The government can both provide robust protections for religious employers so as to not ask them to violate their sacred precepts and the government can, if it chooses, work to provide alternative means for women to access contraceptive services. This is especially relevant now because many institutions caring for the elderly most vulnerable to COVID-19 are faith-based.
The national conversation regarding religious freedom right now is largely focused on the question of public, in person gatherings for worship services. This public conversation and its nuances have been relatively well covered. And yet, it is important to recognize that this is not the only element of the institutional religious freedom discussion that needs to be had at the moment. In the weeks to come, this column will take up in detail emerging public policies that impact the freedom of faith-based organizations. This column will focus on making visible the right now largely invisible, untold and often surprising elements and stories of how institutional religious freedom advances human flourishing during COVID-19 and beyond.
In such a short amount of time, COVID-19 has changed our whole way of living. As we look forward to a time when the virus will be gone, it’s hard to imagine anything could go back to the way it was before. While there has been substantial coverage on how the virus is evolving, predictions on “flattening the curve” and increased public education hygiene and social distancing, minimal attention has been given to how COVID-19 is impacting organizations that support individuals with developmental needs. Ryan Slaughter, a 2018 Sacred Sector Fellow, shares how he learned, through serving, employing and advocating for people with disabilities, the ways that faith-based nonprofits can holistically live out their faith in the ways they engage with people with disabilities. Slaughter shares how this work is even more important amid the health and economic impacts of COVID-19, and how faith-based organizations can creatively partner with government to better serve this community.
Public justice holds that each sphere of life has an accompanying institution or community and that government ought both affirmatively live out its distinct roles while preserving space for all other distinct civil society organizations to fulfill their unique responsibilities. Public justice is a concept closely tied to the act of embodying theological ideas in institutional contexts. As someone who had spent the last few years primarily studying ideas, this framework provided a way for Sacred Sector Fellow David Tassell to see those ideas come to life. Tassell shares how this public justice framework provided a means to see theology inform the structure of organizations and institutions, as well demonstrate how the mission and purpose of a faith-based organization is a means for theological notions of justice to become embodied in entities that actively make society more just.
In this editorial response to a Berkley Forum post, Chelsea Langston Bombino responds to the questions, “What weaknesses in the American social welfare system have been exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic? How can religious ethics inform continuing debates on social welfare, especially in light of the coronavirus crisis? How can faith leaders mobilize their religious communities in action on policies that protect workers and ensure access to affordable health care? What are the broader challenges and possibilities of incorporating religious perspectives in policymaking on social welfare?”
In this editorial response to a Berkley Forum post, Katie Thompson responds to the questions, “What weaknesses in the American social welfare system have been exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic? How can religious ethics inform continuing debates on social welfare, especially in light of the coronavirus crisis? How can faith leaders mobilize their religious communities in action on policies that protect workers and ensure access to affordable health care? What are the broader challenges and possibilities of incorporating religious perspectives in policymaking on social welfare?”
Reverend Harold Dugger shares about how his congregation, First Baptist Church of Capitol Heights, is navigating the impacts of COVID-19. Pastor Dugger’s church, a historically black congregation, is a Sacred Sector Community participant organization, and has a long history of serving its local community. In this article, Pastor Dugger reflects on how Sacred Sector’s learning community has helped his congregation understand how public policy, even during COVID-19, impacts the sacred sector and civil society as a whole. Pastor Dugger emphasizes that it is vital for congregations to understand that government, in times like this, has a distinct role to play.
Victory Church, a 2018-2019 participant in Sacred Sector Community, has a longstanding, mutually-beneficial relationship with the Center for Public Justice. In this interview with pastor(s) Jamé Bolds and Mark Shanks, Sacred Sector Director Chelsea Langston Bombino talks with both pastors about how they see Victory Church and CPJ’s Sacred Sector initiative strengthening each other as they seek, in community with other congregations and faith-based organizations, to live out their sacred animating beliefs, in every area of their organizational lives. In light of the current COVID-19 pandemic, Pastor Bolds sees the health crisis as an opportunity to live into his congregation’s faith-based commitments in everything they do, with respect to how they engage their own faith community, how they serve the broader community, how they coordinate with other churches and community-based organizations, and how the church interacts with government. This principled pluralist, public justice framework shapes Victory Church’s approach to living into God’s good purposes as a congregation, and recognizes that each institution in society must live into their God-given strengths and innovate based on those strengths, while at the same time, encouraging and working with other social institutions and government to live into their right roles.
The Center for Public Justice’s animating framework of public justice offers something unique to the global conversation surrounding COVID-19. The virus has dramatically impacted the institutions within which we live our lives – the institutions that make up the fabric of our daily lives. Institutions like our families, schools, hospitals, workplaces, houses of worship, museums, and our government are all impacted. The very relationships and institutions that provide meaning, livelihood, connection, and joy to our lives are disrupted and leave us collectively wondering: what’s next? This article will focus specifically on how people of faith and their institutions can rise to the challenge of loving their neighbors during this unprecedented challenge by instituting thoughtful and positive organizational practices. This will require diverse faith-based organizations to be both proactive and adaptive.
