Note: Can I Say This at Church is produced for audio listening. If able, I strongly encourage you to listen to the audio, which has inflection, emotion, sarcasm where applicable, and emphasis for points that may not come across well in written word. This transcript is generated using a combination of my ears and software, and may contain errors. Please check the episode for clarity before quoting in print.

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Alexia Intro 0:00

Yes, absolutely. Um, so I don't think that being humble and bold are opposites. So, you know, I'm Lutheran, Martin Luther is famous for standing up, you know, in front of the, the political and religious and economic authorities and saying, Here I stand, I can't do anything else. God help me. Well, that was a pretty humble statement right? Here I stand. I can't, I can't do anything else. I'm not saying that. I know the truth and you don't. I am saying that what God has shown me so far, I will live by and die for, but you can show me that I'm wrong. And he catch me that I run through you, because I'm not him. And and I know that he is always taking me down a path. Right. I know that he has taken me from somewhere else to where I am now. And he will take me around now to somewhere else, because God is always revealing Himself to us over time.

Seth 1:20

Hey there. Welcome back. I am Seth, this is the Can I Say This At Church podcast. Let's do this thing. I want to be brief because I think that the conversation is so so so so good today. I mean, they're all good. I really like this one. And so I spoke with the Reverend Alexia sad about the error. And we went down so good. I don't even have a good way to do it. So we talked about, you know, we talked a lot about what it looks like to be an activist what it looks like for the church to be active in activism, what a prophetic voice should and should not look like. What does that work look like? And why should we do it? And then we pivoted to some stories. How that works centering a lot on immigration. And that is a as the conversation that matters so, so much for so many countries, not just the United States. And so what is kind of the church's role when we're talking about activism, when we're talking about immigration and matters like that, and how does that kind of reconcile with politics and so I'm excited to rock and roll. So let's do this thing.

Seth 2:37

Dr. Alexia Salvatierra, welcome to the Can I Say This At Church podcast. I'm hopeful that I said your name right. I may not have enough so I'm sorry. But But um, welcome to the show. I am excited to talk to you and then just for listeners and we we talked about this just briefly, I came upon you buy a review of someone on the show that said hey, you should reach out to some of these other voices and I didn't know any of those voices. And I've since then began digging into all of you and, and I'm thankful for people that do that and give me new names to talk to because ideas are fantastic. So what would you want us to know a bit about you? What is kind of your story of what makes you the doctor that you are?

Alexia 3:21

Okay. Well, so I am a Lutheran pastor. I've been a return pastor for a very long time, 32 years now ordained, and I was involved in active ministry for about 10 years before that. But I caught myself, Luther-costal I came to Christ in the Jesus movement of the 70’s so I have been put in these various worlds. But I think that from the beginning of my ministry, I’ve really been called into the intersection between the church and the world. That is an intersection of holistic mission. That what is the church come to in terms of our impact on the world in total, not only with regards to eternal life, but also with regards to abundant life.

That, how do we bring abundant life to the world? And so I think I've always been called to stand on that border between the church and the world and to engage the church. And not just to call the church; I'm not really a prophet, I'm an organizer. But I'm not about calling the church I'm about engaging the church, in bringing abundant and eternal life to the world. And so I've done that in a whole variety of ways in this country and overseas. I've been a missionary in the Philippines. I was there. I was part of the pro-democracy movement against the dictator Ferdinand Marcos, I was involved in that movement. I've been involved in this the Central American sanctuary movement in this country and in leadership in, I think, four national initiatives now on engaging the church in the whole area of immigration; and have been involved a lot with poverty and working poverty in particular, how does the church make a difference for people that are suffering working poverty? So I've done a lot of different things over my many years, including your more typical ministries and congregational ministries, and lots of hispanic ministry.

Seth 5:40

Goodness. So you were in the Philippines and I heard you speak on, I heard briefly or read something that you said about the Philippines, and I'm going to do this from memory because I didn't write it down. Something about this the something to the effect of you didn't appreciate democracy until you lived in the Philippines and then you realized something about the way that we do democracy here. And um, yeah, it might be badly paraphrasing that. But I don't know anything about the Philippines outside of we import many things from the Philippines. So what do you mean by, or at least we used to, what do you mean by that with the pro democracy movement in the Philippines? Like, what's the purpose of that? How does that relate to kind of how we do democracy here?

Alexia 6:22

Right. So there's a there's a whole lot to unpack Seth, with what you what you just said, right.

Seth 6:30

I have a tendency to ramble so just cut me off..

Alexia 6:33

So, you know, I want to say that when we talk about why the church should care about democracy, which is a good question, not an automatic answer, right. It's, it's a question of stewardship. That, you know, we know that we're called to love our neighbor as ourselves. The question is, what do we have to offer when we go to do that, just the same as you know, for if we're about offering an eternal and abundant life, through Jesus to the world, then, you know, what are the tools that we use? What do we have in our hands? What have we been given?

So it's not enough to love with your heart, because you don't just have a heart, you also have a mind. So you have to love as intelligently and effectively as possible. Right? So we talk about, you know, you don't just give someone a fish you-what might be more intelligent and effective, you teach the fish. But if you take your fishing pole down to the pond, and there's a wall around the pond, it's not enough to know how to fish, you have to be able to access the pond, right? So public decisions, tend to put up the walls and take down the walls in our communities. And what I mean by that is a private decision is a decision you make that affects you, maybe your church, maybe your block, maybe you're a little small business, right? A public decision affects the whole community.

So you know, in Jeremiah, when we read about being about the shalom of the community, that you know, we are called to be about the shalom of the community. He is a justice and peace of community and the well being of the community in which we live, that there are public decisions that really impact the communities in which we live. So then the question is, becomes, the stewardship question becomes do we have the capacity to impact public decision making? Right, do we have a say and what other people have access to the pond? Right? Do we have a say the same what it means to immigrate to this country? Right? That's a big access to the pond question.

Do we have a say in terms of whether people will come in coming out of prison or hired or not hired? These are access to the pond questions, right..who gets to say who gets to go to a good school, right? That's an access question. So, democracy is a system where everyone who's part was is full part of that society has a say, in public decision making. So we get to be part of public decisions in a democracy in some form right there all different kinds of democracies.

And I would have said that as a young radical, which I'm sure it doesn't surprise people a whole lot, but at some point, but as a young radical, I thought that most people did not have a say in public decision making India. And then I went to the Philippines and experience with a dictatorship is like. And I went, “Oh, we did have a democracy in the United States”. It's not perfect, you know, but there are real mechanisms through which people who reside in communities and contribute to communities have a say in what happens in the public decisions that impact the community. We just mostly don't use those tools. We have the tools of democracy, which are more than vote-vote is very important. People in the civil rights movement died so that they could have the vote; vote matters. But vote is not the only way in a democracy, that we have a say we also have a voice and multiple ways. We also have influence in multiple ways on our representatives. So you know, democracy is all about being able to utilize those gifts for God's kingdom.

Seth 10:26

A minute ago, you said there's a difference between calling and engaging the church.

Alexia 10:33

Yes, absolutely.

Seth 10:35

Can you break those apart for me because you said, you're not a prophet. Which one is the prophet doing calling or engaging? Because I feel like maybe…

Alexia 10:44

The prophet calls. The prophet historically, and again, I'm talking about when I say the word prophet, I know people use that word very loosely. I'm not actually using it loosely. I'm really talking about the line of prophecy that we see through the Old Testament introduces. So prophets really are about speaking God's truth into a historic moment. What is God calling the people to write to? To speak that call. And that's a beautiful work. It really is. But it's not exactly the same as organizing.

Because organizing is about fanning the flame that God has placed in each person of of their calling; you hear here the difference?

Seth 11:29

Yeah.

Alexia 11:30

So it's about it's about equipping and enabling people to come together to fulfill their calling, to be the body of Christ in the transformation of the community, in the loving of the community, in the bringing of eternal abundant life in Jesus to the community. That you know that everybody has a gift in the church. It's the body of Christ. Everybody has a role. Everybody has a gift.

An organizer is someone who equips people to live out those gifts in the holistic mission and deliver that together. So that's a very different role than the proclaiming of the truth. And I think that we don't take that seriously in the church enough. So let me just give you a little story.

Seth 12:19

Okay.

Alexia 12:20

I was…I was speaking to a group of activists in Colorado. I was training them, not just speaking to them. I do speaking, but mostly I do training anyhow, I was training them. And I said, “What is your relationship to your congregation”? And one of the women said, “I'm an activist” and I said, “Well, what does that mean?” She says, “I tell them the truth”. And I said, “how's that working for you?”

(laughter) You know, prophets are not popular. You know? You don't invite them to dinner. And typically, people don't change unless you feel like the person was calling you to change loves you (and) is about what is best for you.

And you know, the person who just speaks the call of God into the air without that particular relationship or connection is, you know, that word-that seed is going to fall on the ground, and some of it is going to produce and some of it isn't and it will depend on the quality of the soil. That's not what an organizer is about an organizer doesn't think very, right. It's much more about spiritual formation, but not just spiritual formation of individuals and spiritual formation.

Seth 13:40

I like that. But my question becomes both sides of a democratic debate, even if they don't agree can both organize and so how did the two different sets of organizers kind of work together to make something actually work? Does that make I hope that sense…

Alexia 13:58

Yes, absolutely. I don't think that being humble and bold are opposites. So, you know, I'm Lutheran. Martin Luther is famous for standing up, you know, in front of the, the political and religious and economic authorities and saying here I stand, I can't do anything else. God help me.

Well, that was a pretty humble statement right? Here I stand…I can't do anything else. I'm not saying that. I know the truth and you don't. I am saying that what God has shown me so far, I will live by and die for, but he could show me that I'm wrong. And he could show me that I wrong through you because I'm not Him. And I know that he is always taking me down the path. Right? I know that he has taken me from somewhere else to where I am now and he will take me from where I am now to somewhere else.

Because God is always revealing Himself to us over time. We always growing in our wisdom and knowledge of God. So that means that to be humble is just to be accurate about that; to say, I know that I have human limitations. And so I'm bold about what I have been shown so far. But I'm humble about my limitations. And I live with that paradox. And that allows me to, like, bring my greatest passions and my best efforts to the table, right. I don't have to pull back on my passion. I don't have to pull back on my energy. I just have to be humble. So that as you bring your passion and your energy and I bring my passion and energy, we can struggle together.

And Paul talks about that, right, that, that we're not frightened at conflict that we can struggle together. And it doesn't come from holding back. Right. One of the things that I encounter a lot in sort of liberal Christians is, oh, you know, we can't speak the Word of God in the public arena. Because you know, that's, that's imposing our word on other people.

It's like, wow, why would we not be our best gifts? It's just a different way. I mean, there's nothing like the power of the Word of God itself. Because we organized as if God is real, and Jesus is real. You know, you trust that when you speak the Word of God in the public arena that even if people don't know it, I don't ascribe to it, that it will resonate deeply with them.

Seth 16:24

I want to focus on organizing because one of my goals for next year is to learn to engage with other faiths to come together to work for something much more beautiful than any of the religions can do together. Because our country will soon, if it's not already, it's not…we are not a Christian nation and Christians are definitely a minority. And what I find often when people want to fall down on this is the truth and you're wrong. Alexia, you just you just don't understand why you're wrong. But as soon as you do will make the country better. How have you found success in partnering with other faiths organizing with other faiths to kind of bring more shalom to the communities that were in or the country that were in or that you partnered with.

Alexia 17:08

So I have a different model of doing and you're paid. And I was the director for many years has been interfaith organization, 11 years. So, you know, I, we developed this alternative model. Interfaith is usually about lowest common denominator, like what can we all agree on, and that's what we're going to do.

So that means the prayers are like completely bland. They have no power, but they have no color they have, you know, because what can we actually all do together? Well, there's a very different way of doing interfaith, which is rainbow. So you know, I can, I can give you some stories, but it's about everybody bringing their best to the table. And for us as Christians, it's about being in the world and not of the world, that you know, you be part of something larger, but you bring your distinctiveness in the process and your your best contribution.

So let me just give you a funny little story that I think help you understand this. So we were working in the interfaith organization that I directed was primarily focused on economic justice, although we also focused on other things that impact the working poor like immigration. Right. But we, we were primarily focused on economic justice. So we were working on this campaign where security officers, who were security guards, right I primarily African American in Los Angeles about 80% African American, but they work for these little guard companies. And then the companies are hired by building owners…make sense so far you have to get the background…

Seth 18:47

Like a G4S or something like that. One of those huge security companies.

Alexia 18:50

Yeah, you have this guard company in the garden companies compete, they bid right for get it for cleaning a number of apartments, right? So there's a building owner, who owns all these apartments, and then that building owner contracts with the guard company, right? And they take bids. Well, if they take the lowest bit, if it's the lowest bid process, like they're all, you know, they're all competing for how they can have the lowest bid. What happens is that they can't pay the people that work for them very much, because they've just gotten the contract because they did the lowest bid. So they're paying like, dirt wages, for people to risk their lives, they can't pay health insurance. And because of that, people don't stay in those jobs, right, this huge turnover.

So the only way for them to deal with the huge turnover is they don't do much training, because they can't be training constantly. Right? It is too expensive, but it means that you're taking people who have very little training and putting them in jobs where they're risking their lives. Not a good situation. So what we were working on is something called a responsible contracting policy, where the Building Owners and Managers Association together all agree that they're going to do what's called responsible contracting, they're going to put a floor that the bids go over the floor doesn't make sense? So there is no bid so low that people can't have a living wage, health insurance, and the training and equipment that they need to do their jobs.

So the thing is, how do you get the building owners and managers to agree to responsible contracting right, it's not in their self-interest, necessarily, to agree to it doesn't matter to them? Right, except, of course, that you get a better quality of work. You know, and that matters to some employers more than others. But you know, in any field the players don't like to different too much because the the bottom feeders might have an advantage in certain. You really get people to move all together, right. Well, we had discovered the person who had the most on the most buildings, the biggest building owner in Los Angeles County, is an observant Jew, like he really believed. And so we were like, “Oh, well, we're going to get some rabbis to talk to him about how the Torah would call him to take a stand for responsible contracts and policy” and then others might come along with him. Right? He would be a real influencer.

Well, in the best part of him, I'm sure he wanted to meet with this rabbis. So he kept making appointments with them, but he kept canceling the appointments because another part of him didn't want to do that at all. So what we did is called Interfaith is Rainbow is we are coming up on the high holy days, and observant Jews believe that during the high holy days, the Book of Life is open. And your name is written in the book for the next year or it's not. That you are judged by God during those days, right? So right at the beginning of high holy days, the African American church leaders, pastors, and other church leaders from a number of churches came, and we did a gospel prayer meeting on the ground floor of the business where he had his headquarters on the top floor. So we started to discuss the meeting and praising Jesus and, you know, full on gospel prayer meeting and you know, it's very likely right with lots of great music and so some of the tenants were joining in the police, but the police wanted to wait until the service was over before they told us to leave.

Seth 22:45

So you didn't permission you just showed up and started.

Alexia 22:52

No of course we didn’t ask for permission! (Laughter from both)

So the police wanted to wait till the service was over before they asked us to leave. They wanted to respectful but of course a gospel prayer service is never over, we could have done today's you know. The police go over to one of the pastors and try to get him to stop. And so the leadership shifts to one of the elderly sisters, and they go over to her and then the leadership shifts to 11 year old, you know, it's like, oh, that's not gonna happen. So the guy at the top, you know, he doesn't have any, like, black pastors don't have any religious authority for him, right? So he's like “I’ll meet with them.” So he says, okay, that the black pastors can come up and I'll meet with them. But when he doesn't know is around the corner. There are a little bit of a rabbis…You know, I think it's apples and honey, there's something that's the beginning. The beginning of high holy days. So when he says that the black pastors can come up as a bait and switch, you know, they're always go up. And they have a real conversation with him about what is the Torah say…

Seth 23:56

Did any of the black pastors actually go up or it was it just … (so much laughter)

Alexia 24:05

No…none (laugher)..but it was a a real conversation. And he was very thoughtful. And before the end of high holy days he adopted the responsible contract policy and called everybody else so that was it. That was Interfaith as Rainbow, right. I mean, the black pastors didn't hold back on calling on the name of Jesus; but the rabbis didn't have to be part of that, that would not have been authentic. Yeah, they did something else. And but it worked together to do God's will on earth as it is in heaven.

Seth 24:33

I like that. I like this, I hope this doesn’t sound bad but I like the passive aggressiveness of it. (Alexia laughter) You won’t talk to us? We will have church in the basement until you talk to us, but you're not actually gonna talk to us. You're gonna talk to him, or her or whomever how, like, I like that.

Seth 25:10

I want to shift because you brought it up earlier, (to) immigration. And I want to tread lightly because it is an extremely charged an extremely political topic and actually…

Alexia 25:22

Let me say that it wasn't always…can I just say that there was 5% difference between Republicans and Democrats 5% difference…

Seth 25:32

Okay. What do you mean like on immigration? What do you…?

Alexia 25:35

On their views of immigration 5% difference between Republicans and Democrats in 2005 and 2007. And in 2013, there were thoroughly bipartisan proposals to fix our broken system and make a system that would be effective, fair, logical and humane. It wasn't about open borders was about fair, effective, logical and humane, broad consensus. When those proposals were polled on, the content of those proposals, not the name “immigration reform”, the actual legislative content of those proposals when you polled on them that the average American, you get 75% in 2007, and 2013. So this does not have to be that partisan issue that is, but right now…

Seth 26:19

Do you still get those same if you took those same legislations and strip them of a name, and just ask people? Is it still roughly the same? Or is that polling even been done?

Alexia 26:28

That polling has not been done?

Seth 26:29

I'd be curious

Alexia 26:31

But the polling been done is with the phrase immigration reform. So this is a shift that I'm going to tell you about that we were actually part of in the average open immigration table nationally, but in 2007 83% of white have a job because we're against immigration reform as a phrase. So from 2005-2007 right. But then, as them and Evangelical Immigration Table, which we formed in 2011. Did its work in 2013. 72% of white evangelicals were for immigration reform, because they understood that the phrase immigration reform was not partisan, and in fact referred to the proposals that they had read. By 2016, no 2018 excuse me, we are down to 42% 42%. So 30 point drop in five years. That was not because the content of the proposal was changed. Nor because people had a like, in depth study of immigration policy and decided that their positions have changed. No, that's not what happened. So it does not have to be the kind of issue it is.

Seth 27:41

And those are the same people on that. Like, it's the exact same people. Yeah, so why do you think it's shifted to be so charged? Is it just Is it fear? Is it power, is it money?

Alexia 27:55

Well, it's fear. And the fear has been very intentionally drummed up by people whom it is their political advantage to drum it up. And not only in words and symbols, but in actual actions. So let me give you example of actions. Okay, so because this is not just a war of symbols and words.

We have a human rights crisis in Central America that has to do with organized crime. Terrible organized crime, the worst international organized crime syndicate we've ever seen. The 21st century is the century of these huge multinational corporations, huge multinational organizations like ISIS. So we're This is our 21st century challenges. What do we do with these huge multinational organizations? So there's this human rights crisis. So under the Obama Administration, 2014, their initial reactions to the crisis were, were not lovely, but then they sort of turned around and they organized something called the Alliance for Prosperity. which involved every country in Central America, including Mexico and the United States. And there were a couple of other players as well from Europe. And the Alliance for prosperity decided that they wouldn't take El Salvador, and they would make an example of it. Because it's small. It's smaller than every other country, right. So what they did is they invested heavily in security and development, both security and development; not security or development but security and development, training, resources, personnel, money, everything…

Seth 29:34

You mean like development of infrastructure or…

Alexia 29:38

Economic Development and security. So you make it highly uncomfortable for organized crime to function. And the foot soldiers have other options besides crime for surviving? Right. So you do, it's both. And it was a public private partnership work with the churches, work with the NGOs. So it was really very creative and very well done. And in two years, by 2016, the homicide rate and outside of El Salvador had been cut in half. And the numbers of people coming to the border were cut in half. Whoa, like major success! It was powerful…two years! But one of the first things that this administration did was to cut funding was to pull out of the Alliance for prosperity and to cut funding. So what do you think happens? The homicide rate goes away. And the numbers of people coming to the border go way up. Right.

But for this administration, the numbers of people coming to the border provoke fear and fear is very effective in elections. Fear is a very strong motivator for people. So I did a presentation for the Evangelical Covenant Church women a few months ago, and I had a really lovely woman come up to me, lovely sister in Christ, come up to me and say “I was listening to your stories about the children, and we have to do something to help those children. But what are we going to do about the armed invasion at our border?”

So I said, “Why do you believe there's an armed invasion of our border?” She said, “Well, everyone knows that.” So I said, “You know, I work at the border, and I'm very familiar with the refugee crisis at the border.” And, you know, we're talking refugees here, it doesn't mean that there's no organized crime folks in and around all of this. I mean, the first there are but but the vast majority of people are going to come as no problem getting in and out of this country. Yeah, yeah. The people at the border waiting, those are the refugees. And so she said, “No, you're just wrong. just wrong”. She said, “and I won't be able to trust what you say if you don't recognize what the truth of what everyone says”.

Well, that's because she was listening to certain resources. And that's all she was listening to. And those are news sources her pastor told you to listen to. And there you go. Right she was convinced without ever having seen it, because people she trusted told her that there was an armed invasion at our southern border. So if we had actually continued with the Alliance for prosperity, and we had greatly reduced the numbers of people coming, we would not have had the appearance of an invasion at the border. Let me give you another policy decision. There's been a real focus on moving resources from processing, processing decides whether or not people are potentially eligible for asylum. Right. It's an intensive process with a lot of money and proof. Right. So, the resources for processing have been moved to enforcement. So what that means is we have something at the southern border in Tijuana where I know it best called “metering”, which means that instead of processing 300 people a day, and deciding whether they have credible fear are not to enter into an assignment process, you decide that some of them would…and some of them would indeed be deported-the ones that don't qualify. Right, you know, like the other vetting processes, instead of processing 300 people a day, which is what we have capacity for what we used to have capacity for we process 20 people a day. So what does that do? It creates a backlog. It creates people spending at the border. So I'm saying there have been actions which increase a situation which causes fear.

Seth 33:18

This may not be a question that you can answer, but our churches are in America at least they seem to have a decent amount of wealth if the church actually wanted to. And I mean, church, all of us, Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, all this. Could they refund that? Is that even a thing that the church is like, I don't even know what you're talking

Alexia 33:40

No no! The amounts of money we are talking about are way beyond what churches have available. This is a collaboration between countries. Yeah, the churches have been very involved in Central America, and we couldn't certainly have been part of that. You know, like, I know, our Lutheran Church was working on something called state villages. Wow, that's an interesting concept, right? Like villages that were far enough out in the countryside that when people are deported instead of being killed, that they should go to the villages and they could start, you know, cottage industries and the churches in Central America are heavily involved in creating these. And we could certainly as the churches in North America have joined with them.

One of the things that that people in churches in Central America or Church says is, why do our brothers and sisters in the US not talk to us or listen to us? So, there's an Evangelical organization called Enlace, that works. It's in Enlace, they do community development and missions, holistic mission, so you know, proclamation of the gospel community development in Central America. Right. Enlace, recently did a conference in Chicago to talk about their work, but also to talk about the human rights crisis, and what this country needed to do; and what churches here could do. And you know, they're willing to do that again, and we're trying to organize one in Southern California. But you know, it's like, these are our brothers and sisters of evangelical churches in Central America. And they're telling us “No! this crisis is coming out of these routes, and this is what could be done about it.” But we're not really listening, right as the church and I can make it. So now, of course, my work and all the work of many of us, and it's unpaid work. I say my work but I should really say vocation.

You know, because we're not getting paid for it. But I do a lot. I spent a lot of time educating people. I'll go anywhere I’d do anything to let people know like this is what's actually going on.

Seth 35:41

I want to ask you is a final topics. Last question. So someone hears that for I've never heard of that coalition that President… President Trump disbanded or stopped funding. I never heard of that prior, but that makes me sad. But I often find and it's from a friend, past guests the show but he's become a friend Paul Thomas that spent time in El Salvador. working and doing stuff with different ministries, and he worked with someone that I believe, knew Romero, and so he's got a great story. But as I spoken with him He's like, yeah, most people in the United States don't quite understand that a lot of the refugee crisis and the economic depravity is specifically because of some of our capitalistic policies, and then we need to take ownership of that.

But that's an entirely different topic. So for someone listening and you know, as you learn different pieces and nuggets, I find myself either getting angry, and that motivates me, or being motivated just out of altruism. These people bear the image of the Divine God and it matters that we need to do this right. And so what can an individual in a church even if the church doesn't necessarily want to partner with them, the church that they go to, what can an individual do to help justice and compassion and mercy and love and treating people as humans specifically at the border with immigration. Because by the time this airs, there will probably be a few small candidates of democratic runners in the in the presidential election coming up, and then you'll begin to walk into that entire election season and it's going to get extremely hateful and vitriolic and the vehemic and everything else. And so my fear is people will go, Oh, that's great. I'll do something and they won't do anything. So what are a few things that people can do?

Alexia 37:25

Well, you know, I want to say that there are organizations that you can join, right, that you can be part of, if you want to join Christian organizations specifically, and you have a national audience, right? If they are in Southern California, they should contact Matthew 25 which is us. But you know, if you're not in Southern California, World Relief, does great work on these issues, if you want to go with the direction on it. So does the Evangelical Immigration Table, although their focus much more just on policy, whereas world relief does accompaniment and also policy, right. If you're working, if you prefer sort of the mainline Protestant direction, there's the Methodists do great work. They have a welcome network, and they do great work around all of these issues. They do accompaniment and advocacy.

There's, oh my gosh, Sojourners, is doing a lot of policy work around this and also supporting a company where a company might work with their new soja action. And then there's the interfaith immigration coalition in DC as all bunch of different denominations and NGOs, a Lutheran immigrant refugee services, there's just lots of these national organizations that they they engage churches or they engage individuals, and they know you can you know, you can connect with them and they will let you know where you can work with locally in ways that are hands on, and also in ways that are advocacy.

Seth 39:04

I want to ask a follow up question. But before I want to remind people what you said earlier, immigration is not a political issue. It's not. And so as people hear you speak, and they're like, well, I don't want to do that. I don't know that that doesn't agree with what I see on CNN or Fox or MSNBC or whatever. It's, it's a human issue. It's if it's a human issue, it's a God issue, it's a gospel issue,

Alexia 39:27

A gospel issue. Welcome the stranger. You know, what about Matthew 25 do we not understand? You know, people say, what is it about illegal that you're not understand? I get the question, [but] what is it about Matthew 25 that you don't understand? You know, it's pretty core to our faith, right?

Seth 39:44

Yeah, I asked. I think it was Brad, your second question somewhere that and he's like, I don't think you seem to understand it. Jesus seems to make it a measuring stick for his followers. And so it's not really about what you want to think it is what it is, this the measuring stick, I thought it was pretty clear

Alexia 40:02

Yes, to have compassion, to feel with, to have empathy to care about the stranger does not create an automatic immigration policy. We still have to do the hard work of figuring out how to have a system that is effective, logical, just and humane that protects our borders where we need to be protect our borders, and that, you know, has that appropriate process of vetting people coming into the country. You know this, but we can do it. I mean, like I said, we have bipartisan proposals that outline how to do it. It's just political the past couple years.

Seth 40:37

I am curious where those are, I might email you one off and say hey, guys would like to see what's in there because that's, it wasn't really something that I cared as much about.

Alexia 40:45

Look up the 2013 I think it's the board or something at look up immigration reform or immigration legislation, 2013 it is the border something long. You can read everything that's in it. Right there, and it was done by the Gang of Eight thoroughly bipartisan. And of course, you won't be happy with everything in it, because it was a compromise. Remember the concept of compromise? You remember that concept?

You know, but as somebody who's been working with these issues for 30 years, you know, it's, it was solid, good stuff, it would have made a huge difference for lots of hurting families. But again, what matters on the bottom and why that matters at the end of the whole thing is what happens to children and their families. It would have made a huge difference for children and their families and, and been beneficial for our country as a whole. So, you know, I feel like we have to resist the temptation of that Kabuki drama that's going on in our country or, you know, the, the Super Bowl of political war, you know, because it really takes us away from what we can do together.

Seth 41:58

Yeah, absolutely. Dr. Salvatierra, where would you send people to? To read what you're up to listen to what you're saying all the all the places, where would you send people to?

Alexia 42:11

Oh, that's a good question because I don't do…I'm not do self promotion at all. But I, you know, I just have a website, but it's like way out of date. It's just basically to get in touch with me if you need to, if anybody wants to talk to me, personally, I do have a website but the bio is 10 years old, but it's all right. Whenever you need to reach me, that's a good way to reach me.

And because I do try to respond to everybody who contacts me as I do go all over the country to teach if I can, if people can bring me. But you know, Matthew25SoCal.org is a good place to go. If you want to just know more about these issues and the evangelicalimmigrationtable.com also, world relief, like I said, you know there's a number of places that you can look. National Immigration Reform if you want secular really good quality, moderate l, secular information about immigration and the history and the dynamics and the statistics and you know, go to National Immigration Reform is great. They are really middle of the road. They're really give voice to a variety of perspectives, and they're really scientific and solid in terms of their evidence.

Seth 43:25

So I really thank you again for your time today. I've enjoyed the chat.

Seth Outro 43:47

So the year is almost over. I have loved doing this this year. Next week's conversation is going to be fantastic with Dr. Alexander Shais. It's just going to be great. And this one was fantastic as well. So you're probably wondering, what could you get Can I Say This At Church podcast for Christmas? And the answer is easy. If money's tight and it's tight for a lot of you just rate and review the show, or shoot just share the show on social media, do both. Costs you nothing, pick one of your favorite episodes of the year and just blast out why I would love to see that. Or, or review the show and say the same thing.

I spoke with Alexia today. From a review, it was a recommendation. And then as I dug into her name, I'm like, Oh, yeah, this is going to be a great conversation. And so continue to do those. However, if money's not quite so tight, and by that, I mean, you have literally one extra dollar, consider supporting the show. You could do that one of two ways. So you can do that on Patreon. That's probably the best Avenue but you can also do it through glow, and you'll find Both of those links in the show notes both of those links at the website.

And then the year is winding down. And as so I'd like to plan better for next year. I have some big, big plans for next year. And I'm going to try some new topics, some new points of view, and I think it's going to stretch me maybe stretch you I hope that's okay. Because I'm going to do it anyway. And so I can't wait to talk with you next week.

Merry almost Christmas everyone.

Be blessed.