. Millions of Americans are intensely concerned about what will happen in the next few months as our government struggles to act. As almost everyone knows, the United States is the only industrialized democracy in the world that does not have universal health care. Every other major democratic state has figured out a way to solve this basic problem. Why should America alone be different?

Believe it or not, part of the answer has to do with religion. This may sound strange, but it's true. We Americans live in one of the most religious countries in the world. Despite our growing religious diversity, one of the strongest traditions in our heritage is still the Calvinism of the first pilgrims who settled New England. That old Calvinist tradition taught that God has divided the human race into the saved and the damned — those who are going to spend eternity in bliss and those who will spend it in eternal punishment. According to this Calvinist world view, there is no possibility of ever changing this harsh reality; there are cosmic winners and cosmic losers in life, and that is just the way it is. I contend that our social policies tend to follow this same pattern.

Although there are certainly many other religious points of view in our culture, and even within Christianity itself, this old myth of the ultimate division of the human family, expressed in many forms, runs very deep in the American psyche. Ours is a culture that has repeatedly divided people into the ins and the outs. Slavery and the near genocide of native Americans are obvious examples. Both of these tragedies were supported by Biblical arguments. We hear echoes of this old theology over and over again, even in the 21st century. We hear them whenever anyone proposes a program that tries to solve a social problem for all of us. Deep in our culture is a lingering belief that God does not see things in this universal way.

According to this old belief, God sees the human race as eternally divided into those destined for heaven and those destined for hell. If that is true, then trying to make life work for everyone can never succeed, because it goes against that great cosmic plan. Even to argue for universal solutions is maligned as socialism, a horror too great to imagine. Why? Because, according to this view, universal solutions go against the very will of God; it is inevitable that some will be blessed and others cursed.

In our current health care debate, we hear this argument coming repeatedly from the conservative side of the spectrum. Many Americans are strangely willing to accept 48 million people with no health insurance, and millions of others with inadequate insurance. Such a view, which accepts the suffering of millions of people as inevitable and insoluble, can legitimately be called Hellth Care.

Why would otherwise intelligent and decent people take such a harsh position? Because it fits with a religious world view, clearly linked with conservative politics, that teaches that the final destiny of humanity is separation, not reconciliation; division, not unity. This linkage between politics and religious dogma is not usually discussed openly, of course, and it may even be unconscious for many participants, but it is not that hard to connect the dots.

There are, fortunately, religious alternatives to the model of the saved and the damned, both Christian alternatives and alternatives in other faiths. My perception is that these alternatives are on the ascendancy. Countless thoughtful Christians have abandoned the threatening and divisive rhetoric of damnation and have chosen (wisely, I think) to anchor their faith in the transforming power of love that forms the core of Jesus' timeless message.

Outside of Christianity, there are Eastern, mystical, humanist, New Age, nature-centered and other traditions that emphasize the unity of all life, not its ultimate division into saved and unsaved. These paths teach interdependence, compassion for all, and communal salvation. They see us as all in the same boat together, not fighting against each other for the scarce life boats (or insurance policies) in which only the few will survive. These world views lead to social policies that are inclusive, not exclusive.

As the health care debate unfolds, we can hear these two different world views expressed over and over again. Some will talk of universal access; others will talk of why this will never work. Some will talk of compassion; others will talk of harsh realities. Some will talk of all Americans; others will appeal to those who deserve and those who don't. Underneath this discussion lies an unconscious world of religious myth and belief. In one world, the human family is eternally and painfully separated into heaven and hell; in the other view, all of humanity shares a common destiny, a future in which all of us share in the bounty of life.

It is my view that the old hell-dominated view, the myth of separation, has run its course and is currently falling apart. The health care debate serves as a powerful example of how American society is actually changing course, from a land where only some are entitled to the benefits of life to a land where, ever so gradually and with great difficulty, all of us (even women, GLBT folk, people of color, the poor and those of other faiths) will eventually reach the promised land. Do you find such a vision inspiring? Let me know your thoughts.