Social teaching IRL
The witness of local health centers
A few friends have suggested I send shorter, more frequent posts. I’ll try that moving forward every couple weeks or so on Thursdays, with varying post lengths (gotta edit better)! This is the also first of my posts touching on the meaning of some my and others’ academic publications.
A plug for service-minded practitioners and theologians: many Christian clinics continue to be shining examples of consistent practical ethics and social teaching. Theologians and cultural commentators mainly tend to discuss schools as the organizations representing a community’s ethics in service to the broader society. This is the case when looking at outlets like First Things and Public Discourse, culture warriors like Doug Wilson, and often mainstream media in conflicts such as funding for parochial schools and test results in Hasidic Jewish schools. Yet, clinics like primary care centers, pregnancy centers, and community mental health are often quieter examples of excellent engagement with the broader culture.
While schools are presented as positive and negative examples of cultural engagement, medicine has been overwhelmingly portrayed as a negative cultural influence in recent memory, especially among traditionalists and conservatives. We hear of medical horrors related to physician-assisted suicide, abortion, IVF, and human-animal chimerism (trigger warning) to name a few of the hot-button cultural issues today. Locally, however, Christian clinics are examples of consistently Christian social ethics in practice. Along with faith-based schools, they are some of the few organizations still presenting a cohesive, faith-informed vision to people of all backgrounds. Other faith-based institutions such as religious media, voluntary associations, and, of course, churches tend rightly to focus on the faithful.
These clinics tend to stay out of the limelight. Still, their advantage is in directing the local community’s resources to issues through the lens of faith with reason. Their local approach can be more high-resolution and can attend to those often overlooked by secular elite priorities. For example, this study I helped carry out with Esperanza Health Center when I lived in Philly looked at food insecurity (frequently being unable to get or afford enough food) in the areas they serve, which have high levels of homelessness and opioid use.
We found a much higher percentage (37%) of people were food insecure in their area compared to national levels. Many of these people differed from the typical picture of food insecurity in America. They were often of lower weight rather than obese, and they tended to be younger. We hoped an accurate picture of food insecurity would help this Federally Qualified Health Center better serve and understand their patient population.
Christian clinics are sites of creative problem-solving thanks to the staff’s common vision. These places model integrated, holistic health for their surrounding communities through church youth exercise programs, gyms, and nutrition programs. Some even have urban farms for teaching how to eat and grow nutritious food, like this initiative by another center, Lawndale Christian Health Center, in Chicago. They model primary care’s full potential by their broad scopes of practice and coordinating dental and mental health care. Walking through North Philly’s streets for Esperanza’s door-to-door health screenings and community health fairs, I got to witness their warm relations with their neighbors and their close partnership with local organizations for their common mission.
Not only do these centers embody consistent beliefs, but they also have the organizational ability to carry out the resulting vision. Therefore, they’re a hugely underrated opportunity for partnering to do research and invest funding. Theologians looking to understand ideas empirically or reflect on faithful practice should also look to these centers. I highly recommend trainees rotate in these settings to get a sense of what faith integrated with work could be like.
*See: Inguito, K., Joa, B., Gardner, J. et al. Differentials and predictors of food insecurity among Federally Qualified Health Center target populations in Philadelphia: a cross-sectional study. BMC Public Health 23, 1323 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-023-16208-3
Esperanza hosts the Summer Medical Institute, a Christian medical outreach which is currently happening. You can pray for and support the participants here. I’m not currently affiliated with them but find them a great example of what I write about.
I’m continuing to develop my speaking and teaching skills now that I’m in San Diego. If you’ve participated in any of my lectures or seminars and found them helpful, please consider leaving a review to help others learn about the experience!
Thank you for reminding us of some bright spots in a broken world. I've always appreciated the work and ministry of Lawndale. Good hearing from you!