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No King But Jesus: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Healthcare and the Government Shutdown

  • Writer: Sharon Beck-Doran
    Sharon Beck-Doran
  • Oct 21
  • 9 min read


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Last weekend millions of Americans showed up in peaceful protest in opposition to our country’s current administration. Fox News called it the “I Hate America Rally.”

 

I watched a clip from the Houston, TX No Kings Rally where a group of grandmothers were interviewed. One said, “We love America! But we hate what’s going on. We are here for our grandchildren because we want them to have a democracy.” They also mentioned that they aren’t terrorists. “When you see something wrong,” one of the nanas said, “you’ve got to stand up and do something. We are one nation under God.”[1]

 

I’ve struggled, in what already feels like the longest term ever, to know how to respond. I am a person of faith, follower of Christ, believer in the Bible. How does all that inform my politics? I have Christian friends that celebrated last November’s election result. I have no doubt that these folks are sincere in their faith just like the Christians who mourned the results and still fear the outcome of what they hope is only another 3 and a quarter years.

 

I often wonder what we’ll think when we reflect on this time 10 years from now. How will our kids and grandkids remember this era in 50 years?  

 

Every year on the third Monday of January Americans celebrate the life and Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. He is unanimously honored as one of the most dynamic leaders of our time, but that wasn’t always the case. A 1968 Harris Poll conducted shortly after his death, showed that only 25% of American’s approved of his message. Which means the other 75% did not like what he had to say.[2]

 

Today we celebrate the legacy of MLK in the civil rights movement, but he didn’t just speak out against racial inequalities. MLK gathered critics on every side. He criticized the war in Vietnam years before the public sentiment would turn. His unwavering commitment to non-violent protest angered those who wanted to see change faster and by force. He marched with underpaid workers, advocating for better wages for poor whites as well as blacks, which upset white business owners.

 

Most of us have heard of King’s famous “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” but we don’t often talk about the response from other Christians. In a letter published in the local newspaper, a group of eight white moderate, mostly Christian, clergymen criticized the boycotts and marches led in part by outsiders. While they recognized the need for change, they felt like it should be left to the Birmingham community through the slow process of litigation in the courts rather than demonstrations.[3]

 

Today MLK’s legacy is almost universally honored by Americans. I am personally very grateful for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 because without it I might not have the opportunity to support myself and my family financially.

 

Time and experience can often change our perspective. If I were alive in the 1960s, would I have marched with MLK? I’d like to think so, but as an upper middle class white lady, probably not. Now with the benefit of time and perspective I can celebrate King’s Christian witness and his commitment to peacefully fight for change. His proclamation of the gospel in action in the face of so much opposition is both inspiring and compelling.

 

The truth is, for the last year or so I’ve intentionally disengaged. My primary source of news is Comedy Central’s The Daily Show because the only way I can cope with the things going on in the world is when they are presented as a joke. A few weeks ago I turned the radio to NPR and heard about the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. I felt sick to my stomach and wanted to cry. That’s enough of that, I thought, and switched on an audiobook. What good is it to be heartbroken if there’s nothing I can do about it?

 

I have felt stuck in Ecclesiastes, “I applied my mind to investigate and to explore by wisdom all that happens under heaven. It’s an unhappy obsession that God has given to human beings. When I observed all that happens under the sun, I realized that everything is pointless, a chasing after wind.”[4] 

 

While I recognize that I am extremely privileged, my day to day often feels overwhelming. I am consumed with my own concerns. But even as I think those words, I’m reminded of Proverbs 31, “Speak out on behalf of the voiceless, and for the rights of all who are vulnerable. Speak out in order to judge with righteousness and to defend the needy and the poor.”[5]

 

As of this writing we are 21 days into a US government shut down. The issue at hand is government subsidies for the Affordable Care Act (ACA). I think that most Republicans don’t actually dislike the ACA. What must really burn is that people call it “Obama Care.” If the same legislation were named “Trump Care,” conservatives would absolutely love it.

 

I remember what it was like before the ACA. After I graduated seminary in 2007 I went to work full time at Home Depot which came with great health insurance. My roommate who worked at K-Mart was not so fortunate. In addition to working crappy hours for minimum wage, she went without health insurance. Her chronic hormone imbalance went untreated. She lived with the symptoms because she couldn’t afford to see a doctor much less pay for medication.

 

The ACA changed everything. Large employers were required to offer health insurance benefits to full time employees. Insurance companies couldn’t deny coverage because of pre-existing conditions. That alone was life changing for many. Most importantly, those who didn’t have access to health insurance benefits were able to sign up for government subsidized insurance through an online exchange.

 

In 2024 20.8 million Americans were enrolled in the government health insurance marketplace and 93% of them benefited from subsidies. The funding for these subsidies is $350 billion over the next 10 years, or $35 billion annually.

 

Meanwhile, congress also sent almost as much in foreign aid to the nation of Israel last year ($26.4B). This line in the sand seems particularly ironic coming from a president who has repeatedly proclaimed an America-First agenda.

 

Israel, by the way, has a government subsidized universal healthcare system and is ranked as one of the healthiest countries in the world.[6]

 

Here’s the truth about health insurance; we are paying for it already. Every piece of lumber, sheet of plywood or kitchen faucet that goes through the register at Home Depot includes the cost of overheads to pay for employee health insurance plans. At my current job I work on a US government contract. Not only does the government pay for my time, but part of the open book pricing we provide is a line item for company overheads that includes my benefit package. We may not have socialized medicine, but we are bearing the cost of expensive healthcare as part of every penny we spend.

 

The real problem isn’t who pays for it, but the fact that health insurance, prescription drugs and basic care are so incredibly expensive. The 2024 World Index of Healthcare Innovation compared the healthcare systems of the 32 wealthiest countries in the world. The United States ranked 7th overall because of our first place finish in Science and Technology. The US is the overwhelming leader in developing new drugs and medical devices. We were however, dead last in the category of Fiscal Sustainability and 14th in quality, with the lowest number of primary care physicians per capita of the nations surveyed. According to this study conducted by the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, the US ranks the lowest in categories like life expectancy, infant mortality and unmanaged diabetes.

 

Meanwhile we pay more on healthcare than any other country, an average of almost $15K per person in 2023, almost double the average of the rest of the developed world.[7]

 

Although the ACA did cap the amount of profit health insurance companies can make, requiring a minimum of 80-85% of premium dollars to be spent on medical care, it did nothing to solve for the real problem—the fact that our healthcare is so darn expensive.  

 


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I happened to be in California last weekend where Governor Gavin Newsom is making headlines for negotiating a deal to cap insulin cost at $11 per dose. I was curious about how they did that. Well, California partnered with a nonprofit generic drug manufacturer, Civica Rx, to make the drugs at a lower cost. In other words, they used collective buying power and creative thinking to negotiate a better deal.[8] This isn’t an impossible problem to solve, but it does require effort and political will.

 

In this country we are a long way from socialized medicine, and honestly, I wouldn’t trust our government to be able to be able to deliver. But we can allocate a small fraction of our government spending to help lower income folks afford it.

 

As Christians who reflect thoughtfully on our faith, with so many Bible verses that talk about our responsibility to the poor, I find it hard to believe that we wouldn’t wholeheartedly support this issue.

 

So why aren’t more red state evangelicals calling their Republican representatives asking them to break with their party and work toward a compromise with the other side? Oh shoot, I just realized I live in a red state.

 

To Do List: 1. Google US Senators and Congressmen from Kansas. 2. Ask ChatGPT to draft a compelling email in support of funding the ACA.

 

I am On. It.

 

Maybe some of these folks haven’t heard my very convincing argument that affordable healthcare is a great way for our country to practice the Christian value of taking care of the poor. (Feel free to share this post with your friends.)

 

Maybe like me, some of you are just tired of the divisive finger pointing and want to pretend it’s just not happening. We close our eyes to the needs of the poor and keep ourselves isolated in affluent suburbs with our curated social media newsfeed full of cute dog videos… oh wait, is that just me? The Bible has a lot to say about this. Not the dog videos but ignoring those in need, just to be clear.

 

Listen, some of us are happy little sheeple, taking what our pastors and politicians says as gospel truth without much thought or reflection. For real, thinking is hard and sometimes I just don’t want to do it. Even harder than thinking is doing something, and it’s about time we get to work.

 

It may also be that we aren’t very thoughtful about how our faith influences our politics. There are some political issues that I can’t find a strong argument for or against in the Bible. In those cases I have to use my best judgement. This isn’t one of those issues.

 

What’s happening right now in a lot of Christian communities is not a difference of opinion, but rather a standoff between rival tribes. If no amount of evidence, reasoning or even biblical references are able to move a person, the difference isn’t about viewpoint. If that’s the case, you’ve pledged allegiance to something and it isn’t God or the Bible.[9]

 

The close alignment of Evangelical Christians with the Republican Political Party has injured our witness. Non-religious folks don’t understand how Christians can so fervently support policies and practices that miss-align with the proclaimed values of our faith.[10]  

 

There’s a lot of talk about wanting the United States to be a Christian Nation. That often gets expressed in standoffs over anti-abortion laws, displaying the Ten Commandments or prayer in schools. None of these things make us Christian. What defines us as a people is that we are followers of Christ, as in Jesus Christ friend of sinners.[11]

 

This is the man who said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me. He has sent me to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind, to liberate the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” If that isn’t a progressive agenda, I don’t know what is.

 

I want to belong to a Christian nation. Not one that requires affirmation to a set of puritanical culture norms, but one that embraces the Biblical mandate to care for the orphan, the widow and the foreigner. Instead of signs that say “Trump Is King” we should be proclaiming “We have no king, but Jesus.”

 


[3] Tisby, Jamar. The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism. Chapter 8, pages 136-137. I highly recommend this book!

[4] Ecclesiastes 1:13-14, CEB

[5] Proverbs 31:8-9, CEB

[6] Wikipedia article on Israeli healthcare system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Israel

[7] Peter G Peterson Foundation Article “US Healthcare System Ranks Seventh Worldwide—Innovative but Fiscally Unsustainable” https://www.pgpf.org/article/us-healthcare-system-ranks-seventh-worldwide-innovative-but-fiscally-unsustainable/

[9] New Evangelical Podcast with Patrick Miller referencing his book Truth over Tribe https://open.spotify.com/episode/3QtB9RpzrBS7VJaoh46Wbv?si=ojY9k59qTp6d2UF3rnQ0zg

[10] Here’s a good illustration of Christians being called out for their veneration of Trump: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1BQ8ZpqqpZ/

[11] Matthew 11:19; Luke 7:34

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