Episcopal City Mission and the Ecumenical Advocacy Coalition are hosting a series of forums this month titled “Faith and the Ballot,” in order to discuss the state ballot questions coming up on election day, Nov. 4, and how voters can apply their faith to issues of public policy. The first forum was held on Oct. 14 at First Unitarian Church in Worcester. Upcoming forums will be at St. Elizabeth’s Church in Sudbury on Oct. 16, the Church of the Good Shepherd, Quincy, on Oct. 21 and Old South Church in Boston on Oct. 22.
Ballot questions can often take second billing to the more dramatic races for public office, and it can be difficult for voters to unpack exactly what a “yes” or “no” vote actually means.
“One of my big takeaways [from the event] is that in order to be faithful voters we also need to be informed voters,” said the Rev. Laura Everett, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches, following the Oct. 14 forum. “The ballot questions are often confusing, and these are very significant policy changes that could come into effect. We think it’s really important that people know what they’re voting on and how those questions will affect the most vulnerable among us.”
“We will be getting together to talk about these issues through a lens of ‘if this happened, who would benefit and who would be harmed?’” said Mary Beth Mills-Curran, Coordinator of Church-Based Ministries for Episcopal City Mission (ECM) and a representative to the Ecumenical Advocacy Coalition (EAC). The EAC is an ecumenical network that includes ECM, City Mission Society, the Massachusetts Council of Churches, Massachusetts Interfaith Worker Justice and Unitarian Universalist Massachusetts Action.
The four ballot questions address: eliminating gas tax indexing; expanding the beverage container deposit law (expanding bottle deposits to include water, juice and other non-carbonated beverage bottles); expanding prohibitions on gambling, which would block the development of casinos in Massachusetts; and earned sick time for employees, which would allow all employees to earn and use up to 40 hours of sick time in a calendar year. The ballot questions can be found in full here.
Episcopal City Mission has prepared a video presentation for each ballot question, including clips from campaign advertisements from the pro and con sides of each issue. Attendees will watch the video presentations, and then Everett will offer a reflection. The bulk of the time in the forums will be dedicated to group discussion of how faith influences decision making on each of these issues. ECM and other EAC organizations have been active on some of the ballot questions—most prominently on the issues of earned sick time and casino gambling—but the forums are intended to be an opportunity to talk about all sides of the issues from a faith perspective, not to urge voters to vote a particular way.
“We think that churches have the opportunity to be ‘purple spaces’ where people from different sides of the political spectrum can remain in dialogue,” said Everett, “and we’re really proud of these organizations working together to model healthy, holy and civil discourse, and are encouraged by the many churches that show that as well.”
Richard Parker, an Episcopalian and a lecturer in public policy at Harvard, said in an interview that voting is one of the duties of faith.
“Voting is part of the way we live out our faith in the world,” said Parker, who teaches a class at Harvard called “Religion, Politics and Public Policy.”
Parker said that all people of faith have a duty to examine political issues in terms of justice.
“The first test is to estimate the degree to which your support for a particular act represents what, in the great words of Martin Luther King Jr., is ‘bending the arc of the moral universe towards justice,’” he said. “The underlying question is, does your support of or opposition to this ballot initiative stand a chance of being coherently understood as moving Massachusetts and the world towards justice?”
Parker noted that the Anglican tradition in particular has always been inextricable from politics, from its break from the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century to the formation of the American Episcopal Church following the American Revolution. Parker also pointed to the Diocese of Massachusetts’ longstanding tradition of social justice activism.
“The Diocese of Massachusetts has believed in this for a long, long time, going back to the 19th century, on issues of the abolition of slavery, or issues of worker’s rights,” he said. “This has always been one of the dioceses in the lead on living out the social gospel message.”
Everett took care to mention that churches have wide-ranging freedom when it comes to politics. Churches may engage in education and advocacy on political issues, so long as they do not endorse a particular candidate. She encouraged churches to familiarize themselves with “Our Faith, Our Vote,” a resource compiled by the United Church of Christ that details what churches legally may and may not do when it comes to political advocacy.
Above all, the goal of the Faith and the Ballot forums is education. “It comes out of a strong conviction that our job is to help people make faithful and informed decisions, and that together we can host a statewide conversation,” said Everett. “As Christians, we know that public policy doesn’t bring all the healing we need to a broken world, but we follow a savior who is committed to taking care of the most vulnerable, and these public policy questions could have real impact on the most vulnerable in Massachusetts.”
To learn more about the upcoming forums and to register, click here. Upcoming forums will be at St. Elizabeth’s Church in Sudbury on Oct. 16, Church of the Good Shepherd, Quincy, on Oct. 21, and Old South Church in Boston on Oct. 22. Each forum runs from 6:30 to 8:30 and includes dinner, with the exception of the Quincy event which begins and 7 p.m. and does not include dinner.
--Ellen Stuart Kittle
Update: the resources from the Faith and the Ballot forums are now available online here.