Health care debate
Isn’t the current health care debate really a moral/spiritual/justice issue? For Christians who take the Lord’s Prayer seriously: Is the status quo for-profit American health care system an example of God’s will being done on earth as it is done in heaven? Could it be a health care system that covers all is more in line with God’s will than what we currently have?
Is it really possible to love God and not love our neighbor as we love ourselves? Can we truly love our neighbor and be opposed to universal health care for all? Do the insurance companies, pharmaceutical firms and politicians who want to maintain the status quo in health care show love of neighbor? Can public health care need be adequately met by private health care greed?
Working to get a health care system that covers everyone is pro-life at its best and offers Americans the opportunity to do just what God requires of all of us—do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with our Creator.
If we love our neighbors as we love ourselves, we should be willing to pay for health care for all, even if it means raising our taxes. After all, health care is for people, not profit.
Paul L. Whiteley Sr.
Louisville, Ky.
No zeroes needed
What is the effect of a zero? I wonder how many of us remember our basic math from elementary school. If you add a series of zeroes into a group of numbers, the average drops quickly. If you multiply any number by zero, the answer is zero.
I am one of a growing number of Baptists around Texas who have been recruited to be “advocates” for the Texas Baptist World Hunger Offering. Our job is to work with Baptist associations to increase both the number of churches that give to the offering and the amounts given. As a result, I recently was shown the records of Baptist associations for several counties around Dallas. Those records are the reason I mention zeroes.
The great majority of churches in these associations give zero to the Texas Baptist World Hunger Offering. Unfortunately, the pattern in Dallas, Collin, Tarrant and Rockwall counties is repeated throughout the state. Those zeroes result in the average gift to world hunger in Texas being about 35 cents per Baptist in the state. We can do better.
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If we could raise the average to $1 per Baptist in Texas, the offering would total $2.3 million instead of the $1 million goal of Texas Hope 2010. Nobody should be a zero in the fight to keep Texans from going to bed hungry. Don’t lower our average. Give generously now.
Robert W. Coleman
Dallas
One more
Surely you haven’t run so low on letters that you have to publish one on circumcision (Aug. 10). If a family chooses to circumcise their son or not, it’s nobody else’s business.
F.A. Taylor
Kempner
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