In late March, FEMA, Homeland Security and the White House reached out to Samaritan's Purse's President Franklin Graham, seeking his organization's assistance in setting up a field hospital as a much-needed overflow field hospital for the 1,134-bed Mount Sinai Hospital.

During this worldwide pandemic, Samaritan's Purse has set up two completely self-contained M*A*S*H-like field hospitals. One is in New York City; the other is currently deployed to Italy.

The Central Park field hospital is housed in 14 tents, including a prayer tent, and has a medical staff of 72, including physicians, nurses, paramedical, laboratory technicians, and pharmacists, as well as an additional technical staff, all of whom are contracted and paid by Samaritan's Purse.

As COVID-19 was starting to unfold and take New York City in its deadly grip, retired Bishop Clifton Daniel, currently the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John's dean, reached out to nearby Mount Sinai Morningside and assured the hospital that the cathedral will be available at its convenience if needed to be converted into a field hospital.

"I don't know what we're going to need but let me assure you the doors of the cathedral are open to you for whatever you need," Bishop Daniel told Mount Sinai-Morningside.

The bishop was told: "We think we might need to use the cathedral as overflow hospital space."

"Of course," the bishop responded. "I'm glad to do that."

It would not be the first time an American church, or even a cathedral, has been pressed into service as a field hospital during times of war (the Revolutionary War and the Civil War) or pandemic (the Spanish flu).

THE MOUNT SINAI

Mount Sinai Hospital was originally founded in 1852 to meet the medical needs of New York City's burgeoning Jewish population which was being discriminated against by the non-Jewish populace of the city. The 45-bed Jews' Hospital in the City of New York, as it was called at its inception, was founded by Sampson Simon, an Orthodox Jewish philanthropist and lawyer. He is now remembered as the "Father of Mount Sinai Hospital." Simon was noted for his philanthropic heart and he would liberally give to Catholic, Protestant and Jewish causes alike.

Following the Civil War, New York's Jewish hospital realized that it was more than just a "Jewish" facility. It was becoming a vital part of New York's greater medical fabric. To reflect that reality, the hospital's name was changed to Mount Sinai Hospital, thus keeping a hint of its ancient Jewish heritage. The Bible records that Moses received the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai.

Through the years, Mount Sinai grew and became a world class teaching hospital and medical facility. Today there are multiple Mount Sinai General Hospital locations scattered throughout New York, including: The Mount Sinai (Manhattan); Mount Sinai Beth Israel (Downtown); Mount Sinai-Brooklyn; Mount Sinai-Queens (Astoria); Mount Sinai-Morningside (New York); and Mount Sinai-West (Oceanside).

Mount Sinai is ranked 14th among the 5,000 US hospitals on the Best Hospitals Honor Roll and third in New York. Today, as the Coronavirus continues, Mount Sinai is deeply involved in research to help combat this current plague and was the first to identify that New York's COVID-19 outbreak came via Europe rather than directly from China.

ST. JOHN THE DIVINE

It was not until after the foundation of Mount Sinai that construction of the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine was started. Building began in 1892. Initially it was to be a combination of Byzantine Revival and Romanesque Revival architectural styles, but plans were changed to incorporate a Gothic Revival flavor. Slow building on the edifice continues to this day. It is considered the "Unfinished Cathedral" due to funding short falls, style changes, fires and wars.

It is the Mother Church of the Episcopal Diocese of New York and the seat of the Bishop Andrew Dietsche (XVI New York).

"It's chartered by the state of New York -- the Legislature -- and it is chartered as a 'house of prayer for all people'," St. John's current Dean, retired Bishop Clifton Daniel (VII East Carolina) explained in a recent New York radio interview. "And through the years, we've come to understand that to mean all means ALL. So, anybody is welcome in this place to worship here. We have diverse groups worshiping and meeting here. We've always, always been at the forefront of inclusion. We have a very active LGBTQ ministry, and people serve. We are honored to be that. The door of this place is open to everybody. Our heart is open to everybody."

The cathedral considers itself the largest in the world with a sitting bishop.

"St. John is the largest Cathedral in the world, meaning a church that is also the seat of a Bishop," St. John's website proclaims. "Measured by length or internal volume, it is one of the five largest church buildings in the world."

It is also the home of the St. Saviour's Cathedral Congregation, which is about 250 strong. However, 650 people, mostly tourists, show up for Sunday worship services.

SAMARITAN'S PURSE

The Samaritan's Purse is an Evangelical international humanitarian crisis relief ministry. It was founded in 1970 by Bob Pierce "to meet emergency needs in crisis areas through existing evangelical mission agencies and national churches." Twenty years before, Pierce founded World Vision International. Franklin Graham joined Samaritan's Purse in 1974. In 1979, the year following Pierce's death, Graham became Samaritan's Purse president -- a title and function he still holds. The philanthropic organization now ministers in more than 100 countries, with an evangelical flair.

Samaritan's Purse has spanned the world, providing Christian compassion and care including: providing medical care in the midst of conflicts in Somalia (1993), Rwanda (1994), Sudan (1997), Kosovo (1999), Afghanistan (2002), Iraq (2003 & 2016) and during the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Liberia; rebuilding or repairing houses following Hurricane Mitch in Central America (1998), earthquakes in El Salvador (2001), tsunami in the Indian Ocean (2004), and Hurricane Katrina in the Southern United States (2005); and providing emergency charter airlifts to Indonesia and Pakistan in 2005, North Korea in 2007, Myanmar and China in 2008, and Alaska in 2020.

Its COVID-19 response has resulted in setting up two fully operational respiratory care units. One is a portable field hospital in the hard-hit Lombardy region of northern Italy near Milan, and the second a field hospital in Central Park in the heart of New York City.

Samaritan's Purse has plans on the table to eventually be able to develop, equip, man and deploy a third, fully functioning field hospital.

"This is what Samaritan's Purse does -- we respond in the middle of crises to help people in Jesus' Name," Franklin Graham explained as his Disaster Assistance Response Team was preparing to deploy to New York.

CENTRAL PARK

Central Park is an 843-acre park roughly located in the middle of Manhattan Island. It is the fifth largest park in the five boroughs and the largest park in Manhattan. It claims to be the most visited urban park in the United States, drawing upwards to 38 million visitors annually. It was first opened to the public in 1858.

In 1991, Franklin Graham's father, Billy Graham, held a crusade on the Great Lawn of Central Park. It drew a quarter million people. That was one of six New York City crusades the famed evangelist held through his 58 years of holding large evangelistic meetings. Two New York crusades were held at Madison Square Garden (1957 & 1969); Spanish Harlem (1960); Shea Stadium (1970); and in 2005, his 417th and final crusade was held at Flushing Meadows' Corona Park in Queens, the site of the 1964 World's Fair.

Samaritan's Purse has set up shop on the East Meadow in the shadow of The Mount Sinai, the flagship hospital of the Mount Sinai Health Care System.

PROTESTOR IN PINK

On April 5, as Samaritan's Purse was putting the finishing touches on its Central Park field hospital, William Telan, dressed in a bright pink suit and sporting a black bandana facemask, jumped the field hospital's perimeter and planted a rainbow flag.

Talen, who calls himself "Reverend Billy" was arrested and charged with resisting arrest, obstructing governmental administration, criminal trespass and disorderly conduct.

During his arrest, Talen shouted: "They are the virus."

Following his arrest, the protester tweeted: "Today I tried to deliver a rainbow flag to the Samaritan's Purse field hospital in Central Park. Franklin Graham and his Lord's Army are here with their homophobic racist hustle. Help, not hate."

Police say Reverend Billy was the only person to have been arrested at the field hospital.

CONTROVERSY

Both Samaritan's Purse and St. John's Cathedral have garnered their share of controversy.

During the Triduum and Easter Week in 1984, St. John's Cathedral displayed a four-foot tall, 250-pound fully-figured nude female corpus -- The Christa -- on the cross to accentuate the "feminine divine."

''Theologically, it is very important for this kind of thing (The Christa) to be done,'' the Very Rev. James Parks Morton, then dean of the cathedral said at the time. ''For one thing, it puts flesh on St. Paul's words that all Christians are to bear the cross of Christ.''

One New York bishop -- Walter Dennis (New York-suffragan) -- took issue with Dean Morton saying that The Christa was ''symbolically reprehensible'' and ''this symbol is theologically and historically indefensible."

The bishop suffragan made Dean Morton remove the offensive statue before the stated end of the display.

However, The Christa made a repeat appearance at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in the Fall of 2016 as a part of "The Christa Project: Manifesting Divine Bodies."

Where in 1984 Bishop Paul Moore (XIII New York) remained mum on the subject, Bishop Andrew Dietsche (XVI New York) embraced the nude figure.

"In an evolving, growing, learning church, we may be ready to see 'Christa' not only as a work of art but as an object of devotion, over our altar, with all of the challenges that may come with that for many visitors to the cathedral, or indeed, perhaps for all of us," Bishop Dietsche wrote in the cathedral's "The Christa Project" booklet.

Samaritan's Purse, too, has been fraught with controversy not for promoting heresy, but for upholding Biblical principles in its hiring practices and for Franklin Graham's hard-hitting preaching of Gospel truths in the face of a secularized society.

Once it was announced that Samaritan's Purse was setting up a much-needed field hospital in Central Park, the critics came out in full force.

First, they see the younger Graham in a negative light.

Amy Goodman, an activist and commentator for Democracy Now! -- a progressive New York-based liberal Internet news program -- described Franklin Graham as "the virulently Islamophobic, anti-choice, anti-LGBTQ preacher."

Franklin Graham, as his father did before him, champions traditional marriage, the nuclear family and Biblical morality. The younger Graham's preaching style is different than his father's, and in today's highly politicized world, his words fall on deafened ears and hardened hearts.

Secondly, the critics were incensed that Samaritan's Purse would require his field hospital contract employees to adhere to biblical principles and commit to a Statement of Faith which includes Point 9: "We believe God's plan for human sexuality is to be expressed only within the context of marriage, that God created man and woman as unique biological persons made to complete each other. God instituted monogamous marriage between male and female as the foundation of the family and the basic structure of human society. For this reason, we believe that marriage is exclusively the union of one genetic male and one genetic female."

Politicians -- including New York Mayor Bill de Blasio -- have interpreted this to mean that members of the gay, lesbian and transgendered community would not receive the same level of care as others.

"Franklin Graham has a long history of spewing anti-LGBTQ hate speech, and I find it extremely troubling that he and his organization are involved in our relief efforts in any way," said gay New York City Council Speaker Corey Johnson. "New York City is known around the world for our embrace of diversity, and Franklin Graham has spent his career standing against these values."

"Today I'm calling on Franklin Graham to publicly assure LGBTQ New Yorkers that they will receive the same treatment as anyone else at the Central Park field hospital," New York State Sen. Brad Hoylman said in a statement. "The City of New York and the Mount Sinai Hospital network must monitor conditions closely at Graham's facility and ensure every single LGBTQ patient is treated fairly. We cannot abandon our moral compass in the middle of a pandemic."

Samaritan's Purse responded to the political concerns: "Our doors at the Emergency Field Hospital in the East Meadow are going to be open to all New Yorkers who need our help. We are here to save life, which is precious in God's sight -- and we do it all in Jesus' Name. We are a Christian organization and we hire Christians who share our Statement of Faith. We have a common denominator of our faith in Jesus Christ and sharing that hope,"

Even with that assurance, Mayor de Blasio said: "We're going to send people over from my office to monitor the hospital. I'm very concerned to make sure this is done right. But if it is done right, of course, we need all the help we can get."

THANKS, BUT NO THANKS

Just before noon on Maundy Thursday (April 9), St. John's announced on Twitter: "We were notified this morning that Mount Sinai will not be pursuing its plans to build a field hospital at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine at this moment ... Our commitment to Mount Sinai and to the city, our longtime partners, stands firm, and we will do whatever is in our power to aid the medical workers heroically putting themselves on the front line to help the sick ... As we continue to stand ready to support all in this crisis, we reaffirm our core mission and staunch belief in the worth and dignity of all people, and open our virtual doors to all those who want to participate in Holy Week services."

Samaritan's Purse was being given the brushoff. The "official" reason is that New York City is starting to flatten the curve and there will be less need for additional off-site Coronavirus beds as fewer COVID-19 cases are developing and hospitalizations dropping.

But when digging below the surface, another story emerges.

THE REST OF THE STORY

Thursday (April 9) ABC News reported: "The Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, the country's largest gothic cathedral, will not be turned into a temporary field hospital amid the novel coronavirus crisis after an 'impasse' developed between the progressive church and a controversial organization that was offering to help with the construction."

All Samaritan's Purse was doing was setting up shop -- beds and equipment. The cathedral field hospital would have been staffed by Mount Sinai-Morningside personnel, not by Samaritan's Purse staff.

The network's news story further stated: "A cathedral spokeswoman told ABC News the staff had 'a really hard time' dealing with past comments from the organization about LGBTQ people and decided not to move forward."

"After further discussions and assessment, we will not be moving forward with an expansion at this location," Samaritan's Purse said in a statement concerning the halt in implementing plans at the cathedral. "From our perspective, there are no tensions with the cathedral."

Initially, Bishop Daniel told The New York Times: "I don't agree with their position on Muslims and gays and a number of other things, but I am willing to work together with them to save lives. I feel like it is sort of like the steward on the Titanic as it is sinking -- now is not the time to count the silverware, you have to get people into lifeboats."

But the bishop was quick to note that the Cathedral of St. John the Divine's participation with humanitarian group in the COVID-19 field hospital project should not be interpreted as the cathedral's endorsement of Samaritan's Purse's religious views.

"I know what Franklin Graham stands for, and I am not for what he stands for at all. But at the same time, we're in the business of saving lives and helping people," Bishop Daniel told Democracy Now! "And I think if you're in the desert dying of thirst and somebody hands you a glass of water, you don't check their driver's license. You just say, 'thank you'."

The insurmountable problem which developed was that when the offer was first made by Bishop Daniel to Mount Sinai-Morningside to use the cathedral if needed, the Episcopal Diocese of New York did not realize that the Jewish hospital would partner with a conservative Evangelical group. One of the assisting bishops of New York (Mary Glasspool) is a partnered lesbian.

"The cathedral and Samaritan's Purse have very different creeds and very different core beliefs and commitments," Bishop Daniel explains. "But we here at the cathedral were willing to set those differences aside, severe as they are, in the service of this city and community."

It wasn't until after Samaritan's Purse started to set up and laid down its protective blue tarp on the cathedral floor, that the fragile partnership began to unravel. Much time, effort and expense had already been put into the joint project.

With the decrease in Coronavirus cases and the need for additional overflow beds, both religious groups were able to back off and save face.

"While our organizations may have differences of opinions, when it comes to Covid-19 we are fully united: We will care for everyone and no patients or staff will be discriminated against," Mount Sinai said in a statement. "Mount Sinai and Samaritan's Purse are unified in our mission to provide the same world-class care to anyone and everyone who needs it. No questions asked."

NEW YORKS 'REWARDS' SAMARITAN'S PURSE

There is a law in New York that out-of-staters working in the state for more than 14 days must pay state income tax. The more than 90 Samaritan's Purse out-of-state contract employees are to be taxed.

This will include all of the thousands of visiting medical staff and other workers who have left home and family behind to respond to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's and Mayor de Blasio's call for help and have gone to New York to lend aid during the pandemic.

Samaritan's Purse is committed to New York for the duration, however long that is.

EASTER IN CENTRAL PARK

If Franklin Graham is anything, he is first and foremost a preacher. Samaritan's Purse is his avocation.

As a preacher, he plans on leading an Easter Sunday service from Central Park, albeit a lot differently from what his father Billy Graham did in 1991.

"Because our nation and the world are in crisis, I want to share a message of the unshakable hope found only in Jesus Christ this Sunday," the younger Graham told the media.

Mary Ann Mueller is a journalist living in Texas. She is a regular contributor to VirtueOnline