Chicago Faith And Health

The health care system in the United States is fundamentally flawed. Forty six million Americans do not have health insurance, including 8.5 million children. There is no excuse for the blatant inequities in health status that exist based on economic status and race in a country that spends more on health care than any other country in the world. Racism, poverty, housing, employment, stress, food security, social connections, education, discrimination, and environmental conditions are just a few of the social determinants that impact whether people in a community are healthy or not.¹ These are moral issues and as people of faith, we are called to name them and to work for justice.

Because health inequities are so deeply tied to social forces, the approaches we use to address them must be creative, wholistic and inspired, but most especially relational . The end toward which we work must transcend simple behavioral, educational, service or policy tactics. The end toward which we work must transform the ways in which we relate to each other. This is fundamentally the work of faith—connecting with a spiritual source that informs and enlivens how we live in relationship with each other and our world.

In the past five years, faith and health activity has burgeoned in metropolitan Chicago. As health care providers line up to work with churches, mosques, synagogues and temples, we need to think carefully about how faith communities can tap into their deepest strengths and their most lively faith practices, rather than simply receiving or providing a service. We need to set out a common vision for what we understand health to be as people of faith—loving community in which everyone can live life abundantly. We need to make a clear call for "spirit power" to strengthen the movement for justice in health care.² The urgency of the health crisis makes preparing people of faith to bring the gifts of their faith traditions to the table more important than ever.

¹ Richard Wilkinson and Michael Marmot, eds., Social Determinants of Health: The Solid Facts, 2^nd Edition. World Health Organization, 2003. Additional information is available about the social determinants of health through the World Health Organization Commission on Social Determinants at http://www.who.int/social_determinants and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at http:www.cdc.gov
² Rev. Jim Benn, aUnited Church of Christ in Chicago and a long time community organizer, developed the concept of spirit power for a faith-based organizing project. In addition to Saul Alinsky’s claim that organizing for social change requires people power and money power, Benn identified the critical role of spirit power in the deep work of liberation and justice movements such as those led by Dr. King in the United States, Mahatma Ghandi in India or Archbishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa. A principle in community organizing is to only take on actions or projects that you can win. Benn notes that the principle of spirit power propels activists into ground that is seemingly "unwinnable." This theme also forms the backbone of the new book by Jim Wallis, The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post Religious Right America, (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2008).