Faith-Fueled Advocacy

This past April, a small group of us met while it was still dark out to make the drive from Harrisonburg, VA to Washington, D.C. We’d been invited by the Anabaptist Climate Collaborative and the MCC Washington Office to join a day of advocacy in honor of Earth month, and more importantly to honor our deep concerns for our communities, country, and planet in the face of climate change.

At some point on the drive, we wondered about the point of such advocacy days. Our culture and systems are so politicized, making an issue like climate change into a triggering, divisive topic rather than a shared, unifying concern for humanity and all creation. We knew that our deeply entrenched political divisions would inevitably frame and limit how our concerns were received by legislators and their staffers. We knew that our voices were a very small drop in a big, tumultuous sea. And yet, here we were driving two and a half hours at 6:30 in the morning. 

At the end of that long and tiring day, I think we all made the drive back home feeling gratified for our time of learning and advocating. While we knew our advocacy day probably didn’t matter that much in the big picture, we also sensed the importance of being pushed to give voice to our faith’s calling to stand with the least of these and to steward creation; the importance of being pulled into communal, collaborative action; and the importance of persistently bringing our voices and our faith into the halls of power with the prayerful hopes that the Spirit can transform our power systems, even as She transforms us.

Our talking points were relatively simple. We met with staffers to ask them to protect the Clean Energy Tax Credits that are threatened to be cut in the current budget reconciliation process. We spoke about the ways our congregations and faith communities have benefited from and been inspired by these tax credits, and we shared our perspectives about the ways we see such credits strengthening our communities and helping them to be more resilient. We had good conversations, no matter which side of the aisle we were meeting with. We saw and listened to the staffers we met with, and we felt seen and listened to by them. 

Did it matter? Our visit alone didn’t sway any of those legislators to vote differently than they would have otherwise. But I, for one, came away feeling more confident in my ability to speak to power. I felt energized by joining others in this work of using our voices to advocate for our sense of faithful calling. I felt heartened by the testimony of many other groups who have been traveling to the MCC Washington Office in recent months and years to speak boldly for justice, peace, and wholeness in our world. 

One of our congregation’s heart songs is “How Can We Be Silent?” How indeed? We speak and we act, as foolish and futile as it may seem, because we are a people of faith, fueled by Christ’s Spirit to partner with God’s restorative, healing, justice-seeking work in the world. 

Krista Showalter Ehst

Pastor at Shalom Mennonite Congregation

Harrisonburg, VA

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