Reflections
NEITHER RIGHT NOR LEFT---DR. EVERETT KOOP
By Wesley G. Pippert
Despite attacks from both sides, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop has remained a faithful servant of all the people
Of all the Christians in public life, few face as much pressure from the world—and from fellow believers—as U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop.
In 1981, when President Ronald Reagan appointed him to head the U.S. Public Health Service’s corps of 5,300 doctors, Koop had already gained international reknown as a pediatric surgeon who had successfully separated Siamese twins. In fact, his fame was only just beginning.
Koop was appointed as the darling of the anti-abortionists, as a man who had co-authored with evangelical scholar Francis Schaeffer a 1979 book entitled, Whatever Happened to the Human Race? He was viewed with suspicion and downright opposition by liberals in the U.S. Senate, which took months to confirm what normally was a routine Presidential appointment.
But he promised not to use his post as a bully pulpit against abortion. And he hasn’t.
Last year Reagan asked Koop to write a report on the health and emotional effects of abortion on women. The clear assumption on Reagan’s part was that an abortion scars a woman emotionally. But Koop replied, “I regret, Mr. President, in spite of a diligent review on the part of many in the Public Health Service and in the private sector, the scientific studies do not provide conclusive data about the health effects of abortion on women.”
Now, his former liberal adversaries praise him as a man by whom all future surgeons general will be measured. Fellow Christians have accused him of betrayal.
When the AIDS epidemic broke out in the mid-1980’s, Koop took up the crusade against it. He issued a 1986 report that strongly advocated the use of condoms—which offended many evangelicals who saw condoms as interfering with God’s use of AIDS as punishment for sexual immorality.
Again, there were cries of betrayal.
But this, like the criticism over abortion, leaves Koop unperturbed.
“I remain as opposed to abortion as ever,” he once said, “but I’ve always been able to separate my personal beliefs from my responsibilities as Surgeon General.”
And certainly those responsibilities have been discharged well. No other Surgeon General has matched the diversity and effectiveness of Koop’s efforts. In addition to AIDS, Koop has taken on Goliath’s like these:
He continued the Surgeon General’s anti-smoking campaign and said he hopes to see a moke-free America by the year 2000. Since Surgeon General Luther Terry first linked smoking and cancer 25 years ago, millions of Americans have quit, a fact which Koop called “one of the greatest health achievements of all time.”
He joined the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in distributing information to doctors to help alert them to the victims of spouse abuse. “In this country no man has a license to beat and get by with it,” Koop said, “and no woman is obliged to accept a beating and get by with it.”
He said the nation’s number one nutritional priority was to decrease the amount of dietary fat ingested by the general public. It was the most comprehensive report on nutrition ever produced by the U.S. government.
When he became Surgeon General, Koop’s first priority became handicapped children and their families, a natural follow-up from his 35 years of working with children in Philadelphia. The elderly also became a priority, as well as violence at home. But, of course, nothing caught the public’s attention like his work on AIDS.
As effective as Koop is, however, his statement that he is able to separate his personal beliefs from his public responsibilities is provocative and should not go unchallenged. It is an issue that all Christians face in balancing the demands of their professional tasks with their beliefs. And it drives to the heart of how the Holy Spirit directs our lives.
Are we to be sensitive to the Spirit’s leading only during our times of Sunday worship and private devotions? Does He guide us only in times of fellowship with other Christians, particularly those with whom we share similar opinions about politics and society? Or does the Holy Spirit also guide us in every aspect of our lives, including the way we interpret and carry out our job Monday through Friday?
In other words, is separation of faith and profession a valid goal for the serious Christian? In candor one must acknowledge that Koop has been criticized by some Christians for the professional decisions and statements he has made as surgeon general. One of his critics is conservative columnist Cal Thomas, who shares Koop’s Christian faith eagerly and effectively both in his writings and in his personal life.
“How many people who are ‘pro-choice’ have ever separated their personal beliefs from public policy as a courtesy to the pro-lifers they might offend?” writes Thomas. “Long-time supporters of Dr. Koop are bitter and depressed. Many wonder what difference it makes to have someone of Dr. Koop’s philosophy…when an atheist would have performed just as effectively for the left.”
There are no easy answers here. Koop is required by law to pursue the health and welfare of all the citizens of this country, be they pro-choice or pro-life, heterosexual or gay. The very nature of his office requires that he rise above pressure from special interest groups, including those which represent his own, personal beliefs.
Yet, in spite of those restraints, Koop does exert Christian influence in the exercising of his duties. His speeches on AIDS, for example, go far beyond a mere admonition to use condoms. He asserts, first and foremost, that abstinence and monogamous marriage are the safest protection against AIDS, doing so in language that clearly espouses Biblical truth.
The breadth of his activity as surgeon general also indicates that he is interested in physical and emotional wholeness, a position quite consistent with the Gospel. And his medical conclusions always indicate a commitment to truth and fairness even if it means alienating a particular group. In the end, being true to his convictions is more important to Koop than pleasing his friends, even his Christian ones.
The ability to stand for truth in spite of conflicting loyalties requires firm faith and a strong backbone. Not surprisingly, Koop is the kind of person who exudes character. He is an imposing man who speaks authoritatively, almost sternly. But beneath his ramrod demeanor is someone who has experienced suffering and appreciates the value of life.
The mountain-climbing death of Koop’s son, a Dartmouth student, tested and tempered him. And in the course of his professional career he has been forced to live day-in and day-out with the painful, hard-to-understand suffering of children. It was while he was chief surgeon at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia that he performed the separation of two babies joined at the skull.
Koop became a Christian while attending Philadelphia’s Tenth Presbyterian Church then pastored by Donald G. Barnhouse.
“He sat for two years in the balcony and listened,” the church's present pastor, James Montgomery Boice, recalls. “His beeper never went off during the Sunday morning and night services,” a minor miracle that Koop took to mean that God wanted him to listen to the Gospel.
And listen he did. Eventually he became (and remains) an elder of the congregation. And it is from his brothers and sisters at church—people who presumably know him well—that Koop receives the most ringing endorsements for both the quality of his character and the integrity of his faith. “He handles pressure well—he seems to thrive on it. He’s superb at it,” Boice says. “I think he is a great model of a Christian in government” (an opinion reflected by Tom Getman of World Vision). “He has protected the integrity of his own views, yet is the servant of all the people.”
Wesley Pippert is a journalist who covered Koop’s confirmation hearings for UPI.
A note from editor Alan Gold:
“There is Nothing New Under The Sun.” Ecclesiastes 1:9
Koop’s career bears a striking resemblance to that of Thomas A. Beckett, archbishop of Canterbury in the twelfth century. Before entering the church, Thomas A. Beckett was a secular professional—the chancellor, chief advisor and best friend of Henry II. The king appointed Thomas archbishop in hopes of using his buddy to gain more state control over the church.
C. Everett Koop was the darling of the Christian right, appointed by the President in hopes of exerting more church influence over the state.
Beckett, however, was transformed by the responsibilities of his office and became a defender of the church, blocking the appointment of Henry’s men to church posts and rejecting his attempts to make ecclesiastical courts subject to secular ones. In 1170, Beckett was murdered at the altar of Canterbury cathedral. His last words were, “for the name of Jesus and for the defense of the Church I am ready to embrace death.”
Koop, too, chose the integrity of his office over the hidden agenda of his ruler. And while we don’t fire people by killing them anymore, Koop has certainly suffered attacks against his character and slurs against his faith.
One man was a secular appointee to a religious position, the other a religious appointee to a secular position. But in both cases, they chose to fulfill the high calling of their office rather than the political demands of their friends. And both of them will be long remembered as outstanding examples of Christians who had a job to do, and did it well.
Networks, Volume Two, Number Two, Spring 1998
Print
Email
