Latest project: Health Care You Can Live With (Barbour Publishing).

Tell us about the Church Health Center you started in Memphis. "We began in 1987. We provide health care for people who work in low-wage jobs who don't have health insurance. We take care of the people who work to make our lives comfortable. They shine your shoes, cook your food and one day dig your grave, and they don't complain, yet when they get sick, their options are very few. We currently care for over 70,000 people. We're not a federally funded anything. We are totally supported by people of faith. The reason why we do what we do is that the call to discipleship is to do three things: to preach, to teach and to heal. In our churches, we got the preach and the teach down, but what does it mean to have a healing ministry? That's what the Church Health Center is all about, and we do it in three ways: medically, which is a traditional clinic which cares for people from the cradle to the grave; wellness, (which is) all about keeping people healthy, and finally outreach, which is engaging churches to help churches understand in today's world what a healing ministry looks like."

Your book has a striking title in light of our political climate. Why did you name it as you did? "I'm not smart enough to know how to solve all the great social problems in America. I can't do that, but what the book is focused on is: What should the church be doing? How should we as people of faith be engaged of the lives of our neighbors, doing what we believe God expects of us? ... Health Care You Can Live With is really about two things: how you as an individual can take responsibility for your own life and your own body and spirit, and then how to help a church be engaged in what, through community, a healthy life looks like."

What led to your practicing holistically? "I grew up in Atlanta, and I was always interested in the church, but yet the thought of preaching 52 sermons a year sent shivers down my spine and it still does—I'm always impressed that people can do that. But I read the Bible. It's on every page, issues around health and healing. A third of the New Testament has to do with healing the sick, and yet if you look around and see what churches do, we pray for people on Sunday mornings, the pastors expect to visit people in the hospital, a few people visit the shut-ins, and that's the final healing ministry. What I came to learn over time is that that is not the way the church has always approached it. In truth, the church has always been involved in direct hands-on health care, yet we've come to let Plato and Descartes philosophically and theologically rule the day. What I mean by that is we have come to believe in a dualistic way of seeing a human person. We've separated people into a body and a spirit. … At no point does Jesus walk away from a healing ministry. In fact, that's what He does every day. If you want to be a faithful follower of Jesus, then you've got to figure out how to do that, too."

You talk of rewriting the healthcare contract. What do you mean by that? "We assume that the doctor is the person in charge of my life and my health. Well, that's not right. … Giving the doctor authority to write prescriptions for you and give you pills, that's not going to help anything. Pills are poison—that's how they work. They poison your body to prevent it from doing something it naturally trying to do. … The new contract needs to be how I am in charge of the life God has given me, and I have an obligation to take care of it, and I turn to the people who help me live that life in a healthy way, hopefully people in your congregation."

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