Wyoming Interfaith Network welcomes Muslims, Jews, Unitarian Universalists, those who practice Native American traditions, and other non-Christian participants.

Kahlil Gibran said, “I love it when you bow in your Mosque, kneel in your temple, or pray in your church. For you and I are sons of one religion, and it is of the Spirit.”

The Wyoming Association of Churches has made an historic decision. During its annual meeting this coming weekend in Cheyenne, it will become the Wyoming Interfaith Network.

The group has long been an ecumenical Christian voice in Wyoming. Its membership has included Presbyterians, United Methodists, Disciples of Christ, American Baptists, the Friends, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of North America, the United Church of Christ, Episcopalians, and others from time to time.

Now, as the Wyoming Interfaith Network, it will welcome Muslims, Jews, Unitarian Universalists, those who practice Native American traditions, and other non-Christian participants.

The organization began as the Wyoming Church Council in the 1960s. In 1976, it became the Wyoming Church Coalition. They called themselves the Wyoming Association of Churches (WAC) in 2003.

The group’s website says that membership is “based on a commitment to come together with others, putting aside our differences to advance our mission.” The “others” will now include those of our friends and neighbors who worship different from Christians. Together, they will all pursue a mission that includes the promotion of spiritual growth, responsible stewardship of God’s creation, and social justice.

The decision to open its uniquely Christian voice to the voices of non-Christians is a matter of significance. There are people in our community who call themselves Christians who will not be a part of anything that includes Muslims, Jews or others. The Wyoming Interfaith Network will offer testimony that exclusionary practices do not serve God’s hopes for the world.

The WAC decision is a recognition that the world’s great religions have in common far more than that which divides them. The fundamental belief shared by each is expressed by Christians as “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

The Quran of the Muslims says, “Not one of you truly believes until you wish for others what you wish for yourself.” The great Rabbi Hillel taught in the Talmud of Judaism that, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. This, Rabbi Hillel exclaimed, “is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary.”

The same theological thread runs through Hinduism, Confucianism, the Baha’i Faith, Taoism, and Sikhism, which teaches, “I am a stranger to no one and no one is a stranger to me. Indeed, I am a friend to all.”

We live in times when the failure to understand the way in which others come to understand the divine threatens the well-being of the world and the security of our fellow human-beings. While covering one of the hundreds of international crises on which Walter Cronkite reported, the iconic anchorman said interfaith dialogue and respect were necessary for the survival of democracy. He said “never before has the need for interfaith commitment been nearly as great as it is at this very moment.” The same is perhaps more urgent in our troubled times.

The world needs to grow quickly beyond employing varying perspectives on God to justify hatred. Replacing fears about the religion of others with facts and understanding is the best chance the world has to save itself from the sort of violence currently engulfing much of it.

Theologian David Smock has studied interfaith dialogue and has written extensively on the subject. Smock says, “It is only when participants have a deep understanding of their own religious traditions and are willing to learn and recognize the richness of other religious traditions that constructive cooperation can take place between those of different faiths.”

An interfaith encounter should not be seen as an opportunity to convert the other person to your religion. Neither does it require that you relinquish your own beliefs. It simply demands an openness and a curiosity about what sustains someone who worships and serves the divine in a manner with which you might not be familiar.

Wyoming legislators fail spiritual test

"Now, when you die and get to the meeting with St. Peter, he’s probably not going to ask you much about what you did about keeping government small. But he is going to ask you what you did for the poor. You better have a good answer."

Republican John Kasich said that. He’s Matt Mead’s GOP colleague, governor of Ohio. Kasich supports Medicaid expansion. Kasich’s conservative, small government credentials are as good as any GOP governor. His sense of morality is better than many.

Asked how a conservative, small government Republican could support this part of Obamacare, Kasich made it spiritual.

Kasich is right. This is a deeply spiritual issue. Politicians try to cast it as a political issue. They can run from the spiritual implications but they can’t hide. Half a century ago, the nation debated whether Congress should enact Medicare and Medicaid. Martin Luther King framed the issue then, as it must now be understood. "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane."

Recently Missouri governor Jay Nixon invoked the Hebrew prophet Isaiah in support of Medicaid expansion. “If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday.” (Isaiah 58:10)

Carl Carmichael, chairman of the Wyoming Association of Churches says, “Opposition to expanding Medicaid in our state is a debacle worthy of nothing but shame for those who refuse to help the 17,000 uninsured Wyoming citizens who would benefit from that expansion. Not only is it morally wrong, it is fiscally irresponsible.”

The Affordable Card Act obligates Washington to pay 100% of the costs of expansion initially, declining to 90%. Searching for a pretext to justify rejecting the money, the governor and legislators say, “We don’t trust the federal government to pay their share.” The governor makes this specious argument while relying on the federal government to balance the state budget by contributing 1.5 billion dollars. The pretentious argument is seconded state senator Eli Bebout, chair of the Appropriations Committee even as he ushers through a budget that trusts the feds that much.

These politicians have always exhibited trust that the feds would pay up as year after year the legislature has balanced its budget on the federal promise to pay.

The governor and Bebout claim the feds reneged on their promise to pay Abandoned Mine Lands funds to the state. But they know those funds were withheld because Wyoming misused the money, spending them on roads and capital improvements at the University rather than on restoring abandoned mines, as the law intended. (Note the irony next time they say someone should be impeached for misuse of federal funds.)

Others argue that the federal share has declined over the years is proof they might not pay that 90%, ignoring provisions of the law that include a formula for non-ACA Medicaid costs. The fluctuation, which doesn’t apply to expansion, takes into account changes in a state’s per capita income and has been modified only three times in the last 35 years. Two times it was raised to provide fiscal relief in response to economic downturns. It was reduced only once, in 1981, when President Reagan requested a temporary reduction. Rates returned to previous levels in 1985.

Jennifer Butler, Faith in Public Life, wrote about the impact of the decision in Republican-governed states to not expand Medicaid. She cited findings that “that as many as 17,000 Americans will die as a result of states refusing to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.” Her essay was titled “Medicaid and Mortality” and could have just as well been named “Medicaid and Morality.”

When issues have the spiritual dimensions of this one, politicians might want to sidestep deceptive political arguments and focus on the truth. As scripture says, “The truth will set you free,” making the face-to-face meeting with St. Peter that Governor Kasich warned about a lot more pleasant.

Are respectful conversations possible?

My New Year’s resolution is to endeavor to understand the views of conservative, evangelical Christians. When I heard that WyWatch, a conservative political action organization, was holding a conference, I decided to attend. The agenda provided an opportunity to learn how they understand the world and why they perceive liberal theologians as threats to their beliefs.

Alas, it was not to be. I was 44 minutes late emailing my registration and they rejected my request. “Mr. McDaniel…your email request was received after the indicated registration deadline.” The conference went on without me. An opportunity to understand one another was missed.

Honestly I don’t blame WyWatch for denying my registration. I wouldn’t have trusted me either. I haven’t always spoken respectfully of my evangelical colleagues. Additionally, I am vice-chair of the Wyoming Association of Churches (WAC), an organization to which WyWatch referred in its conference invitation as a “fringe minority” guilty of misrepresenting and undermining “your biblical views.”

Therein lies the problem. As Abraham told the rich man, “between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.”

Our dialogue has been disrespectful for so long that distrust has become the way in which we relate. The conference banquet speaker, Kenyn Cureton, Vice President, Church Ministries, of the Family Research Council, titled his speech, “Losing your Right to Preach the Gospel: Impossible? Unavoidable? What's At Stake for Pastors?”

As a liberal theologian, I’d have learned what it is that evangelicals believe is “at stake.” The public wasn’t allowed to attend his speech, but did get a sense of what conservatives feel the following day when they gathered at the state capitol to protest abortion laws.

Two legislators spoke at their rally. Allen Jaggi (R-Uinta) said many lawmakers forget Biblical teachings. 
“Some of the people that I work with in the Legislature are pretty smart people. But the trouble is that they don’t listen to God.”

 Legislator, Rev. Nathan Winters (R-Thermopolis) said the country and state “must return to God.”


I don’t completely agree. People of good faith who “listen to God” can and often do reach different, though honest conclusions about God’s word. Nonetheless, Jaggi and Winter’s expressed their views respectfully and I respect the sincerity with which they hold them.

Then there was Frank Eathorne, chairman of WyWatch Family Action. He spoke after the legislators, attacking other religions for promoting “anti-biblical views.”

The WyWatch leader claimed, “Atheism is growing at a record pace and Satanism, Hinduism and Islam, they all persist.” Lumping Muslims and Hindus together with Satanists and Atheists is gratuitously incendiary.

That’s an example of when sincerely held beliefs are nevertheless disrespectful.

Those with whom Jesus disagreed might not have considered his responses to them as “respectful” conversations. He once called them “a brood of vipers.” (Matthew 12:34) But in the same breath, Jesus then warned that on judgment day we’ll “render account for every careless word they utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned."

Being certain about that which is uncertain breeds disrespect. Last month Dr. Jim Ryan, head of the Colorado Council of Churches, spoke at a WAC event called “Respectful Conversations.” Ryan raised the most divisive issue, abortion. Most, not all, in attendance were probably pro-choice.

He asked how we’d react to a hypothetical Supreme Court decision giving parents the right to kill a child for any reason prior to the child’s first birthday. Ryan asked the pro-choice believers in the audience to understand that is how right-to-life believers react to Roe v. Wade as we’d react to his hypothetical.

Ryan’s point is that each of us has a fundamental basis for our views and that a respectful dialogue can take place only if we start by questioning our own opinions even as we acknowledge the sincerity with which others hold theirs.

The question is “who will go first?”