{"id":27,"date":"2010-03-23T08:30:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-23T08:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jazztheologian\/2010\/03\/whos-responsible-for-health-care.html"},"modified":"2010-03-23T08:30:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-23T08:30:00","slug":"whos-responsible-for-health-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2010\/03\/whos-responsible-for-health-care.html","title":{"rendered":"Who’s responsible for health care?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let’s cut to the chase, who’s responsible for health care? The answer:  The most powerful nation on the planet is responsible.<\/p>\n

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I think that it is clear that health care is a life issue and thus followers of Christ should have it, along with all other life issues, at the top of our agenda when it comes to seeking “the peace of the city to which God has carried us.”–I’ll take it even a step further, the most powerful nation on the planet is responsible for providing health care.<\/p>\n
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And, if you’re a Christian, who is the most powerful nation on the planet:  “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation<\/span><\/b>, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.  Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God.”  I Pet. 2.9ff<\/div>\n
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When we are happy that the government just signed a health care bill we are indicting our incompetence as Christians, for we are the nation with the mandate and motivation from God to care for the least of these.  When we indict the government for passing a health care bill we point our finger at the wrong culprit, for if the most powerful nation on the planet were doing it’s job then we wouldn’t see other institutions trying to solve our problems.<\/div>\n
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Let’s face it, the problem is us–the church–the holy nation of God.  We are called to follow in the footsteps of Christ, losing our lives for the sake of others.  We are the ones responsible for the orphans, widows and vulnerable of our society.  The average Christian in America has enough room in their houses and budgets to provide a home, health care and an education for more than their own family, yet the hard truth is that we are not doing this. <\/div>\n
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If Christians in America would just start tithing there would be untold billions of dollars freed up for the whole gospel to go the whole world.  If we started to give sacrificially of our money (that is well beyond 10% instead of the the 2.5% that surveys tell us Christians actually give), homes and time then we would not be having this debate when it comes to health care.  There would be no children waiting in foster care.  Hunger would alleviated.  Running water would be the norm for people in developing countries AND we would still have incredible reserves available for world evangelization though church planting and missionary sending.<\/div>\n
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If only the most powerful nation on the planet, the body of Christ, truly treated life issues like matters of life and death and put our least valuable asset (our money) on the line so that our most valuable asset (our heart and lives) would follow.  For Jesus said, “Where your treasure is…”<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let’s cut to the chase, who’s responsible for health care? The answer:  The most powerful nation on the planet is responsible. 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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\/27","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=27"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}