A Question of Character

Jacob Weisberg, in a recent Newsweek opinion essay, writes that "health-care systems are not just policy choices, but expressions of national character and values." If Weisberg is on target, as I think he is, then what kind of national character and values would our present health care system imply—assuming for a moment that our hodgepodge collection of procedures constitutes a system? I would suggest that our present, unreformed system implies the following:

1) We are more concerned about whether relatively affluent people can get the very best care as quickly as possible than whether less affluent people can get any care at all. We are very willing to live with stark inequality.

2) We are determined to look at health care as a collection of profit-making businesses, even though it is ever more clear that health care does not fit the standard business model and that providing health care as if there were a competitive marketplace for such services keeps driving prices higher and higher. We are very fearful of more cooperative and inclusive solutions, which are demonized as socialism.

3) We are in love with technology, the newer and more sophisticated the better. We believe that technology—not compassion, personal care, or finding lower-cost alternatives—is the solution.

4) We link health care to employment. This link may have been created almost by accident during the WWII era, but it fits strangely well with our history. The old pilgrim rule that "the one who doesn't work, doesn't eat" applies to health care as well. There is an unmistakable streak of judgment in our rationing of health care. What's worse, even those who work may still not get care.

5) We apparently do not believe that health care is a right, but rather a privilege for those who deserve it because of their station in life.

I may be overgeneralizing, but these are not far-fetched claims. They are also not very admirable characteristics. But all of this is now being challenged. The president claims that this overly selfish, profit-oriented, divisive system does not represent the real American character, does not reflect our true selves. I pray that he is right.

Apart from economic issues, which are important and challenging, and political issues, which are difficult and often nasty, health care clearly has a moral dimension. In Ted Kennedy's moving last letter to Obama, he lays out the case "that what we face is above all a moral issue; that at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country."

What kind of a people are we? Are we compassionate or selfish? Do we seek justice or only self-interest? Will we care for all the people or just our particular tribe? Do only the few enjoy the huge wealth of our land, or the whole people? These are the questions of character to be answered in the next two or three months. I deeply hope that we will hear the call of what Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature" and discover a new sense of national community and caring. In the current president's words, "That is our calling. That is our character."

Most Americans Believe In Hell—Most of My Readers Don't

According to the latest Pew Forum poll, 59% of Americans believe in hell. This poll is consistent with other recent polls that confirm that slightly more than half of Americans believe that hell exists. Traditionally, hell is considered to be a place of eternal torment where nonbelievers go to be punished forever after they die.

Among the industrialized democracies, this level of belief in hell is uniquely American. European countries usually poll around 10-20% for belief in hell. America is truly different in this particular way.

Apparently the readers of my blog do not agree with the majority position on this question. Not a single person out of 45 respondents to my unscientific poll voted Yes for the traditional view.

Among the other choices that I offered, 71% of voters picked the simple, straightforward choice that hell is not real. About 40% say hell is real, but only in our minds. About 13% think hell is real, but only on this earth, a view that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. expressed in Ebony magazine 48 years ago. The numbers do not add up to 100% because voting for more than one option was allowed.

Does any of this matter? I think religious beliefs influence the way we weave our social fabric. For example, in the current debate over health care, it is clear that Americans view this issue very differently from the rest of the industrialized world. Something that seems completely normal and natural to most of the world, namely universal health care, seems to be extraordinarily upsetting to many Americans. This reaction is too extreme and too visceral to be simply a matter of economics. People react to this idea as if it were the end of American civilization. Something else is going on beneath the surface.

I believe that part of our uniquely American and deeply troubling response to the possibility of universal health care has to do with religion. From the Calvinism of the pilgrims to the evangelicalism of the religious right, our society has long harbored an unconscious tendency to see the human family as split, divided by God into the saved and the damned, God's people and the outsiders. That is what the hell story is all about. Some will win and others will lose in life.

When you mix this deeply divisive religious component of our culture with the extreme individualism of the pioneer movement and the insensitivity of unregulated capitalism, you get a society that distrusts any idea or program that seeks to serve all the people without dividing them into winners and losers. The uniquely high level of belief in hell in America is one of the components of our deep suspicion of universal solutions to anything.

This divided way of looking at the world may have worked, or appeared to work, on the frontier, at least if one were not a Native American or an African slave. But in the 21st century, characterized by interdependence and the need for cooperation, it is a formula for failure, both moral and economic. It is time for us to change. Do you agree?

Universalism, Partialism, and Rage Over Health Care

The issue of health care is really heating up in our society. It appears to be the make or break test of the new administration. It's a huge political struggle for power, but of course it is not primarily about politics for 47 million people with no health insurance. It is about how to pay the bills.

In the past few weeks, the stress level has clearly increased to a boiling point around this hot issue. People are yelling at each other, spreading false information, and intentionally trying to create chaos at public meetings. One of the tragic dimensions of our democracy is that such negative tactics often work.

I don't want to reduce this national discussion to a single issue, because there are multiple concerns in the health care debate—concerns about freedom of choice, finances, private versus public plans, and universal coverage. These issues all merit further discussion. But I want to invite you to be aware of how the element of religion provides another dimension of the debate, one that is often in the background, unspoken.

One of the two religious traditions that form the historical background of the religious community I serve is called Universalism. Universalism is a particular branch of Protestantism that has traditionally taught that God will eventually save everyone; no one will be condemned to eternal punishment. There are similarities between this religious argument and the current argument that everyone should have health care. The underlying sentiment is that everyone has value and is worthy of being cared for in a loving way. No one should be left out of the circle of care.

The Universalists used to call the people on the other side of the theological argument Partialists, because according to the traditional doctrine, only a part of humanity would be saved. I would suggest that we, as a society, are historically Partialists; we are unconsciously comfortable with the idea that only part of humanity will be cared for and the other part will be left out.

One dimension of what is going on behind the scenes in this intense struggle over health care is a revival of the old argument between Universalists and Partialists. In this new incarnation of an old conflict, the Universalist argument is now being recast as socialism, which is a kind of heresy in America, much like Universalism was a heresy within Christianity.

This religious undercurrent in the health care debate is one of the reasons that the argument is so intense and emotional. It is not just health care that is at stake, but for some folks, it is the whole meaning of life as they understand it. This religious underpinning of the arguments is not the whole story, of course, but it is part of the story, and it helps to explain the extraordinary level of upset in the air.

As events unfold, I invite you to reflect on how religious beliefs have a subtle effect on social issues. This is a time of transformation for America, a time when we are reevaluating our understanding of our lives in community. Both sides see this reality clearly, hence the highly charged atmosphere. Let us hope that we, as a people, can find a way to care for each other without losing our civility and decency in the process.

Let me know your take on this difficult time as well.

Inclusive and Exclusive Religion

If churches and other houses of worship are to be meaningful in the 21st century, the question of who is included and who is excluded will be crucial for each community of faith to decide. One can observe various groups struggling with this issue every day in the news. Are women to be fully included? How about gay folk or those of differing religious views? These are tough questions for many groups.

Cal Thomas, in an opinion piece published July 24, argues passionately that exclusion is at the heart of Christianity and that inclusion is an abandonment of the true faith. He states, "Inclusivity has nothing to do with the foundational truths set forth in Scripture. The church, which belongs to no denomination, but to its Founding Father and His Son, is about exclusivity for those who deny the faith. The church is inclusive only for those who are adopted by faith into God's family." Thomas uses this line of thinking to ridicule the participation of gay folk in the Episcopal church and Jimmy Carter's concerns about the role of women in the Southern Baptist church.

This kind of tribal perspective is common in conservative Christianity, which has a long tradition of dividing us all into the sheep and the goats, along with dire threats for those who come out on the wrong side of the line. Indeed, this kind of exclusivist thinking, and the justification of it using religion, is a kind of unconscious mental habit in American culture.

Precisely the same question, namely who will be included and who will be excluded, lies at the center of the current health care debate. If exclusion is considered God's will, as Mr. Thomas and many others apparently believe, then universal health care would represent a major shift away from that kind of thinking. Let us pray that we can make that shift.

If religion is to be meaningful in the 21st century, it will need to move away from exclusion and shift increasingly toward inclusion. Exclusive religion will keep us from uniting in the crucial ways needed to resolve our deepest social problems, which demand global, interfaith and intercultural cooperation. Inclusive, welcoming religion has the potential to inspire many of us to work energetically for the common good.

"Inclusivity" may not be in the Bible, but love of neighbor certainly is. And who is our neighbor? Precisely the one we have difficulty accepting, like the despised Samaritan in the parable, who turns out to be a healer. When we can love and include those who are not like us, then we are truly on the way. Which way do you think religion is moving? Send me your thoughts.

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.