I am fascinated by the health care debate, and especially from a Christian perspective. My last two posts were a sermon given at my church a few weeks ago. Below is an article from the Denver Post. This article below looks at both sides of the debate from a religious perspetive. Enjoy!
Ministries find mission in health-reform debate
By Karen Auge, The Denver Post
Posted: 09/28/2009 01:00:00 AM MDT
When Health Care for America Now was putting together plans last week to protest what it considers health-insurance injustices, item No. 3 in a strategy memo advised holding "vigils featuring faith leaders."
The memo suggested recruiting "spokespeople who can wear clerical uniforms." Not that anyone has had to coax the nation's faithful into the discussion, or for that matter a sign-waving protest, over health care changes.
The often-bitter debate about how, or whether, to reform the nation's health care system has galvanized millions. But no group's effort to be heard above the din has been more heartfelt than that of faith-based groups.
From the conservative Christian Coalition, which exhorts followers to "stop the government takeover," to Jim Wallis, leader of the progressive Christian group Sojourners, who calls reform a "sacredness of life and dignity issue," a diverse collection of faith groups has mobilized with fervor over the issue.
Faith-filled activism
The Christian Coalition invites visitors to its website to stop a "drastic government takeover of our nation's health care system" by signing its petition, faxing elected officials and making donations.
"For the pro-life community, this has been an all-hands-on- deck effort," said Carrie Gordon Earll, spokeswoman for Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family.
The call has been heeded, Earll said.
"Since July, we've been asking constituents to contact members of Congress; we've had more than 25,000 e-mails and more than 6,000 phone calls tracked through our online action center," she said.
Earll said that's much higher volume than normal.
Wallis reports that when Sojourners hosted a conference call on health care reform this month, 140,000 followers listened in.
In the early 1990s, when the new Clinton administration proposed health care reform, the so-called progressive religious groups, which include Christians, Jews and other faiths, were barely heard from.
After making themselves a force in the peace and civil- rights movements of the 1960s, those groups were quiet and fell away from activism in recent decades, said Robert P. Jones of the Public Religion Research Group.
Jones said his polling has found a renewed zeal among those groups, as evidenced by their participation in health- system reform.
The faithful say they have good reasons for jumping into the health care fray, just as those already in the fight have good reason to seek support from religious leaders.
"It's really important to involve people from faith perspectives because they are tremendous message-carriers and leaders," said Leah Bry, lead organizer for Colorado Progressive Action, an activist organization pushing for health reform — and the group that received those memos on recruiting the faithful.
History of healing
So it was big news last week when a coalition of black clergy leaders who oppose abortion endorsed President Barack Obama's health-reform plan, in the process accepting his word that no government money will be used for the procedures.
"We wholeheartedly affirm the president's position that medical costs related to the abortion of fetuses shall not be covered by health care plans," Bishop Charles E. Blake Sr., a Los Angeles minister who heads the massive Church of God in Christ, said at a news conference Thursday.
"Health care is an issue that very clearly has moral resonance to it," Jones said.
It is also an issue with a long history among faith groups. Presbyterians, Lutherans and several Catholic saints still have their names on hospitals around town, reflecting a time when health care was a direct mission for many denominations.
"Health care is an issue related to the basic elements of human dignity, such as having adequate food, decent living, a just wage," said Jeanette De Melo, spokeswoman for Archbishop Charles Chaput.
"It's natural that faith-based groups would work to respond to secure these basic elements of dignity for people," DeMelo said.
But religious groups, even within the Christian faith, disagree on the direction in which faith points them.
For so-called progressive faithful, such as the Rev. Lydia Ferrante-Roseberry of Boulder Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, the answer is clear.
"The basic place where I'm coming from is moving with compassion in the world. It pains me to know that there are people in my congregation without access to health care," Ferrante-Roseberry said. "How we are for the least among us affects all of us."
Politics in play
Focus on the Family, though, zeroed in on the prospect of abortions paid for by taxpayer dollars.
That, Earll said, strikes at the core of Focus on the Family's mission.
"We have guiding principles for our ministry that lead us in certain directions. We have 30- plus years of following that path. We are known as a pro-life organization," Earll said.
If there were specific exclusions of abortion in the health- reform proposal, "We'd pull back. That's not to say we'd support it, but we'd be less engaged."
That's not the case for every conservative Christian group.
The president of the Minnesota Family Council told followers that health care reform, as currently proposed, is against God's plan.
"God has created government to do certain things. When we reject His design for government, in a sense, we're rejecting Him," Tom Prichard wrote.
"That's a ridiculous opinion. It's unbiblical. It's just extreme right-wing, not a mainstream religious point of view," Wallis said. "Look at the Scriptures. Healing is consistent throughout. Jesus is the great healer. He healed rich and poor alike, but he didn't ask for an insurance card or citizenship ID before he healed them."
The Catholic church has staked out a more middle ground.
While the church's stand on abortion is unequivocal, it is also the faith home of millions of Latinos, who make up the single largest ethnic group of Americans without insurance.
"We have a history of advocating for health care reform and being very supportive of reform that broadens access," DeMelo said. "It's saying how that happens that has not been the place of the church."
That seems to be a line many faith groups don't want to cross.
"We don't need to be in the weeds of policy debates," Wal lis said. "We need to hold both sides accountable ... but let the politicians work out the plumbing."
Karen Auge: 303-954-1733 or kauge@denverpost.com
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