The Role of the Church

Dad,

Thanks for the suggestion. I already have the Brothers Karamazov (we read it a couple years ago in our book club), so if it’s not too late to cancel your order, you might not need to get a copy—unless the Grand Inquisitor published by itself includes some extra commentary that would be helpful. I will definitely read it again, since it has been a while, and since the last time I was reading it with a different approach than I will be this time.

I looked up John Boehner’s website, and I still don’t see any suggestions for how to fix the problems in our health care system. He is clearly an opponent of big government and there are some articles on his site that address the problems with the health care bills proposed by Democrats in Congress. But I couldn’t find a proposal by him to address health care. You mentioned allowing competition among insurance companies—what would this look like? Has Boehner proposed something that would do this?

A month or so ago President Obama gave a speech in which he outlined his suggestions for what should go in a health care reform bill. Whether you agree with any of his suggestions or believe anything he says, I still appreciated that he clearly communicated these ideas in a way that I could understand. I didn’t agree with all of it and I think he left some things out, but it was clear and concise and, for the most part, constructive rather than critical of others’ ideas. I want to hear the same kind of speech, or see in writing the same kinds of suggestions, by a conservative. You’re right, the proposals of John Boehner and others like him haven’t gotten much play. If there are other, better ideas for fixing this problem than the ones the Democrats are suggesting, I want to understand them. But I can’t find them.

Much of our conversation has been about the free market system and the role of government. We haven’t talked much yet about the role of the Church in dealing with poverty. Unfortunately, the Church does not exist in isolation from government or free markets. Each one has an influence on both of the others. I think the two books I’m interested in reading will address this, using lots of Scripture to put things in perspective. I actually hope you will be interested enough to eventually read both books, (as I know I will), but for now why don’t you pick? Both of them are quite a bit longer than the Grand Inquisitor (sorry!).

The first is Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger (first published in 1978, updated every few years, most recently in 2005). It is broken up into chapters and short, easy to read sections with intriguing titles such as “Rationalizing our Affluence” “Is God a Marxist?” and “A Biblical Attitude toward Poverty and Wealth.”

The other is The Hole in Our Gospel. I heard the author, Richard Stearns, on Midday Connection a few months ago, and he has an amazing story. He was the CEO of Lenox, Inc., taking his faith seriously by attending church, giving generously, witnessing to his peers and even encouraging Bible studies to form and grow within his company. Through an interesting series of events he came to realize there was a major piece missing from his faith. I think the book is partly the story of how he came to be president of World Vision, and partly an explanation of the major paradigm shift that took place regarding his understanding of the Gospel.

Because the books are so long, I’m not sure if you want to take them by chapter, and perhaps share responses to them on the blog? Or we could just read the whole thing and share our thoughts afterward. We could start with the Grand Inquisitor, since it’s shorter and we both have it already.

Thanks for being willing to read one of these books with me—I know you’re busy, and I appreciate so much that you want to understand where I’m coming from. It means a lot to me.

Mindy