It is impossible to talk about culture without talking about politics and government, although this is a subject I don't often address in this blog. But last week I heard a comment that pushed me over the edge, and I uncharacteristically vented about it on Facebook with a simple and admittedly unbalanced comment.
79 comments later, it was clear that at the heart of the current debate on healthcare in the US is not healthcare itself, but a fundamental difference in perspective on the role of government. Many non-Americans talk of the Christian population in the US as a monolithic, extreme right-wing movement, but nothing could be farther from the truth.
A recent religious activists survey showed that, while many conservative as well as progressive activists call themselves Christians, they differ greatly on issues such as social responsibility, biblical authority and the role of government. The spokesman for the survey explained this phenomenon with a quote from C.S. Lewis:
'Most of us are not really approaching the subject in order to find out what Christianity says; we are approaching it in the hope of finding support from Christianity for the views of our own party.' (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity)
Many conservative Christians believe that most of our social ills would be taken care of if more people would come to Christ, thereby eliminating the need for expensive government programs. Progressive Christians, on the other hand, point to present realities that they feel cannot be ignored, such as prohibitively expensive insurance policies for middle-class Americans, not to mention the disturbing number of Americans still living below the poverty line.
