Last summer I had the chance to travel the country with my wife to interview influential thinkers and actors in the areas of the social gospel and Christian humanitarianism.  On one occasion I sat down with Tony Campolo, one such influential thinker and author of Red Letter Christians, in his office outside of Philadelphia. 

Our conversation touched on numerous topics that didn’t make the final cut for the book (Humanitarian Jesus).  One of those topics was health care reform.  What follows is a rather un-edited snippet of the interview on that topic:

July 23, 2009

Tony Campolo:  I think you have to start with the] frontal question -- "What would Jesus do?"  If Jesus was in your place, what would he do?  Isn't that what it means to be a follower of Jesus?  So the question is -- here's health care.  Big issue right now.  If Jesus looked at 44 million Americans, 13 million hungry children without any health coverage whatsoever, would he be indifferent or would he say, I've got a vote.  What will I vote for?  Am I going to vote as Jesus would?   

Christian:  That's an interesting topic.  I'm driving here this morning from Penn Harbor and going through the radio stations and low and behold, James Dobson comes on the radio with a plea to call your senators, call your representatives and have them vote against any health care bill that allows for the coverage of abortion.  I may be misquoting his position a bit, but by and large he's basically saying, don't let them pass this bill.  And I thought to my self, what an interesting issue.  On the one hand we have abortion and on the other we have caring for the health of people who maybe can’t afford it right now.

Tony:  You know, strange as it may sound, I'm almost in agreement with him on that. I get very sensitive to, this is why I don't want the Bible read in public schools.  I think that legislation has to take into consideration all segments of the population.  A significant part of our population is secular.  They don't like the Bible.  They don't like God.  They think that religion is responsible for 3/4 of our problems.  Why should their kids have to sit under reading the Bible?  Why should they pay taxes to finance somebody who is reading the Bible to their children?   But here's where I would differ.  I think students should be allowed to stand up before the class and read the Bible and lead the class in prayer.  That's not the taxpayers money.  That's freedom of speech.

Having said that, for the opposite reason, I am opposed to legislation where my taxpayer dollars are spent to perform abortion.   I think there have to be these exceptions because we not only have to be sensitive to the values and concerns of non-Christians, we must also be sensitive to the concerns of Christians and all.  You say what are you looking for?  I am looking for legislation that offends as few people as possible.  So the taxpayers can pay their taxes with integrity.  Also, 73% of all abortions are economically driven.  I don't see how you can talk about making abortion illegal on the one hand without simultaneously addressing the economic issues that are driving people to have abortions.   To do the one without the other is unconscionable.  Likewise, I think the Democrats are wrong for being pro choice.  So when you go into the voting booth and you're going to pull the lever, you've got a problem.  I have a problem.

Consider this, what if we made sure that health care was provided for every pregnant women, prenatal-postnatal care, and raised the minimum wage because a woman having a baby out of wedlock is not going to be able to support a child on $7.50 an hour, and guaranteed that any woman who is having a baby could get two weeks off to have the child so she doesn’t lose her job…what would happen? Right now we have women who have no health care and work at places where having a baby means losing your job.  She takes off two weeks she loses her job.  She can't support herself let alone herself and a child.  She's going to have an abortion.