{"id":2530,"date":"2023-04-13T09:30:17","date_gmt":"2023-04-13T13:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=2530"},"modified":"2023-04-13T09:30:17","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T13:30:17","slug":"the-public-arena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/13\/the-public-arena\/","title":{"rendered":"The Public Arena"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0<\/em>click here<\/a>.
\u00a0
Dr. C. Everett Koop was once asked by a reporter how he earned the medals on his uniform.
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He answered, \u201cThe top row is for what liberals did to me, the bottom row is for what conservatives did to me.\u201d\u00a0
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Indeed, few public servants have taken as much flak in recent years as the pediatrician who answered President Ronald Reagan\u2019s call to become the U.S. Surgeon General, a position he held from 1981 to 1989. \u00a0
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Prior to his time in Washington, Koop had invested more than three decades at Philadelphia Children\u2019s Hospital pioneering ways to save premature and physically compromised newborns. \u00a0He was passionate and outspoken about his faith in Christ \u2013 particularly as a pro-life advocate \u2013 and arrived in the nation\u2019s capital as the darling of America\u2019s evangelicals.\u00a0 Here was a man who embraced all the right opinions about all the most crucial social and theological issues.
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What awaited him was a grueling Senate confirmation process that lasted nine months.\u00a0
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Those on the cultural Left threw up roadblocks, questioning his character, integrity, and even his sanity.\u00a0 The New York Times<\/em> ran an editorial that labeled him \u201cDr. Unqualified.\u201d\u00a0 Others simply called him Dr. Kook.\u00a0 The American Public Health Association, for the first time in its 100-year history, actively opposed a nominee.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019d be better off with no Surgeon General than with Koop.\u201d
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For Koop, those nine months of waiting turned out to be a gift.
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He spent the time developing a kind of roadmap for the years ahead: \u201cI decided I would use the office to espouse the cause of the disenfranchised: handicapped children, the elderly, people in need of organ transplantation, women and children who were being battered and abused.\u201d\u00a0
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He was a doctor.\u00a0 He would not stand by and watch people suffer.\u00a0
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In truth, there were few expectations for the role of Surgeon General.\u00a0 President Richard Nixon had never even bothered to appoint one.\u00a0 One of the archaic traditions associated with the office is that Koop, after he was narrowly confirmed, immediately became a three-star Navy admiral \u2013 but without a boat.\u00a0 As a way of bringing attention and decorum to his position, he decided to wear the long-neglected formal uniform with its decorations and epaulettes.\u00a0 With his white goatee, he could have been mistaken for Moby Dick\u2019s<\/em> Captain Ahab.\u00a0
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No one, including Koop himself, could have foreseen what happened over the next eight years. \u00a0
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The Surgeon General quickly came to the conclusion that smoking is the number one health issue in the United States, and committed himself to eliminating it.\u00a0 This irritated those in North Carolina who had helped elect President Reagan.\u00a0 When AIDS swept like a plague across the country, Koop led an educational effort that included delivering an informational booklet to every American household \u2013 the largest mass mailing in history. \u00a0In the LGBT community, he became a certifiable hero \u2013 the first national figure to attend their gatherings and take their concerns to heart.\u00a0 Many conservative Christians were shocked at such compassion for gays.\u00a0
\u00a0
When Koop retired, Dan Rather called him \u201cthe best Surgeon General in history.\u201d The American Public Health Association did a complete 180, honoring him with their highest award for excellence.\u00a0 Evangelicals, meanwhile, felt confused and even betrayed.\u00a0 Columnist Cal Thomas suggested than an atheist would have done a better job serving conservative interests. \u00a0
\u00a0
What happened?<\/em>
\u00a0
In 2001, author and journalist Philip Yancey wrote a book called Soul Survivor<\/em> \u2013 intimate portraits of 13 individuals who had helped sustain his belief in the Way of Jesus.\u00a0 C. Everett Koop is spotlighted in one of the chapters.\u00a0 Yancey asks a crucial question:\u00a0 Is it possible for a person of faith to enter the public arena and hold it all together?\u00a0 Can someone serve Christ and serve the common good at the same time?
\u00a0
Koop, for one, answered Yes.\u00a0 He insisted that he had never flinched in his commitment to Jesus \u2013 even if some of those evaluating him from a distance were offended by the company he kept.
\u00a0
He declared, \u201cI am the Surgeon General of the heterosexuals and the homosexuals, of the young and the old, of the moral and the immoral.\u201d
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He added, \u201cThe American ideal is not that we all agree with each other, or even like each other, every minute of the day. It is rather that we will respect each other’s rights, especially the right to be different, and that, at the end of the day, we will understand that we are one people, one country, and one community, and that our well-being is inextricably bound up with the well-being of each and every one of our fellow citizens.\u201d\u00a0
\u00a0
When the people of Israel were overrun by the Babylonians and dragged into exile in 586 B.C., the prophet Jeremiah did not bring a word from the Lord that they should hunker down in a special enclave or form a holy huddle, cutting themselves off from their Babylonian neighbors.\u00a0 Instead:
\u00a0
\u201cBuild\u00a0houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce.\u00a0Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease.\u00a0Also, seek\u00a0the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray\u00a0to the\u00a0Lord\u00a0for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper\u201d (Jeremiah 29:5-7).\u00a0
\u00a0
Koop\u2019s choices in the public arena were echoed by Billy Graham, who came alongside Bill Clinton during the darkest days of his presidency.\u00a0
\u00a0
That rankled a number of Christians. \u00a0Why should anyone help that man<\/em>? \u00a0Graham memorably responded, \u201cGod\u2019s job is to judge, the Spirit\u2019s job is to convict, my job is to love.\u201d
\u00a0
You may not be in a position right now to directly shape public policy, legislation, or societal ethics.
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But if you leave your house or apartment today, it\u2019s a certainty you will find yourself in the presence of people who think, pray, and vote in ways that are different from your own.
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What should be done about that?
\u00a0
Our job is to love.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To listen to this reflection as a podcast,\u00a0click here.\u00a0Dr. C. Everett Koop was once asked by a reporter how he earned the medals on his uniform.\u00a0He answered, \u201cThe top row is for what liberals did to me, the bottom row is for what conservatives did to me.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Indeed, few public servants have taken as much flak in recent years as the… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2531,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[350],"class_list":["post-2530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-servanthood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2530"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2532,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2530\/revisions\/2532"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}