ITEMS OF INTEREST July 16, 2007 Issue

ITEMS OF INTEREST

with contributions from David Klinghoffer, Rowan Williams, I. Harrison Kriegish

ALMOST ALL THE DEVELOPED NATIONS have turned to ... models of government-directed medicine, while the United States has thus far resisted. Could this be because our country remains the most Bible-believing in the world? Let's consider the possibility.

On the topic of health, Scripture overturns familiar assumptions. Why do people get sick in the first place? The usual medical answers focus on purely material causes: unhealthy lifestyles, uncongenial microbes, unlucky genes. From such a perspective, it makes sense to devote the government's vast power and authority to ensuring that everyone has healthcare coverage. The Bible, however, sees illness differently. Plagues and diseases are a recurrent feature of the story of human history told by Scripture almost from the beginning. But, very differently than the secular worldview, sickness in God's perspective has moral meaning. Almost always, it is a wake-up call, a warning, a message to the individual or the community. ...

King Asa was one of our more virtuous monarchs, but he died in a way that did him little credit. He had been on the throne for 39 years when he was struck with an unnamed illness that began in his legs, spreading upward. Unfortunately, "in his illness he did not seek out the Lord, but only doctors" (II Chronicles 16:12). This demonstrated his lack of faith.

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