Identifying as a "progressive Christian and Democrat," Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware offered what he believes is an answer to hyperpartisanship and a deadocked Congress: prayer.
Coons, speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival on Monday, pointed to the Senate's weekly prayer breakfast he attends each week as something that gives him hope for progress through partisan division. He said about two dozen people of all faiths gather for an hour to do two uncommon things: "We trust each other and we listen ... And out of that experience has come the greatest opportunities for bipartisanship and progress that I've had in seven years."
Coons went on to say that it's clear to him that both secular and religious communities can arrive at the same understanding of justice following their own belief systems:
"I think both parties, and mine in particular need to realize that progressive values aren't just secular values. You can get to some of our most important priorities through two routes. You care about welcoming immigrants and refugees? You can get there because you care about other people as an intellectual, as a humanist, as a principle thing. Or you can get there relying on passages in Torah and Gospel about welcoming the stranger.
"... The party that recognizes the vast majority of Americans are people of faith is the party that will be able to propose solutions that address their big challenges and that hear them. And my party is one that needs to see that we can solve the real problems of our country by trusting each other, by listening to each other, and by allowing for both pathways to get us to the promised land. At the end of the day, we have to make clear that we fight for things like civil rights and social justice and the environment not in spite of our faith, but in many cases as Democrats, because of it."
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