{"id":24,"date":"2010-03-22T10:29:46","date_gmt":"2010-03-22T10:29:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jazztheologian\/2010\/03\/is-health-care-a-life-issue.html"},"modified":"2010-03-22T10:29:46","modified_gmt":"2010-03-22T10:29:46","slug":"is-health-care-a-life-issue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2010\/03\/is-health-care-a-life-issue.html","title":{"rendered":"Is Health Care a Life Issue?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let’s set aside whether or not you like the new health care bill and focus on a fundamental question that is dividing Christians:  Is health care a life issue?<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
Generally speaking, most Evangelical Christians are pro-life when it comes to unborn children but that’s usually as far as they take their commitment to life and non-violence.  Then there are other Christians who start with the protection of an unborn child and then ask, “What is a consistent life ethic?”  That is, what does it mean to stand for life from womb to the tomb.  Thus, they see life issues as abortion, education, health care, death penalty and euthanasia all as life issues.  (Here’s one example<\/a> and here’s another<\/a>)<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

The simple fact is that there is a vast chasm between Christians who believe we should serve the lease of these and the way that belief works itself out in the commitment of our time and money.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Let’s set aside politics for this discussion (I’m not asking<\/span><\/b> whether or not you believe that government should or should not be involved in this issue or what you think of the health care bill).  What I’m asking is two-fold:<\/b><\/span>  Is health care a life issue? and Why are faithful Christians divided on the answer to that question?<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let’s set aside whether or not you like the new health care bill and focus on a fundamental question that is dividing Christians:  Is health care a life issue? Generally speaking, most Evangelical Christians are pro-life when it comes to unborn children but that’s usually as far as they take their commitment to life and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gods-heart-for-orphans-the-hurting","category-misc","category-seeking-the-peace-of-your-city"],"yoast_head":"\nIs Health Care a Life Issue? - The Jazz Theologian<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2010\/03\/is-health-care-a-life-issue.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Is Health Care a Life Issue? - The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Let’s set aside whether or not you like the new health care bill and focus on a fundamental question that is dividing Christians:  Is health care a life issue? Generally speaking, most Evangelical Christians are pro-life when it comes to unborn children but that’s usually as far as they take their commitment to life and…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2010\/03\/is-health-care-a-life-issue.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-03-22T10:29:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Robert Gelinas\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Is Health Care a Life Issue? - The Jazz Theologian","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2010\/03\/is-health-care-a-life-issue.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Is Health Care a Life Issue? - The Jazz Theologian","og_description":"Let’s set aside whether or not you like the new health care bill and focus on a fundamental question that is dividing Christians:  Is health care a life issue? 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Author of Finding the Groove: Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith (Zondervan) and the upcoming, Strange Fruit: The Cross as a Way of Life (2011). Founder of Project 127, a ministry dedicated to seeing the day when there are no children waiting for homes in Colorado's foster care system. Robert deeply desires to see the body of Christ mobilized to serve the least of these. The poor, the down and out, the disenfranchised and disabled, those deemed unimportant and the unborn. He believes that God loves all people yet he has a special heart for the poor and the poor in spirit, the miserable and the marginalized. A Contributing Editor for Leadership Journal and Urbanfaith.com. He acquired a B.A. in Bibilcal Studies from Colorado Christian University and a Master of Arts in World Christianity (Missiology) from Denver Seminary. Robert is married to the love of his life, Barbara, and they have six energetic children (3 boys & 3 girls--one bio, five adopted--two from Ethiopia). Friend of God...Passionate about the Body of Christ...Lover of this thing called jazz! Please visit Jazztheologian.com for contact info., speaking schedule, videos, Facebook and Twitter.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/author\/rgelinas"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}