“You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith alone.” James 2:24
When I heard these words at mass a few weeks ago, my heart soared, because it was the perfect lead-in for a sermon about the urgency of health care reform, based upon Christian notions of distributive justice and social solidarity seeking our collective good. The punch line won’t surprise you — Not a mention of health care. Why aren’t progressives of faith, whether in the pulpit or in the well of Congress, not employing every persuasive tool to advance healthcare reform as an imperative not only for the least among us but for us all?
Evoking religious values has long been effective in achieving social transformation. This tradition of social reformers, clergy and politicians joining together, and invoking faith to obtain fundamental change experienced its apex during the abolition, anti-Vietnam, and civil rights movements. Progressives abandoned the device of transcendent vision almost simultaneous with Conservatives adopting this successful script of shared values and worldview based upon God’s will. The religious right employs Christianity to resist protections against anti-discrimination laws — the Christian Coalition is currently mobilizing on a bill that would give gays and transsexuals federal protection in the workplace — and to support war — President George Bush famously explained to foreign leaders that God told him to invade Iraq and Afghanistan.
Televangelists employ prophetic language to preach against social evils, which are, in their view, largely perpetrated by, well, Democrats. But the prophetic vision also embraces “a vision of a more equitable society characterized by the virtues of solidarity and compassion and of justice inspired by the love of God and neighbor.” (Lisa Sowle Cahill) Why don’t we hear our elected representatives cry that “respect for life” and “human dignity” compel universal access to healthcare?
The left has ceded public policy grounded in faith to the right. It can’t be because nobody on the left prays. A Pew Survey reports that 84% of respondents self-identify affiliation with a specific religious denomination. I interpret that as meaning that progressives go to church and temple too. A Census Bureau 2001 American Religious Identification Study concluded that 76.7% of the U.S. adult population of 208 million is Christian. Democratic presidential candidates emphasize their faith (Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter) when they run, but as soon as they take office they revert to dry policy arguments for social goals that meet with passionately poetical threats of sin and damnation from the right. Are Democrats unable to invoke a competing interpretation of faith to inspire outrage that 50 million people living in the United States are uninsured? Such a position could find more persuasive biblical support than the position that “government takeover” of healthcare is unchristian. Progressives were likewise paralyzed in the “death panel” debate, with no politician effectively arguing that the over-medicalization of death seemed an ironic position for people of faith who aspire to an after-life with God.
Many Progressives of faith are organizing to support health care, but Democratic politicians have left behind the rich tradition of invoking faith to achieve social reform. Nobody even has to use the word God — like Susan Dentzer of Health Affairs, we can simply demand a debate about whether our system is ethical and just.
Posts from Health Reform Watch have been cited by media sources throughout the country, including The New York Times, Washington Post, L.A. Times, Kaiser Health News, The Health Care Blog, NPR's Planet Money Blog, Duke Univ. Med. Center News, American Health Line Alerts, BusinessWeek.com, Concurring Opinions, Balkinization, The New England Journal of Medicine, Harvard's Nieman Foundation for Journalism, Las Vegas Sun, Maggie Mahar, Ezra Klein, Tom Geoghegan, and the official homepage of the Office of the Democratic Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, Steny Hoyer.
Personally, while I think it’s important for those “progressives of faith” in civil society to be active in the manner you describe, I’m not at all comfortable seeing members of Congress or politicians in general relying on a discourse of faith to animate political rhetoric of any sort, especially insofar as it is sectarian (even if the overwhelming members of the public belong to Christianity and Judaism, and increasingly Islam). This risks the exploitation of genuine religiosity or spirituality for partisan political purposes in a way that may end up only furthering widespread cynicism about and distrust of religious discourse. I don’t like when Christian politicians of the Right do it, nor would I like to see Christian politicians of Liberal or Left persuasion do it either. I suppose it’s something about linking spiritual praxis and commitment too closely to conventional power politics if not simply the power of the State (think Tolstoy here). You and I can be motivated by our spiritual beliefs and ways of living to support progressive political change but politicians have a responsibility to address us in a language that transcends religious sectarianism and appeals to all members of the public, irregardless of their adherence to either religious or non-religious worldviews (and of course the former category includes non-theists, like Buddhists). Such public appeals by politicians can nevertheless be based on moral principles common to all religions and shared by those of no faith whatsoever.
In short, I would endorse the suggestion in the last sentence that we “simply demand a debate about whether our system is ethical and just.”