How a Divided Church United to Wipe Out Millions in Medical Debt

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — At Trinity Moravian Church, a 114-year-old congregation in the shadow of Winston-Salem’s old textile mills, members span the political spectrum from conservative Republicans to liberal Democrats. Supporters of President Trump sit alongside his fiercest critics. Yet when the Rev. John Jackman proposed a mission to alleviate medical debt in their community four years ago, there was no dissent.

“We’ve got quite a spread of political beliefs,” Jackman told NPR. “It’s definitely a purple congregation.” But on medical debt, he added, “This is the easiest money I’ve ever raised. All I do is tell people what we’re doing, and they write me a check.”

A Crisis That Crosses Party Lines

The church’s Debt Jubilee Project, launched in 2022, has become a powerful example of how shared faith and a focus on tangible community needs can transcend deep political divisions. The effort partners with Undue Medical Debt, a nonprofit that buys unpaid medical bills from hospitals and debt collectors for pennies on the dollar, allowing modest donations to retire substantial debts.

The need is staggering. An estimated 100 million U.S. adults — 41% of the population — carry some form of healthcare debt, according to the KFF Health News/NPR “Diagnosis: Debt” investigation. More than half of personal bankruptcies in the United States are tied to medical bills.

From $5,000 to Millions

Jackman says the idea took root during the pandemic, when growing numbers of people turned to the church for help. “I was hearing about the reason they couldn’t pay their electric bill was because they’d had a few days in the hospital and then they got hit with this huge bill and it snowballed,” he recalled. “And I started hearing this again and again and again.”

The first campaign in 2022 set a modest goal of raising $5,000 to retire about $500,000 in unpaid medical bills for residents of surrounding Forsyth County. It hit its target in just six weeks, fueled mostly by donations of less than $50. Ultimately, that campaign purchased and forgave $1,165,796.61 in medical debts for 1,356 families.

Since then, the project has grown exponentially. According to the Debt Jubilee Project, cumulative campaigns have purchased and forgiven approximately $26 million in medical debt for more than 18,500 families across 75 North Carolina counties. The eighth campaign, completed in early 2026, raised over $17,000 to retire more than $2.2 million in debt for 1,631 individuals.

Voices Across the Aisle

Church members on both sides of the political divide say the issue transcends partisanship. Catherine Coe, a conservative who voted for Trump and works in the accounting department of a hospital system, said: “I see people going into debt every minute of every day. We’re all just one medical bill from financial ruin.”

Terri Mabe, a longtime member who describes herself as a liberal and says she “can’t stand the president,” has seen medical debt up close through her work in the construction industry. “In between projects you are a lot of times without a job,” she said. “Then you get sick. Next thing you know, you owe $5,000, $10,000 that you cannot pay.”

Both agree on the core issue. “There isn’t a political divide when it comes to medical debt,” Coe said. “It all brings us together.”

Paul Sluder, 78, a former credit union debt collector who doesn’t identify with either party, described the system as fundamentally broken. “You have kind of no control. You have to take care of yourself or your loved ones,” he said. “It’s incredibly unfair, and I think the system’s out of whack.”

A Ceremony of Jubilee

At the conclusion of each campaign, the church holds a special ceremony. For the most recent one, Jackman stood before the congregation with a piece of paper listing 1,631 names — people in the county whose debt had been purchased and retired by the church. “On this day of Jubilee,” he announced, “we act to forgive the debts of many of our neighbors as God has forgiven our debts.” He lit the list with a lighter, burning it as the congregation erupted in cheers.

The biblical concept of Jubilee, drawn from Leviticus 25, resonates across political and theological lines within the congregation, framing the effort as a moral imperative rather than a political statement.

From Grassroots to State Policy

The church’s work has had ripple effects far beyond its walls. The grassroots effort helped inspire North Carolina’s historic state-level medical debt relief program. In 2025, the state partnered with all 99 hospitals to erase over $6.5 billion in medical debt for 2.5 million residents, the largest state-level effort in U.S. history.

Polls suggest the bipartisan appeal of medical debt relief is widespread. A 2025 survey for Undue Medical Debt found that about 75% of Republicans and about 90% of Democrats said collection agencies should not be allowed to garnish wages for medical debt.

Looking Ahead

Cynthia Tesh, 72, a member of the congregation, captured the broader hope that the project represents. “There’s just so much division, so much anger,” she said. “We need to look out for one another. If we start looking out for one another, things will change.”

The church maintains an ongoing fund for future debt retirement cycles. But as the Trinity Moravian Church community looks ahead, the larger question remains whether the bipartisan consensus on medical debt relief can translate into broader healthcare reform — or whether, as Jackman put it, the power lies in each community taking responsibility for the square mile around it.

“One of our ideas is that we cannot fix everything,” he said, “but we have to fix what we can in the place where we’re planted.”