Traveling upstream: A call to Wyoming’s faith leaders to pursue justice

Ronald Rolheiser tells the story in his 1999 book, “The Holy Longing,” of the residents of a town by a river who were consistently pulling drowning people out of the water. They did not know where the drowning people came from, but always cared for them, until one day it dawned on them to go upriver and see why they were drowning.

Faith communities are often like this. We are very good with charity but fail to go upstream and confront why people are drowning. The needs are overwhelming, yet we are afraid to stir the waters lest we appear “political.” However, if we want to stop the suffering, we must engage in the social justice work needed to stop the drowning. For it was Jesus himself who unabashedly confronted those very systems of oppression. Are we afraid to follow him all the way? In the end, have we helped or have we enabled or even encouraged more bodies to be thrown into the river? Is it our goal to just help these poor drowning people, so we can feel good about ourselves, or are we ready to stop the drowning?

Justice isn’t political, it’s the gospel. It can be seen as divisive, but it is what we are called to do and be as people of faith. You know the line from Mica: “God has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does God require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” This is not an either/or. As people of faith, we are called to care for those in need, but we must also work for the kind of justice that will free them from their suffering so that the drowning will cease. 

This year’s legislation in Cheyenne was woefully short of any justice, nor kindness for that matter. For instance, having successfully passed through two Senate committees, Sen. Cheri Steinmetz’s Senate File 124, “Illegal immigration-identify, report, detain and deport,” was designed to root out immigrants living in Wyoming who had entered the country illegally. However, it was also plagued with language essentially permitting racial profiling. It had no regard for the children who might come home from school and find no parents and sought to criminalize Wyomingites who knowingly associate with undocumented immigrants. The bill also made it a felony punishable with prison time and hefty fines to knowingly transport or shelter a person who came into the country illegally.

House Bill 72, “Protecting privacy in public spaces act, and Senate File 62, “Sex-designated facilities and public schools,” while seeking to protect Women’s privacy, opened the transgender community to not only their right to privacy, but their safety. Laws like these seek only to stigmatize, degrade and oppress.

Justice shouldn’t be a partisan issue, yet law after law was put through with no regard for the countless lives they would harm. We, as people of faith, have been called time and again to seek justice, yet too many sit on the sidelines, shaking our heads while saying, “isn’t it awful?” Well, the session is over, but the work is not.

We have sat by too long watching while, tragically, many a “Christian” has hijacked the faith in favor of hate, intolerance and downright heartless cruelty. Does your God say “judge” (I’m pretty sure we were explicitly told not to judge) or reach out? Is it not our call to show love to the scorned, the ridiculed and the outcast?

You may have reservations about populations such as the transgender community. I do not, but even if I did, that’s not my call. My call is to care for them like any other neighbor. Your call is to treat them like any other neighbor. You may have reservations when it comes to immigration. Fine, continue your discernment, please. But they, too, are our neighbors.

Being Christian is not a spectator sport. We must risk going against the rapids to get to the source of the problem. You don’t have to support a party or person. That would be political. But we are all called to be on the side of justice.