Christian Employer’s Alliance

Our colleagues Chad Jackson and Jenifer Duncan, from the Jackson Family Foundation, shared this information from Eric Welch about the Christian Employer’s Alliance with PCP:

Christian Employers Alliance is a 501c3 membership network of  Christian-owned businesses and Christian-led nonprofits.  Our mission is unite and equip Christian employers with advocacy, practical resources, and collective impact opportunities for the well-being of employees, organizations, and communities for God’s glory.  (For example, we recently received an exemption from the Obamacare abortifacient mandate and accommodation in May of this year, which is now available to any Christian employer that joins CEA.  See this article for more.)

We now realize that many of the cultural challenges our nation faces today, especially those related to life, sexual orientation, and gender identity, stem from a single item:  Most Christian physicians have stopped participating in the mainstream medical associations.  If there had been more Christian salt and light in medical associations, our cultural discourse on these issues would be different today.  For example, homosexuality was removed from the American Psychological Association (APA) disorder list in 1973.  Just in 2013, “Gender Identity Disorder” was replaced with “Gender Dysphoria” in the APA’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

As Christians, we see our moral guide as the Bible, however much of society’s moral guide is most heavily influenced by science and medicine.  The irony is that scientific and medical evidence actually supports biblical truth, but many Christian leaders have believed the cultural narrative and have largely given up on these issues.  This would have been different if more Christian physicians had helped influence these issues in the major medical associations.

In the last 2 years, the Christian Medical & Dental Association has helped to place at least one Christian physician in a place of local influence in each of 50 states, to help grow influence in medical associations.  In addition, CMDA has good relationships with the conservative physician networks, and encourages Christian physicians to participate in these conservative physician networks, such as Association of American Physicians & Surgeons (which began in 1943), American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNs (which began in 1973), and American College of Pediatricians (which began in 2002).  While this is a start, it needs to rapidly accelerate.  We need many more Christian physicians to be involved in conservative and mainstream medical associations.  We would like to work together with CMDA and others to see this happen. (On a related note, the AMA is down to only about 16% of physicians in the U.S.)

While this may be a 10, 20, 30+ year strategy, much can be accomplished in the next 12 months.  With significant Christian engagement of CMDA, as well as conservative and mainstream medical associations, some positive peer pressure can be placed on the current political climate around these issues.  This would also help the current conversations in our churches and denominations.  Please remember, the medical and scientific data is on the side of Biblical truth, but we need to see momentum in the communication of these facts.

As we work on these challenging cultural/legal/policy issues, we are also: Connecting with Christian-owned businesses and Christian health systems in this space to see how we might work together on these challenges.
Work together to help support the strategic work of CMDA and the engagement of Christian physicians into both conservative and mainstream associations.

Eric Welch (eric.welch@christianemployersallilance.org), 954-554-5857 (cell)

Executive Director, Christian Employers Alliance, www.christianemployersalliance.org