Barbara: Hi, everyone. Welcome to 40 Minutes of Faith. Today's topic is human rights and our guest is Heather Brooks. I met Heather in Germany where she facilitated a weekly Bible study in the evening. She was raised as a Mormon and has lived in Utah since she was nine years old, except the three years she was in Germany.
Heather's parents were both Protestants who converted to the latter day saints church. She made a conscious decision six years ago to separate herself from the LDS church and has been attending a progressive nondenominational Christian Church for the past five years. She's not a fan of organized religion or being called religious, but I have witnessed that Heather loves God.
Heather holds a bachelor's degree in sociology and criminal justice, and currently works as a program manager for the United States Air Force. She's a single mom of a 17 year old daughter who is going into her senior year of high school. Heather's daughter is biracial and is one of a very few minorities at her high school, as the area is 95% white. Another factor in being a minority is that they are not Mormon in Utah. Heather's engaged to a Nigerian whom she dated while they were both in Germany. They are waiting for his visa approvals so they can be reunited. Heather would love to see her daughter grow up in a world that treats her as equal. She would like to go on mission trips and travel the world together. Heather, how are things in Utah?
Heather: Well, Barbara, I happen to work for the crisis action team at the air force base. So I've been seeing this firsthand for months. We've been watching the numbers very closely and Utah has maintained a pretty open feeling as far as businesses, grocery stores being open and restaurants have always been open, at least for takeout, if not dine-in service has been open. But our numbers are starting to increase as people get a little bit more relaxed and the mask wearing has kind of tapered off a little bit. So I don't know if that's part of the reason, but we're seeing somewhat of an increase. So praying that things get a little bit under control here, but we've been really blessed to be able to go out and enjoy the surroundings. I live in a very beautiful state- people here love to be outside and that has never stopped. But my prayers are that we don't increase in our deaths, but we continue to see people recover, which is God's favor on this situation.
And I continue to pray that he will watch over this and that it will end at the time that he's appointed. So, things are good here. I live in a very kind and thoughtful state. So we're blessed.
Barbara: Great. I don't hear that too often. That's amazing. That's really nice.
Heather: It's one of the draws to come back here , it's just such a kind and a beautiful place to be.
Barbara: Well, thank you for offering ahead of time to start off our conversation with the prayer.
Heather: Absolutely. Father God, we are gathered here today in your name.
I'm so thankful for Barbara for her leaning forward in this call that you've given her to reach out, to engage different members of your church on different topics to educate and enlighten anyone who happens to join and listen. God, we pray today that our discussion will be a blessing to those who will be inspired to hear it.
God, we pray that we will keep in mind that we are called to love and that as neighbors and friends and your church, we are called to do this without judgment. And also without fear, God, we ask you to guide this discussion with your spirit. We pray that it will be over this time that we have together.
I'm so thankful God and so grateful for this opportunity. To share some of my feelings and, and my experiences on this subject. And hopefully it will be a blessing. Thank you, father. God, we pray in your name. Jesus Christ. Amen.
Barbara: Amen. So Heather human rights is a global, as well as a local topic. There are many resources from the United nations to faith groups, to the Bible.
We mentioned a passage from Mark chapter 12 during a previous podcast about the command to love our neighbors, which is in several books of the Bible. Part of a parable in the gospel of Matthew illustrates how we can care for our neighbors. A parable is a story to illustrate a moral and or spiritual point.
Here's Matthew chapter 25 verses 35 and 36 from the message
“I was hungry and you fed me. I was thirsty and you gave me a drink. I was homeless and you gave me a room. I was shivering and you gave me clothes. I was sick and you stopped to visit. I was in prison and you came to me.”
There's more to this parable than just the verses I read, but they are foundational to human rights.
Heather, there's so many aspects of human rights that we can talk about. What has your experience been with human rights? What have you noticed?
Heather: Wow, Barbara, this is such a deep question and we could talk about it for so long. my heart has been inclined to this subject for my entire life, as long as I can remember.
I know that it's something that God has I put in my heart and so this topic has special meaning to me, and it's what I'm passionate about. So, hopefully I can contain myself and not get too far off course. What I love about that scripture is how he puts himself in the place of these different individuals in different circumstances.
He says, I was this, I was that- we know that we all have the breath of God within us, and that we are his children, his creations. So I love that he put himself in these different positions that some of us may see as inferior or lacking or needy or undeserved, whatever word is being used underserved.
And God put himself into the place of these people and said, when you serve these communities, these groups, or these individuals, you're serving me. I love that God set that forth as a call for us to do that. And to see that we are really serving him when we serve whatever community it is that he's put in our heart to serve.
I believe strongly that God has given us each separate and unique passions for different topics for different communities. And, I think that every Christian. We'll know either right off the top of their head or if they do some meditating and praying on it, that there is a definitely a community that they've always felt pulled towards.
It could be the homeless, it could be veterans, it could be, refugees. It could be handicapped people. It could be, people that are not currently walking with God. my. Community that's on my heart and always has been black American and African people. I put that in my heart from a very early age and I really didn't understand it.
being a white female from suburban DC area, I was so privileged to be. In what I felt like at that time was the United nations. at my elementary school, we had every nationality, every culture, every race, every religion, it was beautiful. I absolutely loved that. And that gave me the foundation for the passion that I have in working and educating people on this certain segment of society that I feel God has called me to be, extremely compassionate and loving for. So I love that God does that. I love that he. Cause us to do different things, to bless each part of his creation. one of the scriptures that is always on my heart is Corinthians 12 where it talks about the gifts of the spirit and. What they are. I love it that we each have our own call and our own unique place inside of the church as a church body there, that we don't have to all do this the same way. it doesn't look the same for every person to serve. it doesn't even look the same as far as how you do it within the same element or sphere of service. So you're being called to serve God, and maybe serve people that are hungry for, a connection through a podcast and through Bible study and really understanding the word and. I may be trying to serve the same community, but I might do it in a completely different way by individually going out and talking to somebody.
And neither one of those is good. Or better than the other.
Barbara: yes, I'm so glad you brought that up because we have some resources to share. And again, these are, do what you feel comfortable and perhaps be willing to stretch beyond your comfort zone. This isn't a checklist, like every single person has to do every single thing.
I did look it up. And you were right. It's first Corinthians chapter 12, talking about the gifts of the spirit. And it's also in other places in the Bible as well, talking about our different gifts. And we're going to be talking about dignity in a minute, which isn't the same thing, but in terms of how we treat each other to say that they're not better or worse, they're just different. But I wanted to mention that some people learn by listening and some people learn by reading.
So a lot of the resources that we're going to be mentioning also do include the option for reading. And one of them is on a resource website that I had mentioned before, which is www.elca.org the Lutheran church that I belong to has social messages and social statements. And those are all written out on that website.
So there's a long social message about human rights, And the transcript of this conversation is going to be. On www.40minutesoffaith.com, along with all of the links to the websites that we're going to be mentioning. one quote from that Lutheran document is that a society should not deny a person's dignity for any reason. Heather, how are our global societies doing when it comes to honoring or denying dignity?
Heather: Wow, that's a challenging question. And first I wanted to say that I did read that statement. I really enjoyed reading that as a sociologist, as a person that has been studying this different, groups of society.
I was really pleasantly surprised, because I haven't investigated a lot of the specific faiths and I wasn't aware that, your specific faith is so, open on this subject and that they have written the statement. It was really awesome to read it and. I enjoyed that. And, there was so much good stuff in there.
I'll probably go back and look at it again and see how I can apply that to my own faith walk. on your question about global societies, you know, God put me in such an amazing position as a single mom to go to Europe. I've always been globally minded, I think internally, but due to financial reasons or due to child rearing reasons my daughter and I had not left the U S before. So she was 13 when we went, and it was a great time. I was pretty newly divorced and I was somewhat newly a nondenominational Christian. And so it was like, God was opening the world up to me. And it was such an amazing experience to be there.
We traveled all over Europe, met all kinds of people. I had relationships, friend relationships and even romantic relationships with people from other countries. I got to hear a lot about how their society there. leadership in their home countries, we're handling human dignity, human rights.
a lot of it was negative, but I think that we can expect that because we human humans seem to be ruled by the flesh and especially people that may be drawn into leadership. And. Those types of positions may be ruled by things such as greed or, selfish reasons. So I don't want to judge all leaders because there's definitely ones that God put in place that are doing good things.
But I heard so many times from so many different people from so many different places. How their society, their country, their leaders were failing to treat people equally and as God has intended for us to treat others. So I would say in my experience, I saw that there are some countries that are doing pretty well.
I wouldn't say that I ever saw that any country was doing great. I don't think that our own country is doing great on this topic, but I know that we can because I'm a very patriotic and, positive and optimistic person. I choose to focus on the room for growth and the potential that we have as Americans to do better on this issue.
Barbara: another quote in the social message is that no person inherently has more rights or fewer rights than another. So I'm wondering how can we do better on that one? how can ordinary people help?
I know that sometimes it's government or bureaucracy or society or whatever, but, how can we do better
Heather: this is such a confounding topic because we, as individuals may not feel that we have any influence on a larger scale, as far as.
How things go. And even though we have the right to vote a lot of times, who we vote for doesn't end up prevailing. So it feels like I have the right to vote, but is that making any kind of an impact? Something that God put in my heart a little while ago was I was thinking that I needed to reach out to like a big audience and.
be talking about my experience or my philosophy of how to do this. And God told me to pull that back and just to do it more on an individual basis. I've studied government a lot too. was one of my areas of study growing up and in college. I'm really into politics and my family is very political. I originally had thought that a way for me to make a difference was to become a politician. And that really was one of my goals as a young person. And I see that there's so much good that we can do, on a personal level and, influencing the community at our doorstep.
So, maybe one day, God will lead me there. I don't want to close any doors, but I don't feel led in that regard anymore. So, as far as how we can do better, it starts inside of us. We have to first rid ourselves of any judgment that we have towards specific communities, and really do some soul searching.
We have to, pray and ask God to uncover that. And it can be painful, to reveal these works that we were trying to ignore or that just weren't coming to light. So. First thing we have to do is in prayer on this issue. And then, once we work with God on healing those things, because he is the great healer and we may feel really bad about some of the thoughts or the, ideas that we've allowed to stagnate in internally.
But God can remove all of those things from us. If we have a heart for him to do it, and if we allow him to do it, and sometimes it takes a little while, maybe we won't be healed right away, like a miraculous healing that Jesus performed many times, but it takes some work and effort depending on how long you've allowed those things to fester.
So the first thing I think is you have to work internally and you have to work with God on. Relieving you of those things. And I think also times when God really relieved people of those things very quickly, including myself, you know, there's been times where I prayed on different things for relief and God relieve me of them right away.
So he knows where you're at with that and he can work with you on it. So, another thing we have to remember is, it's not my right to determine another person's worth. And their rights. So the statement that you read said that no person has more rights or fewer rights than another. I don't set the rights of anyone.
I don't even set the rights of myself and I don't establish my own worth or another person's worth or how I should treat them with dignity or not. That isn't up to me. God established that when he created you. And my brother and my sister and, myself. So God gave that, that worth to me. And it's not my place to take it away from anybody, but to recognize and to, promote and help those that maybe society isn't treating with dignity, in different ways.
So, we have to keep those things in mind and. I think that is one way we can do better. and then after you feel that your conscience is clear, then. You can pray and ask God to lead you forward in what type of action you can do externally. So first internal second, external. And how do you, how does that look for you?
It's going to be different for every person. Not every person is going to have people coming in their house to talk about this and not every person is going to be on the street. Doing peaceful, protesting and not every person is going to be working in the homeless shelter with that community. So just because I do things one way doesn't mean that when you have this awakening or this realization of an area that you need to be healed, that you have to follow in my footsteps.
And so that's something as we work with others on, you know, human rights. So she uses. Make sure that they are in relation with God on that directly and that we're not telling them, Hey, this is what you should do, but here's some things that you could do. And why don't you ask God to tell you which one of them is going to be your lane?
Does that make sense?
Barbara: Yes. I really appreciate you inviting that. There's a variety of different ways. Starting with some internal works in prayer, work with God, and then we'll be providing some ideas, but certainly not an exhaustive list. There's probably plenty of other things out there too. Or what you feel kind of called internally.
And that sometimes is going to be really apparent from a young age. I knew from junior high that I wanted to be a social worker. There was absolutely no doubt in my mind about that. And then maybe sometimes in our lives, there can be different paths to, so you may be on the same path and that's great.
Or sometimes the situation changes something new arises. And so we'll be offering up some resources that are not exhaustive for folks to consider, Hey, could this be a good fit? Am I willing to try this? Am I willing to learn something new? Am I willing to pray about it? And one thing, when I read the social statement on human rights, I felt a little bit guilty because I don't like to think that I've ever treated another human being as though they were a commodity. But I do know that I benefit from laws and businesses practices, which abused people by virtue of work conditions, lack of benefits, like sick time, or even sufficient access to toilet facilities and running water to wash their hands.
So even though I might personally not be implementing any of those things, if I've benefit from those conditions, then I feel that I'm also accountable for it. And so the Lutheran statement asks us to advocate for people so that they are not treated as commodities. And I'm wondering what needs to happen to balance out the lives of luxury lived by so many people with the lives of destitution that are lived by others.
Heather: you can immediately ponder this topic and become incredibly guilty feeling. start to condemn yourself a big focus of my discussion with my friends and with my own daughter. who's becoming a little bit of an activist in her own, right? As a young woman of color- and by the way, I absolutely applaud and love this young age group. They are leading us forward in this. And I absolutely love how passionate they are about their advocacy. They are definitely leading this, social justice movement. And I think we need to get out of their way and let them do it and see how we can support them because they have great ideas.
So, lives of luxury. Yeah, we are definitely blessed. I have more than I need. and I've seen firsthand, and been in refugee homes in Germany. I got to see how their life was different and, It was really eye-opening. they had come from countries where there was so much turmoil and conflict and they were just seeking a place of peace. And for them, this was like a place they could rest. Their spirit could, be a little bit more, free to praise God in this place that they were at. Not that they weren't before, but just that the burden of everyday struggle wasn't quite so bad. And so they could focus on some other things. I felt like, my freedom was a little bit limited in Germany because of all the laws there, but they felt free.
And, it was interesting to see that paradox and to see that, It just totally depends on your upbringing and where you're from. And so do I feel like God says, Hey Heather, you're, you have too much stuff and you need to give it all away and follow me like the young man that asked him how he could enter the kingdom of heaven. And he said, you give up all your possessions and follow me. I don't believe that God calls all of us to do that. So I don't believe that our first reaction should be when we hear a statement like, lives of luxury and other people are struggling that it's like, Oh my gosh, God, you're telling me I have too much and I have to give it away. I don't believe that. But I do believe that God will lead you in ways that you can be giving and that you can make a difference. So there's so many ways that people are being abused and that labor is being exploited. that it's not possible for us to really research every single purchase we make- is that a fair trade purchase? Is that company treating their workers with dignity? There's absolutely no way because you know how the supply chain works. They're second and third level suppliers for all of the products that we use.
They're not made from start to finish in one place. So you could go in a research this tire company that you bought your car tires from, but you don't know what their rubber supplier is doing with their employees so we could absolutely go bonkers trying to figure out all of this.
So, it's not something that I personally do, like think, Oh my gosh, God, should I buy tires from this company? But I'll give you an example of, where, even in a progressive and an open system society like Germany, that. there is definitely abuse of workers' rights going on. So my fiance, he's a beautiful and loving and kind and hardworking person.
And he was fortunate to in the constraints that the immigration service in Germany gave him, he went and found his own job because they basically have to approve. Where you work and they do quite a bit of research to ensure that no German could have this job before they'll allow an immigrant to do it.
And one of the reasons that they have opened their doors so much to immigration there is that they have a labor shortage. Germany has a low birth rate and in fact, a negative growth rate and they need young and capable workers in lower level service and manufacturing industries, because.
Their population is becoming more educated and doing things like engineering that we associate with Germany, but they're kind of losing the manufacturing workforce. So they let a lot of different. people into their country for that reason. And some people may think that they did it out of the goodness of their heart, but I like to look at it from an economic standpoint, like what are they gaining from that?
And, so they regulate a lot where these people can work. My fiancé had a work permit. So he was allowed to work there, but he was told where he could work. He happened upon an, I feel God led him to, a theater company in our local area where he just asked them if they were hiring. And he has, a degree in business and accounting and a background in it, but he just felt like I'll take work, whatever it is because I don't want to be idle and I'm here. God had led him to Germany, and he didn't really know why. And I felt the same way, but we feel like it was for us to meet. So anyway, he goes to this theater company and they hire him and he is doing heavy lifting, building heavy theater sets, doing a lot of manual labor, but he really enjoyed it.
And he had freedom there. They traveled all over Germany, sometimes out of the country, for these different productions. And he really became a part of his team. He taught himself German and they really loved him. but the way that the work goes in Germany, you're under a contract and his contract expired and the immigration office was giving him a really hard time about the renewal of this work contract. And also we felt that it was time for him to go back to Nigeria because I was leaving Germany and he was preparing for his visa interview. So he stepped aside from that position and then he needed to work somewhere and he had heard through other refugees that he lived with because the government, forces you to live in certain housing, which is very substandard. sometimes vacant buildings that they convert into housing for refugees.
Anyway, there's a community. There are people that like to help each other. Hey, I know I've heard of this job. And so he went to work at this place and I felt the anxiety or, you know, thousands of miles away just listening to him. they were actually doing tires and, They were working at a Foundry or I'm probably saying that wrong, but where they literally mold the rubber into tires.
So I have pictures of him where he's standing in front of this blast furnace. It looks like, and the first day when he got there, nobody had warned him that you want to wear sleeves on your shirt. And he was there thinking this is going to be hot, hard work. So he's wearing a tank top and, he had burns all over his arms from them. and then, he asked his coworkers, when do we get a break? And they said, you don't get a break. You're not even allowed in an eight hour shift to stop to use the restroom. So there was no lunch break. There was no take a drink of water break.
There was no, I need to use the bathroom now break. Basically these immigrants would watch each other's back. somebody said I really have to go use the restroom and they would say, hurry. You need to go and then come right back to your station and we'll make sure that the boss doesn't catch you.
And I'm thinking, how is this possible in a country like Germany that is considered at the top of the economy in Europe? How is it possible that we have people working in these conditions? You have no idea what's going on right around you. So if that is an issue that God leads you to feel passionate about, I'm going to keep harping on that.
God is going to lead you to specific community or a specific cause. And if that's your cause workers' rights, I'm sure that he will lead you in how to support that for me. It's one, part of a bigger issue that I feel led towards, but I don't know personally how I can affect that, because I don't know, like if they were making tires for a specific tire maker and, if I bought those tires, I guess I didn't because they were in Germany.
So, how do I know that, and how do I, if I know, and I willingly. I'm complicit in allowing that to happen and promoting or consuming from that. Then I have a burden on myself, but I don't think that we should feel burdened, to research and. To understand the background of all of these things
Barbara: you could spend hours and days on end. If it becomes apparent, like you said, then we can choose what we buy or we can. Stand up. There's a couple of websites, that I had wanted to mention. And I really appreciate you being honest to Heather because everybody says vote, vote, vote, and I'm all in favor of voting.
Go vote. But I agree with you. Sometimes it feels disempowering that either, you know what the candidates promise on the way in might not come to pass. After they've been elected and it's often not up to one individual person anyway, it's a group vote, but vote anyway. Even if it feels that the results might not be immediately apparent of what you want.
And then, workers' rights, something that's important to you. There are advocacy methods and then just basic human decency and even prayer. I wouldn't say stop and end with prayer. We should pray for all oppressed peoples, but then, what action can we take?
So there is more information on United nations, their website, which is un.org and also amnesty their website is amnestyusa.org. And there are basic human rights. As far as I'm concerned, going to the bathroom is a basic human right, taking a break during your work shift and. In the United States, I believe it also happens.
There was a book a few years ago, so those exact situations might not be happening, but I suspect they are it's called Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich. So I would recommend that book.
Where is your heart with human rights? It could be with human trafficking. It could be child abuse. It could be, the list goes on. Unfortunately, we haven't even begun to exhaust the list of how we humans treat each other badly.
Heather: Oh, absolutely true.
Barbara: Thanks for joining us today as we’ve discussed human rights. There is so much more to talk about that Heather and I will have a second episode coming in 2 weeks when we discuss how to talk about race with white people, volunteering and charitable giving. The next episode is about different translations of the Bible. Are any versions better than others? Seminary professor May Persaud enlightens us about Biblical language and why there are so many interpretations. Your comments are welcome at 40minutesoffaith.com
Heather shares her perspective on human rights