Duke Hosts Talks About Faith-Based Aid

"Faith in the Future: Religion, Aging and Healthcare in the 21st Century" was held Sunday and Monday. Health issues explored included those concerning the elderly in America.

Bush's faith-based initiative would provide funds to religious groups to subsidize their charitable endeavors, including health care. Critics have claimed that this violates the principle of separating church and state.

Participants discussed partnerships between health care organizations and churches to meet the medical needs of the growing elderly community while not breaching the church-state doctrine.

Florida Secretary of Health Robert Brooks cited his state's Shepard's Hope program, where clinics were formed by professionals and volunteers determined to provide free health care for the poor, as a successful example of the type of program needed.

"As a nation we are going to have to build on these early successes to meet these needs (of the elderly population)," he said.

Brooks said officials plan to encourage these partnerships by holding seminars and conferences across the nation to educate the interested parties about the process of becoming involved with faith-based programs.

Brooks responded to the criticisms from civil libertarians by saying that contracts forbidding the mixing of health care and church money will keep the two separate.

He also said the country will have to reconsider the barriers between church and state.

Brooks added that faith-based organizations will be increasingly important in the future as the elderly population continues to grow.

Harold Koenig, director of the Center for the Study of Religion/Spirituality and Health at the Duke University Medical Center, said that with 50 percent of church populations over the age of 60, the elderly cannot be neglected. "Most churches want to bring young people into church, as opposed to meeting the needs of older adults," he said.

Koenig added that faith-based programs would try to educate younger people in taking care of the elderly.

Koenig explained that federal money will cover about one-third of the salary for a parish nurse at churches, which would total about $12,000 per congregation. He also pointed out that half of American medical schools are teaching about the relationship between faith and medicine.

Koenig added that if religious involvement can improve lives, it should be explored further as a means to treat the sick.

But despite criticism that faith-based initiatives mix religious affairs with medical causes, Koenig insisted the two would remain separate. "The issue of trying to put your beliefs on someone else is not at stake."

The State & National Editor can be reached at stntdesk@unc.edu.