A History Lesson

Sources

The Library of America (LOA) is commemorating the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War  (1861 – 1865) in four volumes, plus one.

The Civil War: The First Year Told By Those Who Lived It was published in 2011. Companion volumes, covering the second and third year of the war, were published in 2012 and 2013. The final year of the war will be covered in a volume planned for next year. Each book contains letters, diaries, speeches, articles and other documents that give a firsthand account of “our greatest national drama…our Iliad.” This publication is comparable to Ken Burns’ PBS series, The Civil War, surpassing Mr. Burns in primary sources, but lacking the beguiling voice and visage of Shelby Foote.

In addition, the LOA published American Antislavery Writings: Colonial Beginnings to Emancipation in 2012. This anthology presents theological, moral and economic arguments that were made against slavery by obscure colonial Quakers, Founding Fathers, slaves, clergy, novelists and philosophers.

What will not be found in the above anthologies is any writing by the Reverend Dr. Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther (October 25, 1811 – May 7, 1887), the founding president of what now is known as The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod.

Dr. Walther’s writings will not be found in the Library of America’s Civil War series because as an immigrant from the Kingdom of Saxony, he wrote exclusively in German and for the most part addressed only the adherents of his obscure Lutheran sect. Dr. Walther’s name does not appear in the LOA antislavery volume either. Dr. Walther thought “the Abolitionist-Republican party” was the instigator of the Civil War. As he understood it, states had a right to secession under the United States Constitution. Most importantly, Dr. Walther saw nothing in Scripture that forbade slavery.

The late Dr. August R. Suelflow documents Dr. Walther’s position on nineteenth-century American slavery in his essay, “Walther the American.” The essay is in C. F. W. Walther: The American Luther; Essays in Commemoration of the 100^th Anniversary of Carl Walther’s Death.

Dr. Suelflow was the series editor for Selected Writings of C. F. W. Walther. That series is comprised of six slender volumes of Dr. Walther’s letters, treatises, essays and sermons, translated, edited and in many cases, condensed, for the edification of the faithful. Selected Writings may be viewed as The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod’s “official edition” of Walther’s work. At 126 years after his death, no critical, scholarly edition of Dr. Walther’s writings exists.

In 1978, the Evangelical Lutheran Synod (ELS) published The Word of His Grace: Occasional and Festival Sermons. This book presents translated and edited sermons that Dr. Walther had previously published in German. One of these sermons the editors indicate was preached “On The Annual Day Of Humiliation And Prayer” during the Civil War. No date is given, but Dr. Walther states therein that “…nearly two years of war …” had transpired.

The above are the chief, but not exclusive, sources for the following discussion of Dr. Walther’s ostensibly Christian response to the greatest political and moral issue of his day.

 Dr. Walther’s Stand

C. F. W. Walther was part of an immigrant Lutheran sect from the Kingdom of Saxony. They arrived at the port of New Orleans on 5 January 1839. These Saxons together with other recent German immigrants formed Die Deutsche Evangelisch-Lutherische Synode von Missouri, Ohio und anderen Staaten, on 26 April 1847 in Chicago, Illinois. Dr. Walther was the first president. He would serve in that office from 1847 to 1850 and again from 1864 to 1878. In addition, Dr. Walther would serve as head pastor of four St. Louis congregations, professor and president of the Synod’s seminary, and editor of two German language journals. For many years, he would serve these several offices simultaneously.

Dr. Walther opposed the Unionists and the policies of the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, on theological, Constitutional and political grounds.

“Walther maintained two positions which, to him, appeared completely Scriptural. First, on the basis of Romans 13:1-7, he upheld the principle that the Christian owes obedience to the state. On the other hand, however, he felt that Scripture nowhere says that slavery in itself is a sin” (Suelflow, p. 24).

With regard to slavery, Dr. Suelflow quotes from a late 1869 letter of Walther: “What God permits the Christians in the New Testament to do and does not command them to put aside, but rather to control, cannot be sinful in itself. That is what God does with regard to slavery…. Insofar as this was ordered by law in America, American slavery was not sinful” (Suelflow, p. 25). Note this is after the end of the Civil War in 1865. (Unfortunately, the full letter and most of what Dr. Walther wrote concerning the Civil War and slavery are missing from the official Selected Writings of C. F. W. Walther edited by Dr. Suelflow.)

Dr. Walther’s idea of “obedience to the state” is closely bound up with his understanding of the state. Dr. Suelflow cites one of Walther’s letters: “I am a Missourian and therefore will never be moved to separate my fortune from that of my state unless I am forced.” Dr. Walther, as a recent immigrant from the Kingdom of Saxony, had no understanding of the Union formed by the U. S. Constitution.

“Walther’s European homeland consisted of disunited states, churches, and kingdoms such as the Kingdom of Saxony, the Kingdom of Prussia and many others” (Suelflow, p. 25). There would be no united Germany until 18 January 1871. For this reason Dr. Walther’s Scriptural understanding of his loyalty as a citizen ended at the borders of the state of Missouri.

Scripture and the Constitution contended with politics in the mind of Dr. Walther.

Not all nineteenth-century German immigrants were pious Lutherans… or even devout Roman Catholics. There were the “48ers,” socialist and communist revolutionaries. There were in fact “godless communists” who settled in German enclaves in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and St. Louis, Missouri. These radicals became the Red Republicans, opposed to slavery and a whole lot more. Among these Reds was Heinrich Boernstein, the St. Louis publisher of the Anzeiger des Westens. Dr. Walther often complained of Herr Boernstein’s influence on his flock.

“Very slowly our congregation members themselves began to read the Constitution of the United States and of the State of Missouri and thus to compare this state of affairs and to form their own convictions. Up to now most of them have only been influenced by the Boernstein politics” (Suelflow, p. 22).

Dr. Walther and the Reds

Dr. Walther’s observance of the presence of “atheistic communism” in the Republican Party cannot be gainsaid. Karl Marx (1818 – 1883) looked upon the American Civil War as an expression of the struggle of the working class against Capitalist Southern landowners. On 17 October 1862, Marx’s “On Events in North America” appeared in the Viennese newspaper Die Presse. Marx wrote, “The figure Lincoln is sui generis in the annals of history. No initiative, no idealistic eloquence, no buskin, no historic drapery. He always presents the most important act in the most insignificant form possible.” Marx called the Emancipation Proclamation “… the most significant document in American history since the founding of the Union…” (The Lincoln Anthology, LOA, p. 49).

Upon Abraham Lincoln’s reelection in 1865, the International Workingmen’s Association sent congratulations. “If resistance to the slave power was the reserved watchword of your first election, the triumphant war cry of your reelection is ‘Death to slavery’” (The Annals of America, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., vol. 9, p. 543). The officers of the First International, including Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, signed this declaration of support.

In addition to Karl Marx and the Red Republicans that surrounded Dr. Walther in St. Louis, mention should be made of Carl Schurz (1829 – 1906). Mr. Schurz was a “48” revolutionary who fled Europe for the United States in 1852 to settle first in Wisconsin. There he campaigned for the Republican Party and was an early supporter of Abraham Lincoln. He served as minister to Spain in 1861. In 1862, he joined the Union Army and commanded divisions at Second Bull Run, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and Chattanooga. In 1864, Major General Carl Schurz resigned his commission to campaign among the German-Americans for Mr. Lincoln’s reelection. After the war, Schurz served as a Republican Senator from Missouri from 1869 to 1875 (The Lincoln Anthology, LOA, p. 330. John C. Waugh, Reelecting Lincoln: The Battle for the 1864 Presidency, p. 311).

Let this suffice to demonstrate that the first Republican president, the cause of the Union and abolitionism were all promoted by socialists, communists and even Karl Marx himself. It is understandable that the pious Dr. Walther had little in common with these radicals. Unfortunately, he did not see beyond these “atheistic” participants in the public square to understand that slavery was wrong. Dr. Walther failed to understand that the defense of the Union was the defense of the rule of law under the Constitution.

Dr. Walther and the Constitution of the United States of America

We have already noted that Dr. Walther was an immigrant from the Kingdom of Saxony, well before the establishment of the Second German Reich. Some might think it would be presumptuous to expect that he would know the history of the United States from the Revolution to the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union (1781) and the subsequent adoption of the United States Constitution (1789).

However, Dr. Walther made his own presumptions. “[W]e cannot see why the state does not have the right of secession according to the United States Constitution and according to their own constitution; and partly we have declared that if a state secedes from the Union, naturally the individual citizens will not revolt but will either immigrate or will subject themselves to the seceding state government, according to the Bible passage: ‘Be obedient to the power that has authority over you’”(Suelflow, pp. 23, 24).

Dr. Walther here presumes to know the Constitution and proceeds to sanctify his understanding with a passage of Scripture. Later he would preach and teach against the Union. Since he used the Office of the Holy Ministry to promote his political views, he had an obligation to know the Constitution and arguments for the Union. In this, he failed.

First, he failed to understand that the South had no just cause to secede. Abraham Lincoln won the presidential election on 6 November 1860. Immediately secession began in South Carolina. Before Mr. Lincoln’s inauguration on 4 March 1861, Federal forts were seized throughout the South and the Confederate States of America formed, with Jefferson Davis elected president and Alexander Stevens vice president.

“Mr. Lincoln has been constitutionally elected and, much as I deprecate his success, no alternative is left me but to yield to the Constitution,” wrote Sam Houston, the hero of Texas independence (The Civil War: The First Year, LOA, p. 39). The secessionists were not fighting against any unconstitutional law. No move had been made to free slaves. No Federal force had come against them. Mr. Lincoln had done nothing to incur their wrath. The secessionists were rebelling against a constitutionally legal election. When Sam Houston refused to pledge allegiance to the Confederate States of America, he was removed from office on 16 March 1861. On 12 April 1861 the rebels fired on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and the Civil War began.

Even without a thorough knowledge of the Constitution, Dr. Walther should have understood that the South had no just cause to instigate rebellion.

Secondly, Dr. Walther failed to understand that under the Constitution no single state had the right to secede without the consent of the whole. After the Revolution, the original thirteen colonies existed as independent states. Those colonies voluntarily joined under the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union (1781). Later, it became necessary to “form a more perfect Union” with the Constitution of the United States. The colonies that voluntarily joined in “perpetual” union under the 1718 Articles strengthened that perpetual union with the ratification of the Constitution of the United States.

This is not merely an “Abolitionist-Republican” argument against secession. This argument was published by the Democratic, and consistently anti-Lincoln, New York Daily News on 16 November 1860 (The Civil War: The First Year, LOA, p. 34). If Dr. Walther had studied the Constitution as he claimed, he should have known this argument.

Thirdly, while the original thirteen states had surrendered whatever right of secession they might have had with the ratification of the Constitution, the states that followed never had such a right. The territories for those states had been purchased by the treasury of the whole nation. Dr. Walther was a loyal citizen of Missouri. He failed to understand that the state of Missouri was brought into the Union as a consequence of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase. He owed allegiance to both the state and the Federal government. The case of the secession of Texas was exceedingly reprehensible as it was purchased by “both blood and treasure” of the Federal government in the Mexican-American War and peace treaty that followed (Ulysses S. Grant: Memoirs and Selected Letters, LOA, p. 146).

Dr. Walther claimed to have studied both the U. S. Constitution and the constitution of Missouri. He clearly understood neither. His ignorance is excusable. His animus toward the Red Republicans is understandable. It is reprehensible, however, that his animosity toward political opponents and ignorance of American polity shaped his preaching of Scripture. On the greatest moral and political problem of his day, Dr. Walther was thoroughly wrong.

Dr. Walther, Slavery and Scripture

It has already been noted that Dr. Walther, finding no prohibition in Scripture, declared that slavery “cannot be sinful in itself.” Sadly, Dr. Walther was not the only Christian to hold this view.

James Henry Thornwall of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in The Confederate States of America held much the same view. “Slavery is no new thing,” he wrote for the General Assembly. “It has not only existed for ages in the world, but it has existed, under every dispensation of the covenant of grace, in the Church of God.” Mr. Thornwall, in the same address, stated, “As long as [the African race] in its comparative degradation, coexists, side by side with the white, bondage is its normal condition” ( Annals of America, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., vol. 9, p. 301).

Vice president of the CSA Alexander Stephens preached much the same sermon.

“Many governments have been founded upon the principle of the subordination and serfdom of certain classes of the same race; such were and are in violation of the laws of nature. Our system commits no such violation of nature’s laws. With us, all the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so the negro. Subordination is his place. He by nature, or by the curse of Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system” (The Civil War: The First Year, LOA, p. 228).

The South’s “peculiar institution” of slavery did not exist “in itself” as Dr. Walther termed it. It was not some benign category for scholastic discussion. Slavery in the United States of America was racist.

Dr. Walther appears to have been ignorant of racism and the other attendant evils of slavery.

In the undated sermon preached “On The Annual Day Of Humiliation And Prayer” during the Civil War, Dr. Walther states that God uses war to chasten and punish nations. Those nations that are chastised and do not repent are punished. Then he accuses his congregation of not receiving the war as chastisement. “Have we not rather applauded those who in this war saw nothing but the birth-pangs of a new age of complete freedom and equality? Instead of fashioning our views of this war according to the infallible Word of God, have we not rather derived them from ungodly, atheistic newspapers?” He then warns them of God's punishment (The Word of His Grace, ELS, pp. 149, 150).

On a later National Day of Humiliation and Prayer, 4 August 1864, late in the war, Dr. Walther preached, “Isn’t it known within our city and throughout the land that there are unscrupulous people who actually do not want peace? Who want to continue the war? Some want to continue the war in order to further their party politics” (Suelflow, p. 27).

We must be clear. In the first sermon Dr. Walther attacks those who look for “a new age of complete freedom and equality.” While he is obviously attacking Abolitionist-Republicans, there is no evidence that he subscribes to the racism of Mr. Thornwall and Mr. Stephens. In the second sermon, it is clear that Dr. Walther did subscribe to the propaganda directed against President Lincoln by his opponents in the 1864 election. President Lincoln was constantly accused of aspiring to tyranny. In sum, while no evidence has been presented here that shows Dr. Walther to be a racist, he was willing to be associated with their noxious, Scripture-perverting doctrines rather than have any connection with Red Republicans.

What Does This Mean?

Disciples of the Reverend Dr. Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther often present him as “The American Luther.” In fact, he was nothing more than a German pietist who aspired to Lutheran Orthodoxy and failed.

Martin Luther was a Biblical theologian who rejected the Scholasticism of his day and influenced the development of Western Civilization in the process. He was the last man of the Middle Ages and the first man of the Modern Age. Whatever one finally thinks about Martin Luther, he cannot be ignored when attempting to understand our time.

Walther was a Saxon who aped the Scholasticism of the second-generation Lutherans and had little influence beyond nineteenth-century German-American immigrants. This is the reason much of Walther’s writing remains untranslated. The cost-cutting effect of advancing technology may bring more of his work into publication. However, this will only prove that Dr. Walther is less than what his disciples think him to be. One can ignore Dr. Walther and still achieve a comprehensive understanding of the history of the United States of America.

What Dr. Walther presents us with is failure. He failed to preach an uncompromised Word of the Lord concerning the most important moral problem of his day. He failed to bring a Christian witness to the public square. His failure is a caution to faithful Christians today… who will listen.

A Road to Serfdom

“I grew up on Ayn Rand,” Ryan said at a Washington, D.C., gathering seven years ago honoring Rand. “The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand.” – Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 12 August 2012

Today Mr. Ryan wants to distance himself from Ayn Rand. In an interview with the über-conservative National Review Online, he said it was an “urban legend” that Ayn Rand was a special obsession of his.

Unfortunately, for Mr. Ryan, his affection for Ayn Rand’s philosophy is well documented. It has been declared in conservative publications promoting Mr. Ryan’s fitness for office. In a 2005 speech to the Atlas Society Mr. Ryan stated that Ms. Rand’s Atlas Shrugged was required reading for all his office interns and staff. In 2009 Mr. Ryan produced campaign videos in which he emphatically praises the morality of Atlas Shrugged. Videos are still available on YouTube of both events. Randism undergirds his budget proposals. Mr. Ryan’s brother Tobin has stated, “Paul can still quote every verse out of Ayn Rand.”

There are no verse numbers in Ms. Rand’s writings. It is not surprising, however, that cult members refer to them as if they are sacred scripture.

Mr. Ryan was motivated to denounce Randism by recent criticism of his budget proposals by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and others who see nothing compatible between the doctrines of Ms. Rand and Jesus Christ. (See blog archive for October 23, 2010, “The Threat.” It begins, “The election of President Barack Obama aroused a truly un-American, anti-democratic, virulently un-Christian ideology in our country.”) Mr. Ryan’s recent elevation to national prominence makes his denials all the more urgent. Conservative publications, in a fit of collective willful amnesia, are busy burnishing Mr. Ryan’s claims to Catholicism. As understandable as these attempts at subterfuge are, we should not be fooled. He is a Randian. The only question is, what is Atlas Shrugged?

The Plume quality paperback Centennial Edition of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is a monster of 1,168 pages of abused English. Ms. Rand’s characters are not believable. They act illogically and speak unnaturally. The situations depicted are inconceivable outside the pages of a very bad book. Nevertheless, this is Ayn Rand’s magnum opus, the full statement of her worldview, her diagnosis of what is wrong with the world and prescription for the cure. In what follows it may appear that too much is attributed to characters of what is merely a work of fiction. Ms. Rand intended Atlas Shrugged to be more than a mere work of fiction. The cult that follows her – which includes Mr. Ryan and every Tea Party protester with a “Who is John Galt?” sign – have received Atlas Shrugged as fact, not fiction.

Atlas Shrugged is a dystopia that presents the United States as a collapsing republic surrounded by socialistic “People’s States.” Most commentaries focus on two types of characters Ms. Rand presents.

Foremost are the “men of the mind.” These are the individualists, the creators, the people who live by reason. They are presented to us in various states of egoism. The progress of the novel in part is to follow these individuals as they grow to appreciate the importance of selfishness. Their selfish pursuits create things and uphold the world. They are the Titans. Ms. Rand spares no superlative as she describes these “giants of productive energy” who are “equals” in pursuit of “higher and still higher achievements of their own” (p. 453). These supermen do not owe anyone anything. They are self-made, self-directed, and serve only themselves.

The second type of character is the looters. They are parasites who live off the achievements of the “men of the mind.” Included here are government officials. All government officials, from the bureaucrats to judges, are corrupt, foolish, and incompetent. Civic responsibility in Ms. Rand’s world is just an excuse the looters use to take from the creators. Included among the looters are aesthetes, intellectuals, writers, and family members. Family relationships are the worst. There is not one family relationship that is not dysfunctional. That includes mother-son and husband-wife. All the siblings are rivals.

Rand describes the looters as “…whining rotters who never rouse themselves to any effort, who do not possess the ability of a filing clerk, but demand the income of a company president, who drift from failure to failure and expect [the producers] to pay their bill” (p. 453). There is more but it does not get any more reasonable.

Between the “men of the mind” and the looters is another category of citizen that populates the America of Ayn Rand that is not noticed by the commentators. These citizens are far from being the equals of the “men of the mind.” However, they have a certain Randian “moral integrity.” They are the “serfs” (p. 11). Because of their intellectual deficiencies the “serfs” can “never invent” anything but they “do their best, work … live by their own effort, and … give a moment’s silent thanks to the [producer] who gave them more than they could give him” (p. 453).

This is the America of Ayn Rand and Randians like Mr. Paul Ryan. It is an America where the superlative “men of the mind” deserve all the honor, glory, and money they can lay their hands on. It is an America where only looters impose taxes or government regulations on producers. It is an America where most people should be content to be serfs.

This is a brief description of a long book. It is fair. It is accurate. The three types of characters are Ms. Rand’s, not mine. Every effort has been made to describe these three types of characters in the very terms that she either did use or would use. If the idea of an America where serfs live in worshipful gratitude to their moneyed overlords is offensive, blame Ms. Rand. It is her book that is faithfully described here. This is her worldview and that of those who follow her.

F. A. Hayek published The Road to Serfdom in 1944. In it Mr. Hayek warned that “… the collectivist idea of empowering government with increasing economic control would lead not to a utopia but to the horrors of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy” (from the dust jacket of The University of Chicago Press Definitive Edition). Mr. Hayek went on to win the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1974 and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991. Despite his rumored admiration for Ayn Rand, I hold Mr. Hayek as a philosopher and economist to be respected.

Nevertheless, he was wrong in The Road to Serfdom. The New Deal and the progressive economic programs that followed, for all their faults, did not lead to fascism in America. Most importantly, he was wrong not to recognize that there is more than one road to serfdom. Government certainly is not the answer to all of society’s ills, and Mr. Hayek’s warning is helpful. However, the unbridled “Capitalism” of Ayn Rand leads us down another path to serfdom every bit as dire.

All commentators regard Mr. Paul Ryan as an intelligent man. He is an intelligent man despite the fact that he fails to recognize that Atlas Shrugged is poorly written rubbish. He is an intelligent man despite the fact that he failed to recognize that the morality of Atlas Shrugged is a complete contradiction of Christian morality. He is an intelligent man despite the fact that he thinks citizens will not recognize his ignorance and duplicity.

The Republican presidential ticket of Willard Mitt Romney and Paul Davis Ryan presents this nation with the temptation to trust that there are indeed moneyed overlords who will create jobs as long as they are not taxed or their enterprises regulated. It is a temptation to go down a road to serfdom.

A Short Sermon

And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man brought forth plentifully; and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones; and there I will store all my grain and all my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, be merry.’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you; and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.” – Luke 12:16-21

Begin with the first sentence. Begin with what is verbed in the first sentence. It is “the land” which is the first actor in this parable. It is “the land” that brings forth fruit. The rich man merely receives what “the land” brings forth.

The rich man does not consider that the land was there before him. The rich man considers only himself, talks only to himself, plans only for himself, and lives only for himself. Note the monotonous possessive pronoun – my crops, my barns, all my grain, all my goods and finally my soul.

The rich man thinks himself a completely autonomous, self-made individual, owing nothing to the land, family, community, or even God. He is supreme monarch of all he surveys. He is captain of his own soul.

If it were not for the first sentence, if we looked at things only through the rich man’s eyes, we would undoubtedly admire his efforts. We would commend his plans for his future. We live in a country that heedlessly praises the self-made individual. We live in a fallen world with the Old Adam hanging around our necks.

With the first sentence our Lord pulls us back. Our Lord would have us see our life and all our possessions as they are in God’s eyes. The Lord gives the land and seed to the sower, the first rains and the latter rains. The Lord gives us life and places us in families and communities. The Lord calls upon us to love our neighbor as ourselves.

The rich man loves only himself, plans only for himself, and hoards what he has been blessed with for only himself.

This is a parable of our Lord. It is not a political treatise. The parable is not in the least way a promotion of Socialism or a condemnation of Capitalism. It would be wrong to think the parable condemns private property.

The Gospel is more radical than any political or economic philosophy. The Gospel does not call for revolution or seek to upend the way men attempt to organize life in this fallen world. The Gospel cuts to the hearts of men and gives them eyes of faith by which they are to view their lives and all they possess.

The rich man is condemned not because he is rich, or because he is prosperous, or even because he makes plans for the future. The rich man is condemned because he is ungrateful for the land, ungrateful for the fruit it produces, ungrateful for the community he lives in, and most of all, ungrateful for the life given to him. All these are from the Lord.

The rich man’s ingratitude is born of nothing less than idolatry. He is the only thing that matters to him. He worships himself.

Now one must be careful not to abuse this parable and make it into a political tract of some kind. On the other hand, one must not ignore the application of this parable to Christians living in these times. It would be negligent, in particular, to ignore the explicitly anti-Christian political philosophy to which this parable applies.

Ayn Rand would have hated this parable. The individualism that she espoused is the individualism of the rich man in this parable. Rand’s individual lives only for himself. The poison of Rand’s individualism has infected our public life through her latter-day disciples, Paul Ryan, Ron Johnson, Rand Paul, and a number of other radical Republicans.

One does not have to probe the pronouncements of the radical Republicans to see that in much of what is said there is a lack of gratitude for the work of the laborer, an idolatrous affection for the rich, and a disregard for the neighbor who is in need. Supporting all of this is the myth of the self-made individual.

We do not live in a Christian country. We live in a country that has always tolerated Christianity. We live in a country that allows the preaching of the Gospel. For this, thanks be to God. It is incumbent upon preachers to preach that radical Gospel in all its truth and purity. Such preaching should invoke gratitude for all the Lord’s blessings on this land. It should also renounce idolatry in all its forms – including Randian individualism.

One can only pray that politically conservative pastors are strengthened to be faithful to their calling.

The Failure of the Free Market Health Care System

Our national health care debate has included numerous anecdotal accounts of the failures of government-run health care policies. From the blogosphere to the mainstream media – and unfortunately today that includes the Fox network – people have come forward to recount how their relative in Canada, Great Britain, Germany and even Norway suffered illness and eventually died.

The fault is, of course, "socialized health care." Never mind that all of the countries named above have widely different systems of providing health insurance to their citizens. Disregard that not all of these countries practice "socialized health care."

Most of all ignore the fact that under any system, sick people will die and bereaved relatives will be offended and will find fault. Sometimes the faultfinding is justified. Many times grief clouds judgment.

What follows is an account where no one is sick, no one dies. It is anecdotal. Nevertheless, it is a true representation of what happens under the free market capitalist system of health care in the United States of America

A worker for a small concern purchases a high-deductible plan that is combined with a health saving account (HSA). It is the dream plan of the Republican Party. Contributions to the HSA are tax-deductible. Funds from the HSA can be used for the high deductible and health care costs not covered by the health care plan.

It is nice that health care savings are tax-deductible. The worker, however, works for a small firm and has an income that is congruent with working for a small firm. Contributions to the HSA necessarily come after paying for daily living expenses. Then there are the health care costs that drain the HSA even while the worker is trying to build this account with tax-deductible contributions.

This system requires constant vigilance.

Happily, the worker is healthy. The worker has healthy habits. The worker exercises regularly. The worker has a healthy diet. The worker is no athlete, and is not young. The worker is responsible and takes full advantage of the yearly physical examinations and screening tests covered by the high-deductible plan.

The worker pays the premiums of the high-deductible plan for two years, during which time the premiums increase no less than three times.

This is where the tale gets interesting.

After the first examination, a condition is revealed which in and of itself is not life-threatening, but could be serious. There are no symptoms of illness. There is only the possibility of illness.

The premiums for the high-deductible health plan go up again. The worker applies for a lower premium plan from another company. The worker's income has never gone up to meet the increase of the premiums.

The healthy worker is denied coverage by the alternate company because of the non-life-threatening condition revealed in the earlier examination. The worker is stuck with paying a higher premium.

The Republican Party has advocated that the free market system offers workers the freedom to make choices congruent with their income. Citizens can choose their health care providers. They can choose their doctors. They can control costs.

The Republican Party needs to return to planet earth.

The only freedom the present system provides is the freedom of heath care insurers to deny coverage and increase profits.

Anyone who is otherwise healthy will have a "pre-existing" condition simply because they have some existence.

The present system of health care provides no freedom for those who have employer-based insurance. It tethers them to their employer. The present system of health care provides no freedom to those who do not have employer-based insurance. They are at the mercy of companies who can deny coverage for the least reason. The present system provides no freedom for the 45 million who are uninsured. They ignore their symptoms until they need the emergency room. Or they die.

The citizens of the United States are at the mercy of so-called health care insurance providers whose motive is profit and not health care.

Read this essay again. It is not the tale of a sick person needing health care. It is the tale of a healthy person trying to pay for health care in this so-called free market and finding no freedom at all.

This is not my story. I have no health care insurance. I have too many pre-existing conditions. I will probably die before there is a civilized health care system in this greatest country the world has known.

Two Ignored Health Care Facts

Tomorrow, President Barack Obama will address a joint session of Congress about the need for health care reform.

In my short life, I have never witnessed a president throw himself so vigorously into the work of his administration. It would be unfair to say that Mr. Eisenhower golfed through his presidency, Mr. Reagan slept, and Mr. George W. Bush spent much of his time trying to untie his tongue. Nothing near these caricatures will be made of Mr. Obama.

Mr. Obama is faulted for trying to do too much. He has not come near violating the Constitution –an accusation that has been made against a couple of our previous presidents. He is faulted for calling upon the legislative branch of this government to do the work of the people and address the problem of health care. He has vigorously taken his case to the people. Agree or disagree with him – and on many subjects I do disagree with him – Mr. Obama is earning his salary.

Yet, there are two facts central to the health care issue that I predict he will not address. He cannot state the case for reform as vigorously as he should because the nation is in a state of denial about these two central facts.

Health care costs are unacceptably rising for those who have health insurance. There are approximately 45 million who do not have health insurance. Even among those who do have health insurance approximately 25 million are underinsured. These and other figures can be disputed and argued about endlessly.

The two central facts remain.

Everyone gets sick. Everyone dies.

We are dealing with mortality.

President Obama is not the foremost agent feeding our national state of denial on this issue. The fear-mongers on the right ranting about socialism, euthanasia, and a host of other horrors have done the most to keep us from considering the consequences of our undeniable mortality.

Talk to a Republican about health care and he will offer you a tax break.

Hence we have Health Savings Accounts coupled with high deductible insurance plans. This is a great idea on April 15. Unfortunately it does little to deliver necessary heath care.

Taxes do not kill people. Wave the voodoo magic supply-side economic tax wand and remove all the taxes. People will still get sick. They will still die.

We would all like to have the life of Paul Newman. Mr. Newman led a vigorous and productive life for many decades. He was beautiful and gracious. And then he died. His death was relatively quick.

Unfortunately this is not true for most. Some get sick early in life and need care for many years. For others, illness is something that needs little medical attention. Still others need hardly any medical attention for many years, and then there may be years of debilitating illness.

The only bright spot in dealing with our mortality is that we do not all get sick, we do not all die in the same way. The fact that we do not all get sick and die in the same way is, over the years and in the population as a whole, a benefit. It means that financial resources can be pooled. Services can be distributed to those in need from the resources of those who have less need. The morality of this pooling and distribution is that everyone will have some sort of need eventually. Because everyone gets sick, everyone dies.

Our undeniable mortality is exactly why a free market capitalistic economic system fails in the area of health care. To recognize this fact is not to embark on the slippery slope to socialism. Capitalism was not revealed to us by God, and it is, like every human invention, imperfect. There is a time and place to pool our finite resources to deal with life's uncertainties.

Those who say that the United States has the best health care system in the world are living in denial. They are ignoring the rising premiums, the millions of uninsured, the millions of underinsured and the millions who will be losing their insurance in the years to come as our population gets older. They are also ignoring the many other industrially advanced nations that, regardless of their other weaknesses, are in fact doing a better job than the United States in this area.

Capitalism does a fine job of delivering goods and services for our temporal existence. We have the freedom to choose many goods and services we want, ignore what we do not want, save and work for what we desire. In many areas of life where our desires go beyond our means, we can still live and find some degree of happiness.

Health care deals with where we lose our freedom to choose. Illness comes unbidden.

Shopping for a car or a house is a fine activity in the marketplace. Shopping for a cure is an act of desperation.

The failure of free market economics on health care is obvious with for-profit health insurance companies.

The rightful task of any for-profit company is to deliver a profit to its shareholders. For-profit health insurance companies are by definition involved with a conflict of interest. They cannot deliver service to very many ill premium-paying customers without cutting into their shareholders' profits. Yet their premium-paying customers are paying them for exactly that reason –to provide care when illness eventually comes. The several different ways for-profit companies unfairly deny claims will always happen because these companies need to serve their shareholders.

There are many other ways the current health care system fails the citizens of the United States. One does not have to be an economist, a medical authority, a pharmaceutical company executive to see were the problem is.

We need to start with the facts – everyone gets sick, everyone dies.