In the wake of the Supreme Court's upholding of the Affordable Care Act, the usual array of religious organizations reacted in the usual ways: the Mainline Protestants and the Jews delighted; the Southern Baptist Convention and the parachurch religious right dismayed; the Catholics all over the map, with the USCCB perched in the middle. The one big no show was the National Association of Evangelicals.
The NAE is normally not shy about taking stands on public policy issues. And back in 1994, it actually recognized "the need for health care reforms and the desire to make health care available to all." But this time around such recognition has not, apparently, been part of its Christian witness.
No doubt, for the NAE to make even modest noises in favor of the ACA would put it at odds with many of its constituents. According to the latest survey from the Public Religion Research Institute, 52 percent of evangelicals would have liked the Supreme Court to declare it unconstitutional. But such considerations haven't stopped the NAE from supporting not only comprehensive immigration reform but also President Obama's decision to stop deporting the children of undocumented immigrants. Fully 58 percent of evangelicals take the other side on that one.
Welcoming the stranger is certainly a biblical principle. But healing the sick is right up there with feeding the hungry. It's time for the NAE to stand up and be counted in this millennium.
Ed | Jun 30, 2012 | 9:03am
So if the NAE, as an organization representing evangelicals, endorses policy that represents the minority of evangelicals, then do we have tyranny in the guise of democracy?
Is it my understanding that the NAE now endorses contraception - since it is receiving the vast majority of funding from a pro-contraception group (National Campaign), who in turn receives funding by a pro-abortion group (Hewlett Foundation)?
gilhow | Jul 1, 2012 | 9:11am
Don’t you see? This is another example that the righties, including the Religious Right, are only opposed to Obama, not legislation related to him. It’s called racial prejudice. Republicans and their right-wing hangers-on are boldly bigoted, even in the name of Jesus and the Gospels. How’s that for the goodness of religion?
Listen to the brazen bigotry spouted in Congress by so-called Republican leaders like Mitch McConnell—he with an Asian wife—and John Boehner and Eric Cantor. Try to explain how a “good” Catholic like Boehner and a “good” Jew like Cantor can defend their opposition to anything and everything that might benefit the masses just because Obama’s name would be signed to it. Of course, those masses include low-paid workers and people of darker skin.
More than that, try to explain how constituents of McConnell, Boehner, Cantor, and company continue to hire people like them to do the work of government. Do we really have so many constituencies that are so wealthy and plush, or is it laziness and ignorance on the part of voters. It’s happened before in places like Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy. The Russians were too illiterate and defenseless to know what Stalin and his gang were doing to them.
We must stop the reign of selfish greed. That certainly was not the overriding precept of Jesus. That was not the “grace and wisdom” into which that rabbi grew.