Obama’s HHS Mandate
On January 20th, 2012, President Obama and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) informed the Roman Catholic church that they would be forced to provide sterilization, contraception, and various abortifacient drugs as part of their state-mandated insurance to their employees (Obamacare). The problem is that this requires a religious institution (the church) to violate it’s conscience thus ceasing the religious liberties it is granted by God.
The Catholic church’s response was clear and firm. They will not cave in and act contrary to their own conscience. The response of Bishops has been rapid and well organized. As as of Saturday morning https://www.stophhs.com/ has already garnered 41,000 petitions to send to the President.
An Inadequate Response
Under the pressure from the public outcry of concerned citizens, faithful believers and even Republican candidates President Obama attempted to quell the fury by holding a press conference on Friday. There he announced that he has found a solution whereby the employees of the church could be guaranteed health care that includes sterilization, contraception and abortifacient drugs and church based employers would be off the hook. In his words, “religious liberty will be protected, and a law that requires free preventive care will not discriminate against women.”
Well, Mr. President not exactly. This still has many problems and complexities that cannot be removed with pleasant platitudes. A few points should be considered.
As Al Kresta writes, “It is important to remember that a press conference is not a policy. The best that we can say is that the President is now reopening the discussion and he seems to show a willingness to make some accommodations. Nevertheless, again, a press conference is not policy. He shows no awareness of the conscience problems faced by Catholic businessmen, religious organizations that self-insure, or American citizens who, for reasons of conscience, do not want to participate in insurance plans that offer contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs.”
Jesus said “wisdom is proved right by her actions” (Matthew 11:19). Consider the fact that President Obama at his speech at Notre Dame said, “Let’s honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion and draft a sensible conscience clause.” – Barack Obama May 17, 2009. He has not kept his word at a public address in 2009, we should only believe it when enacted with real policy change.
Civil Liberties and Civil Disobedience
This is more than partisan warfare, what we are upset about is that this is undermining civil liberties. America was founded on the self-evident principles that “all men are endowned by their creator with certain unalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” That a religious institution should receive a mandate from the state is not just an over-reach of public policy it is contrary to religious liberty entirely. The view of the church is that the church is an institution ordained by God through Christ who does not answer to the state but to the only head of the church, the Lord Jesus Christ. Al Kresta emphasizes,
“The most distressing aspect of this debate is that we are having it at all. Religious liberty is not a gift of the state that is graciously bestowed on us by our political leaders. Religious liberty is what we posses by virtue of our creation in the image and likeness of God. We will persevere in this fight until everybody’s freedom of conscience is protected.”
Hypocrites and Hippocrates
Dr. Nigel Cameron, author of The New Medicine, demonstrates that the original creed of medicine, the Hippocratic Oath included the very important phrases,
I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.
I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion.
But I will preserve the purity of my life and my arts.
Our modern medicine would do well to return to the principles of Hippocrates. DO NO HARM! We have not advanced beyond pagan fore-fathers of medicine. Unfortunately we have regressed.
You can take action by learning more from the links in this blog post and by signing a petition at
http://manhattandeclaration.org/
God bless you for learning, taking action, and for praying for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Tim
. . . As I Follow Christ 
Tim,
Excellent sermon today and posting. The passion by which the Spirit moved you was convicting but also freeing. Your poignant statement about being ‘dumb’ (my own words) and confessing the truth with our lips reminded me of Moses when God asked him to speak to Pharaoh.
I took the time to read the Manhattan Declaration this evening and agree with the statements. However, I feel as if we are dealing with Pharaoh – stop your complaining; sure you can worship; oh, by the way, if you don’t comply and stop complaining we are going to take away your tax-exempt status. Soon we will be making bricks without straw. I guess that is one method of cutting off the dead branches. God is still sovereign.
As I reflected upon the discussions I had with my oldest son regarding his Holocaust readings this week and remembering the serial numbers tattooed on 3 of my great uncle’s forearms before they died, I see a greater sifting in the future, within 40 years. On the cover of this week’s Newsweek it was titled “Christianophobia” and a subtitle along the lines about the genocide of the Christians in the Muslim world. I would encourage you to read it if you have not seen it already. Several years ago I had a dream about this very scenario, except it takes place in the US on a much graver scale. We will have to count the cost at a level we have never before experienced in our lives.
I have to constantly remind myself that this is a battle on the spiritual realm. Your reference to Kuyper’s Sphere Sovereignty reminded me of the “Truth Project” series which, I believe, should be resurrected as a Sunday school class. I am also convinced that we should have a parallel study about Machiavelli’s, “The Prince” and C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity” or “Screwtape Letters” as a compare-contrast or compare-compare. I agree with many of the statements in the Manhattan Declaration, but one lifted itself from the pages – we have been silent and uneducated. I would say this; we have been hiding or denying reality. God is in control but He didn’t call us to be ignorant. To better understand where this society is going we should better understand the tools by which the serpent works. “The Prince” is exemplary in showing those tools from a secular perspective and “The Screwtape Letters” from the spritual side.
Under His wing,
Tim
It is hard if not impossible for such as Obama to realize that when people are brought back into a relationship with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, that the First Commandment of “You shall have no other God’s before you,” which includes even ourselves, does begin to guide our consciences more and more. And when we through the Holy Spirit in Scripture see that at conception God sees a person as a person, which is what Jesus was (though more directly by the Holy Spirit), and such as God saying to Jeremiah “before I formed you in the womb, I knew you,” and the Apostle Paul saying, “God, Who separated me for Himself before I was born,” we realize that we are not to play God in such things. Even God’s Sovereignty, which if He wants to bring a person into this world, He can’t be thwarted, is no license to “play God,” in such things.
Really, the First Commandment does tell us that we can’t even think of ourselves first, without thinking about God first, who holds all creation in existence at all times, and without Him, people really are trying to explain themselves away! Well, such is explained by God through the Apostle Paul in Romans 1 (but it really is all throughout Scripture). Such is so foreign to the unsaved that they will be relentless in thier sin.
I experimented with taking a look at your website in my ipod touch and the format doesnt seem to be right. Might want to check it out on WAP as well as it seems most cellphone layouts are not really working with your website.