These Are Children For Crying Out Loud!

Rev. Joel Hunter, a former United Methodist pastor who earlier this year resigned from his pending presidency of the Christian Coalition of America has weighed in on the fight in Congress to override Bush's SCHIP veto.

In a recent sermon, the Orlando-based megachurch pastor makes an emotional plea on behalf of God's children. Listen to Rev. Hunter here. Below is an excerpt:

"There are people in this country - Children - and I hear these arguments all the time about these dirty filthy immigrants, these illegal immigrants who come into this country. And they are getting all these benefits because their kids get sick enough to get into an emergency and go to an emergency room.

And somehow those children don't deserve care because they come from another country and they are not like us and maybe they don't believe what we do and maybe they don't speak the same language we do. And we want to deny those children healthcare? God would say "what are you doing?"

I don't believe health care is a right. But I believe healthcare is the test of our character as a nation. And I believe that any nation that does not take care of the children among us is not much of a nation, is not much of a people, is certainly not much of a Christian......

And I gotta tell ya, what are we doing?!? These are children for crying out loud! God would say - there are 100,000 in the city who don't know their right hand from their left, and you would ignore them and not give them what they need because they don't happen to have what you have. If you're a nation that don't take care of your own children, you're not much of a nation, as a matter of a fact you're not much of a people, let alone much of a Christian. These are Children!

Here's what we have to understand. We gotta know that God cares for the vulnerable. This is a message to us all. We are to love the ones that we might not love naturally but God does. We are to love according to his standards not according to ours. And I know I may have just made some of you really mad. But I don't care. It's what the word of God says and I will always tell you what the word of God says. Pray with me."

Rev. Joel Hunter is one conservative evangelical that has my respect.

Unfortunately, many of his fellow pro-life conservative evangelical friends are united against SCHIP. The Baptist ethics agency that made war and torture cool again has also come out in support of Bush's veto. Surprise Surprise! I guess pouring hundreds of billions into Iraq is more POSH than providing millions of children with freakin health care!

And that my friends is the definition of Christian social concern. And unfortunately from a group that bears the name Baptist.

So while I'm embarrassed by Baptists like Richard Land and Barrett Duke, I thank God for Methodists like Joel Hunter.....