Rebekah Sharpe
June 26, 2009
Inspired by a meeting with Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA)’s office in early April, liberal religious leaders banded together into the “Believe Together: Health Care for All” advocacy network comprised of more than 40 faith groups who are “encouraging our nation’s leaders to pass comprehensive and compassionate health care reform legislation this year.” The central component of their advocacy was the June 24th “Interfaith Service of Witness and Prayer for Health Care for All.”
Balm of Gilead sings at “Interfaith Service of Witness and Prayer for Health Care for All” June 24th. |
The healthcare coalition wants the federal government to socialize America’s health care system. President Obama and many congressional Democrats are advocating a new federal health insurance program that would compete with private insurance. Critics allege this program ultimately would drive private insurance out of business. Liberal church groups largely prefer a “single payer” plan that would eliminate private health insurance in favor of federal control.
Leaders at the June 24 rally/service emphasized that this was a critical time for people of faith to coordinate their efforts with Congress. Neera Tandan, a Senior Adviser in the Department of Health and Human Services, told the religious activists: “Your united voice is critical… We are, in the next two months, at the most critical time of trying to get [healthcare] legislation passed.” Tandan encouraged, “Hopefully, we are months, not years away from the day we cover all Americans.”
An estimated 850 to 1100 Religious Left activists sat in the afternoon heat for two hours in Freedom Plaza in the nation’s capital as leaders of their churches, mosques, synagogues, and temples prayed and spoke in favor of a socialized medical system that they insisted must be “inclusive, accessible, affordable, and accountable.” The Plaza holds a symbolic location in downtown Washington, DC, on the road that connects the Capitol complex to the White House. Believe Together, in partnership with the Carl Vogel Center, sponsored free health screenings and musical performances an hour before the service began, and organizations such as the pro-abortion lobby, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, set up booths for participants. “Echo events” occurred in other locations throughout the United States.
James Winkler, GBCS General-Secretary, helps officiate at the main event. |
The General Board of Church and Society, which joins its fellow United Methodist agency, the Women’s Division, in the Believe Together interfaith coalition, invited activists for preliminary guided prayer for government healthcare on the morning of June 24th. They met in the side chapel of the historic home of United Methodism’s political witness, the United Methodist Building, adjacent to the Supreme Court on Capitol Hill. The United Methodist lobby also provided a room of its building to serve as a refreshment room, and a room with informational resources for health care activists coming to and from meetings with Senators and Representatives offices throughout the day’s lobbying activities.
GBCS’ General-Secretary, James Winkler, helped officiate at the main event in the evening. In his prayer, he remarked, healthcare availability “only for those who can afford it breaks the covenant between a government and its people.” Declared Winkler, “We reject the notion that [the United States] can afford to carry on two wars but cannot afford to provide healthcare for our people… that tax cuts for the wealthy can be made permanent at the expense of healthcare for our people. People of faith insist the financial resources exist.” For Winkler, the healthcare debate could be easily summarized: “The needs of the poor take priority over wants of the rich.” The Rev. Cynthia Abrams, GBCS’ Program Director for Alcohol, Other Addictions, and Health Care, also spoke briefly at the service. Rev. Ileana Rosario of the United Methodist Church’s Virginia Annual Conference petitioned God, “for a comprehensive healthcare reform.”
The Rev. Cynthia Abrams, GBCS’ Program Director for Alcohol, Other Addictions, and Health Care, speaks briefly at the service. |
The Rev. Tom Hay represented the Presbyterian Church, USA, and its Stated Clerk, Grady Parsons. He prayed that God would help America to enact “healthcare reform that will encompass your radical hospitality.”
Mr. Joshua DuBois, the Executive Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, spoke as a member of the Obama administration, saying that “healthcare is not a luxury, it is a necessity, and it’s a necessity we cannot defer.” He encouraged religious groups to call on Americans to be their “brother’s keeper.” “This administration is committed with you” in the struggle for healthcare reform, said DuBois, but “what the faith community has to do is be a voice not just of reason but of compassion [and] values.”
Reps. James Clyburn (D-SC) and Tom Perriello (D-VA) also attended to voice their support for universal healthcare. Rep. Clyburn reminded the audience of the Apostle James’ admonition that “faith without works is dead,” and said that if St. James “were here today, he would not say just that we need to” feed and clothe the needy, but “he would tell us that we have a responsibility to provide healthcare to those who are sick and shut in.” Congress would not fail James, according to Clyburn, who pledged: “When we come back after the 4th of July break, we’re going to do what people in this country have wanted to do since the 1950s… we are going to say healthcare is a right for each and every American.”
Rev. Ileana Rosario of the United Methodist Church’s Virginia Annual Conference petitions God, “for a comprehensive healthcare reform.” |
Rep. Periello proclaimed with similar confidence: “We are on the cusp of making universal healthcare a reality in this country.” He said that proponents of tax-payer funded healthcare would “win on principle” and on the “concept of brotherly love.”
The Rev. Dr. James Forbes, Senior Minister Emeritus of the Riverside Church in New York City, pointed to an alternate cause for healthcare activists’ upcoming victory. “I think we’re going to win this time because America is on the verge of an interfaith awakening,” said Forbes. He added, “When we [different religious groups] pool our efforts together, the Spirit will show up and heal the land.” Currently, however, Forbes implied that Americans are under judgment for their stinginess. “Our nation is asking ‘God Bless America’ in a recession,” he said, but “Word has come back, ‘How does a nation have the audacity to ask for God’s help when’” they don’t provide for the need of the least among them?
Sister Simone Campbell of NETWORK, a Catholic Social Justice Lobby, insisted, “We must make it known that the marketplace has failed” to provide healthcare. “We as a nation were foolish to think that healthcare would work on the free market principle,” she proclaimed. Alluding to the preamble of the U.S. Constitution, Sister Campbell said, “We the people demand healthcare!”
The Rev. Dr. James Forbes, Senior Minister Emeritus of the Riverside Church in New York City, also speaks at the event. |
For churches and religious groups, Sister Campbell said that the “measure of our faith is how we respond to those around us.” As religious people, “we have a mandate to change this immoral reality; this is how we can be salt and light to others,” she suggested.
Representatives of the Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Jewish communities also offered prayers during the service. Rabbi David Saperstein encouraged participants that, “We will make healthcare a reality; we will be the powerful prophetic voice that makes it so!”
Though the heat may have dispersed some of the crowd gathered at Freedom Plaza, their prophetic zeal for healthcare legislation will no doubt continue over the coming months as this issue is debated in Congress.
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