08/01/2026
In this church, Trump supporters share pews with his fiercest critics. They argue about almost everything. Then they buy up strangers' medical debt — and burn it.
Trinity Moravian Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, looks like a snapshot of divided America. Conservative Republicans sit beside liberal Democrats. On most of the questions tearing the country apart, this congregation does not agree.
But eight fundraising campaigns in, they keep finding common ground on one thing: nobody should be financially destroyed because they got sick.
Here's how it works — and the mechanics are the genius of it. When hospitals and providers give up on collecting unpaid bills, that debt gets sold to collection agencies for pennies on the dollar. Churches and charities can buy it the same way. So a few thousand dollars, raised through bake-sale-sized generosity, can wipe out millions in debt that has been hanging over families for years — ruining credit, driving people to skip care, sitting on kitchen tables like a stone.
Trinity's latest campaign raised more than $17,000. That was enough to buy — and forgive — over $2.2 million in medical debt owed by their neighbors in the county.
Then came the moment that turns policy into something you can feel. Rev. John Jackman stood before the congregation holding a piece of paper: a list of 1,631 names. People in their county whose debt was now gone. Every person in the pews stood. And Jackman flicked a lighter and set the list on fire.
1,631 families. Some of them will get the letter this week telling them a debt they thought would follow them forever has simply vanished — paid off by strangers who will never meet them and disagree with each other about nearly everything else.
The church's work has helped fuel a movement — congregations across North Carolina and the country doing the same, and even state officials taking on medical debt.
There's a lesson here that has nothing to do with religion or politics: agreement isn't a prerequisite for doing good. This congregation didn't resolve a single argument before helping 1,631 families. They just found the one thing they all believed and acted on it.
Imagine what any group of us could do if we started from that.
