WASHINGTON (ABP) — President Obama will participate in a national call-in and audio webcast on health reform with religious leaders Aug. 19.
Faith leaders made the announcement Aug. 10 in a conference call with reporters. It is one of several initiatives being rolled out by a coalition of faith-based groups trying to frame health care as a moral issue.
Sponsored by groups including Sojourners, PICO National Network and Faith in Public Life, "40 Days for Health Reform" will include television commercials, prayer rallies in congressional districts, and a "Health Care Sermon Weekend" Aug. 28-30 in an effort to press Congress to pass legislation that makes health care affordable for every American family.
"As a pastor, I believe access to health care is a profoundly moral issue," said Stevie Wakes, pastor of Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Kansas City, Kan., who is featured in the TV ad that began airing nationwide Aug. 10. "In our church and in our community I see countless stories of people struggling to afford health care."
The conference call with Obama is sponsored by about two dozen religious organizations. Two Baptist groups, the National Baptist Convention USA, Inc., and Progressive National Baptist Convention, are among them.
"Every so often there is an issue that is so clear and compelling, or so alarming and disconcerting that it really does galvanize the faith community," said Jim Wallis, president of Sojourners. "That's why this call is so important."
Wallis described health care as an issue of life and death. "Those who have health coverage live and live longer, and those who don't have it die and die sooner," he said.
"Inclusive, accessible, affordable health care for all of God's children is for us a moral imperative and it's a religious issue," Wallis said.
Those behind the effort hope to counterbalance other voices from the faith community leading opposition to the health-care plan now before Congress.
The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention called the bill "dangerous."
An ERLC analysis concludes with "absolute certainty … that this legislation will lead to diminished health care for most Americans, less choice, higher taxes, and unprecedented government intrusion into every level and aspect of society, from business, to education, to marriage, to individual liberty."
The Christian Coalition warned that it would mandate coverage of abortions, paid for with taxpayer funds.
Wallis said critics of health reform are trying to use abortion to kill it.
"I am quite disturbed about the way that some people, even on the religious right, are using the issue of abortion to try and defeat health care," he said. Wallis said he cares about health care because of his belief that human life is sacred.
Wallis said he doesn't believe federal funds should be used to pay for abortion, but that people from both the pro-life and pro-choice perspective have agreed to work for an "abortion neutral" position that doesn't allow the hot-button issue to take over center stage in health-care debate.
Wallis also called it "really irresponsible" to be stoking fears that the legislation would lead to euthanasia.
"Our health-care system in America is sick, and the sickness in the health-care system really is a threat to the nation's very soul," Wallis said. "Our soul is sick, because our health-care system is so broken."
Wallis said the faith groups are not pushing any particular reform plan, but simply arguing from a moral position that health care must be fixed. He said it is the job of politicians to figure out how to fix it.
"This moral issue is not something we can allow to be — let me just say demagogued — in the streets," he said. "There are people in the country who want to stop an honest, fair, civil and moral conversation about health care. They are organized and they really want to shut down democracy."
"We can't let that happen," Wallis said. "So the faith community literally must stand in the way of those who want to stop the conversation."
Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.