A Religious Reckoning

This is clearly more than politics now

We are all watching what the Senate will do with the budget reconciliation bill. Majority Leader Thune can’t lose four Republican votes though several have already spoken publicly about their reservations. Some concerns focus on the massive Medicaid and SNAP cuts for poor people, which are political as well as moral.

This is clearly more than politics now. The battle over this bill is becoming a religious reckoning.

I watched Speaker Mike Johnson lie about the budget bill on Sunday’s Meet the Press. Johnson said the new bill won’t cut back Medicaid funded health care for millions of Americans, especially children and seniors. He then went on to say that the overall bill will not add anything to the deficit. The following day, Joe Scarborough, former Republican Member of Congress who was an actual deficit hawk, on Morning Joe, called both lies “preposterous.”

A few days ago Iowa Senator Joni Ernst responded in a town meeting to a concern about Medicaid cuts by one of her constituents exclaiming “people are going to die” Senator Ernst retorted “Well, we're all going to die.”

In adding cruelty to the lies, Ernst later released a video, at a graveyard, issuing a sarcastic apology. And even said that people need to “embrace my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

Perhaps Senator Ernst needs to read the words of our Lord and Savior.

Along with all the lies everywhere on this bill, Joe Scarborough noted that now “Jesus was being thrown under the bus.” What happened to all those “red letters” of Jesus that told us to serve and defend the poor, sick, and hungry, he asked.

Perhaps the best response came from David French, an evangelical Christian who said, “I’ve been reading the gospels my entire life, and I don’t remember any passage when the blind, the sick, and the lame are brought to Jesus and Jesus says go away from me, you’re all going to die anyway.”

Yes, all human beings are going to die, but policies that kill people, the most vulnerable in particular, are completely contrary to the teachings of Jesus. Cuts to health care and food assistance to the most vulnerable are literally being done to give more tax cuts to the wealthiest. It is a moral equation that a growing number of faith leaders cannot accept.

Perhaps that was best summed up by Catholic columnist Mike Barnacle, who said “stripping all of that from the least among us to reward those with the most among us…. Please God help us.”

Indeed. This is a religious issue now, a moral reckoning for this nation and its future. Truth is at stake now. The lives of the very people Jesus taught us to stand up for are at stake now. Both the economic and moral health of America are at stake now too.

This religious reckoning requires action. And we invite you to join us on June 10 for a procession of hundreds of faith leaders at the U.S. Capitol and a vigil on the Senate steps with Senators present.

If you aren’t able to join us in DC on June 10th we invite you to sign a petition already signed by over ten thousand that will be delivered to Senators calling on them to stand up for what is just, and right, and true– especially for those who call themselves Christian.

In a remarkable piece in the Guardian on "hypernormalization" several insightful historical experts describe how the normalization of authoritarian behavior is key to their success. I call it the numbness we get used to with anxiety, fear, and uncertainty taking over our lives. But these wise scholars also point out that people taking action, engaging in protest, offering resistance is the key to exposing and overcoming the shift from democracy to authoritarian and unjust rule.

I believe the June 10 procession and vigil at the Senate offers just that chance for action-- for the sake of other people's health but also for our own.

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