GETTING POLITICAL

The fear-based claim that “if the federal government can do this, they can also deny other rights” extends back to the beginning of the United States. The first use of the argument came against the proposal to establish a federal bank – in the very first congress. The insidious basis of the argument then should expose the roots of its use in the current debate over federal involvement in health care. Should we not be more concerned about the rights and needs of people than states?

“Tell me if Congress can establish banks, make roads and canals, whether they cannot free all the Slaves in the United States.” Nathaniel Macon, a Virginia Republican leader, during the debate over establishment of the federal bank during the administration of George Washington.

“(James) Madison led the floor fight in the House to block any extension of federal authority over slavery, arguing that the Constitution specifically forbade any congressional limitation on the slave trade for twenty years, and implicitly relegated any and all legislation regarding slavery itself to the state governments.” And where did this policy take us?

Quotes in American Creation. Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic, Joseph J. Ellis, New York: Knopf, 2007, p. 175-176. Ellis shows how the choice of political power and expediency over compassion and full extension of rights to all, to slaves and native Americans, led to desperate tragedies in the United States.

I also recommend Founding Brothers by Ellis, the author's telling of the story of the founding of the United States in terms of “what it looked and felt like for the eight most prominent political leaders in the early republic”: Abigail and John Adams, Aaron Burr, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and George Washington. You may be surprised at how familiar the battles look.

What About the Soul?

“Thus, if the immortality of the soul and, hence, dualism are essential to Christian thought, then the church should be bracing for an encounter with science far overshadowing debates about creation and evolution.”

So says Lawson G. Stone, Professor of Old Testament, Asbury Theological Seminary, in What About the Soul? Neuroscience and Christian Anthropology, Joel B. Green, ed. Present day studies and theories in neurobiology and neuropsychology are thinning the boundary between soul and body and locating personhood fully integrated in, not separate from, the physical body. Traditional Christian definitions of personhood and “in the image of God” seem to require a separate, immortal soul. If this is not maintained, then what happens to our concepts of evangelism and missions, spiritual-emotional healing, the state of a person after death, bodily resurrection and eternal life. At lot is at stake. But, the authors in this book argue that Christian orthodoxy and biblical faith do not require a two-part person. Have so many of us been very wrong for so long? Yet, what grand possibilities of understanding and hope emerge from a deeper reading of the biblical narrative (Stone's study of Genesis 2 & 3 will transform your way of reading not only these texts but much of scripture.)

And, the Christian community is being driven to more honest perceptions of its own theology by modern science! Instead of defending viewpoints “because the Bible says so”, we should be looking deeper at what the Bible really says, and how it allows us to continue to develop the understanding of ourselves and our ways of representing God in the world – and maybe move out of the popular opinion of Christians as obscurantists.