by Roger Fast

A couple of months ago I reviewed the case of a 40-plus-year-old woman with rheumatoid arthritis. She was working and had health insurance, but she stopped the medication that controlled her arthritis because she could no longer afford her co-pay. The cheaper alternatives didn’t work well, and soon her hands were too deformed to work. She lost her job and with it her insurance, and then couldn’t afford even basic medication.

With health care reform in the news, I decided to track for one month how many such situations are in my caseload. I read the records of a 24-year-old woman who had a childhood kidney transplant. Her job did not provide health insurance benefits, and she could not get her own health insurance because of her pre-existing kidney problem. She could not afford the medications needed to prevent transplant rejection, and three years after stopping the medications her kidney failed, and she went on dialysis.

I read the story of a 40-year-old nurse who at 18 was treated for bone cancer with a combination of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation and was cured of the cancer without amputation. He tripped at work, broke the femur that had had the cancer and needed emergency surgery. Both the workers compensation insurance and the group health insurance refused to pay for or authorize the needed therapy to help the slow-healing bone to mend. He could no longer work as a nurse and with no job he couldn’t get insurance. He was left with a poorly treated injury, a huge debt, no job and no insurance.

Based on my survey, I see on average five cases per week like the ones I describe. Knowing there are about 100 other medical consultants in my state with similar caseloads, you can do the math. When I read a statistic like 47 million Americans are uninsured, it does not have the same impact as the stories of real people that I read in my work every day. Radio and TV speakers opposed to health insurance reform in the U.S. vilify these people, calling them “dirty hippies,” “lazy,” “aliens” and other epithets. And this to me is the ultimate insult—to vilify someone who has been victimized by a health care system that doesn’t work for them.

I do not believe that government should be the agent of any one religion, even though all religions advocate caring for the poor and sick in our land. But as individuals, we certainly should act and vote in accord with our religious values.

I am grateful for the biblical training I received from my parents and my church. It is implicit in the mission of our denomination that we bring healing to the sick and good news to the poor. I am shaped by what I have learned about Jesus and his teachings. Caring for the sick and the poor are major themes of Jesus’ ministry (Matt. 25:31-46, Matt. 11:2-6, and Luke 6:20). There is no question in my mind about Jesus’ attitude toward the people who are left out of our health care system. Surely he would not vilify them.

In the end, the decision on health care reform should be made on the basis of how we—religious or not—want our government to serve us. There are many areas where we think the government should be less involved and should let private enterprise and the free market system work. There are other obvious areas where we want the government to run the enterprise and where the private sector would lead to instability, such as national security. I think this is becoming true in health care.

Until now, our government has protected the right of private health insurance companies to leave out people who are not profitable at the expense of the poor and the unlucky. Accidents and illness can attack anyone. Just as we have a government military and policing system to provide security for all the people of our country, we should have a government-insured health care system that protects all of our citizens against such attacks. It may be against the grain of capitalist ideals, but it would be consistent with the ideals Jesus taught.

Roger Fast, a member of College Community Church in Clovis, Calif., is a retired general surgeon who served as a medical missionary to the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the 1980s.

Dad wrote his memoirs on an electric typewriter, and I transcribed them into the computer—all 125 pages, 50 of which were about their experiences in India. I was privileged to learn about the impact they made during their tenure in India.

Mom and Dad met at Westmont College in 1943 and were married a year later. They felt God calling them to serve in South America and attended seminary to prepare for this. They were planning to go to Colombia with the Mennonite Brethren mission board and their departure was close at hand; they had even shipped a refrigerator and wood stove to Colombia. Then they received a telegram that their visas were denied.

The mission board asked if they would be willing to go to India. They replied that “the field was the world” and if God wanted them to go to India, they would go. While it usually took two months to receive a visa, they received theirs in two weeks. This was a definite sign that God wanted them in India.

March 15, 1949, Dad, Mom and my four-year-old sister, Judy, left Fresno, Calif., by train bound for New Orleans to board the ship that would take them to their mission field, Wanaparty in Andhra Pradesh, South India. They arrived May 1.

With language school and settling into the bungalow, there was much to be done. Dad put screens on the windows to keep out the mosquitoes. He discovered a cistern on the roof of the bungalow so they could have running water. He built a travel trailer to take into the villages.

Dad was unconventional for the time in how he worked with the Indian pastors. He did not preach one sermon, baptize any new converts, perform a marriage ceremony or give a eulogy at a funeral. He believed the Indian pastors should do these things, and he taught them how. Dad felt they were the ones who should work with their congregations. He was very progressive, and needless to say, those in authority at the time did not accept his approach.

My brother, Keith, was born in India and when family needs brought them home a year early, they were told that they would not be returning to India. Another change of course in life, but Dad and Mom went on to public school teaching careers and raising three children. They had no contact with the mission board after that, but they still got together with fellow missionaries. As a little girl I was greatly impressed with being around missionaries like the J.H. Lorenzes and the P.V. Balzers.

Retired from teaching in 1978, Dad became a travel agent and was privileged to go back to India in 1985. He visited Wanaparty and stayed in the bungalow that they called home. During these years Mom’s and Dad’s giving put roofs on two churches and built a baptistery in another.

In 1998, my parents were reunited with their language teacher, Murthy. He told them that the people with whom they worked remembered them because they had treated them as equals. They were also privileged to help Wilson and Mary Koppula in their ministry as missionaries to the Sikhs and Hindus in the Turlock, Calif., area. Dad and Mom sent Mary’s parents to Bible school in Shamshabad in 1953. So their influence has come full circle and the impact of their ministry continues.

Dad went to be with the Lord in January 2006 knowing that the work he started in India was not in vain. And I know that the legacy he left will not be forgotten.

“Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (I Cor. 15:58). This is the life verse that I would have chosen for my dad.

Sheryl Fogal, a Fresno Pacific University graduate, is an elementary school teacher with 30 years of experience who is currently teaching fourth grade. She and her husband, Mike, have two children and one granddaughter. They live in Fresno, Calif., and are members of North Fresno Church.

There has been a lot of discussion about the emergent church lately. Like most denominations, Mennonite Brethren have not been isolated from the conversation. There are MB churches that have started alternate worship services, pastors and congregants that attend emergent cohorts and church activities that include historic Christian practices such as prayer stations and lectio divina. All of this has had the positive effect of bringing some people into deeper and renewed journeys with Christ.

The emergent discussion, however, has not been without controversy. Some have misinterpreted the activity and cry, “Heresy!” Equating the emergent movement with the teaching of universalism (all religions lead to heaven) and the denial of the atonement (the substitutionary death of Christ) is common but not accurate. Many people are reading the critics rather than the authors of the movement. While the emphasis on interreligious dialogue might feel uncomfortable, there is a consistent commitment to the primacy of Jesus and his saving work on the cross. As in all movements there will be extremists, but the vast majority of emergent leaders would not affirm heretical teachings.

Missionary and theologian Lesslie Newbigin inspired much of the conversation in the emergent and missional movements. When Newbigin returned to Britain after decades of mission work in India he discovered a dwindling church and a post-Christian society. Newbigin approached the situation as a missionary, not suggesting a battle with or an adoption of culture but taking on a learning posture and engaging the culture.

He asked how Jesus could be reintroduced and how the Christian community might engage the new culture while being faithful to the whole gospel. In The Gospel in a Pluralist Society he reiterates the primacy of Christ and the mission of the church: “To be elect in Christ Jesus, and there is no other election, means to be incorporated into his mission to the world, to be the bearer of God’s saving purpose for his whole world, to be the sign and the agent and the firstfruit of his blessed kingdom which is for all.” His emphasis on Christ and the Christian community provided the impetus for other popular authors like Brian McLaren and Dan Kimball, as well as academics like Darrel Guder and Alan Roxburgh.

Emergent and Anabaptist theologies actually share many common tenets. In An Emergent Theology for Emerging Churches, Ray Anderson identifies several key aspects: 1) emerging churches are incarnational, 2) emerging churches are missional, 3) emerging churches stress kingdom living and 4) emerging churches preach Christ’s return. Anderson says, “An emergent theology has the mind of the risen and coming Christ as well as the heart and soul of the historical Jesus.” Many emergents are hungry for an Anabaptist theology that emphasizes discipleship and evangelism, mission and service, community, biblical theology and a global witness of peace and reconciliation.

Though the theology is sound, feelings of distrust and suspicion remain. In The Sky Is Falling, Alan Roxburgh identifies two types of congregants most affected by the cultural shifts at hand: liminals and emergents. Liminals are those who witness the cultural changes and are deeply concerned that something wrong is taking place. Feelings of anxiety, confusion and even anger are common in this stage of liminality. There is resistance to change and a call to regain what once was. Emergents are those who thrive in the new culture. Change invigorates them; it brings new life and new opportunities for living out the gospel in a post-Christian world.

Unfortunately, a common outcome is for liminals and emergents to stand defiantly against one another, eventually parting ways. Liminals are glad to be rid of the emergents, and emergents are happy to start new churches. The best way forward, says Roxburgh, is to build communities in which we share life, live the gospel and learn from one another.

The early church struggled to reconcile two divergent worldviews as well: Jew and Gentile. To the churches in Rome, Corinth, Galatia and Colossae, the Apostle Paul declared there was no longer a distinction between Jews and Greeks. To the Ephesians he announced that God “made both groups into one” and broke down the “dividing wall” of hostility by reconciling “both groups to God in one body through the cross.” If the table of the first-century church was big enough for Jews and Greeks, it ought to be big enough for liminals and emergents. Being “one” does not mean we always agree, but it does mean we will listen to and learn from each other.

The authors of this essay are Tim Neufeld and Rick Bartlett, both of Fresno, Calif., and Wendell Loewen, of Hillsboro, Kan. Each is a member and active participant in a Mennonite Brethren congegation.

The antiquated car in the lane next to my open window held five young men, and I was unsure if they were just high on life or some substance. As the wait progressed, they increased their radio volume and their voices. They were in and out of the car and trunk, banging into my side of the car and using every four-letter word I recognized and then some.

When someone takes my Lord’s name in vain it is like fingernails running down a blackboard. Couple God’s name with profanity and my teeth hurt like a dental drill! No one was intervening regarding the cacophony of noise that permeated the entire area, and I was sickened.

I slammed my door and sat down. And surprisingly, I heard applause from all the cars around us. All 5’ 1” of me didn’t get beaten up, and they crawled back into their car and were quiet. My husband sure was wide awake. I was shaking like the proverbial leaf and Mother wondered how I had managed to get all the words out without once stuttering or showing my fear. I wondered too.

All of a sudden a tap came on the roof of the car, my side of course. It was the designated driver! He apologized for their language, specifically for offending me by taking God’s name in vain. Not his words, but good enough. I was for once speechless, simply accepting his apologies with tears in my eyes.

Vonnie Mostat is a freelance writer and the British Columbia representative for the MB Herald. Her personal stories are frequently published in the Leader. She hopes that this story will encourage others to speak up when they hear God's name used in vain.