Stephen Reeves on the church's responsibility to advocacy

Stephen Reeves, executive director of Fellowship Southwest, discusses "the mission of advocacy".

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George Mason:
Welcome to Good God, conversations that matter about faith in public life. I'm your host, George Mason, and we are here with Steven Reeves who is going to talk with us in our continuing series called Good Politics. Stephen is a great friend of mine and a fellow Baptist of like mind. He is the new executive director of an organization called Fellowship Southwest, which is an ecumenical organization of churches and individuals and beyond, even friends, working on matters of public interest, especially on advocacy work at the border in immigration and other things as well that we're going to talk about today. Stephen, welcome to the program. I'm so glad to have you with us.

Stephen Reeves:
Well, thank you so much for having me, George. I've appreciated watching the program over the years and happy to be a guest. Thanks.

George Mason:
Well, terrific. So Steven comes to this work honestly in that he is a lawyer and also has spent a good bit of time in the advocacy space working for Baptists in Texas at one point on that, and also through the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship on a national basis, and now coming back to this role. But you'll continue, I know, to work on a national basis, but also now a statewide too.

George Mason:
So, Steven, I think that the shift that you and I have experienced... I'm a bit older so it feels even more significant to me than maybe to you... that we have experienced in the religious world is that increasingly individuals in congregations are finding their voice. They're recognizing that the split that we have had between religion and politics, between personal faith and public life, is a false dichotomy. And that we've got to figure out a way to engage in the public square and to bring our faith with us, but in a way that honors the full breadth of our constitutional Republic, and also our faith is directed as much toward our neighbor as defending ourselves.

George Mason:
So when you think, someone asks you in the elevator and says, "Hey, why are you doing all this advocacy work?" What's what's your quick speech about that to people of faith?

Stephen Reeves:
Well, for me it starts with loving our neighbor, that this is another avenue to love our neighbor. In the churches that I've worked with over the years, they have very compassionate hearts. They have been dedicated, charitable work and mission work, that's what we would call it, but haven't thought systemically. They haven't made that jump from missions to advocacy, or charity to justice.

Stephen Reeves:
And so for me, it is helping encourage people to do that. And probably just as importantly, trying to model and encourage them to do it in the most healthy way possible. Because while I think you're right, there's been this shift in the recent years, there's been several decades of a particular type of faith, and maybe a particular type of Baptist engagement in politics and public policy, that has been a big turnoff for folks. And so part of it's saying, "Okay, we're encouraging you to do this, but let's do it a different way and try and do it in a more healthy way, holistic way, that's less divisive and more focused on folks who are suffering at the margins and neglected, or suppressed, or ignored."

George Mason:
Right. So to that end, I know you've written a book with Katie Murray called The Mission of Advocacy. The title is interesting in that respect, because I think it's really almost a sucker punch because you use the language of mission, which is really in the sweet spot of many Christians and especially of a more conservative bent, certainly Baptists. And then you talk about the mission of advocacy. So how do you relate the two of those things, I think, for the common person who grew up thinking missions was the saving of souls over in Africa, or in Indonesia, or someplace like that while advocacy is more of a public policy kind of [inaudible 00:04:49]?

Stephen Reeves:
Yeah, obviously that title is very intentional in that way. And I think for a lot of folks within our kind of Baptist, there's already been sort of a movement towards a more holistic mission work. Transformational development. Community development. Asset-based community development. Really meeting the needs beyond just sort of that traditional evangelist, which is good.

Stephen Reeves:
But that same sort of jump to holistic hadn't happened when it comes to advocacy. And so I tie those words together in large part too, because I believe for a local congregation, the best place to start thinking more systemically to thinking more about advocacy is what they're already committed to in what they would consider mission work. Most of our churches and folks that I know are committed charitably in their community, which is great, but they have kind of made that separation in their mind between that work and what is politics. And so we're saying, "No, those can be very tied together and be a fruitful place to start exploring advocacy for the church."

George Mason:
Your co-writer, Katie, is a member of our church and she likes to use an analogy about this I know. It goes back to the old line of, "Give a person a fish and that person will leave for a day. Teach a person to fish and the person will eat for a lifetime." And she about that, that is of course like the role of charity. You give someone who is hungry, food. But then the role of teaching the person to fish is about self-reliance, and it moves up the scale of mission work to a more holistic of view of things.

George Mason:
But then the question comes, what if that person takes a fishing pole and goes down to the pond and finds that there is a fence that's been put around that pond with a padlock on it so that the fisher can't fish? Well, advocacy work is figuring out who owns the fence, and who put it up, and how this access has been denied, and why there's no opportunity for the person to fish.

George Mason:
So, I think what you're saying is that we're pretty good in our congregations at engaging in really quick, short-term fixes of helping people in need. We're even pretty good at helping people learn to read, or learn to cook, or to rehabilitate them in some way. But the public policy thing goes deeper, doesn't it?

Stephen Reeves:
Absolutely.

George Mason:
To what's going on in our city, and our county, and our state, and our nation with our laws that make it difficult for people to really thrive?

Stephen Reeves:
That's right. That's exactly right. That's a good analogy. I've also heard the one of being at the river and there's a drowning man comes by and you pull them out and save them. That's a good act. Then another one comes by and you do the same thing. Eventually you need to ask, "How are these folks getting in the river? Who is throwing them in the river?" And so we're talking about going up river, or going to find out who owns that fence.

Stephen Reeves:
I think there are Christians that take their citizenship seriously, that derive their political convictions from their faith, but sometimes haven't found churches where you explore that. And so part of what I'm trying to do in our churches and to whomever is listening, is sort of help folks make that cultural adjustment in our churches to say, "Just like someone feels called to missions, other people feel called to advocacy." Their faith leads them to the public square, and you should be able to explore that in a local church.

Stephen Reeves:
For too many churches I know that has not been there, and there's a lot of reasons behind that. But I think if the church is not a place where Christians and people of faith can explore how their faith and their convictions impact their political convictions, and how they vote, and how they act as citizens, then where will that happen? Unfortunately, I think it happens on cable news and social media just by party line, and that is kind of getting it backwards. So this thing is something we have to as Christians wrestle with, with other Christians.

George Mason:
And I will tell you, this won't surprise you, that while there are some who cheer me when I speak in terms of advocacy and politics from the pulpit, never partisan ways, although everyone believes that they know exactly the party you belong to as a preacher based on what you say. Very interesting. But the fact is a lot of people, when we try to do this, they become very uncomfortable with it. So part of it is learning how to speak about it, but part of it is, I think also, learning to look into our own texts and realize that scriptural texts are rich with opportunity for us to reflect upon that. The good Samaritan story is one of those, right? The man goes down and is attacked by a criminal and is hurt and harmed and all of that.

George Mason:
Well, obviously it makes a wonderful parable, and it tells us a lot about helping and caring for our neighbor. But wouldn't it be better, of course, if there was good lighting on that road and if it was patrolled well, and if the criminal element weren't able to thrive and beset the man? Wouldn't it be great if there was health care for the man when he was hurt and it wouldn't have had to depend upon charity? That sort of thing. So all of these things are factors that you can look at, and we might find in our text even opportunity to talk about them in ways that we hadn't otherwise given thought to.

Stephen Reeves:
Absolutely. And I strongly suggest for churches that they start with scripture and really delve into that and maybe think about it in new ways, because that's important. That we believe there's wisdom there and we should learn from that. And between that start, and starting with who you know in the community, what are you outside the four walls of the church doing? Who are you in encountering? What is their story? What going on? Root your work there rather than your partisan political convictions and who you watch on cable news and that sort of thing.

Stephen Reeves:
But I'll also say part of me does sympathize with folks who, in our hyper-partisan, hyper-political culture, want there to be some sacred space that is not invaded. I kind of get that. There's probably plenty of weeks that I think the same thing, but I just think that we're in this moment that we have to take our faith-informed positions and be active.

Stephen Reeves:
If you don't read the text and see God's preference for the marginalized, the oppressed, and in favor of justice, I think you're not reading it very well, or reading a very small part. And so I think for a lot of particularly traditional white, maybe middle-class churches, it's been easy to individualize and spiritualize the scripture. And we've got to have this place to broaden the view a bit.

George Mason:
Let's take a particular matter of public concern and use it as a test case for [inaudible 00:13:15]. You and I had been involved, you really enlisted me to be involved, in addressing the real plague, economic plague on the poor, that is what we would call predatory lending, and more specifically, payday lending, auto title lending. These pop-ups, storefront businesses, have grown at an exponential rate over the last 20 years or so. And they are preying on the poor in your opinion and mine. They have found a way to exploit the suffering of poor people and make it worse in the interest of making profits, and of saying that they're providing a service.

George Mason:
So here we have a situation where we have a public ill, what we consider a public ill, perhaps. And so I'd like you to talk more about the problem as you see it, and where advocacy comes in for people of faith on a matter like this.

Stephen Reeves:
Thank you, George. The problem is exploitation of people who kind of are at the end of their budget and don't have enough money and want to handle the problem themselves. They find what seems to be the quickest and easiest way to fix it, and it's one of the thousands of storefronts across Texas that most of the time ends up being more of a trap than a help. Lenders profit when folks can't pay the money back, right? It's just a weird disincentive. It's not like a lending market. And so they have interest rates of 400% plus. I could talk about the policy and the law a lot, but I think it really boils down to a moral decision. Is usury wrong?

Stephen Reeves:
Is it wrong to take someone who is having a hard time and take advantage of them with 400% APR interest? There's plenty of debate along public policy lines, but I think the moral core of this issue, one that we used to agree on by the way, these businesses are only about 30 years old. All the way from the founding of the country there used to be a common understanding that usury was immoral. You don't do that to people.

Stephen Reeves:
We have lost that, starting kind of in the mid-nineties. And so for me, the moral core of this issue is the type of thing that can really call people of faith together. I've been working on this issue for over 10 years. Texas has terrible laws on this, and so we've worked in coalition, really across faith lines and some interfaith lines. And in the last six or seven years established a national coalition called Faith for Just Lending that has CBF, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, has Southern Baptists. It has National Baptist USA. You've got all different kinds of Baptists, which in and itself is a pretty big feat. But then you've got Catholic Conference of Bishops. You've got National Association of Evangelicals.

Stephen Reeves:
I think there's been progress. We're hopeful for more. But at the core of this is a product that does more harm than good, that really plays on shame, and really can impact folks that they're sometimes unwilling to share. So they feel sometimes ashamed that they needed money. Then they get into the trap and they feel ashamed that they've been taken advantage of. This is why we call it predatory. The more a borrower is in this shame trap, the more they fail to repay what was an insurmountable cost to them, the more money the lender makes. And so it's the type of thing that I think can pull faith communities together for advocacy, maybe unlike many other things I've seen.

George Mason:
One of the reasons it does for some of us as pastors is because when they get into these traps, they end up coming to the church and say, "I can't pay this back." And it's worse than if they'd come to initially. People often say, "Well, what were they doing before this? Now they're able to go there and get along." Well, they're able to do that because it exists. Also because it's marketed to them. But also because it makes them feel like they're regular normal people who are taking out a loan. The problem is they're really not in that situation because the lender doesn't have to make a judgment about their ability to pay it back, and therefore can just offer it, and then sink the person financially, which is immoral.

Stephen Reeves:
That's right. The mechanism in the case of payday lending have automatic access to their checking account. They know when they're going to get paid and what they're going to get paid. So what often happens is their money comes in, the payday lender pays themselves, basically, by taking that money. Then they end up having to go back there again. In the case of auto title lending, in some ways I think it's worse, especially in the South where this is most prevalent. Because they just know how much car's worth and they can repo a car. And if you don't have a car, I mean, Dallas has some decent public transportation compared to some places. But you're in big trouble if you're trying to get to work if you don't have a car.

Stephen Reeves:
And so it's one of those things, I think. Financial regulation is not the place you often find people with faith speaking out. Because of that story you told at the beginning I've seen it. One of the first pastors that even called me on this was someone who is not known as a social justice warrior or advocate, had not shown up at the Capitol, but said, "Hey, I heard you're talking about these payday loans. Tell me what to do and I'll do it."

Stephen Reeves:
There was a family in his church that couldn't make ends meet, came to the church, they helped them out. Came again and they tried to figure out what's going on here. And they found out he had taken out a $700 loan, and every two weeks, $200 was being taken out of his paycheck, and it did nothing to reduce the amount of his loan. When you see that up front, whether it's in your church or in your community, that calls people to advocacy in a way they maybe haven't been before. To a lot of folks it's really unbelievable that we allow this to go on.

George Mason:
Well, one of the ways that we get involved in advocacy is to help politicians see that these things are wrong and create laws that will minimize the damage, or limit it, or protect consumers/. so there was the creation some years ago of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that Elizabeth Warren was behind. It happened during the Obama administration. But then because of the way it was constructed, but even more so because of the very idea, I think, that lenders were losing their ability to operate with impunity, the Trump administration was able to essentially change the leadership of the CFPB to virtually make it the lenders bureau of protection. You know, it really completely took that away.

George Mason:
So now we're back again with a Democratic administration, and I want to hasten to say this is not Democrat good, Republican bad. It's just, who are you representing really? And are you representing the people who are most vulnerable? Or are you representing people who are preying upon them? And so where do we stand now, Stephen, with the federal protections for consumers in situations like this?

Stephen Reeves:
You know, the CFPB was a game changer when this happened. As a matter of fact, I met with then Professor Warren in Dallas. She asked faith leaders to meet and talk about what we were doing at the time in Texas on payday lending. And so from the very early parts of the CFPB faith folks have been involved. We got a rule that we thought was pretty good, proposed in 2017. Change of administration, change of director, that rule was repealed in 2020. And so we are now in a hopeful place that the CFPB will move again in a positive direction, but we're still needing advocacy.

Stephen Reeves:
This is challenging. There's litigation involved, kind of both sides. There's litigation from the payday lenders for the first rule. There's litigation from consumer advocates for the second, for the repeal of the rule. So it's sort of a mess. But at its heart, this is something that CFPB is mandated to do in the legislation that created it. And to me, it seems like it ought to be the easiest thing they do, that these are the most vulnerable borrowers with the smallest type loans, but the most egregious, really exploitation. And so I am talking to the CFPB regularly and trying to bring this up on their radar screen, bring it up on the agenda.

Stephen Reeves:
And I'll say something about partisanship too. At the same year I was meeting with professor, now Senator Warren, the leader in the Texas House on payday lending reform was former speaker, Tom Craddick, one of the longest serving members, Republican from Midland, very, very conservative, who felt a personal conviction on this. And so really across the country at the state level, it has been a very bipartisan thing in support of reform. I think that creation of the CFPB itself sort of politicized it and made it more partisan than was helpful in Washington.

Stephen Reeves:
I'm hopeful, based on some meetings I've had recently, that we're maybe moving into a new place. I will say that, for example, that some states can put regulation in and especially when it goes to the voters. In the state of Nebraska last November, the same day they voted at nearly 60% to vote for President Trump, they voted at nearly 84% to cap payday loans at 36% interest. I mean, it's hard to poll, "Do you love your mother?" and get 84%, much less in a polarized environment. We're also going through Congress. Congress can put a 36% interest rate cap. And so staying on the CFPB, but we're also looking for other ways forward as well.

George Mason:
Well, I think part of the argument, if I'm a conservative and believe in free enterprise, it's a little bit similar I would say, to what we're dealing with, with police officers who are bad actors, you might say, who are dishonoring the profession and bringing down the morale of the entire system, and the confidence of the public about public safety. Well, if you defend the right of people to be exploitive in the financial industry, then essentially the entire industry is stained by that. The entire political system is stained by that because there's no confidence in the consumer, in the public, that there is a sort of moral undergirding to this public enterprise.

Stephen Reeves:
That's absolutely right. One of best arguments I ever heard on this came from a very conservative, older Southern Baptist political public policy leader. We were in very broad coalition, but we would sit in a meeting and he would tell a Republican member, "Look, if you like capitalism, these are the things you have to guard against. There have to be some guard rails here." And so he made it very pro-conservative pro-capitalism argument saying we should be the ones that make sure the extremes in these types of exploitation doesn't go on, lest someone want to take the whole thing down, is essentially what he was saying.

George Mason:
So if we're talking about good politics and we want ordinary people to be involved politically, and to be advocates for something like payday lending reform, this sort of thing, what's your quick two or three step process to tell ordinary persons in the pew with sincere faith and passion, how to get involved?

Stephen Reeves:
Well, what I tell churches, a few things. First, do a bit of an assessment of your mission work. Where has your church historically been engaged in the community? Let's say, for example, that they've been providing reading mentors at the local public school. Well, talk to the principal, talk to the superintendent, understand what's going on in public schools with funding and that sort of thing, and be willing to call your legislature, be a voice for your public schools. If you have a food pantry or community garden, think about it from an advocacy perspective. Look at Bread for the World or the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty. Just be willing to take what you're already demonstrated passion to and think about it in the public policy realm.

Stephen Reeves:
The other thing I recommend is just go meet an elected official. That can be a city councilmen, a mayor, from the county commissioner, kind of from the bottom to the top. I would say start with local. Take a few people from your church that care, ask for a meeting, just introduce yourself, say, "Hey, we go to this church. We do these things in the community. We appreciate your service. We want to pray for you." Establish a relationship, establish a personal connection. And that first time don't ask them for anything because almost everyone, if not everyone that meets with them, asks them for something. And most of the times it's out of their own self-interests. If they're a paid lobbyist, it's who they have a contract with.

Stephen Reeves:
But I think if people in faith first, just make that personal connection, see where you might have something in common, maybe your kids go to the same school, and thank them for their service. And then when you do come back with some sort of request with something you're seeing, you're not asking out of your own self-interest either. And so I think that's the sort of a difference in a lot of times that would make you stand out. So those are two very quick things.

Stephen Reeves:
I would also say kind of dig deeper in those missions opportunities, ask more questions. To our previous example, if someone's coming to the church looking for help with a light bill all of a sudden. "What's going on with the budget?" And you might find that they have a payday loan. I mean, dig deeper, ask questions, learn people's stories. And I think sometimes that might lead to some advocacy opportunities. Read the scripture as you already said. I mean, explore the Bible like we talked about earlier.

George Mason:
Right. Right. I think you make a really important point too, Stephen, in that politicians, public servants, are used to people coming and asking for something for themselves. And there's nothing wicked about that. Often people go to say, "I need something to make my business work better. There's an obstacle in the way," something of that nature, whatever the case may be. But when people of faith get involved in this, and they're going on behalf of people who are their neighbors, who are maybe not even there, or maybe are there, but you're there to support them. That makes such a difference in the consciousness of public officials. They can hardly believe that that's happening, because you don't have to be there. You're choosing to do that out of the passion of your faith, and it really makes a difference in motivation for them. So I think that's a splendid point and worth pursuing.

Stephen Reeves:
Absolutely right. And I thin oftentimes in giving presentations, I hear Christians saying, "Great. We want to be a voice for the voiceless." And I affirmed that in so much as that's not out of your own self-interest, and it's clearly a biblical origin of that term. But people have voices most of the time. Unfortunately they're ignored, or silenced, or suppressed, and sometimes don't know how to access the same things that maybe you do. So your point about bringing them along is very important. To the extent possible, empower folks to know when, and where, and how their voice can be impactful in a systemic way.

George Mason:
Terrific. Terrific. Stephen, thank you for all you do. Thank you for accepting the call to come back to Texas. We're looking forward to your work among us here, and especially on this particular matter we've been talking about in relieving some of the predatory practices that are keeping people poor, and making them poor in fact, or poorer. So looking forward to working more closely together in our state.

Stephen Reeves:
Well, thank you, George. Great to be on, and thank you for yours, and Katie's, and [Wiltshire's 00:31:14] contribution in our partnership that led to the book and the mission of advocacy. It's been great and I look forward to working more together.

George Mason:
You're welcome. And to all of our listeners and watchers, you can get that on Amazon. It's the Mission of Advocacy, Stephen Reeves and Katie Murray. Terrific. Thanks Stephen.

Stephen Reeves:
Thank you. Take care.

George Mason:
Bye-bye.

Speaker 3:
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