What will happen to the Affordable Care Act after the 2016 elections? How should we address the health care needs of Americans? How should we balance individual freedom and responsibility with our faith imperative to care for the sick and the helpless?

For the fourth in a five-part series of blog posts on issues that divide us, we will explore these questions (and others). Christians may not all agree about the answers, but they do care about the issues raised by these questions.

You can go deeper into the issue of Christianity and health care by following the links below to Scripture and video from my sermon on the topic. If you’d like to explore the issues in a group setting, you can also download a free leader guide to the series.

Here are some thoughts to get you started:

• Americans remain divided over whether the Affordable Care Act (familiarly known as “Obamacare”) should be repealed. A Quinnipiac poll in July 2015 showed that Americans favored repeal by a margin of 49 percent to 43 percent. Nearly a year later, the same poll found that Americans favored keeping the law by a margin of 48 percent to 46 percent.
• Health care has always been a focus of Christianity. Following the example of Jesus, for whom healing the sick was a frequent activity, early Christians made a practice of caring for the ill and infirm.
• Changes in health care during the twentieth century—including dramatic cost increases, the emergence of prepaid health insurance, and a rise in the number of uninsured Americans—created conditions that the Affordable Care Act was designed to address.
• The Bible teaches that our bodies are a “temple,” a gift from God. As a result, taking care of our bodies is a faith issue.
• As the parable of the Good Samaritan exemplifies, caring for the vulnerable is part of what it means to obey Christ’s command to love our neighbor.

Ready to dive deeper? Click here to see my sermon series “Facing Issues That Divide,” then select today’s sermon, “Christianity and Health Care."

Want to discuss these topics in a group? Click the link below or here for a free downloadable leader guide.