Misdirected Moral Outrage in the Pro-Life Bible Belt

 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

 John 10:10 (NIV)

I have come so that you may have life...

In a statement published Monday morning, Texas Governor Rick Perry (R) “proudly” declared that he will decline to implement key tenets of the Affordable Care Act — a move that will see his state forgo an estimated $164 billion dollars in federal aid and leave over 1.2 million low-income Texans, who would have finally been eligible for health care, helpless and uninsured..

With his announcement, Perry becomes the sixth governor to refuse implementing a key aspect of the Affordable Care Act: the Medicaid expansion and the state-based health care exchanges. Republican governors in Florida, South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana and Wisconsin have made similar decisions.

So, South Carolina, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas. The Bible Belt. The heart of the Pro-Life movement. Solid Southern Baptist strongholds. Where is the moral outrage from the Christian churches in these states?

But the thief...

They're certainly willing to shut down abortion clinics and allow poor mothers the chance to raise their children alone or with minimal assistance - and STILL deny them necessary medical assistance.

Nearly 25 percent of Texans — 6.5 million people — do not have health insurance, including more than 1.2 million children, and the state’s health care system ranks last in the nation overall.

Why are 1,200,000 children denied basic health care coverage in the state of Texas? That is a lot of children that the governor who hosted a prayer before he announced his presidential run is willing to let suffer. Those same people who hosted his prayer rally, by the way, were not praying that these children would be covered. They were not praying that the state and legislature of Texas would care for the sick, the dying, the young, the poor, the imprisoned.

...the thief comes...



To be honest, I wonder if these churches are good for anything some days. They sure don't seem to want to follow the example of Jesus. And I'm sick of their bullshit. I'm sick of their lies and their deceit and I'm sick of them blaming Muslims or Gays or Wiccans or Mexicans or the Lazy Poor*, or Atheists or Libruls or the Black Scary Man in the Oval Office for all the problems in the world when they are actually praying, lobbying and fighting against protection for the sick and the poor. Because Lord knows, they aren't doing a thing on their own. They talk a mighty big game, but when it comes down to it, they are not putting their money where their mouths are. They won't. They can't if they tried. But in all honesty, they won't.

...he comes to steal...

They can be involved on ocassions. They can help run soup kitchens. They can run pantries and do all this stuff, but in the end, they argue against anybody else helping the poor. They argue, in oddly, the one place where they seem to care about coercion, against taxes being used as instruments of justice (though they're awfully quiet about any other form of coercion - including the violent coercion of war which takes a much higher claim and is much more coercive). It doesn't seem to bother them much that tens of thousands in the US die from preventable causes due to lack of adequate, preventative health care (and no, the Emergency Room is neither adequate nor preventative) because they are poor.

...he comes to kill...

Rick Perry, governor of Texas. Rick Scott of Florida. Scott Walker of Wisconsin.
Men highly favored by the pro-life Christians in their state.
Men who are all claiming warfare on a government policy they don't want to lose to - even knowing the policy benefits their coffers. AND, more importantly, knowing that refusing the policy will end up killing many of their states' poorest. Literally, killing them.

Where is the pro-life movement here? You know where. They are protesting the Affordable Care Act under the pretense that it may drive up abortions. For all their outrage at the taking of life of the pre-born, they are doing a damned good argument that there is no justifiable reason for a child to come into this world at all. It's all bloody hell, this world that they are working so hard to destroy.

... he comes to destroy...

The NRA profits off of massive death in Mexico and the US. Any questioning of policies that lead to massive gun shipments between places with weak gun laws (AZ, IN) and stronger ones is charcterized by them as being unAmerican and antifreedom. It also opens up the possibility that the questioners will themselves be under fire.

Since when was an imaginary concept of freedom more important than actual lives of actual children, women and men?

Oh, yeah, when it's directed at the white, rich boss on the hill. The one who comes to town to steal, kill, destroy in the name of his freedom. His freedom is the only one that matters anyway, right?

But I have come to offer you abundant life...

Dear pro-life movement, choose you this day whom you will serve. I shall serve the Lord. For it is the Christ who gives life to the fullest. It is the Christ who loved us while we were yet enemies. It is the Christ who freely gives healing, who attends to the sick, who welcomes the unclean, who sets the prisoners free.

Oh, there's that word. Free. Used for prisoners, at that. Not necessarily, in Jesus-context white, rich men, generally speaking.

May all be free.
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*AKA, Black and Latino families on welfare or in poverty. The white or rich folks who get 'gubmint handouts' are okay. They can't possibly be lazy, amirite?

More about Christendom

Post-Note at bottom

Last week, our friend Kurt Willems blasted our post "Christendom Against the Kingdom of God" on his popular Pangea blog. The post has to do with the bass-ackwards approach to politics that much of Christianity has done for the last 1700 years or so. Certainly with the empire-ness aspects of the Catholic Church, the racist Inquisitions, how missionaries were used to conquest and dominate culturally and socially, the Holy and Bloody Wars between the Catholic and Protestant churches and between different factions of Protestants, the Crusades, Calvin's Geneva, etc, we can see how Christendom - the idea of an earthly kingdom ordered by what leaders imposed was "God's will."

One of the primary benefits of the US, however, is the intentional separation of church and state. The nation was largely founded by religious refugees. Many had forgotten the roots of their exodus from Europe and hounded those of other faiths or even doctrines within the larger faith framework, but the Constitution itself guarantees a good amount of religious freedom. Including the freedom to keep the church undefiled by the state and the state undefiled by the church. Which makes it all the sadder that this is happening here, now. What the Dominionists and others like them want to do is to kick that provision to the side in order to create an insane theocracy.

This isn't a new fad. And though it may be from the fringes, it seems to be moving more to the center. I see Rick Perry's Prayer Convocation as evidence that more and more of the mainstream of Evangelicalism is accepting of this theocratic language and signage. Certain elements of Evangelicalism (by which I mean, largely white, largely apocalyptic in its tenor and preoccupation) have always, of course, leaned toward the conservative side. But either that was very loose and not organized (such as the resistance to the Civil Rights movement by both Southern and Northern churches) or organized from the top-down (by Falwell, Dobson, Schlafflys, etc).

This Dominionist/Hierarchist movement isn't spread by the old medias of idiot boxes and radio. Preachers and famous "child psychologists" - though they may lead credence to the events - are not the primary forces behind this. And though Evangelicals are being possessed to lead the way here, it seems more like a slow movement that has now caught stage and is using momentum from other anti-government (and often, anti-minority or anti-poor not to mention anti-feminist) movements. Whereas the Moral Majority took a nose-dive from publicity in recent years, the Dominionists and Reconstructionists (a subset of Dominionism) seem to have been waiting in the wings and growing in power for decades. And they're not idle. If/when they lose this election, I have a feeling that they'll just feel MORE empowered.
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Post Note:
Seems that Slacktivist has also been thinking of the Dominionists and Reconstructionists recently. He quotes an excerpt from a book by a disciple of the godfather of Christian Reconstructionism, Rushdoony, that states:

So let us be blunt about it: we must use the doctrine of religious liberty to gain independence for Christian schools until we train up a generation of people who know that there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government. Then they will get busy in constructing a Bible-based social, political, and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God. Murder, abortion, and pornography will be illegal. God’s law will be enforced. It will take time. A minority religion cannot do this. Theocracy must flow from the hearts of a majority of citizens …

Yeah, so that's some scary...