What would Jesus want us to think about health care reform?

That’s the question that Justin Taylor proffers at his blog, courtesy of Brad Green, theology professor at Union University.  Professor Green’s response to the “what would Jesus do” question has four main points:

  • Conservatives don’t think that big new legislation will fix the problems with the system
  • Conservatives are opposed to the expansion of federal powers as an infringement on liberty
  • The Constitution doesn’t explicitly enumerate power in this area to the Federal government, so Health Care reform would be unconstitutional
  • Christians have a “strong view of human sin and thus are often not inclined to want to grant large amounts of power to any governmental body”

While I will concur with the final point, in the first three points Professor Green misses the boat in two critical ways.

First, he fails to acknowledge the reality that, regardless of how strictly he’d like to interpret the Tenth Amendment, the United States Supreme Court has a long history of allowing the Federal government expanded powers via the Interstate Commerce clause of the Constitution.  Just because he, personally, disagrees with that interpretation doesn’t mean that health care reform legislation will be unconstitutional.

Second, and far more greviously, Professor Green, by virtue of his first two points, has somehow assumed that Jesus' political views were American Evangelical Conservative.  How else can he leap from “What Would Jesus Do?” to “Conservatives are opposed to this”?  If he wants to make the argument that Jesus would’ve held those views, he can try to make that argument, but he is foolhardy to think it can just be assumed.

If the evangelical political Right in America wants to oppose increased federal involvement in the health care system, there are reasonable arguments that can be made.  Shoddy reasoning, though, as demonstrated in this article, only makes them look silly.