Sen. Coons on weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast: “It's when two-dozen senators -- conservative and Evangelical, Mormon and Protestant, Jewish and even Buddhist -- gather together for an hour. We do two things that don't exist in the rest of our weeks: we trust each other, and we listen.”

Sen. Coons: “Let me briefly share -- as a progressive, Christian, and Democrat -- that I think both parties, and mine in particular, need to realize that progressive values aren't just secular values.” 

Sen. Coons: “The party that recognizes that 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…At the end of the day, we have to make clear that we fight for things like civil rights, social justice, and the environment not in spite of our faith but, in many cases as Democrats, because of it.” 

WASHINGTON, D.C.  – As part of the opening session for the 2017 Aspen Ideas Festival, U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) shared the following “brave idea,” urging progressives to work in tandem with faith communities to confront some of our nation’s most pressing challenges. 

Full audio and video available here.

Senator Coons’ remarks, as delivered, are below:

I'm U.S. Senator Chris Coons, and I'm a Democrat -- and I'm an optimist. You know, some folks are despairing about our ability to hear each other, and to work together, and to actually tackle the problems that face our country. There's good reason for that.

But I have an optimistic prediction that one of the unexpected outcomes of President Donald Trump's administration will be to make the Senate great again.

Sometimes it's really not shared values or shared experience that brings us together -- but it's an unexpected and shared opponent. I'll give you a few quick examples. 

I've managed recently to successfully legislate with some of the most conservative Republican senators. Republican Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee Bob Corker and I have come together to introduce a bold bill that will reform U.S. food aid in the face of entrenched interests that keep it inefficient and overly expensive.

Orrin Hatch, the most senior Republican senator, and I worked together to defend America's manufacturers and innovators from the theft of their trade secrets. We wrote, introduced -- and President Obama signed into law -- the Defend Trade Secrets Act. 

But the root of how we found each other and how we helped work to restore some of the checks and balances that are so essential to our society really might surprise you because it comes from what I view as the best hour every week in the Senate -- and it's not the hour that we all head home.

It's Wednesday morning, first-thing, and to make it there I have to get on the train at 6:25 from Wilmington, Delaware. Every time I say, "why am I going to this one more time?", I'm surprised and thrilled at what I hear -- because that's the hour of the Senate Prayer Breakfast. 

It's when two-dozen senators -- conservative and Evangelical, Mormon and Protestant, Jewish and even Buddhist -- gather together for an hour. We do two things that don't exist in the rest of our weeks: we trust each other, and we listen.

One Senator every week stands up and shares from his or her life and experience and background, and challenges the rest of us to understand them as people and to hear them -- their suffering, their struggle, their purpose, their path, their values.

Out of that experience has come the greatest opportunities for bipartisanship and progress that I've had in seven years [in the Senate].

Let me briefly share -- as a progressive, Christian, and Democrat -- that 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 principled matter. Or, you can get there relying on passages in Torah and Gospel, about welcoming the stranger.

You care about creating a new environment where we fight climate change? You can believe that because you have a scientific foundation, and you see the imperative for federally funded research and development, for clean energy, so our children and grandchildren can have a more positive environmental future. Or, you can say as I would, that God created the earth and gave us stewardship over it, and you can partner with our evangelical brethren and commit yourself to improving our world, rather than flooding our oceans with plastic garbage and pumping pollutants into the air.

The party that recognizes that 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. 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, social justice, and the environment not in spite of our faith but, in many cases as Democrats, because of it. 

Those of us who come at these principles from a secular perspective have to recognize that we can make common cause in a way that respects the best in America and allows us to be the republic that is the hope of the world. Thank you.

 

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