Ethic of Love--Ethic of Life

Due to the tragic shooting at an elementary school in Connecticut, there is a renewed call for a ban on assault weapons. Since this is certainly a life issue, it provides Christians with the opportunity to proclaim the sacredness of life. The phrase “Pro-Life” has for too long been limited to only the issue of abortion. As disciples of Jesus of Nazareth, Christians are called to proclaim the sacredness of life against any way it is threatened or oppressed. Our public policy on the availability of guns, the proliferation of war, the continued use of capital punishment, the unjust distribution of health care, and the ethical implications of end-of-life decisions are all “life issues”. Each of these has a direct impact on life. Too many Christian disciples have become fixated on one of these issues to the exclusion of the others. Jesus proclaimed a consistent ethic of life which links all these issues together. On many occasions he displayed his loving approach to life issues. He once stopped the stoning of a woman who was assumed to have committed adultery. Another time he demanded that his followers put their swords away saying: “whoever lives by the sword will die by the sword”. He proclaimed in words and in deeds his vision of a kingdom where all people live an abundant life. As we live in a society with religious freedom, we have the privilege to support whatever policies fulfill the ethic of Jesus. In attempting to ask “What would Jesus do?” it will soon become evident that his ways are not the ways of our world; and, in no time at all, we will become aware of what “being in the world but not being of the world” is all about.

SINGLE PAYER SOLUTION

Since there was first word of a change in the Affordable Care Act, mandating the inclusions of contraceptives for all (except qualified religious institutions), there has been a cry from the Roman Catholic Church in America. They have been joined by others who have found that their avenues of social ministry (such as hospitals, universities etc.) do not fit the exceptions to the law. These organizations often employ people who do not belong to the faith of the denomination in charge. Not all doctors, nurses, or aids in a Catholic hospital are Catholics. Lutheran World Relief does not only employ Lutherans in caring out it's ministry to those in need. Leaders of the Catholic Church in America, along with some conservative Protestant and Jewish leaders, have spoken up against the Affordable Care Act as against their religious freedom. They have called for their congregation's members to speak up against infringement upon their First Amendment Rights. Taking a wider view of the situation, it seems to me that the problem is found in our EMPLOYER BASED system for health insurance. The religious institutions are feeling the pressure only because they are providing health care insurance to their workers. If health care was provided in a different way the religious community could be taken out of the equation. It would be well for those now decrying that their religious freedoms are under attack to support a single payer approach to health care. If all Americans were covered by one program,(as seniors are under Medicare )the religious community would be off the hook. Each American, religious or not, would be able to take advantage of the health care that their beliefs allow.

Gambling With Other People's Money

Some of the strongest opposition to the Affordable Care Act is coming form those who will pay a penalty for not having health insurance. These are not our poorest citizens who have no ability to purchase coverage. Instead, those who may be accessed a penalty are individuals and families who could, but choose not to, purchase health care coverage. Many of this vocal group are relatively young ( in their late twenties through their thirties ). Their choice to not be insurance is a gamble. The odds are that younger citizens have fewer causes to need insurance. So even through the birth of children, some are gambling with the odds. However, they are gambling with other people's money. On a personal note, my wife, Linda , and I have recently become grandparents to triplet grandsons. With the multiple pregnancy over a 30 week period there were extra doctor visits, extra tests, and extra monitoring. The last three weeks before their birth our daughter-in-law was hospitalized. When the boys were born nine weeks early they were put into the natal intensive care unit. It has now been five weeks and they remain in the hospital. All is going well, but I am extremely thankful that this family did not gamble on the odds that their health was good and any pregnancy would be uneventful. I can not even guess at what the ultimate hospital cost will be for mother and babies. But, I do know that if they were not insured, and were forced to declare bankruptcy, we would all be paying. Their gamble would have been with other people's money.

I would add "Lord and Savior" to the following...

Jesus, the Radical Economist By Rev. Howard Bess, Consortium News 13 June 12 Jesus made his reputation as a Jewish economist, one with very strong opinions about wealth and property, about the relationship between the rich and the poor. He also was intensely religious and loved nothing more than debating the meaning of the law of God or Torah. For instance, he is presented in the Gospel of Luke as being a precocious 12-year-old boy absorbed in debating religious leaders about the meaning of Torah. From early childhood he must have understood that he was seen as a brash, pushy kid from a small town in Northern Palestine, an area without religious leadership and an unemployment rate well over 50 percent. Whether by divine wisdom or genius insight, Jesus figured out what wealthy and powerful people were doing to the poor, illiterate people with whom he lived. Primarily through his teaching and storytelling, he became identified as a populist teacher with a good deal of influence. He was good news to the poor and bad news for those who clung to their riches. Clearly Jesus was fascinated by Torah and its application to everyday life. Luke’s gospel reports that a lettered leader of the religious community approached Jesus and asked how to attain eternal life. Jesus responded with two questions of his own: What does Torah say? How do you read it? The first question is easy to answer. The second question is the real test. Jesus knew what Torah said, and he had strong opinions about how Torah should be read. Jesus had come to his own understanding of the property codes in the book of Leviticus. These codes are credited to Moses, but more probably come from the massive rewrite of Israelite traditions during the years of Babylonian exile in the sixth century BCE. Torah is very straightforward. Land and ultimately all wealth belong to God, who places property in the control of human beings, not as owners but as stewards who must share it and return it to God every 49 years for redistribution. For Israelites, time was divided into blocks of seven years. Land was not tilled in the seventh year. After a series of seven, seven-year blocks of time, a Year of Jubilee was declared. During the Year of Jubilee, all land was to be returned to the control of the priests, who, in the name of God, were to make a new and fresh distribution of all land. In other words, the wealthy were supposed to surrender their stewardship and the poorest of the poor were given land with the encouragement to be productive for God and their fellow Israelites. All slaves were set free and all debts were canceled. At the time when the Israelite system of Sabbaths and a Jubilee was codified, the economic and political structures may have accommodated such radical economic and social changes in a one-year observance of Jubilee. Hundreds of years later, however, when Jesus lived and taught, the combination of Roman rule, compliant fat-cats and religious elites made the observance of Jubilee impossible. So, almost every Israelite knew what Torah said, but the prescription had not been followed in anyone’s memory. The poor had given up on the idea of a Year of Jubilee, but apparently not Jesus. According to Luke’s gospel, early in the public ministry of Jesus, he went to a synagogue gathering and read a passage from Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. God has sent me to bring good news to the poor. God has sent me to proclaim release of captives and liberty to the oppressed. This is the acceptable year of the Lord.” Everyone in his hearing understood what he was saying. Israelites had gone too long without a Year of Jubilee. It was time for the wealthy to turn loose what they had accumulated. It was time for the poor to receive their full stewardship. But most poor people had taken on the understanding of life that their oppressors presented and taught. It was true then; it is still true today. So, the Year of Jubilee code was regarded as impractical. However, the principles of the ownership of God, the end of slavery, and economic justice still were possible. The Israelites who held wealth and power knew what was in Torah, but they were not interested in reading it with new eyes of compassion and justice. (When Jesus finally took his message to Jerusalem – riding in on a donkey to mock the rich who favored horses and turning over the money tables at the Temple to protest religious corruption – he was deemed an insurrectionist and was executed.) Jesus died almost 2,000 years ago, but the laws of Sabbaths and Jubilees are still on the books today. Torah still has a powerful message, especially since the evils of greed and mindless ownership are with us in ever growing magnitude. Resulting inequities and injustices surround us. We Americans live in a secular society, but Christians have a responsibility to influence and to train the conscience of our fellow citizens. Here in election season, Jesus appears on the scene and asks the same two questions: “What does Torah say? How do you read it?” The Rev. Howard Bess is a retired American Baptist minister, who lives in Palmer, Alaska. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.

One Man One Woman

The President of the United States has regularly stated that his views on recognizing the publicly committed relationship of a same-sex couple as marriage was in a process of forming. He supported the extending of all civil rights to same-sex couples, but was not ready to align himself with the idea of calling theirs a marriage. Well, this week he crossed that line and did extend his support. Of course it has always been the religious community that rallied in defense of marriage. They held the signs and shouted the slogan “one man and one woman”. And they did so with a straight face for years. But, now the hypocrisy of the church has come back to bite it! It is certainly true that Jesus taught about marriage. And it is true that Jesus taught: “one man and one woman”. In fact he said: “whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery”. However, it has been quite some time since most of the Christian community has refused to allow remarriage; except upon the death of one’s spouse. Back then,any other second marriage would have then been labeled “living in a sinful relationship”. Today we have self-righteous people, (on their second and even third marriage), demanding that marriage be restricted to one man and one woman. How are we to be taken seriously? We turn our heads from what Jesus plainly calls adultery, to condemn the same-sex union as sinful. God deserves better than us hypocrites. And so does our society.

Words of Hope!

It came to my attention a while back that the words of the Declaration of Independence define the American Dream. Envisioned is a country where all people are treated equal. Where each individual, no matter what their age, color, gender, sexual orientation, religious views etc. are able to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. There are many who have long held that the Declaration of Independence was full of empty promises. A dream that was soon extinguished by the reality of a country that gave privilege to the wealthy, that legalized slavery, that tolerated religious oppression, and that suppressed women. And,although there have been many amendments to the original Constitution, it still falls short of the promise of the Declaration of Independence. I recently listened to an interview of L. Douglas Wilder, former Governor of Virginia. In it he referred to our founding documents. And he, a man of color, defended the promise of the American Dream. He contradicted those who see the Declaration of Independence as a document of empty promises. He say it as a beacon of "hope". These words, primarily from Thomas Jefferson, still hold forth the promise hoped for ever individual American citizen. And these words call us forward toward what is yet to be realized: liberty and justice for all.

Good News for Sanctity of Life!

(Reuters) - The Connecticut House of Representatives gave final legislative approval on Wednesday to the repeal of the state's death penalty, moving it one step closer to becoming the fifth U.S. state in recent years to abandon capital punishment.
The 86-62 vote followed 10 hours of debate in the Democratic-controlled House and came after last week's Senate vote to abolish the death penalty. The bill now goes to Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy, who has vowed to sign it into law….
…Connecticut would join 16 other states and the District of Columbia without capital punishment. Its measure would replace the death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of parole. The repeal applies only to future sentences. The 11 men now on Connecticut's Death Row would still face execution.
But some legal experts have said defense attorneys for current Death Row inmates could use the repeal measure to win life sentences for their clients.
Illinois, New Mexico and New Jersey all voted to abolish the death penalty in recent years, and New York's death penalty law was declared unconstitutional in 2004.
Other state legislatures are considering bills to abolish the death penalty as well, and Oregon's governor has said he would halt all executions on his watch.
"As significant concerns about executing the innocent, the high cost of the death penalty and its unfair application continue to grow, more states are turning to alternative punishments," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center.
A similar bill was defeated last year in Connecticut, just as the high-profile trial of Joshua Komisarjevsky was getting under way for his role in a 2007 home invasion in which a mother and her two daughters were brutalized and killed.
Komisarjevsky and another man are now on Death Row for the murders. The only survivor of the attack in Cheshire, Connecticut, Dr. William Petit Jr. - the husband of the murdered woman and father of the murdered girls - has spoken out against repeal.
Connecticut has executed only one person, in 2005, since the death penalty was reinstated in the United States in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. The executed convict, Michael Ross, had abandoned his appeals.
(Reporting by Mary Ellen Godin; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Peter Cooney)

Free Contraception For All

This week we began our Lenten Season on Ash Wednesday; and our communion service began with the unison reading of the fifty-first psalm. As we read together, I was momentarily distracted when we came to verse five; and where it reads: “Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.” What distracted me was the truth expressed in these words of the psalmist. I realized that the scriptures say that conception is something that happens in the womb of a woman. Conception marks the beginning of a pregnancy.

Most doctors will agree with this Biblical fact. After a fertilized egg attaches to the woman’s uterus, (and a placenta becomes the needed support system), then there is viable life. And only a natural or artificially-induced abortion will interrupt the pregnancy once started. For theologians to construct and alternate reality, and a different definition of conception is ridiculous. Especially when it can be applied to something that happens outside a woman’s body, and is not connected to the beginning of a pregnancy at all.

Based on that ridiculous idea of when conception takes place, a group of people representing various faith traditions were led to make an appearance before a United States Congressional Committee. There, the all male panel, were asked to comment on the issue of women’s health, and making contraception available to all. They came across as incentive and out of touch with people’s lives. They also seen to be at odds with the Scriptural picture of a pregnancy beginning with conception.

To be opposed to abortion is part of a consistent ethic of life, and to be commended. But to be drawn into a social struggle over the distribution of contraception, not only to prevent unwanted pregnancy, but to treat many other conditions that women can suffer, is harmful to the witness of the Church. I pray that throughout this Lenten Season, those involved may reflect upon what happened in Washington D.C., and that they may choose a more faith-full path in the future.

Food Stamp Nation?

In a recent Bible Study one person commented that giving people 'food stamps" probably encourages unemployment. The thought was that if you are eating you might not be inspired to look for work. And the individual implied that we should reconsider the program now called Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program SNAP.

It seems that some in the Republican primaries have labeled the President "the food stamp president". They say he is promoting food stamps rather than jobs. Both the idea that people will not work if the government is giving out nutritional assistance, and that the president is promoting unemployment, run counter to the real facts.

What is now called SNAP serves people below a certain income level. Almost half, 49% of those who receive assistance through this program are children under 17 years of age. If we add to them, first those who are elderly, and second those who are disabled, we have over 85% of those being helped.

Important to this discussion is the fact that 40% of those receiving assistance live in households where a family member is earning a wadge. Ed Bolen, an analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said: "just based on income, minimum wage single parents are almost always eligible for food stamps". Even with unemployment benefits, Jessica King, of Portland Oregon, says her family juggles bills to ensure the electricity stays on. They are also selling some belongings on Craigslist to raise funds. King's husband Stephen, 30, an electronics assembly worker, lost his job in June of 2011, the third time he has been laid off since 2008. Jessica said she was reluctant, initially, to go on food stamps. "I felt the way our national debt was going I didn't want to be part of the problem, But I didn't know what else to do and I got to a point where I swallowed my pride and decided to do what was best for my daughter"

The facts tell the story, that many of those on Nutritional Assistance are in a household where there is someone earning a paycheck. Many of those would be considered under-employed. However, the expenses of a household will continue to rise, while wages fail to keep pace.