Posted on 02/01/2012 12:35:01 PM PST by marshmallow
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (ABP) – A Southern Baptist seminary president applauded Roman Catholic bishops for refusing to obey an insurance mandate forcing employers to offer coverage for contraceptives and sterilization, and predicted that evangelical leaders will soon face similar choices.
“Our religious liberty is being similarly subverted and attacked,” Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said of the Obama administration’s inclusion of pregnancy in “preventive services” that health insurers must provide.
In his daily podcast briefing Jan. 31, Mohler commented on a letter from bishops read in Catholic churches Jan. 27 stating in part, “We cannot -- we will not -- comply with this unjust law.”
“You at least have to admire the courage of the Roman Catholic bishops in saying they are willing to go to jail rather than to comply with this,” Mohler said. “How many evangelical presidents and pastors and leaders will be willing to do the same? We’re going to find out in the coming months.”
Mohler said the insurance mandate “is not only a Catholic issue,” even though the mainstream media wants to present it that way. Not all Christians agree with the Catholic Church’s teaching against all forms of artificial birth control, he said, but they must be united in opposition to abortion.
(Excerpt) Read more at abpnews.com ...
He is one of this Protestant’s favorite Protestants, too. :)
I also applaud the Catholic Bishops for their stand on this issue. Nobody should be forced to cover “medical care” that is abhorrent to their faith.
For that matter, the government has no business mandating that insurance plans cover any particular procedures or medications, controversial or otherwise. If an insurer or employer doesn’t want to cover broken bones, it should be allowed to offer such plans until the market inevitably forces them to include such coverage, or go out of business.
So you are ok circumventing the Constitution for Catholics??
Very Christian AND certainly very conservative /s
“As is typically the case any criticism is labelled “dislike”. In this instance it is the hypocrisy of RC’s that I don’t appreciate”
I did not vote for Obama. My Catholic family did not vote for Obama. Most Catholics who attend daily or weekly Mass did not vote for Obama. The largest bulk of Catholic Obama voters are those who don’t regularly attend Mass & who are what we call lapsed. So where’s the hypocrisy??
I am a healthcare worker. As I said, I didn’t vote for this Marxist, but according to you, I should be compelled into assiting with abortions & having my conscience violated??
If that’s your case, then you have some strange logic.
Wow someone needs to get over the hatred of the Church for just long enough to realize that this is a fight that we all need to be concerned about, and, for once, something that we can all agree on, doctrinal differences aside.
Unfortunately, there are some Protestants whose prejudice against Catholics will get in the way of their defending what is right: religious liberty.
We’ll all be in the catacombs together at the rate things are going.
Thank you Dr. Mohler for your support.
It's the old adage of 'trying to be the last one eaten by the crocodile'.
As an Evangelical, I believe you make some decent points about the voting patterns of modern Catholics and the history of the RCC NOT respecting the religious liberties of others.
That said, I believe we should back the Catholics 100% on this, because:
a) It is simply the right thing to do.
b) As someone else pointed out, if this is allowed to stand they will be coming for us next, and will try to legally compell us to do things that are abhorrent to our faith. Even if the RCC helped create the mess, it is in our interest to help clean it up.
I’d also add, that while I have extreme problems with many elements of RCC Theology and practices, we shouldn’t blame the conservative members of the RCC (who are probably the ones who regularly show up for church) for the warped political leanings of their fellow Catholics, who probably frustrate them even more than they do us.
I agree Chunga...I’d be extremely surprised if any Protestants behaved that way.
People are sensible enough to understand, if they don’t hold to a Catholic position on birth control, that similar diktats on abortion and homosexuality are right around the corner.
Plus there is a considerable “quiverfull” movement gaining steam as well, so I wouldn’t discount the birth control aspect either. What Obama is doing to Catholics he is also doing to people like the Duggars.
This is not a Catholic vs. Protestant issue. It’s a Planned Parenthood vs. Christianity issue.
Thank you.
I’d just like to point out that Catholicism was treason punishable by death in Reformation England and her colonies. Puritan New England, though nonconforming itself to the state church, wasn’t terribly hospitable either. Religious liberty was just not a concept with legs back then.
We’re in a different battle today, and if we don’t all stick together against these vile little pagan twerps, we will all end up in the catacombs together.
We've had it coming to us, IOW. High fives all around.
Probably the best place to start fixing the problem of an all encompassing authoritarian govt is with those members of your church that vote. It was 55% of RC's that voted for obama.
Up to a point, Lord Copper.
If recent news reports are any indication, some of the more liberal members of the church have apparently had an awakening [see statements from Mahony et al.,] which may or may not change the way they vote.
However, given that, we have an immediate issue in front of us. We've been given 12 months by the government to get our act together. If there's a change in November and Obama goes, then this issue recedes......at least temporarily. But it will be back; the next time we get a Democratic government. So any respite will be transient.
IOW, a long term solution to this issue won't be found at the ballot box. History tells us that no one party maintains control of government forever.
In the long run, it doesn't really matter who supports us. At least not from the perspective of the eventual outcome of this confrontation. The Catholic Church has always fought its own battles and it will continue to do so. It matters of course, from the perspective of non-Catholics and which side of the persecution fence they eventually end up sitting. It's great to hear the support of men of good will such as Mohler but it's not essential.
Our own path is clear. Those heavily encumbered with baggage from the 16th century have some decisions to make.
You’re right. Some people see religion and government only through the eyes of their hatred for Catholics and the Catholic Church. They are focused only on how they can blame Catholics for everything (as if no other religious people voted for Obama). Evidently, they don’t care how useless it is to avert confronting real problems by wasting all their time and energy blaming people they don’t see eye-to-eye with on religious matters.
The majority of Americans elected him. Should we just all roll over and let Obama do whatever he wants now because we elected him?
Is that true? I'd be interested in a statement to that effect. I haven't seen that anywhere. Based on what I've read, they've simply said they would not comply. I took that to mean they will simply pay the fine or some other "out". I can't see the bishops being too militant after they supported Obamacare.
This is pretty typical in any discussion with RC's, misstate what has been said.
Typical talking point, any criticism is hatred.
Your church has a long history of only being concerned with it's own "religious liberty". So it's pretty hypocritical to call on Christian churches to come to your aid for a problem your members were instrumental in creating.
Yes we should!
What have they done to end the socialist bent of their church and it's gospel of "social justice". Now, we are supposed to jump up and support them?
I say rub their noses in it before we step in to fix anything, maybe they will learn from the experience.
Using your logic, we should blame conservative Americans for the election of Obama, since the majority of American voters went for Obama.
What have they done to end the socialist bent of their church and it's gospel of "social justice". Now, we are supposed to jump up and support them?
What have conservative Americans done to stop liberalism in America? Using your logic, you should reject support for conservative Americans.
I say rub their noses in it before we step in to fix anything, maybe they will learn from the experience.
You must want conservative Americans to have their "noses rubbed in it" too so that they learn from the experience of their country electing Obama.
I for one think it's a good idea to oppose Obama at every opportunity, and I bet most people on this site would agree with me.
Pretty sure freedom of religion benefits all of us, therefore, opposing any illegal government attack on your church automatically and implicitly benefits the "RCC".
And I think they know that. I know, for example, that the Catholic bishops and Catholic civil-rights organizations were very interested in the Hosanna-Tabor decision, even though the church involved was LCMS, not Catholic, and the case referenced LCMS theological principles that we don't share (the idea that a part-time catechist is a "minister," for example).
Sorry you don't see it that way when the denominational roles are reversed. I'm glad most of your Protestant brethren disagree with you, and understand the truth of Ben Franklin's barb: "We must all hang together, or we will most assuredly all hang separately."
Oh, and as far as bringing up the history of religious wars centuries ago, you might stop and think that some time has passed since then, and everyone might have had some second thoughts. As for our "second thoughts," Dignitatus Humanae (Vatican II) says:
This Vatican Council declares that the human person has a right to religious freedom. This freedom means that all men are to be immune from coercion on the part of individuals or of social groups and of any human power, in such wise that no one is to be forced to act in a manner contrary to his own beliefs, whether privately or publicly, whether alone or in association with others, within due limits.
The council further declares that the right to religious freedom has its foundation in the very dignity of the human person as this dignity is known through the revealed word of God and by reason itself.(2) This right of the human person to religious freedom is to be recognized in the constitutional law whereby society is governed and thus it is to become a civil right.
It is in accordance with their dignity as persons-that is, beings endowed with reason and free will and therefore privileged to bear personal responsibility-that all men should be at once impelled by nature and also bound by a moral obligation to seek the truth, especially religious truth. They are also bound to adhere to the truth, once it is known, and to order their whole lives in accord with the demands of truth However, men cannot discharge these obligations in a manner in keeping with their own nature unless they enjoy immunity from external coercion as well as psychological freedom. Therefore the right to religious freedom has its foundation not in the subjective disposition of the person, but in his very nature. In consequence, the right to this immunity continues to exist even in those who do not live up to their obligation of seeking the truth and adhering to it and the exercise of this right is not to be impeded, provided that just public order be observed.
Disagree. Strongly.
Off the top of my head, I can't think of an issue which would put an evangelical/mainline Protestant denomination in the government's gun sights and not Catholicism but there might be one, I guess. However, I'd bet my next pay check that the USCCB would have something to say about it and it would not be out of self-interest.
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