In the language of our faith and moral traditions, there is no shortage of commitment to social justice.
All major religious traditions set out a clear mandate to provide for the needs of the poor and sick, and to go beyond mere charity to also work for justice and the fulfillment of human rights. Old Testament prophets and Jesus Christ spoke in terms of justice. The Quran invokes justice, and Confucian principles embrace a community-wide obligation to provide for the needs of all.
More importantly, people of faith have often embraced those calls to action, and in so doing helped make the world a better place. When it comes to reversing the dismal state of access to essential medicines, there is every reason to believe we can do so again:
Faith Communities Have Changed the World Before.
As Marta Cook and John Halpin wrote in their terrific Center for American Progress overview on the role of faith in the U.S. progressive movement, “Many of the most prominent social movements in American progressive history would not have been possible without the inspirational values and moral authority of socially conscious Christianity and Judaism.”
They are absolutely right. The list of faith-fueled U.S. social movements begins with the abolition movement, where Quakers and other religious communities waged a multi-generation struggle to finally halt the perpetuation of America’s original sin. At the turn of the 20th century, the grinding suffering of the working class triggered by the industrial revolution was met with Social Gospel-inspired calls for reform and labor movement leadership by the Jewish community. The plight of low-wage workers was a focus of the Catholic Knights of Labor and Catholic Worker founder Dorothy Day, while Catholic Social Teaching inspired activists like Monsignor John Ryan to successfully push for legal reforms such as the minimum wage and New Deal anti-poverty programs.
We know that the U.S. civil rights movement found structure and its moral voice in the pews of African American Christian churches . The movement was led by African American ministers like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and significantly bolstered by white-majority faith organizations and leaders from the Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish traditions.
Of course, it is important to acknowledge that faith communities have not been uniformly positive forces for social change. There is no denying that racist, homophobic, and anti-immigrant messages have emanated from plenty of pulpits over the generations.
But the contributions of faith communities were essential for the civil rights and labor movements, and other historic campaigns like the anti-apartheid movement , the Polish democracy movement , the HIV-AIDS treatment movement, the 20th century U.S. peace movement and the U.S. farmworkers movement. Congregations provided these campaigns with meeting places, receptive audiences, leadership training, and financial support. Perhaps most importantly, the faith community also contributed morally-charged and community-respected framing of movement messages.
That is an inspiring legacy. But the question of the day, as we look at the crisis in access to medicines, is this: Can the band get back together again?
Faith Communities Can Help Change the World Again
I was recently discussing the mission of PFAM with an anti-poverty activist who has devoted his life to building faith-based advocacy for reform. He asked me a direct and challenging question: “Are you sure that you all want to try to build a faith community response to the medicines crisis, given the fact that young people in the U.S. are turning their backs on religion?”
I understand his point. Surveys like the Religious Landscape Study from the Pew Research Center show a decline in the percentage of U.S. adults who regularly attend religious services. The rise of the so-called “nones”—referring to their response to the question of religious affiliation—means that this group now accounts for 23% of the adult U.S. population, when the percentage was just 16% as late as 2007. Only 28% of persons born between 1990 and 1996 report attending weekly services.
But those numbers need to be considered in context. These same surveys report that a huge majority of Americans still identify with a religious faith. Persons who do claim a religious affiliation are growing more committed to their faith, and are looking to their religious belief for moral guidance. People in the U.S. still have far higher religious participation than people in other developed nations , and religious views among Americans are quite connected to their political positions.
Clearly, the influence of faith communities on U.S. political and social debates has not faded away. Each election cycle features active candidate and party efforts to reach out to Christian evangelicals, Catholics, and others. Surveys show that a candidate professing atheism is worse for his prospects than being caught in an extramarital affair. Faith-based community activism continues to play a key role in the vibrant immigration reform and worker rights movements.
On an international level, Pope Francis has become a cultural and moral touchstone. Evangelical advocacy groups pack a political punch throughout the U.S. For example, in my home state of Indiana, the evangelical organization Advance America is legendary for turning out voters, staging lively rallies, and lighting up switchboards in legislators’ offices. The organization carries so much influence among our state’s lawmakers that its leader has been branded by local media as “the most powerful man in the Indiana Statehouse.”
Robert Putnam’s 2000 book Bowling Alone alerted many Americans to the decline of U.S. fraternal groups like the Veterans of Foreign Wars, labor unions, and other civic groups. Social movement expert Ziad Munson notes that this decline has been matched by an increase in the number of religious congregations. “Religious congregations thus represent some of the only civil infrastructure that remains in the U.S. today.” Professor Munson writes. “We should therefore expect that the impact of religion on social movements will grow, not decline, in contemporary social movement mobilization.”
That should be particularly true in the context of healthcare, with many faith-based organizations already significantly committed to the work of caring for the sick and the poor. That said, U.S. faith leaders and communities are typically more comfortable directly providing healthcare services than advocating for improvement of the broader system. This reflects the preference shared across the U.S. landscape, where most Americans are more invested in acts of charity than in seeking justice.
But, as St. Augustine said, charity cannot make up for justice withheld. The history of faith community activism and its continued social and political strength make it clear that religious groups and individuals can play a transformative role in bringing justice to our broken medicines system.
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