The "least of these" includes the unborn.
In a recent Christianity Today article, Virginia senator and former Democratic VP candidate Tim Kaine eloquently appealed to Christians to take seriously the biblical imperative to care for “the least of these” out of Jesus’ words in Matthew 25.
I agree.
According to Senator Kaine, Christians should use these words to inform how we engage the current healthcare debate—setting aside partisan division to “develop simple solutions that improve care for all people.”
I agree.
However, in responding to Kaine’s appeal, I want to first offer two concerns I have regarding the Senator’s use of faith and scripture in his advocacy, before addressing the critical flaw in his message, namely how his actions completely undermine his point.
Parts of the Body
At the center of Kaine’s argument is his comparison between Paul’s description of the church as a body (1 Cor. 12:14-21) and diversity in American politics. Just as Paul uses this analogy to promote unity in a chaotic Corinthian church, Americans need to welcome a diversity of input in solving the healthcare debate. This is a subtle shift from what Paul is actually doing in the passage. Paul is reminding us that the church is a body comprised of many parts. Crucially, Senator Kaine omits the preceding two verses where Paul gives us the basis of the text:
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we are all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. (1 Cor. 12:12-13)
This is important because it helps us to understand what the church is—it is the body of Christ. ...
from
http://feeds.christianitytoday.com/~r/christianitytoday/ctmag/~3/ZbNXTaUoaNg/kaine-is-simply-not-able-to-speak-up-rightly-for-least-of-t.html
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