Would Jesus Oppose Christians Challenging Supreme Court on Religious Freedom Issues?
Here we go again . . . another liberal trying to use the Bible to push an anti-Christian, pro-statist agenda. The latest attempt comes from Jay Michaelson who writes for the Daily Beast.
A number of groups are challenging certain provisions of the Obamacare law that they believe are a violation of their religious rights. Michaelson detests such protests from millions of people who are defending their rights and calls on Jesus as a witness against them:
“Meanwhile, the government — funded not by the 1 percent but by all of us — has to spend millions of our money to defend all these suits. The net result, other than a biblical waste of taxpayer money, is both to get to the Supreme Court and to intimidate the government into giving the Christian Right what it wants. What would Jesus do, indeed.”
The government wouldn’t have to spend money confiscated from taxpayers if the government didn’t implement a law that confiscates billions of dollars from taxpayers for a mandated government insurance program. We know what Jesus would do, and He didn’t call on Caesar to create the welfare state.
Please explain to me why any business – religious or not – should be forced to pay for a woman’s birth control pills, especially nuns who aren’t married and have taken a vow of celibacy. Where is that in the Constitution? Indeed, what would Jesus do?
And like almost every liberal argument, same-sex sexuality somehow is the tag-along issue. In addition to opposing the government forcing religious institutions to pay for birth control, Michaelson takes a swipe at the “Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA, now the favorite weapon of the Christian Right to avoid having to comply with laws that protect gays, women, or victims of domestic abuse. (Georgia’s state legislature just passed a state RFRA last week.)”
Read related article: “The NFL Is Blackmailing GA Over New Religious Liberty Bill.”
For Michaelson, it’s OK for the government to take money from some people so it can be given to other people (“thou shalt not steal,” even if it’s by majority vote or five Supreme Court Justices), it’s also OK to force people to act contrary to what they believe (a form of forced conversion). Two things Jesus would have rejected, along with same-sex marriage (Matt. 19:4-6).
Michaelson is either not aware or is hiding the fact that “some other health plans have been ‘grandfathered’ in and are not subject to the mandate. These include plans offered by ExxonMobil, Chevron, Visa Inc. and PepsiCo. Furthermore, the U.S. Military includes a family insurance plan that does not offer the mandated services.” (H/T: Life News)
In an attempt to shame Christians who are opposing the long reach of the government, Michaelson appeals directly to the Bible by citing 1 Corinthians 6:7: “The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have already been defeated.”
Anyone familiar with the Bible knows that this passage is about Christians suing other Christians. The operating phrase is “among you.” Civil government is not church government. Christians aren’t taking fellow-Christians to court. It has nothing to do with using the civil courts for a civil issue. The apostle Paul, who wrote the first letter to the Corinthians, made his appeal to Caesar:
“Paul said, ‘I am standing before Caesar’s tribunal, where I ought to be tried. I have done no wrong to the Jews, as you also very well know. ‘If, then, I am a wrongdoer and have committed anything worthy of death, I do not refuse to die; but if none of those things is true of which these men accuse me, no one can hand me over to them. I appeal to Caesar.’ Then when Festus had conferred with his council, he answered, ‘You have appealed to Caesar, to Caesar you shall go’” (Acts 25:10-12).
How much taxpayer money do you think Paul “wasted” in making his appeal as a Roman citizen (Acts 22:23-29) to Caesar? How many times have inundated the courts with appeals and challenges? Why weren’t these actions a “waste” of taxpayer money? California voted against same-sex marriage. Millions of dollars were spent. One judge overturned what millions of voters voted on. How much to Proposition 8 cost the state? As long as the cause is a liberal cause, no amount of money spent is too much.
The Constitution is our Caesar (Matt. 22:15-22), and it makes provision for citizens to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.” It’s right there in the First Amendment along with the provision that Congress cannot make any law that prohibits the “free exercise” of religion.
There shouldn’t be any need for these religious groups to go before the Supreme Court either on the birth control mandate or a rehearing of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The courts have messed with our Creator-endowed rights (see the Declaration of Independence) and our First Amendment rights by manufacturing rights and laws out of thin air and redefining the creation ordinance of marriage even to the point of ignoring biology.
By the way, 1 Corinthians 6 also has a specific prohibition against same-sex sexuality: “Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God” (vv. 9-10).
If Jay Michaelson, who is described as a “Bible scholar,” wants to quote the Bible, he needs to become a bit more familiar with it.