Utah’s oldest black church celebrates founding, pushes for Medicaid expansion

Between prayers, hymns and emotional sermons, members of Salt Lake City's faith community had a pointed message for Utah lawmakers Saturday.

Scott Hayashi, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Utah, said he'd like to have a conversation with House Speaker Greg Hughes, R-Draper, about the thousands of Utahns who could die without access to health care.

Earlier this week, Hughes declared that an alternative proposal to expand Medicaid coverage for the poor, known as Healthy Utah, was dead on arrival in the House after winning Senate approval.

Hayashi criticized Hughes' comments as a "political line being drawn in the sand" that ignored the practical effects on people living in the state.

"I believe in resurrection, I don't know about you," Hayashi said. "If God can raise Jesus from the dead, I think good people of God can raise Healthy Utah from the dead as well."

Hayashi was the featured speaker at the Founders Day event, which celebrated 228 years of the African Methodist Episcopal, or AME, Church, as well as the founding of Trinity AME Church of Salt Lake City in 1890.

The church, at 239 E. 600 South in Salt Lake City, is Utah's oldest black church and its congregation was joined by visitors from other Methodist and Episcopal denominations for Saturday's celebration.

The Rev. Nurjhan Govan, Trinity's pastor, said the event was a celebration of "the divinity of diversity." She said some AME congregations can be critical of the mainstream denominations from which it broke off, but she prefers to acknowledge history while looking toward the future.

"We celebrate our parentage," she said. "We celebrate the contribution to us extracted from both the Methodist denomination and the Episcopal denomination."

She said the Bible supports a church that is inclusive and national, and local issues such as racism and social justice are best combated when people of faith unite.

"We need to come together," she said. "We're more powerful when we speak in a unified voice."

The origins of the African Methodist Episcopal Church stem from racism in the late 1700s, when several black Methodist congregations sought independence from their white counterparts.

Speaking to the church's history, Hayashi said he'd like to be able to say that racism had been eradicated from modern religious groups and the United States, but those attitudes and the mistreatment of minority groups persist.

"I would have to say that it is not only present, but it seems to be, in some areas, thriving and accepted."

But Hayashi added that people of faith do not need to ask permission to demand improvement in the world.

He referred again to Healthy Utah, inviting guests at the Founders Day celebration to attend an upcoming rally at the state Capitol and saying that the bill passed in the Senate because individuals let lawmakers know that action was needed.

"We're not as powerless as we used to be," he said. "We have voices. We have voices, and they need to be raised."

House leaders on Friday announced that they were working on an alternative to Healthy Utah that would provide Medicaid coverage for fewer Utahns but would also reduce the cost to the state.

House Majority Leader Jim Dunnigan, R-Taylorsville, is expected to sponsor the proposal, but specific details have not been released.

bwood@sltrib.com