Introduction: When Priorities Make No Sense
Some policymakers wake up every morning, sip their overpriced coffee, stare at a collapsing health care system, and say, with a straight face, that what the nation truly needs is more theology. Not nurses. Not doctors. Not respiratory therapists. Not lab techs. Theology.
Because nothing solves a seven-hour wait in the emergency room quite like a robust debate over transubstantiation.
And did someone lobby for this? Yes, Evangelicals, I am looking at you.
This is satire. This is what happens when policy logic takes a vacation.
The Magical Thinking Department
If prioritizing theology over the health care worker shortage made any sense, it would require belief in the kind of miracles that even saints would file under extreme cases.
Beds are full. Clinics are understaffed. Nurses are leaving the profession in record numbers because they are burned out, underpaid, and treated like replaceable furniture. Rural hospitals are shutting down entire units. And someone, somewhere, thinks the answer is to expand theology programs.
Not nursing schools. Not medical programs. Theology.
It is almost as if someone whispered in the right political ear that producing more pastors is more important than producing more nurses. Did someone whisper? Yes, Evangelicals, I am still looking at you.
That is not priority. That is magical thinking dressed up as governance.
When Reality Is Optional
Imagine telling a cancer patient that the PET scanner is offline because we do not have enough technologists, but do not worry, the seminar on the Book of Job has open seats.
Imagine telling a diabetic patient that the endocrinology clinic has a three-month wait, but the theology department has posted a new lecture on eschatology.
Imagine telling a burned-out ICU nurse that she does not qualify for tuition reimbursement to advance her clinical degree. Still, someone else can get a scholarship to debate the Council of Nicaea.
Only a system completely detached from reality would give priority to theological theorizing while hospitals are one bad flu season away from collapse.
The Absurdity of Misplaced Priorities
Health care shortages are not theoretical. They are not symbolic. They are not abstract.
People die.
That is not hyperbole. That is data.
Prioritizing theology over solving the health care worker shortage is like:
- installing stained glass windows while the building’s roof is on fire
- debating the meaning of suffering instead of stopping the suffering
- arguing metaphysics while the ambulance has no driver
And the only people who celebrate this type of priority-setting are those who already have pulpit access and political influence. Yes, Evangelicals, I am still looking at you.
Theology Is Not the Problem. The Priorities Are.
This is not an attack on theology. Theology has its place. Philosophy has its place. Ethics has its place. Spiritual frameworks matter. Humans need meaning.
But humans also need nurses.
Humans also need functioning clinics.
Humans also need a health care system that does not resemble a slow-moving catastrophe.
The real problem is the hierarchy of priorities that treats urgent, life-critical issues as optional while treating abstract disciplines as the center of the universe.
Someone has confused a wishlist with a to-do list. And someone is lobbying hard to keep it that way.
The Public Deserves More Than Symbolism
Politicians love symbolism because symbolism is cheap. Fixing a health care shortage is not.
Expanding theology is symbolic.
Funding nursing programs is expensive.
Creating incentives to keep health care workers in the profession is expensive.
Fixing pipeline problems is expensive.
But symbolism does not staff emergency rooms. Symbolism does not intubate patients. Symbolism does not run dialysis units.
Symbolism is a politician’s favorite self-serving shortcut disguised as vision. And nothing feeds that more than interest groups eager to elevate their ideology over actual public need.
Yes, Evangelicals, I am absolutely looking at you.
Conclusion: People Cannot Live on Doctrine Alone
If the choice is between increasing the number of people who can interpret scripture or increasing the number of people who can keep you alive during cardiac arrest, there is no choice.
If leadership fails to recognize that, then the real crisis is not theology or health care. The crisis is governance. The crisis is priority. The crisis is logic.
We need health care workers. We need functioning hospitals. We need systems designed by adults who know the difference between urgent needs and metaphysical hobbies.
Doctrine does not fix a broken bone.
Prayer does not sterilize an operating room.
Faith does not run an MRI machine.
Humans do. Health care workers do.
Give them priority. Give them support. Give them the resources they deserve.
Anything else is malpractice at the policy level.