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Transcript

The Peace Bell of Portland · The Schmidt Show PDX

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Mike Schmidt, former Multnomah County District Attorney, recent coastal tide pool inspector.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's hard to say.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: And full-time podcaster now that those first two things are behind me.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: For those of you who don't know,
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: it was one of the lowest tides of the year this past week on the coast.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I got to be out there with my family exploring all the little tide pools,
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: the left behind anemones and the starfish.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: It was pretty incredible.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, today's lineup might look like we just brought together a potpourri
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: of different issues.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to start by talking about a local religious congregation.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: From there, we're going to pivot hard into Measure 114 and gun
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: Still stuck in the courts after four years, if you can believe that.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: Then we're going to dive into police accountability
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: and Portland's fledgling oversight system,
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: the one that voters approved back in 2020
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: and are just now six years later hiring legislators.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: And thank God I didn't have to book four different guests for that.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: Literally, I can thank God.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: Because today's guest is Pastor Mark Knutson of Augustana Lutheran Church.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: He's been in the middle of Portland's immigration fights,
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: gun safety advocacy, police reform conversations for three decades and more.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: So today, one guest, one through line, a lot of ground to cover.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Let's get into it.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the show, Pastor Mark Knudsen.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Mike Schmidt.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: You're one of my favorite leaders in this city, and I appreciate being on your show.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's a mutual admiration society.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's always good.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: We all need it.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, so you and I have gotten to know each other over the years.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: I've really appreciated your leadership while I was district attorney.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: I stopped by your church several times so that I could sit in the services and see
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: for myself what was going on at Augustana.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I've got friends who you've known since they were little children are still
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: in part of your congregation.
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  SPEAKER_01: But for folks listening, tell us a little bit about who you are.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm Mark Knutson, Senior Pastor of Augustana Lutheran Church.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Grew up in Portland.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Grew up at the Franklin High School, Glencoe Grade School.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Just had our 100th anniversary.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: St. Mark's Lutheran Church on 55th and Powell.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Grew from 60 members to 2,500 when I was a teenager.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Shut down the Mount Hood Freeway because my dad was a pastor.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: My mom retired with the black community.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: They knew what the freeway did through the black community.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And Southeast is immigrant community.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so I grew up in an activist congregation.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Ran track, raced against Prefontaine in the state championships, and I was a junior.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: How many times did
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: you beat him?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_01: Never.
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  SPEAKER_00: Quarterback of the football team at Franklin,
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: team captain on both of those, and soon by presence.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: All that stuff was probably informative.
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  SPEAKER_00: I had a mother that would push you out and say,
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  SPEAKER_00: you know,
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  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know anybody in high school when I started,
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: and she made me run for freshman class president.
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  SPEAKER_00: I lost.
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  SPEAKER_00: I was 15th out of 15.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: But she said, no, you get up and you lead.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: You do it.
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  SPEAKER_00: I had those kind of parents, and that everybody's a leader.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I learned that young.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: After University of Oregon,
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  SPEAKER_00: I became a teacher,
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  SPEAKER_00: a secondary ed, and I taught with the job coordinator for eight years, seven years.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Got very politically active during those years.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Again, out of U of O, same thing.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And luckily, I lost the election in 1980 to be the state representative.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: I would have been one of the youngest in the state at the time in my 20s.
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  SPEAKER_00: Won the Democratic primary, lost the general election.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I had to do a gut check.
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  SPEAKER_00: I was 28 years old.
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  SPEAKER_00: After that, I went to seminary.
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  SPEAKER_00: I dropped out for a year to go come back and work in the city.
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  SPEAKER_00: Runner off for a position with the Democratic Party at the time.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I realized I did.
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  SPEAKER_00: I want to go back and finish.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I quit for a year after two years.
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  SPEAKER_00: Plus, I wasn't that great a student.
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  SPEAKER_00: I had to work.
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  SPEAKER_00: I was delivering pizzas and cleaning,
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  SPEAKER_00: being a janitor and all those things you do to go through graduate work.
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  SPEAKER_00: I did my hospital internship.
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  SPEAKER_00: The thick of the AIDS crisis.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: The beginning.
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  SPEAKER_00: I was assigned the AIDS ward.
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  SPEAKER_00: And back then the people working would be wearing hazmat jackets.
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  SPEAKER_00: But we were taught by the CDC.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Thank goodness we had the CDC then.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: We're in a weird place.
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  SPEAKER_00: And they taught us, no,
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  SPEAKER_00: go in and hold the person's hand and pray with them and talk with them
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: and don't act like you're not going to die from it.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: I met so many people who are just amazing human beings.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: And some are my classmates from my work in Berkeley in the early 80s.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it just took you deeper in what it means to be human.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: When you're a hospital chaplain trainer, it's not about fixing people because we're not Jesus.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a doctor.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: It was about being in relationship with people who are going through
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: a major life change and learning about yourself.
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  SPEAKER_00: I was a runner.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: I had to think about what if I can't run someday?
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  SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
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  SPEAKER_00: Because I depend on a good run to get myself ready for the day.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And to be with people going through that and to see the wisdom.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it just undergirded how important it is that we work for systemic change for
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: the right things and that we have compassion for one another.
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  SPEAKER_00: We don't make judgments about people for any reason at all.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: And those are all shaping moments.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so my life's been dedicated to To evening the playing field.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: Overcoming that.
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  SPEAKER_00: I've grown enough to learn that that's not as quickly done as I've prayed.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm not going to give up.
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  SPEAKER_00: But I know a lot of people of all ages will never give up.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I pray that those who have not kind of woken up to that,
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  SPEAKER_00: and woke's okay,
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  SPEAKER_00: waking up just that,
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  SPEAKER_00: would see the beauty of who we are,
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  SPEAKER_00: see the obstacles,
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  SPEAKER_00: the systemic barriers, racism,
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: of Christian nationalism,
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  SPEAKER_00: of white supremacy, of wealth, of power, of greed, and say, let's overcome that.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's just a little part of my story is more.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's a dark time and people are losing hope.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: And we talked about how you're there and paying attention,
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  SPEAKER_01: politically active when Ronald Reagan becomes the president.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, it's amazing to zoom back and even listen to some of the Reagan speeches now.
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  SPEAKER_01: And you're like, well, that guy seems like a flaming liberal, right?
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  SPEAKER_01: But that's how far things have moved.
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  SPEAKER_01: You know, we make a little progress.
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  SPEAKER_01: We slide back.
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  SPEAKER_01: But I appreciate that there's hope and that you've held on to hope all throughout this.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Youth ministries are one of my major backgrounds.
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  SPEAKER_00: I was a national churchwide director for the Lutheran Church.
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  SPEAKER_00: 11,000 congregations, a million half teenagers.
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  SPEAKER_00: Had a national board of 25 teenagers.
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  SPEAKER_00: From Puerto Rico to the Caribbean to Alaska and doing international work.
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  SPEAKER_00: And these young leaders would be elected for three years.
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  SPEAKER_00: We passed more legislation as progressive.
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  SPEAKER_00: In fact,
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  SPEAKER_00: because of our youth organization board,
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  SPEAKER_00: the Lutheran Church did not take the grandfathering into the Americans
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  SPEAKER_00: with Disability Act because churches could do that.
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  SPEAKER_00: Our youth board said we need to do it right now.
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  SPEAKER_00: So we had youth on the board who had disabilities by intent, by constitution.
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  SPEAKER_00: Became the first BIPOC board of the church when I was still directing it.
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  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't just happen.
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  SPEAKER_00: Our young people, I was marching when I was a child.
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  SPEAKER_00: My parents took, I see babies on the pride march, you know, and carriages.
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  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
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  SPEAKER_00: Or no kings.
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  SPEAKER_00: Parents, get your kids out.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you have.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure your six and nine-year-old have been there.
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  SPEAKER_01: They were toddlers.
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  SPEAKER_00: In inflatable dinosaurs.
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  SPEAKER_00: My mom made me go here, Spiro Agnew, Law and Order, Vice President, David Douglas High School.
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  SPEAKER_00: My friend and I had to go out and listen to that.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then she took me here, Stalkly Carmichael of Portland State.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I knew who the truth teller was.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: But again,
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  SPEAKER_00: for our young leaders,
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  SPEAKER_00: if any young leaders hear any of this, you are not the leaders of the future.
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  SPEAKER_00: You are right now.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because our teenagers, when they graduate, they may end up schooled anywhere in the world.
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  SPEAKER_00: They may end up anywhere in the world.
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  SPEAKER_00: They may come home or they may stay home.
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  SPEAKER_00: But they're leaders right now.
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  SPEAKER_00: So they're voices.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'll fight for the voice of our young leaders forever and for our elders as well.
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  SPEAKER_01: And you've brought this,
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  SPEAKER_01: your life,
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  SPEAKER_01: all those experience,
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  SPEAKER_01: everything that got you to the church that you now lead here in Portland,
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  SPEAKER_01: Augustana Lutheran Church.
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  SPEAKER_01: And we talked a little bit this afternoon again about how when you came And
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: when you came in, you were in the enviable position of saying, here are my values.
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  SPEAKER_01: And, and this is what I think, you know, we should do is, is to lead this church.
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  SPEAKER_01: And your church was right there with you.
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  SPEAKER_01: So everything you're talking about, your congregation has been along with you lockstep.
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  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is not just, this is not you.
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  SPEAKER_01: This is,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know,
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  SPEAKER_01: the church that you're a part of the broader meta mega,
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: you know, national, but also local.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I what I find fascinating is, you know, the values that you're talking about.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, these are Portland values,
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  SPEAKER_01: you know, by and large, these are things that I think a lot of people identify with.
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  SPEAKER_01: Religion is one of those things that in Portland still seems to have a little bit of a strain.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: Portland has a strained relationship with formal religion.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
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  SPEAKER_01: Talk a little bit about that.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, how does that play into, you know, leading a congregation here?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: So in Portland, I grew up here.
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  SPEAKER_00: I went to church.
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  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't go play the senior faculty basketball game because it was on Lenton Wednesday night.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: I had to be in church.
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  SPEAKER_00: I got to run track meets on Good Friday still.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I grew up with those values and I honored them.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so when friends died at Franklin High School, where was the funeral?
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  SPEAKER_00: At St. Mark's, just up the street.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I saw the role church played with teenagers.
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  SPEAKER_00: To build confidence, to deal with life and death issues.
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  SPEAKER_00: I had seven friends die from my senior in high school through my freshman,
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: eight, freshman in high college.
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  SPEAKER_00: Car accidents, drownings, Vietnam.
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  SPEAKER_00: And if the church had not been there to help me walk through that,
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure how, all my friends too.
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  SPEAKER_00: Many didn't go to church, different backgrounds too.
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  SPEAKER_00: I learned to really honor then growing up, Islam, Judaism, indigenous spiritual leaders.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of parents I had.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so my little mind,
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  SPEAKER_00: let me just say,
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: anybody listening,
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: if you think Mark Knudson has the answer about faith, no, I'd be a fool to say that.
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  SPEAKER_00: I have a taste of the divine from my tradition and from the traditions of others.
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  SPEAKER_00: But I want to sit with my Muslim college.
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  SPEAKER_00: I've been shaped by many indigenous leaders.
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  SPEAKER_00: My first associate was Native American USA back in the 60s.
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  SPEAKER_00: Ramona Soto Rank, a lot of people remember that name.
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  SPEAKER_00: And by intent, she became the first associate.
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  SPEAKER_00: So to me, faith is not about my way of believing.
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  SPEAKER_00: Faith is the values from my faith that drive me to work for the common good,
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  SPEAKER_00: to measure our society by how the most vulnerable are doing.
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  SPEAKER_00: Justice means what?
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  SPEAKER_00: Right relationship.
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  SPEAKER_00: Justice does not mean criminal justice systems.
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  SPEAKER_00: No, justice, I want justice.
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  SPEAKER_00: But justice means you bring the high and mighty down,
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  SPEAKER_00: you bring the lowly up into new relationships.
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  SPEAKER_00: Not one over the other, but weaving something new.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's what it's about as people of faith.
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  SPEAKER_00: So Portland,
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: a friend of mine as a priest said,
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  SPEAKER_00: Oregon's the most spiritual state in the nation and the least churched.
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  SPEAKER_00: But you know, we've grown four times.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: We're probably one of the few churches on the West Coast that's four times
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  SPEAKER_00: the size it was when I got there.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: So we've got 200-some members to pushing 923 nations of birth.
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  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's people on every continent.
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  SPEAKER_00: Many indigenous leaders in the congregation, and our life together reflects that.
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  SPEAKER_00: We learn from each other, but we have common values.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: You join the church, it's not just a club unto ourselves.
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  SPEAKER_01: One of the things in touring your church today I was struck by,
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  SPEAKER_01: and I didn't know this,
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: and I've been around a little bit,
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  SPEAKER_01: is how many different community organizations make a home within your walls.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: And the ethos around that, I mean, that's not by accident.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's intentional.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's a choice of your congregation to welcome them in.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: Talk a little bit just about, I mean, it is a living building.
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  SPEAKER_01: This is not just show up on Sunday and sit in the pews and do what you need to do,
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: say your things, listen to the sermon.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: This is a living building where people are active and organizations
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: and community is coming and going all the time.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe tell people a little bit about that before we get in,
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: because we are going to move into the political questions of the day.
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  SPEAKER_01: But I want people to really get a sense of the richness of what the church
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: that you're leading and others, too, are bringing
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: to this community.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: I had the advantage as a pastor,
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: and I need to own that,
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  SPEAKER_00: of getting to travel the nation and always go to Lutheran Church to teach or preach.
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  SPEAKER_00: But then I went to three other churches that Sunday.
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  SPEAKER_00: I want to see who was doing what.
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  SPEAKER_00: Where was the energy?
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And out of that, I gleaned lots of ideas.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: So what's happening in Augustana is not Mark Knudsen's brilliant thinking.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's a notebook full of, wow, this is pretty cool stuff.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: As part of a church in my home church in Chicago when I was doing
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: the national work was Bethel Lutheran.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people don't realize there's large black Lutheran churches out there.
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  SPEAKER_00: And Bethel was one of those churches, they started Bethel New Life.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Bethel New Life.
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  SPEAKER_00: Was a leader in housing.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: They started the first recycling plant in South Chicago.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: And they created new life.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was all women, primarily men, but African-American women.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: They bought up housing.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: They remortgaged the church.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: It was a little stone church probably five times to buy more land to create low-income housing.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I saw that modelized part of it.
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  SPEAKER_00: I had the privilege to be a member there for eight years.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: And when the hospital was closing, they bought it.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: And they created a performing arts center.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I had this model that I was part of that was phenomenal.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so I brought that with me, that thinking.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I got to Augustana,
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  SPEAKER_00: and here's this church with a great history that was really on the ropes,
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: incredible people there.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're on the ropes, you don't see the goodness you already got or the leadership.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: When you come in new, you say, whoa, there's all kinds of leadership here.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: And there was.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: But we had just one program besides the church, and that was the preschool.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: We have the longest-running jazz gig in the state.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: Bronstein,
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Marilyn Keller,
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: George Mitchell,
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: Kevin Dietz, and we've had Patrick Lamb help start that back in the day.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: So we had that and we had worship, but we didn't have the other.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: So what we did is we started going to meetings in the community immediately.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm always honored when I hear people say the person's not their desk enough.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: My wife didn't appreciate that article.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: When I saw that, I said, are you kidding me?
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's how you lead.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: You don't lead from a desk.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: You just don't.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: You get out in the community.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so, Michael, I'm going to shout out to you.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: You are out in the community.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: I run into more places I've ever seen a DA in my life or most elected leaders.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's how you went out.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Listened.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: You talked to people.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I've done.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Same model.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Learn and then create.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: So the first program we brought in before the...
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Preschool was, we already had AA groups.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: We had more.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: We've got five, six, seven groups now.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: And they're incredible people.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: And they're my heroes because they are in recovery and they're finding life again.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: They're helping others on a regular basis.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: And they help the church.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: But we created a model intentionally not to rent.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Some churches get in trouble, they start to rent.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not going to judge that, but I'm just saying we went with a partnership model.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: So a friend,
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Latino woman,
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Marie Dahlstrom,
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Her mom is Ecuadorian,
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: just died recently, 100 years old, and her dad was Swedish, I think.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: And she came to me and said,
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: Mark, I heard you at a meeting, and you said you're open to partner.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start a program by invitation.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: You always start them by the invitation of the community.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't create them.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Community creates it for you and with you.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: I said, sure.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: So we started that one person.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: $500 budget, and today it's a $2 million nonprofit of the church called Familias in Axion.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: Largest health equity conference on the West Coast comes out of the church basement.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: So we've created 25 jobs there mutually.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Again, not rent, but if they can get back to the whole, they do.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: They want to.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about money.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's about partnering and weaving community.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: So out of that,
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Community Alliance of Tenants, I think a lot of people remember how big that grew.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: That started with one person.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: An office just done all for me.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: We said, take a free office space.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: That grew.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then they moved to a bigger building.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Interfaith Movement, Immigrant Justice is still going strong, but they spent 10 years there.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't ask a dime for space.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Lift Every Waste, Oregon, Measure 114.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: Would you all organize in there?
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Did we ask anybody?
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Of course not.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Gospel choirs, groups from out of town.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: In Medio,
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: a lot of my people,
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: my John Eisman,
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: John Eisman,
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: who's a high school music director,
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: but started this young adult choir that's world class now.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: 35, 40 practices a year, plus concerts.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: We don't charge to do that because music and the arts.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: My only thing is anything happens in the sanctuary, I'm going to give the welcome.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the welcome will be the most inclusive welcome possible
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: because too many people have heard been denied by faith communities or turned down.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so we've had young people,
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: many who have been able to grow into their transgender selves because
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: of our culture.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: One of my staff said I could come out as a member of this church as
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: a lesbian woman easier as a teenager than I could in my school.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because we created a culture of total diversity.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: And that's scripture.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: I got two Bibles with me.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: I carry these around.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is not mine.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is the stuff I study and learned.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: But it's so, we've created a community where we have eight, nine mountain prophets now.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: Literally have a voice there.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: The Society for Haitian Culture, Arts, and Social Support.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Court is there.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Jobs with Justice is there.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: The preschool is there.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: Viva, Migrant Network, the latest one we helped to start.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: So Meijer sends us the grants and so does Collins.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: We're the fiduciary agent to all the nonprofit status.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we help birth.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then everybody gets their own nonprofit.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's not just office space.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's infrastructure.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: No, we do the bookkeeping.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have big staff.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is a retired person who's doing the bookkeeping for me, who's awesome, you know.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we had to rebuild our staff.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: We hired,
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: called three of our 25-year-olds instead
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: of replacing my 25-year-old executive assistant because
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: the leadership is all around us.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody knows that leadership is already within.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: Where's the leadership over here?
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: In this community?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's right there.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: You have to open your eyes and see it.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: So it's been joyous.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: We decided not to have a janitorial cleaning company or staff at a certain point
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: because I can use some of that money to give jobs to people off the streets.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Not minimum wage, $25 an hour.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then everybody who comes in that church,
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: I would estimate if you had a turnstile there,
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: probably 50,000 turns a year at least,
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: if not more, outside of worship, everybody cleans.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: So Joe Smith served the other day.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: His thing was leave the world a better place.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: So at the end of the funeral, I said there were 500 people.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: I said, okay, Joe said leave it better.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: So everybody pick up, will you?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: Pick up on your way out.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: And what it does is it creates a spirit of community.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: And mutuality and appreciation,
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: many cultures,
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: many gifts of 45 people on staff there,
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: 80% would be Latino, African American, Native American, Asian American, and LGBTQ.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: By intent.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: You can't dream the dream without being intentional.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: So Kings, I have a dream speech.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: You get intentional behind it.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: You organize, you mobilize, you strategize.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: You just do that constantly.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Every job I've left, I've left women and people of color.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm by intent because that's how you build your staff.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: What is the church and politics?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: How do you balance those things?
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Everything's political these days.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: So talk to people a little bit about how do you navigate the politics in the church?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, the Holy Spirit was called the advocate by Jesus.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't do lobbying for ourselves.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: We do advocacy on behalf of those who are the most vulnerable,
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: the widow, the orphan, the immigrant.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: You go through Scripture.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's all over Scripture.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: God gets angry when the poor are trampled upon.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Believe me.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so it comes out of Scripture.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: It comes out of our faith tradition.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: So it's advocacy.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: And just so people know,
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: in the Revolutionary Congress,
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: the first Speaker of the House was a Lutheran pastor, one of the Muhlenbergs.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: The first famous statue in the Hall of Statues of
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: a clergy person taking their robe off with the general's outfit underneath is
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: a Lutheran, his brother.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, people know that.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because a friend of mine was running for—anyway,
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: another story,
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: a good friend who's a big-time judge back in West Virginia,
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: 25-year-old,
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: the head of the Senate back when he was a Democrat,
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: wanted to become ordained in his Lutheran committee.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: So he can't do that, both politics and be a pastor.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: He said, you don't know your history.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he called them out and said, go to the Hall of Statues.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Look at your American history.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: So faith, to promote our faith nationally would be wrong.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: For me to say everybody needs to be a Christian, no.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody has a right to believe or not believe as they have the right to be a human being.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: When we're born, believe me, we're all children of God from my perspective and from Scripture.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Genesis 127.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: Every human is created in the image of God.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now, people may not want to claim that, but from my perspective, that's it.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: So every child being born in the world today is sacred in every country,
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: whether dying of famine and war and our neglect as a country.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a moral imperative we have as people of faith, not to be silent.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: The other end of that, too, for Christians out there, know your Bible.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be happy to...
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: Have a Bible study with anybody who wants to, you know.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: I know a lot of your listeners know their scripture.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, Revelations, a lot of people think it's about end times and rapture.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's about a new creation, saving the creation.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what's one passage in the seventh chapter?
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Every tribe, nation, and tongue gathering around the throne.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: So the heavenly vision is all of us.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: What the heck are we doing on earth where we're dividing each other
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: and creating hate towards various groups because of the color of our skin,
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: your human sexuality?
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: No, scripture speaks about heaven is everybody.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: And Genesis 127 is made in the image of God.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you know you're Latin.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you got taught that when you were growing up.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Law school.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: I remember a couple things.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And what is the image of God in Latin?
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: Imago Dei.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: How do you spell Dei?
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Dei.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: So the creator is being, from a Christian standpoint, is being assaulted by our policy.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's incumbent that I speak out.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's about politics is weaving a just society in theory.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Come from different perspectives.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: Let's have a common vision of every child growing up in this country and world with
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: a life before them.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: If everybody bring their best thinking to that, maybe we create something new out of vision.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's faith.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: You vision, you dream what can be even when it seems impossible.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: So politics are the art of creating something.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, you can be engaged in that.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with that.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: IRS rules, we can give 20% of our finances and our time to advocacy causes.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: I can't endorse a candidate from the pulpit, but I can on the street.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: But I can certainly speak from the pulpit to end global warming.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: I can speak for voting rights, which are being assaulted and destroyed.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: As you know so well right now,
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: if every Christian in this country is not standing up with our Muslim friends
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: and our Jewish friends and our indigenous spiritualists and so many others, Baha'i,
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'll leave everybody out,
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Buddhists,
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: and people of goodwill,
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: we are going to lose something that we are an experiment that I value, a democracy.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Believe me.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so now is the time for people of faith not to be silent.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: But to speak up again,
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: to keep our voting rights intact,
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: to walk back to civil rights again, to end the hatred.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: So as people of faith, it's not about politics.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's about trying to do what is right.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I grew up in the Lutheran tradition.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Martin Luther,
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: you know, he helped lead the Reformation, didn't want to leave the Catholic Church.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted to reform it.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: But he had to stand,
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: when he was defending his writings,
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: he could have been burned to the stake, because others had been.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: He said, here I stand, I can do new others to help me God.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: So when members of my church came to me about marriage equality in the 90s
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: when I first arrived, I started doing weddings in the 90s.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, Jeannie Frazzini asked me to be a chief petitioner with basic rights.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I was one of three for the state on the freedom of marriage because they knew
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: the importance of moral voice to make call for equality.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's all there.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not about politics.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's about doing what is right.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: As a pastor of a church,
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: if I was silent now with this congregation I've got, they'd throw me out.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: They expect us to be on the streets.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: They want to know because they're ready and we have no infighting.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: People have come because they want to be part of the inclusive community.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: They want to take action.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: They want to sing together.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: They want to pray together.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: And they want to march together for the right reasons.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: And because of that, there's an energy.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we're growing.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Our faith calls us to be in the public square.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: It calls not to condemn others, but to weave community, beloved community.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm passionate
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: about that.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: I really believe that.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you,
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: as you talked about how the congregation is growing,
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: my comment was,
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: it seems almost like you're defying gravity as I look to other I mean,
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: you know, there have been books.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: Robert Putnam's Bowling Alone is about,
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: you know, this,
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: about our community spaces going away as we turn to more online and isolationist,
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: you know, things that we're doing instead of gathering together.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: And it seems like you're defying gravity.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I really believe what you just said is some of the secret sauce is
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: that people are showing up for that connection,
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: but also to do something, to be active, to be engaged.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: You have that right.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I had to start organizing when I was a five-year-old because we had to buy
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: a mitt, a hockey puck or something playing the street.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: So as kids, we started organizing.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: And luckily- That's right.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't, we didn't have allowances.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't have any.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: So you had to use your creativity.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope every child can grow up with a creative edge.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: Take your children to the coast with no money.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: Let them run the beach.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm sure you do.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because creativity is, we can't over-program our kids.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: We should not.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: We should give them time just to dream.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so- I mentioned this to you just briefly,
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: but this is such a special moment for me today is I took my kids to the car wash,
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: but not the car wash that we always go to, which is the drive through.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: And they like seeing the things hit the car and the lights and they make them.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_01: There's a giant TV screen fish tank at the one we go to on 82nd Avenue.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: But I was like, you know what?
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to go to the old school car wash and these kids are going to take
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: the big gun and they're going to spray mainly me and each other,
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: but also some of the car.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I had to pump so many quarters into that thing.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: But they left the car wash where I essentially made them wash my car.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: Not well.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: I had to do it.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of makeup work.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, Dad, that was so much fun.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: That was so cool, right?
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: What were they doing before I took them to the car wash?
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: They were on their iPads.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: and it's like just these little taking advantage of these moments of,
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: like you say, make the kids be creative, make them get out there and run.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's what's happening in Portland right now with adults as well as children.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: People want to come together.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: They want to take action together.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because people are free.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: And believe me, it's not the big one big action.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's energy points all across the city.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I cheer on every group who's doing work.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: Do it nonviolently.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Study King's Six Principles, nonviolent direct action.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Scripture reminds us we cannot be violent.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: We cannot be.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: One of the first things I did when I was district attorney,
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: of course,
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: you recall that I came into office early because my predecessor had left office
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: after George Floyd.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: Was murdered is I gave everybody in my office that worked on any
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: the protest cases, letters from a Birmingham jail.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: There you go.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so I handed that around.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: I bought it with my own money so that I could make sure I could give it to everybody
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: and everything.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know how many people, you know, really read it.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: But if you do,
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: it just that moment,
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: it spoke to me so much about,
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: you know, what we were seeing happening and the way to engage in the way.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: From the state, right?
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: From Caesar, right?
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like we are still here to enforce and have accountability,
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: but let's not forget the bigger fight for justice in our role in that.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's so true.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's, again, where we all of us can find those common grounds to do that.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: And for people that are watching,
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: so one of the things about keep throwing the church open all the time for me,
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: there's a reason for that, too, because too many people – And so I'm passionate.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: The people in Oregon, and I went to Oregon University.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: I go to tailgaters.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: I call it my tailgate mystery.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: I beat out the game.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: And because we talk all kinds of things.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: People don't go to church, but they're interested.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: They're fascinated, and they want to take action.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so for me, it's not about just the congregation.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: The community is about how we do it together.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: But a church can help weave it.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it's against not the pastor's thinking.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's the grounding we have in church.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: A creator who wants life for every human being,
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: who wants the widow and the orphan,
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: who calls us to do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with God.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: Amos, I just had a little aside.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: I was asked by one of my young people who became a labor organizer in his 20s.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: They were going to do the Burgerville strike.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: This was eight years ago, at least.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: And they asked me to be the closer.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: So they had elected city people, representatives, they had me go last.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: I just started quoting scripture.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: I said, God gets angry when the worker gets trampled on.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: Let justice roll down like waters and righteous like an ever-flowing stream.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is the fast I require that you give your food to the hungry carefully.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end, all these 20-somethings are going, that was amazing.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know that's what church was.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: That was great.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I was only quoting scripture.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: They said, you have an unfair advantage in public speaking.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't my words.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: It was stuff that speaks...
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: Again, and so part of my calling, because I'm a pretty everyday Oregonian.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've worked rural, urban areas.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: I want people to have an understanding that faith communities at their best are
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: about partnering with so many others to weave the beloved community.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: Again and again, that means preschool for all.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: That means healthcare for all.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: That means tearing down prisons and creating a whole new way of caring
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: for ones who've made mistakes.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: I've never met anybody that did not have redemption as a possibility.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: I've been on the Lifers Club.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: I've been there since I was in high school and college.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: I've never met a human being that I would say is beyond possibility.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: So if you can start there, and again, it's not about us.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's about the community we're a part of.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: And if you start there saying, who is being discriminated against in this country today?
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: Our black and brown siblings.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: The violence has taken place.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: The structural violence.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: Our LGBTQ violence.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: Our young people.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: We have a moral imperative.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I can use that word.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about you being moral.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's about a moral imperative to make our society right.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: I got to ring a bell in your church today.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: What does that have to do with Measure 114?
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well,
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: we originally were going to melt down handguns and rifles and shells from World Wars
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: to make a 600-pound bell.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's only one in the nation like that.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's the church in Boston, Catholic.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: I called the priest up.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: He said, the concept is great, but it sounds terrible.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: I love bells.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: So what we did is we put in a 600-pound bell,
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: and we're calling it the Peace Tower of Portland, Oregon.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to get carried away.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: And we used that bell.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: And we're melting down handguns and rifles, assault weapons.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to get some pieces.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: And we're going to make a new clapper.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: The clapper is 60 pounds.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: And make that a gun mill.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: Again, called the Peace Bell of Oregon.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: So when there was a mass shooting at Virginia Tech, we rang it 33 times.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: 32 were shot, plus the shooter.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: The news picked it up immediately.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: This is one of the few bells in the nation that's ringing 33 times.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: If there's a God, we're all going to be accountable, but we're all going to be welcomed.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody was troubled.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: They did what they did.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: So Bell's art, you know, you cannot do justice without music.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: We're a big supporter of the arts, music,
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: the arts,
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: all over our congregation, jazz,
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: community, gospel,
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: classical, whatever it is, country, genre, because the arts give us inspiration.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: To work for change.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: And no movement happens without them.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: So using the arts, whether it's a bell or music, to create change and move forward is critical.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: So everybody support the arts every way you can.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: So you're going to have a press conference this week.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what we're waiting for is the Supreme Court of Oregon is getting ready to rule
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: on Measure 114.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's already a state law.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think everybody has a sense,
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_00: you know, ban large capacity magazines, closed Charleston loophole, trainings.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: We wanted to ban assault weapons, too.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: We couldn't get that done yet.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: But this one's one of the most progressive laws in the country and from a state and
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: from people, not from legislatures, but from the people.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so at any moment, it's already state law, just hasn't been cleared the courts.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: The Oregon Supreme Court is going to rule.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: So for everybody out there,
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: if you hear on Wednesday,
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: the Oregon Supreme Court,
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: they'll announce what they're going to rule on,
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: is going to rule on Thursday morning about Measure 114.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: They'll say what they're going to do, but they aren't going to say what it is.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: Know that at 11 o'clock that morning, we'll have a press conference at Augustana.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: And we want to pack the church with hundreds.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: We'll live stream it to anywhere in the state of the world people can tune in.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: And because we want to really celebrate that moment that we've made this achievement.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: Not a church, not a group of faith leaders, the state of Oregon.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: Almost a million people.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: 400,000 in rural areas.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: We had a lot of support all around Oregon.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: Classup County, the three counties in mid-central Oregon almost all went.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not, it wasn't rural urban.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's more suicide in rural areas than there are in most urban.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a real issue.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so get ready and please come and join us.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be next step after that.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see what that's going to be.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the legislature's gearing up to get it implemented quickly.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess I want to say it publicly.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: Legislative leaders, you need to gear up and get this law in place now.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: How many lives have been lost in the four years since Oregonians passed it?
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: One of the caveat on this one.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_00: This is one of the largest,
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: I think the measure that got the freedom to marry on the ballot was one
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: the largest as well.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: One of the most diverse coalitions, not of paid signings should getters, but citizens should.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: High schoolers, Grant,
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: Franklin,
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: Lincoln, I started naming the schools around the state we did trainings with.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: They were out getting signatures.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: They couldn't vote.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: But what they learned was, we're afraid of gun violence in our schools.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: We can be engaged in democracy because we can get signatures.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: We had five-year-olds with their grandmothers getting signatures.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: One of the best editorials was written by a 20-year-old and two of our 90-year-olds
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: for the Oregonian.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: They ran it as a major article because it was intergenerational.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: The Muslim community will tell you, they passed it.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know why she said he'll tell you.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: yeah.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: He's a dear friend.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: You go, Mark, we did it.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: The Jewish community, Christian, people who are not faithful say we passed it.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody was the most eclectic, beautiful coalition.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: It was one of the most eclectic mass movements of peoples to get things done.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: And high school students, we ran two week-long seminars for high school students.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: The Eboche brothers put it together from grant.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_00: And we had...
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: Civil rights leaders coming out from Tuskegee to teach our young people for
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: a week long about nonviolence.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: So the measure was more than, to me, the process is as important as the outcome.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's educational.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: We learn.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, they say that a, what is it saying?
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: A good idea has many fathers, essentially.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: And this is one of those things where I think people are proud to be a part
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: of something that they know is going to save lives.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up in a hunting family.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up around guns.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: My dad took me to a gun safety course.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: That was normal.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: And just the things that measure 114 that I think why it did appeal to
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: so many people is because this is common sense stuff that is going
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: to make our communities more safe.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, if If you're listening to this, this will come out on Wednesday.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, not this Wednesday.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: It could be any Wednesday.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: This show will come out on this Wednesday.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: But any Wednesday,
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: the Supreme Court will tell you what they're going to decide,
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_01: which will happen on Thursday.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: So if it's this week,
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: they'll know on this Thursday that Measure 114, their decision is coming out.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: If not this week, then stay tuned to your following Wednesday.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: The sooner the better.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I trust the Supreme Court to do the right thing, but I can't influence that.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Measure 114 and Lift Every Voice is not the only political thing that you,
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: your congregation have been involved with.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: When I was running for office in 2020, there were other things that were on the ballots.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: And one of those was the Oversight Council of Police for Police Accountability.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: And this was so important in the wake of George Floyd.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: I believe that it ended up passing in Portland something
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: like 82% of them.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this was just unbelievable success.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: Again, across the political spectrum,
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: you don't get 82% without being across the political spectrum.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: People believe in accountability and oversight for our police.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yet here we are six years later, and it's still not possible.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_01: And in action, they're right now recruiting an executive director.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: So hopefully that's going to be filled.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: That role will be filled soon and things will start to happen.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, you know, it took so much to get this on the ballot.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: Then you educate people.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_01: It gets supported.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_01: what is the role that the church and the Albina Ministerial Alliance,
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_01: who is big backers of this, you know, play in this?
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then what do we do to keep the pressure on?
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: And a shout out to Darren Golden and a lot of other younger leaders who helped
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: to organize that campaign.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's really wonderfully done.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's part of the steering committee.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so we did teach-ins at different organizations around the city on that.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: It was a marvelous campaign.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: I know Darren.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know Darren.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: He helped us with Lift Every Voice, too.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: He was a consultant.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: He was in Eastern Oregon at the time.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: That was inspiring.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it shows that the Alabama Minister Alliance,
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: I joined it when I first came back to Portland when I joined
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: the oldest black pastors group in the state.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: And they welcomed me with open arms because I grew up in Portland.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: I knew the work going back historically.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when Dr. Haynes and I came to town at the same time.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: So he came from Houston.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: I came back from Chicago.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: Dr. Bethel came in.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: I started, you know, Linsmouse Lopez, the other pastor.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: And we prayed and sang together.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: My Lutheran colleagues, I love them, but we usually went right to the business.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: With the Albion Minister of Finance, you pray, you sing, then you organize.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's been a long, you know, after Kendra James, we marched Alberta, you know, King.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: We had thousands of us marching.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: Dan Handelman, got to lift him up.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he always has a little wagon with the speaker for us.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: And he was on the coalition.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: So it's been a long process.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: So this was another part of it.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: And believe me, on police reform, we have to ask the question, what is it not?
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: What's a new term?
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: Policing comes out of racism, unfortunately.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: And to control people.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so every time we go in federal court,
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: we'll be in next week or week from now,
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: Judge Simon, Dr. Hansen, I'll be leading for AMA.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: And our lawyers, Ashley Albies and Ryan.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: Peck, with all the players,
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: in the Department of Justice has become much more conservative when I was at
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: the table.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: He used to be an ally.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: So it's been a long process,
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: but we've said we've met with every mayor,
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: every police chief for the last 25 years outside of that saying – If you go
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: on Mosaic, this is just one piece.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: Police Accounting Board is one piece.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: We need to be dreaming what does it look like in the 21st century,
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: the diversity of who is doing public safety, how we do it.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: Police without guns.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uniform scare me.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: I wear a robe.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: I need to know there's power.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: Just me, but a robe gets power.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: You put on a uniform with all this equipment, that's power.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've been abused by power, you're going to be afraid.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: So the Police Accountability Board was a great movement.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: Another piece on the Mosaic, but not the end all.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: The end all will be when we really create something brand new that keeps people safe
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: but weaves community.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: So on that piece, don't touch it.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: Implement it immediately, city council, mayor.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to get that done because people – 82% is no –
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's no little thing.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: And we're overdue by a long shot.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm really calling out and do not take money from that or from Portland Street Response.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: Bless Joanne Hardesty for that one.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because that money is essential where it's at.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: Do not touch the Portland Clean Energy Bill.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_00: Figure out another funding.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you had to find it, find another source to build up officers, you know.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: And don't build up the same kind of things we have right now.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was just going to go into that.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think one of the strengths is that we do have a lot of people,
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_01: Albina Ministerial Alliance included,
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: who are thinking,
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: who have been for a long time thinking about public safety more holistically.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, do police play a role?
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: They play a role.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'll never forget.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_01: I got to tour the Angola prison down in Louisiana.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I've toured it twice.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: And when you drive onto that prison,
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: you can't help but understand that that was a plantation because it's still fun.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's just not, uh, you can't pull those things out.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: When I got to go to Montgomery, Alabama and tour, uh, the amazing, uh, museum.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_01: I've been there.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I appreciate so much the leadership of the Ministerial Alliance and others
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: in this community,
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: Commissioner Hardesty,
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: when she was on the commission,
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: of thinking more creatively and holistically about public safety.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that's Portland Street response.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know that.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_01: That is,
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_01: unfortunately,
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_01: I just saw that the,
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: what they call the PS3s, which is the folks who are, they can go and take reports.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: They're not sworn officers.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_01: They don't carry a weapon,
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: but they can show up and help you gather evidence and do those things.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_01: I just saw that a bunch of them got cut.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I just worked with a couple of them a couple of weeks ago.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I thanked them.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: They were incredible.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and in so many of the things, I once talked to a great friend of mine, Kevin Modica.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, man.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: Kevin's a dear friend.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: Kevin, you know,
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: he's a veteran of the Portland Police Force and he's gone on and done other things
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: in our community.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_01: In fact,
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_01: when I was in my family was under threat while I was DA,
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: Kevin was one of the first people to call.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Mike, I will stay up and I will sit on your front porch and nobody will.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: Kevin was there for me and my family in a big way.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: But talking to Kevin, I remember, I forget exactly, I'm going to misquote him a little bit.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: He said, Mike, it's kind of the rule of 99 and 1.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's like 99% of the time being a police officer is the most boring job in the world.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: 1% is the most exciting
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: job in the world.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: He's like...
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_01: But we built a police force for the 1%, not for the 99%.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so I've always just taken that wisdom that we can rethink this.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: So as I see the Portland Police Association is putting forth this initiative
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: to take PCEF dollars, our clients.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_01: A number of police officers is not an outcome.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's an input, right?
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_01: Safety is the outcome.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we can do a lot better and think more holistically about this.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I appreciate you all leadership because you all have been on that note for a long time.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we need to keep pushing there.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, as Dr.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: Bethel would say always when we're in federal court,
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: he goes, we want everybody to hominate.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: We want to create something where that happens.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: We know that.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm on my way to meet with Mayor Hales because we'd meet with the mayors.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't always get as many as we wanted, and we missed it all.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm on my way and I have to divert off Prescott because they're doing some construction.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: I go over to my sister-in-law's house on Wagant,
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: and here's a man on the ground with 10 police cars around him,
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: black man, guns drawn.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_00: I jumped out of my collar.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm on my way to meet the mayor on police reform.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: Start videocating this first.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I went up and said, what's going on?
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: And they said, well, we think he has a gun.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is like a couple of weeks after a bunch of white guys walked over
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: in Southeast Portland with brandishing weapons.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly they started to peel off.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_00: Not because of me,
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_00: because a 90-year-old black woman came out of our house screaming at him and said,
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_00: why do you do this to us all the time?
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then they left two officers there and they let the man get up.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, you're okay?
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, no.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, I'm a retired parole officer.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: Jeez.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: And they apologized and then they left.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I took that to Mary Hill.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_00: I was late in the meeting, but I said, you know, I just saw.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_00: Here you go.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not new, right?
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: So to own it, a system created, since we didn't, we had our own version of Jim Crow, of course.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: But policing became...
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_00: The way to institutionalize keeping people.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been to state prisons.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: I've been to juvenile justice homes and people working for nothing
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_00: and making products for other people.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_00: Something's really wrong with that picture.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_00: We should be building wealth so they can recover and move out and learn and live,
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_00: but incarcerated for the wrong reason.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, so we have work to do.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: And believe me, we say at the church, there's no retirement.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's no minimum age.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_00: So the babies, when they shout out, amen, all right, 100-year-olds are not going to give up.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_01: I want to turn finally to another thing.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, in the news,
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: you are inextricably in the news in Portland,
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: not you personally, but the causes, the things that you're working on.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_01: This past week,
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: a person,
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: a parishioner in your church,
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that's the right terminology,
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_01: Francisco Aguirre had to show up to the ICE facility for,
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_01: he was called in for a check-in.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_01: His story does not start there.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, his story as a human goes back much further.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: But in terms of in Portland and availing himself of sanctuary,
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'm aware of it starting in 2014 when he sought sanctuary in your church.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us a little bit about that backstory and then kind of take us up to date where we are.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_00: So when I first got to Augustana,
• 47:24
  SPEAKER_00: and this will be quick, I We started Familias with a different name.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was around for women to come.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_00: They learn things together and how to keep their families together with all the pressures.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: And they came in one day, the first year I was there, and said people freaked out.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: There'd been a raid.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: It was 1996, 97.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: And just right there in the church we were standing earlier,
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_00: the lower area, I said, you're okay.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: We're sanctuary.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_00: Did the congregation vote on that?
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I grew up with that understanding of sacred space.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I had to do teaching.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: I had to preach it for a month or two, too, to bring people on board.
• 47:55
  SPEAKER_00: But they were good with it.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: So we created that space.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_00: We never had to use it.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: But whenever they were raised,
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_00: I could go over to St. Andrews where a lot of people would gather.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_00: I could say, we're sanctuary.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody needs it.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_00: So that happened.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the day it happened, luckily the congregation had been trained.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: I was at the coast taking a family to put remains in the ocean.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm in my shorts, got my surfboard, we go out to Haystack Rock, and I get a phone call at 730.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_00: Francisco Aguirre, who I knew from labor work, is surrounded by ice.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_00: Can we bring him to church?
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because the church was nimble, I guess for all congregations, do your homework ahead of time.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_00: First decide you're going to do it because it's the just and right thing.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_00: I always go with the vision first and the action, then figure out how you're going to do it.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: Did we know how we're going to house somebody?
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't have it all figured out by then.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I could say within 30 seconds, go.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, 30 people in cars, go.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_00: Zoomed from Gresham Fairview to the church, because ICE had to leave.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't have a warrant.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the press, we called the press.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_00: They Zoomed.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: My secretary called her office manager and said, you're going to do a press conference.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing a burial speech.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so they got him there, gave her a statement to read, and all the Latino leaders showed up.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_00: It was a great press conference.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I had him sleep under the altar for two nights.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because I couldn't get back until Sunday.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew that if ICE came into that church, we have a long wedding aisle.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the red carpet, big altar.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: You drag a man out from under an altar and drag him out of a church.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's not a photo op you watch.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's the kind of footage.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lunch counter.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_00: Literally, it's a modern day.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so he lived for 81 days.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: He and I taught a lot of churches before that and during that.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: And my doctoral thesis is all about it.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: So it's called Always Step Out in Faith when the Seeds of Sanctuary,
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_00: Solidarity, and Hope in Troubled Times.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the beginning speaks about this terrible administration.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_00: When I wrote it, it was Trump.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: But at that point, it was President Obama.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so anyway, fast forward.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he was a brilliant leader.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: His son was so freaked out.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_00: His 18-year-old son was a Reynolds High School student.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_00: And his family came every night.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_00: But he lived in the sanctuary.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_00: We did planning every night.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: His son was beautifully named Moses.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: Moses begged his dad to go back to El Salvador.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_00: He was so traumatized by ICE and by the Department of Human,
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_00: because he had to come in separately from the family at one point.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_00: He begged to go back to El Salvador, to the little village where the relatives were.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_00: His dad said, no, no.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_00: But somebody got him money and he went.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_00: Francisco calls me up.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: I rush to the house.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: Moses was on a soccer field in a little village.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_00: Three men with the police at the other gate watching.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: Jumps the fence.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_00: Mass.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_00: ARs.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_00: Merge it.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_00: We're at Francisco's seeing pictures of real time.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_00: His son in a box.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: We out of time?
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: Keep going.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's finish the story.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_00: His son in a box and they wanted $5,000 to bury him by Friday.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_00: We raised $3,000.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_00: We got the other two from others because extortion.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so your son, no funeral, just you want your son buried.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's what our immigrant families are up against.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is no false sending them back to someplace.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't come here because they just want to come move to America.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's just because of economic pressures, war, violence.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's why people would want to leave their village if you liked it.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so my prayer from our sanctuary work is it opens hearts,
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_00: minds, compassion, love in our communities.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody gets to know somebody you know who you don't know who's from another country.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_00: Hear their story.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: Change hearts.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it's all about.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about one family.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's about all the families.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_00: Mark Hatfield.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the Republican senator, he, I don't have his quote, I gotta find it.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: I heard him once say, you have to tell the one story to talk about the millions.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: Some of Vietnam at the time,
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_00: but you know,
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_00: somebody who's killed,
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_00: a family blown up by napalm, opens the door to what's going on.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what Francisco's story is.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's a story we're highlighting on purpose because there's so many other people.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_00: We've had other members we've been on asylum for.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: I've got some right now I'm working on.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_00: Had some other members taken up to Tacoma.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not the only story in our church even.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 51:59
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_00: So the key in the story is to open hearts, souls, minds.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's the lunch counters.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's the police dogs.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's the hoses in Birmingham.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_00: And they got people to wake up and go, this is wrong.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is not what we are.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it is who we are.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's not who we want to be.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's not who we want to be.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_01: Francisco's story is incredible.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_01: And like you say, you know, we need to find those stories because it's not just about him.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's about so many people are represented and face things
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_01: that we will never hear their story, unfortunately.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: Where is his story today?
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because he had a meeting this past week in the ICE facility.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_01: Where do things stand?
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I do want to give a shout out to Billy Williams,
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_00: who was a previous U.S. attorney, because Billy...
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_00: He was facing deportation in Francisco for illegal reentry,
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: and we fought it when he was living in Sanctuary.
• 52:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'll never forget being in the U.S. Attorney's Office.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_00: I won't say it's not real because it's real.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_00: It came out.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the head of ICE was there, and we were civil.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I love everybody, but sometimes I can't.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll never forget it.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_00: Billy said, we're going to drop illegal reentry, which kept Francisco being imported then.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_00: And his team was not happy because many were working on that case.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I got a shout out to him because I was courageous in that moment.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that gave us a lot of time.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_00: So what's going on?
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then Governor Cotet signed the first part and she's done in Oregon.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's not been publicized very much, but people need to know she had the courage.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_00: Dr. Hennessey and I worked with her and our legal team to get that through.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then we had a grassroots.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_00: We were doing a lot of grassroots work.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_00: So we had 500 letters delivered to the governor's office, you know, to sign this.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_00: And she did.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I know she'll probably get critiqued from her opponent.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, governor, own it.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because right now we want courageous leaders.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_00: We're seeing the voting across this country, right?
• 53:51
  SPEAKER_00: Those who play middle of the road.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_00: And to be courageous on behalf of immigrants.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_00: John Kennedy wrote a book on immigration and how that enriches a country back in 1959.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_00: So own it.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_00: I pray that Moore will take that moral stand and feel strong about it and not back away.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_00: Same with some other cases.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_00: I know they're coming forward where people can stand or not.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_00: So his case right now is we're in the process for asylum.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's no reason for him to be called in.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_00: But they want him to check in back in January.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_00: So they want regular check-ins again.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_00: We were really afraid that he was going to be deported the other day.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_00: Monday, he probably would have been.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_00: But because of the community turnout, people turn out.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_00: My count of 1,000, but probably 500 people.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I've always gone in with him, and they denied this this time.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_00: And they tried to take me to custody a year ago, same reason for another person.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the head of ICE from Seattle said after the first altercation a year ago
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_00: that it really didn't happen,
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_00: but we had camera footage that we gave to one of the stations.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then they said, okay, it did happen.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then they said, well, he can go anytime he wants.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I told the guard that.
• 55:01
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I stood inside the building, not all the way in because I wasn't going to leave.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because people go,
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_00: you go into a little tiny room and he's in this room,
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_00: but you may have 60 people in there.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_00: You may have five.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_00: And these agents come out,
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_00: you've probably been there, and these agents come out of a side door and take you.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I had one man give me his running ring,
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_00: his wallet to his wife, and they brought him back out.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_00: They knew me and they weren't happy I was there.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_00: They put a bracelet on him, you know.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_00: But to have, how can I say it?
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_00: The legal support's vital because the lawyers can get in.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_00: What we had before that was also spiritual support.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because when I'd be there with him,
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_00: if you were in the room, there'd be other women with their children crying.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_00: I could sit there and pray, even though I didn't speak Spanish.
• 55:43
  SPEAKER_00: We could pray together, hold hands.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_00: So having that spirit, and our emigrant community is very spiritual.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to blanket statement, but very much so.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_00: So prayer, having somebody there, the collar.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_00: I don't wear a collar because I need to show.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_00: I wear the collar to show that it's symbolically to show the faith community is present.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_00: I got a shout out to so many colleagues now.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_00: Who stepped up?
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_00: All over the state and nation.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just any one group of us, many, many, many.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_00: But you wear it in, you know, Pride March.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_00: I wear a color, I wear a pink stole, you know?
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_00: I go walk with the queens and then go up over here with this,
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_00: because you want to show the presence of faith communities in a world where
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_00: so often they're on the other side of the issue or perceived to be.
• 56:25
  SPEAKER_00: Perceived to be, yeah.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_00: Or a certain group is.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_00: Majority,
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_00: I would say,
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_00: I can't quote, but I'd say majority mainline, you're right there with the people.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what I wear.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm in a pink shirt today, right?
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_00: You seldom see me.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm going to go on a program,
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to wear the collar just to say,
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_00: because otherwise you're kind of invisible.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_00: And like police reform,
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_00: if I were in the courtroom without a collar and a suit,
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_00: people would probably think I'm with the FBI.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_00: If I wear my collar.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_00: You have that look about you.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_00: No, no.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_00: The one white guy with the black pastors.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_00: The black pastors often don't wear collars.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_00: But I do just to make sure I'm identified as part of
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_00: the faith community who's standing up on this issue.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's not my need, but it's important to do it.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think we're going to end the major part of the interview there.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate you so much for walking us through those things.
• 57:08
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_01: just as we're wrapping this portion up,
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_01: because, you know, there's a game show portion.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_00: Let me say two.
• 57:17
  SPEAKER_00: My doctoral thesis, I'm going to publish now because it's timely.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_00: But the heroes in that thesis are not the pastors.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's not the churches.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's the immigrant community.
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's the LGBTQ community, stand for rights.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's the black and brown community.
• 57:30
  SPEAKER_00: So our job is to come alongside.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_00: And my congregation is diverse.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not,
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a pastor for a multicultural,
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_00: multinational, multigenerational congregation, we say.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_00: And with, you know, human sexuality across the board.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not about us.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_00: We're servant leaders.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_00: And we use whatever we can to walk alongside.
• 57:46
  SPEAKER_00: The leaders are those who are on the front lines of it, who are being persecuted literally.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_00: And again, as a nation, if we don't stand up, you know, in Nazi Germany, the church was quiet.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the famous poem that that pastor came to the church I grew up in about
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_00: the first they came for the socialists and they came for the Jews.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_00: And they came for me.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody spoke for me.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_00: The church, when it's silent, the faith community, we play into the system of wrong.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_00: So all my colleagues out there, be bold.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_00: But it's life-giving, too, because people are ready to come alongside with you.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_00: And again,
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_00: to the leaders in the city and all the people around the state and the people
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_00: of no faith but are people of goodwill, you're awesome.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_00: Let's walk together.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_00: Let's do this together.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I can't say it any better than that.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_01: I was going to say, you know.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_01: You want to play a game?
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_01: I might know the answer to the questions.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, to your point,
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_01: the 500 people who showed up for Francisco and he's not taken into custody.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_01: Now, we'll never know whether that.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_01: That was the determinative factor or so many other things.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_01: But when community shows up for each other, you know, good things can happen.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_01: It does.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_01: It really does.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_01: So people listening out there,
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_01: just tell them how can they get involved with any of these things,
• 58:55
  SPEAKER_01: your church or any of the different
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_00: things that you're working on?
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_00: Definitely.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, one thing that we'd learn as pastors early on,
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_00: as a teacher too, from the Christian community, we're not Jesus.
• 59:06
  SPEAKER_00: So you can't do everything.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_00: You can't fix everything.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_00: You can't heal everything, but you can do something.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_00: So find that spot that works for you.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_00: You may be a letter writer to make sure the initiative gets implemented quickly for 114.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_00: You may bring food to a family that's hurting because they can't go to
• 59:22
  SPEAKER_00: the food bank right now because they're afraid to go outside.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_00: You may be a caregiver who can find a family because our immigrant communities care
• 59:28
  SPEAKER_00: for their elders.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_00: You can't afford nursing homes and things.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_00: So if a caregiver in a family is taken,
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_00: you can have a person laying in bed with nobody coming home to take care of them.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_00: Where are those places you can plug in?
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_00: Where are the neighbors you can find?
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_00: The church, call us up.
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_00: I love good calls.
• 59:45
  SPEAKER_00: I get enough ones saying I'm not going to really go to heaven.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's all right.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone has their own opinion.
• 59:52
  SPEAKER_00: But no, there's lots of places.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_00: Every third Sunday of the month, we do Sanctuary Sunday.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_00: Two-thirds of the people there are not members of the church or a church.
• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_00: They're coming because they want to find out what can we do.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we do trainings.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_00: And there are so many good organizations around the state and the nation.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, again, it's not any one place, it's many.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_00: But if you want to do something through the church, just email, call us up.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_00: I've got a great team of people, and we'll get you going.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_00: And one small action,
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:00:21
  SPEAKER_00: there's this great,
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_00: what's that last snowflake when I was doing global justice,
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_00: you know, of a, I don't want to see tree limbs bow, but break.
• 1:00:28
  SPEAKER_00: But it was this idea that a limb could have enough snow on it,
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_00: it's still going to hold on, but one flake and suddenly.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_01: Can be the difference.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one voice, one moment with others.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_00: And justice work is life-giving.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of elders I know are going out and volunteering in new ways,
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_00: and they're finding a whole new sense of life and purpose.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what it's all about.
• 1:00:51
  SPEAKER_00: And nobody, again, is too old.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody's too young.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody's needed.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_00: So there are lots of ways.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_00: We'll help you plug into many different places.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_00: Ecumenical Ministry of Oregon, Catholic Charities.
• 1:01:00
  SPEAKER_00: Start going down the list.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_00: Latino Network, you know, Pacoon.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_01: All over the place.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's an opportunity for everybody to plug in.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_00: The right place.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_00: And what you find is community.
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_00: And again, if you don't go to church, I'm not pushing you to go to church.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_00: But what do you do in church?
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_00: We pray.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_00: We hug.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_00: We share peace.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_00: We share values to go make a difference.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_00: When we leave, we don't leave to go home and just have a dinner.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_00: We go out to make a difference.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's it.
• 1:01:25
  SPEAKER_00: So if you think of faith communities,
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_00: think of coalescing the human beings to have deep relationships,
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_00: profoundly called to care for the ones who are the most on the edge.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_00: Including people in the church.
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_00: We have many on the edge in the church.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_00: And there's life in that.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you have any kind of resource to share, it could be just you.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_00: It could be your personality.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_00: It could be your music.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_00: It could be your wealth.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_00: Put it to work.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_00: And we can make change happen.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_00: And change is going to come.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you heard it here, everybody.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_01: Reach out and find a way to plug in.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_00: So we've created a game.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_00: Oh,
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_01: it's a lot.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's called Hang the Hymnal.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_01: Hang the hymn.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_01: I've never tried this before.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, I'm going to hand you my iPad.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_01: You're going to hit the button.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_01: And what it's going to do is it's going to give you a hymn.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because Augustana, huge, as you said, supporter of the arts, big into music.
• 1:02:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that you have strived in your church to incorporate as much music
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_01: from different traditions.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_01: And everything else to help make it an inclusive, welcoming place.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_01: But what this game is going to do is it's going to just give you a hymn and you have
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_01: to rank it one to ten.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_01: But you're not going to know the other nine you get.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_01: So you're going to have to go in order.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_01: And in the end, we're going to see how well you did in terms of your own preference.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_01: There's no wrong answer to this, but you can grade yourself at the end.
• 1:02:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to pick one to begin with.
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_01: So hit the hit the yellow button.
• 1:02:47
  SPEAKER_01: But you're going to have to kind of.
• 1:02:49
  SPEAKER_01: Because this is also an audio program,
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_01: you're going to have to tell
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_00: the listeners what it is that you- Do you want to get
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_00: to hear the
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_01: music or not?
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_01: No, you don't get to hear the music.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_01: So hopefully it's one you recognize.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_01: But if not, just rank it at the very back.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_01: This goes number nine.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_01: So tell us what the hymn is and you rank- In Christ Alone.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_01: In Christ Alone.
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_01: Where's my glasses?
• 1:03:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I know the hymn, but it's probably not what I put in my top 10 necessarily.
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_00: The lyrics, of course, in Christ alone, my hope is found.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_00: He is my light, my strength, my soul.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:03:24
  SPEAKER_01: So just tap the number that you want to assign it to, and it'll give you the next one.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:03:29
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go 10.
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_00: What a friend we have in Jesus.
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_00: That gets in the top five.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'll put that number five.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'll put number six.
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_01: So for people listening,
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_01: if you want to watch this,
• 1:03:38
  SPEAKER_01: you will be able to actually see the video of the ranking,
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_01: hopefully, if I do everything correct.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_01: When this is up on YouTube.
• 1:03:46
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing Grace.
• 1:03:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's everybody's number one.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_00: But there's others I might put ahead of that because of the words that are about social justice.
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'll put that number one because that's Silent Night.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_00: Got to put that right in there.
• 1:03:57
  SPEAKER_01: So you're going to run out?
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_00: I love Joy to the World, but I'll put that because we've seen that Advent and Chris.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'll put that number five for now.
• 1:04:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's well with my soul.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's a great, you know, we need to be well with our soul about now.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_00: But I'll put that number seven.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a mighty fortress.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a Lutheran.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_01: When all the devils fill the land.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_01: It was part of the lyrics.
• 1:04:20
  I'll put that number three for now.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, how great that art.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_00: Great gospel hymn.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_00: That crosses all our genres.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you can go to Pastor Hensley Church and hear that song.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_00: You'll hear it ours.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, but...
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_01: See, this is where it gets hard.
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_01: You've run out of your top five.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I'll put that one...
• 1:04:39
  SPEAKER_00: Number four, out of respect for a lot of my colleagues.
• 1:04:41
  SPEAKER_00: Great is thy faithful.
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_00: Another great.
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now I need to back up.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_01: See, you can't
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_00: back up.
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's the trick of the game.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_00: Great is thy faithful.
• 1:04:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's a closer.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_00: Holy, holy, holy.
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_00: Lord God Almighty.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's Trinity Sunday.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's the top 10 list.
• 1:04:55
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for playing the game.
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you picked a pretty easy list, but yeah, they're good hymns.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I have to tell you a quick story.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_00: Please.
• 1:05:16
  SPEAKER_00: So our organizing convention of the Lutheran Church, we had three bodies come together.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_00: I was in my 30s when we did that in Columbus, Ohio.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_00: So big merger.
• 1:05:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we had a very radical,
• 1:05:28
  SPEAKER_00: great radical group out of Pennsylvania that was going to take on the church
• 1:05:31
  SPEAKER_00: because they really wanted something done now.
• 1:05:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so the strategy was if they crashed the assembly...
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody starts singing a mighty fortress is our God, which is, you know, Luther's classic.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_00: After the first verse, everybody sort of forgot the word.
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody has hymns in front of them.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone knows the first verse.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_00: The first verse, but it's, you know, for today, the lyrics, I mean.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the last person, all the devils fill the land.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm not going to call anybody a devil, but what we're doing is that.
• 1:05:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't have any concepts, nobody's pitchforks.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_00: But collective,
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_00: mobs, governments, forces that work to destroy human beings, we've got to stand.
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_01: Let's end there.
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Pastor Mark Knudsen.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_01: That was Pastor Mark Knutson of Augustana Lutheran Church.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_01: And if today's conversation showed you anything,
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_01: it's that one congregation in Northeast Portland has had a hand
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_01: in basically every major civic fight this city has had for at least
• 1:06:40
  SPEAKER_01: the last three decades.
• 1:06:42
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to see it for yourself,
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_01: Augustana holds services Sunday mornings at 2710 Northeast 14th,
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_01: jazz preludes included.
• 1:06:51
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're not the Pew on Sunday type, that's fine.
• 1:06:54
  SPEAKER_01: There are plenty of other ways to get in.
• 1:06:57
  SPEAKER_01: Lift Every Voice Oregon on the gun safety side,
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_01: the Interfaith Movement for Immigrant Justice,
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_01: or the Albina Ministerial Alliance on Police Reform.
• 1:07:05
  SPEAKER_01: All places Pastor Knutson is already plugged in and all places that could always use more hands.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_01: As always, you can catch us wherever you get your podcasts.
• 1:07:15
  SPEAKER_01: Subscribe, leave a rating.
• 1:07:16
  SPEAKER_01: And if you've got thoughts, complaints, or a guest we should be talking to, drop us a note.
• 1:07:21
  SPEAKER_01: We read everything and we really appreciate your comments.
• 1:07:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's the show this week.
• 1:07:25
  SPEAKER_01: Hope to see you again next time on The Schmidt Show.