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Welcome to the hot dish comfort food for rural America.

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I'm Heidi Heitkamp.

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and I'm Joel Heitkamp.

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We're entering a season filled with important religious holidays, um really across the
board.

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This is uh a particularly significant time of year.

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Religion has played such an important role in rural communities.

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And so we wanted to explore that this week.

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And with us is a wonderful woman, Reverend Jane Field.

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She's the executive director of the Maine Council of Churches.

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Reverend Field, welcome to the hot dish.

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Thank you so much.

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It's a pleasure to be here.

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Well, we're excited to have you on.

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I'm going to start out with the first question, which is, um you know, when you look at
religion and the role religion has always played in politics, um including the Black

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churches, including the evangelical movement and the MAGA movement, you know, what would
you say in terms of unifying, especially around Christianity, what would you say is the

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current state of

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uh Christian unification this really important inflection point.

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That's a really complicated question uh or a complicated answer to a question.

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uh Unity is a tricky wicket these days in uh Christian circles.

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I should start out by saying our council uh has seven denominational members, five of whom
are Protestant Christian mainline denominations.

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We also have Unitarians and Quakers.

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So, but I happen to be a Presbyterian minister.

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So I do speak from a Christian perspective.

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um With the rise of white Christian nationalism, uh what has become clearer and clearer as
we do the work that we do, trying to make the world more just and compassionate and

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peaceful, which is our council's mission, um it's become clear that what some people
self-identify as Christian doesn't jive with what the rest of us call Christianity

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anymore.

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And I've...

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take into calling white Christian nationalism a political ideology, I don't think of it as
Christianity.

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It does not look like Christianity to me at all.

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uh It uh is a political ideology with the goals of power.

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And that's not the same thing as the Christianity that I've known my whole life and
studied and lead.

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So Reverend, what you just described about your organization, though, is incredibly uh
diverse.

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uh Explain when you work with all those different denominations, how they feel, how how
you can bring them together or probably a better way of asking is, they agree?

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They do.

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um It's uh pretty extraordinary.

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uh Our board is made up of seven representatives, each one appointed by their denomination
and authorized to speak for their denomination and our deliberations.

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um And we are very unified as a body.

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uh We did used to have the Roman Catholics at our table and they chose to leave about six
years ago.

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because the rest of our denominations felt very strongly that we needed to speak up for
LGBTQ justice.

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And they could not be part of an organization that was doing that.

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And so despite two years of trying to keep them at our table, they made the uh painful
decision to leave.

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Since that has happened uh and is in our past, we have found extraordinary unity.

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uh

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It's important to know that I travel around the state visiting local congregations and
from time to time we'll meet someone who says, that's not my opinion, you you don't

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represent me.

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And I have to be very clear, we are a creature of the denominations and the lane we stay
in is defined by the policies of our denominations.

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So if they have an issue, the issue they have is with their own denomination and not with
us as a council.

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ah

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I'm glad I'm not a bishop.

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I'm glad I'm an executive director of an ecumenical council because a bishop has a
trickier line to walk because those people are his people too.

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ah But their denomination, like all of our denominations, has a process for identifying
where they stand on any given issue.

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We take our lead from them and we have extraordinary unity as a body, as an ecumenical
coalition right now.

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Well, I would be uh remiss if I didn't ask a selfish question.

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Most of our podcast listeners know that Joel and I grew up uh in the Catholic faith.

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We grew up at a time when uh people always ask me, how do you square your faith with your
politics?

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And I said, I grew up a social justice Catholic.

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And so I'm curious, yeah, I'm curious about whether uh you see now with two back to back
popes, both who seem to be very

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um interested in getting back to what I would consider kind of that social justice mold of
the Catholic faith, whether you're seeing any movement of Catholics back into that

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discussion.

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What we see is a movement of the laity and some priests back into the discussion.

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And in fact, when that rupture happened in our council, we immediately amended our bylaws
to provide for a way for a Roman Catholic to serve on our board.

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And we elected one within a year.

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So we have a very open dialogue um and also with women religious here in the state.

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um And yes, very strong commitments to a lot of the things that

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are defined in a document we call our moral agenda, which sounds kind of creepily weird
and it's not, um that uh outlines what we mean when we say we're working for a more just,

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compassionate, and peaceful world.

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And we stand on common ground with our Roman Catholic siblings, em and proudly so.

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Sister Simone is a great friend of the podcast.

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The nuns on the bus have provided a lot of great instruction about what's happening in
rural America and bringing that, that looping that ethic back into that value back into

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faith.

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I know in a little bit we're going to end up talking about what happened in Maine, what
happened with ICE and the different attitudes of how some people can use a religion to

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define what they're doing politically.

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I know that.

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But one of the things we talk about here on the hot dish is rule uh and where we're at
when it comes to rule and in this case, faith.

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uh I think, as Heidi pointed out,

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about us.

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The one thing that we can both agree on as well is that we don't go to church as much as
we did when we were young.

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uh We just don't.

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uh That doesn't mean that we're not religious.

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It doesn't mean that I don't believe in Christ.

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It doesn't believe that I'm not a Christian and try to live out the way I was raised to be
Christian.

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But I don't go to church as much as I used to.

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And I'm curious oh what you're seeing in Maine.

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Are people going to church?

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uh The Pew em survey that's done every couple of years will tell you that Maine and
Vermont vie for the least churched states in the whole United States.

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So we have a lot of people who, like you Joel, would actually, I've heard them say exactly
what you just said.

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um Our rural churches nationally, and I think it bears out here in Maine as well, uh about
50 % of rural folks don't go to church either.

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uh I think it's really important to distinguish between saying somebody attends a
religious service and somebody is um a practicing Buddhist, Muslim, Christian, whatever um

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their affiliation might be.

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uh I sometimes am skeptical of surveys that go down those roads because you cannot say if
you go to church, therefore you are a religious person.

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uh

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There's also people who show up in church every week that maybe we wouldn't say are so
religious.

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So it's a dangerous way to quantify.

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But it is true nationally and here in Maine that more than half of people in our rural
areas don't go to church.

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em And I think that surprises some people.

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think em when we imagine rural, we think of stereotypes and

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uh I read a great quote in preparing for this interview actually that said, you know one
local rural church, you know one local rural church.

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can't, it's very dangerous to make broad sweeping generalizations.

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Another thing we do is think of white and agrarian.

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And uh lots of rural churches and lots of rural people are people of color.

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Here in Maine, it's important when we think about our rural communities to remember our
Wabanaki siblings.

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the indigenous tribes that uh have made Maine their home for 12,000 years, um they're
rural and um some identify as Christian and there are churches uh that are primarily

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indigenous.

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So yeah, it's hard to make sweeping generalizations, but we are an unchurched um We at the
council feel an essential call to be

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in relationship with people like you, Joel, who would say, hey, you I don't go to church
or, you know, the joke is people say I'm not into organized religion.

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I'm like, then you'll fit right in in the church because we're the most disorganized
institution in history of the world.

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um But we spend a lot of our time, I spend a lot of my time as the one staff, full time
staff person um at the council um building relationships with folks like that.

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And our programming, interestingly,

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draws a ton of people.

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We had 500 people at our town hall last January about how to help our immigrant neighbors
who were being threatened with harm.

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And a whole lot of those 500 people were not churchy people at all.

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I think when churches become relevant to people's values, not just faith, but to their
values and what they want to spend their time, you're seeing kind of an enormous

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influence.

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And we have a council of faith leaders here that's led by my former state director who is
doing marvelous work on things like school lunches.

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doing some amazing work on, you know, kind of school funding, you know, just kind of
looking at what would Jesus do and when we look at the legislature, what should we be

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talking about?

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But that raises the question, and I know you were involved in this in Maine, and we
obviously, being from North Dakota, watched our neighbors go through this in the state of

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Minnesota.

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um And I was...

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um

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gratified, I think, and just absolutely moved by the role that faith leaders played in
sending a message.

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And I think that, you when it's not what people would say, look at all those hippies, when
it's faith leaders who are kneeling and praying at these events, trying to stop the

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violence, trying to stop, you know, the evil that was happening, that has a much larger
impact, I think, on the public as a whole.

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And so

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Can you explain to us kind of what happened in Maine, obviously politically pulled out
pretty quickly because of some pressure from his senator who was up for reelection, but

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you know, talk to us about the Maine experience with ICE.

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Yes, faith leaders were at the forefront of a lot of the resistance efforts here in the
state.

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Way back, as I said, in January of 25, we could see the handwriting on the wall and we
started to organize.

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There was a group of faith leaders, I was on the fringes of it, I certainly was not a
leader in it, who got our statewide hotline up and running way in advance of the surge

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arriving here.

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so that by the time those agents hit the ground here, we had over 1,000 people trained as
rapid responders and operators working the hotline 24 hours a day.

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And they were extremely effective in keeping our neighbors safe.

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one of the things that we did as faith leaders in the greater Portland area, which is
where I happen to live,

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was go and every day at 7.15 in the morning and at 3.15 in the afternoon to create a human
barrier so that workers who were from the immigrant community that worked at a factory

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could get to their cars safely with ICE agents passing by on the street.

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And this 82 year old guy called me up and said, you know, I'm old and this was by the way,
when temperatures and.

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you all from North Dakota, this isn't going to impress you at all.

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But if you have listeners from Texas, this will shock them.

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It was below zero most of those mornings and most of those afternoons.

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It was very cold.

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He said, I don't do well in the cold, but if you need me to come and stand with you, I'll
come.

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Like, we don't need you to come and stand.

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He said, well, I did get trained as an operator, so I take my shift on the hotline.

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God bless him.

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It was amazing.

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It was so inspiring.

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And he told me what church he went to.

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And ah he made my day.

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ah

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We also were very involved in grocery deliveries to families that were sheltering in place
because it was too dangerous for them to go out.

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And the grocery store parking lots were one of the places where people were getting
abducted.

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We had people doing school watches and school accompaniment to get kids to and from school
safely, and also driving people to work.

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All of these things were intimately woven into the lives of our local congregations.

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That's who was doing this work.

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um

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there were people who weren't churched who were doing this work right alongside us.

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um But as you say, the dialogue that started happening between the quote unquote
unchurched, which I hate that word, but it's shorthand, and the people who were doing it

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out of a faith commitment was fascinating.

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We actually got a letter in the mail about halfway through the surge from a man I've never
met from Wiscasset which is up the coast, um down the coast, if you're from Maine.

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um

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saying, I'm an atheist, I'm an avowed atheist, but when I saw what y'all are doing, I had
to send you some money, and he sent us a check.

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So it bonded people together across those differences.

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em And I'm proud to say that the faith communities here in Maine, Muslim, Jewish,
Christian, Buddhist, stood strong together um and were an integral part of the resistance

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here as it went on and unfolded.

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And by the way,

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Susan Collins, the senator you mentioned, had nine of my colleagues arrested in her office
in Portland when they showed up to pray and to ask to speak with her about ending the

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surge.

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She called the police and had them arrested.

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Let me ask this because I'll be honest with you, I wasn't shocked by what you just said.

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On the political side, I understand it and I love poll numbers.

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But let me ask this.

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You mentioned the interaction between the church and the unchurched.

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What about in this case, the ultimate victims, these people that got up every day and they
worked and they're members of the community and

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And they might be individuals of color that ISIS targeted, but you had a chance through
your organization and the people in it to talk to them, to just talk to these human beings

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who became victims.

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What did they say about all this?

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How are their lives going because of all this?

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They were so frightened.

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um It was abject terror.

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um They also, one thing we discovered about three quarters of the way through the surge,
and I just need to say our surge was a tiny little thing compared to what the people in

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Minnesota are enduring.

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And I in no way want to compare the suffering that they're continuing to experience to
what we did.

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But it's what I know, because I was here.

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um We found out that those who were sheltering in place

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had no idea that there were so many people from the non-immigrant community stepping up
and stepping in to help.

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And as they discovered it, they were.

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They were speechless.

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They were deeply moved.

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They were grateful beyond words um to say, you know, why are you helping us?

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And we don't know what we would do if you weren't helping us.

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And it bonded people together across those differences of people like me who walk through
the world with privilege, white skin and blonde hair.

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you know, I'm an old white lady.

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Nobody's going to mess with me.

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uh unless I pray at my senator's office and then she'll probably have me arrested.

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But I did not go there that day because I have a family member who is a person of color
and uh who was not born here and who was very afraid at how public I was being and how

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that might draw attention to them.

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So I had to pick and choose what I could and could not do.

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And I chose not to go there that day.

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Anyway, um the folks who were

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because of their accents, because of their skin color, because of the way they dressed,
because they had to show up to their immigration appointments.

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They were doing things the right way and the legal way, uh were in the line of harm.

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They were being literally targeted.

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uh Let's not forget that the name of the surge here was Catch of the Day, which is so
despicable and disgusting.

204
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uh God has a sense of humor, however.

205
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The first Sunday of the surge, the scripture lesson was Jesus saying, I'll teach you how
to fish for people.

206
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And any clergy person who didn't get in the pulpit and address the evil that was happening
outside our doors should be fired, in my humble opinion, because it was the perfect

207
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opportunity to link the gospel message with what was happening in our streets that very
day.

208
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Well, I think that the real the the emergence of faith leaders into this political space
when they see something that is wrong saying we need we cannot be faith leaders without

209
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recognizing the need to speak at this point in time.

210
00:19:06,845 --> 00:19:17,788
I think it's been a really interesting counter movement to what we've seen in the kind of
as you say, not so Christian white nationalism, or the, you know,

211
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the movement on the other side.

212
00:19:20,842 --> 00:19:31,231
And so one of the reasons why I believe, I think Joel agrees with me, that oh our
political party has not done well is we're seen as godless.

213
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We're seen as people who don't have faith.

214
00:19:33,372 --> 00:19:48,084
oh And bringing in those values into our politics as we move away from those cultural
issues, whether it's abortion or gay, lesbian, transgender issues that um divide

215
00:19:48,208 --> 00:19:55,240
so many people, especially in the Catholic faith, it just seems like this is a really
important point.

216
00:19:55,240 --> 00:20:05,834
So when you look at what you've done in Maine and you look at Minnesota, do you see this
happening all across the country or are these isolated Scandinavian, you know, it's cold

217
00:20:05,834 --> 00:20:12,336
out so we get going kind of folks and not really a national movement?

218
00:20:12,582 --> 00:20:14,413
No, I think it is a national movement.

219
00:20:14,413 --> 00:20:19,074
And we were also getting letters from people all over the country.

220
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And I hope and pray, and I think it's true that my colleagues in Minnesota were getting
similar letters from areas where there wasn't a surge happening saying, we're praying for

221
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you.

222
00:20:29,417 --> 00:20:30,897
We are supporting you.

223
00:20:30,897 --> 00:20:39,780
Thank you for standing up and resisting, uh for embodying the gospel values of love and
dignity of every human being.

224
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uh

225
00:20:41,858 --> 00:20:51,493
You know, I think about my, I'm Presbyterian and I think about the Presbyterian pastor in
Chicago, Dan Black, who got shot in the face with a paintball by an ICE agent.

226
00:20:51,493 --> 00:20:55,515
uh He was there praying outside a detention center.

227
00:20:55,515 --> 00:21:05,791
um And speaking of prayer, I should have mentioned that a number of clergy here in the
state organized a weekly prayer vigil outside our ICE detention center, which is also the

228
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county jail ah in Southern Maine, the Cumberland County jail.

229
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uh

230
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We were there every Wednesday afternoon, even Christmas Eve, even New Year's Eve, week
after week after week, starting in October, so long before the surge, but throughout the

231
00:21:22,031 --> 00:21:25,192
surge, uh praying for everyone caught up in that system.

232
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And we were able to develop relationships with, uh there were about 60 detainees being
held in Maine.

233
00:21:32,694 --> 00:21:40,276
None of them were from Maine because the shell game that evil system plays is to move
people around as quickly as they can to states.

234
00:21:40,276 --> 00:21:41,275
uh

235
00:21:41,275 --> 00:21:43,687
where their families and their lawyers can't find them.

236
00:21:43,687 --> 00:21:49,908
uh But we were able to connect with them, in some cases meet with them, exchange letters
every week with them.

237
00:21:49,908 --> 00:21:55,655
Every church in the area uh got a letter from somebody that they could then write back to
each week.

238
00:21:55,655 --> 00:21:59,297
uh My church's uh detainee was Sonia.

239
00:21:59,297 --> 00:22:01,399
uh I'll never forget her name.

240
00:22:01,399 --> 00:22:04,161
I never met her, but Sonia.

241
00:22:04,161 --> 00:22:09,060
uh Unfortunately, the ICE agents during the surge arrested

242
00:22:09,060 --> 00:22:19,530
a corrections officer from the Cumberland County jail, and our sheriff got in front of the
press and rightfully criticized them and called them Bush League law enforcement.

243
00:22:19,530 --> 00:22:31,981
And that night in the middle of the night at 2 a.m., they swept into the jail, took all of
our friends, our siblings, these people we connected with, and drove them to Massachusetts

244
00:22:31,981 --> 00:22:36,024
in the middle of the night and then flew them to Louisiana, and they're gone.

245
00:22:36,568 --> 00:22:39,709
We had put money in their commissary accounts to help them.

246
00:22:39,709 --> 00:22:41,930
That money didn't go with them to Louisiana.

247
00:22:41,930 --> 00:22:45,511
It's just evaporated into who knows where.

248
00:22:45,511 --> 00:22:48,292
um It was devastating.

249
00:22:48,292 --> 00:22:54,794
uh that's a way that it is happening all around the country, even where there aren't
surges.

250
00:22:54,794 --> 00:22:58,475
Any place where there are detention centers, there are people of faith.

251
00:22:58,475 --> 00:22:59,916
And they're showing up.

252
00:22:59,916 --> 00:23:01,416
They're standing up.

253
00:23:01,416 --> 00:23:10,962
praying outside these centers, they're trying to get into these centers, there are Roman
Catholic priests trying to bring ashes on Ash Wednesday or communion on Sundays, uh and in

254
00:23:10,962 --> 00:23:16,106
some cases being turned away, which is illegal for them to be turned away from doing that.

255
00:23:16,106 --> 00:23:18,757
And yet they are, and they come back again and again.

256
00:23:18,757 --> 00:23:24,151
Yeah, don't ever underestimate stubborn clergy.

257
00:23:24,151 --> 00:23:26,420
We get our backs up about something.

258
00:23:26,420 --> 00:23:39,867
the bad part is, is we also can't uh underestimate how some people in our government can
be evil and what exactly their motivation is and not just sitting there and accepting it.

259
00:23:39,867 --> 00:23:42,048
know, so hats off to you.

260
00:23:42,868 --> 00:23:46,230
Six of the most important people in my life are my grandchildren.

261
00:23:46,230 --> 00:23:51,393
And some of the older ones are old enough now to understand everything you just said.

262
00:23:51,393 --> 00:23:54,284
uh They don't go to church every Sunday.

263
00:23:54,284 --> 00:24:05,192
baptized, they have their own congregations, they're active at some level, if not all
levels of their church, but they don't go as much as they did, uh or Heidi and I did when

264
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we were young.

265
00:24:06,403 --> 00:24:23,274
But it's things like this that it seems to me are going to strengthen or maybe even teach
them, my grandkids, the power of faith and the power of of how, you know,

266
00:24:23,274 --> 00:24:28,150
I being Catholic, my wife being Lutheran, how faith can come together to do this.

267
00:24:28,150 --> 00:24:34,208
And so I think what you're doing for that next generation is so important.

268
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And I'm curious what you think about.

269
00:24:37,369 --> 00:24:39,630
Yeah, I would agree.

270
00:24:39,630 --> 00:24:48,994
um I also believe that the institutional church, regardless of denomination, has a lot of
repentant to do, as we might say in the old school.

271
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We've done a lot of damage.

272
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We've caused a lot of harm.

273
00:24:51,375 --> 00:24:53,095
There's been a lot of religious trauma.

274
00:24:53,095 --> 00:24:55,486
ah But it can be redeemed.

275
00:24:55,486 --> 00:24:56,717
And this is how.

276
00:24:56,717 --> 00:25:04,250
think I know because of the circles I run in, we as a council do public policy advocacy at
the state legislature level.

277
00:25:04,384 --> 00:25:16,012
and um I'll show up to testify for gun safety or SNAP benefits or eviction prevention or
keeping access to abortion legal and safe or sensible drug safety.

278
00:25:16,012 --> 00:25:25,479
um And the younger advocates who are very secular and probably a lot like your grandkids
will be when they get to be in their 20s.

279
00:25:25,479 --> 00:25:33,404
um And they look at me and they say, well, if I knew people like in churches were like
this, maybe I'd go.

280
00:25:33,641 --> 00:25:37,761
I get said, that gets said to me all the time.

281
00:25:37,761 --> 00:25:43,281
And so we just have to keep showing up bearing witness to what we know and believe and
hold dear.

282
00:25:43,921 --> 00:25:51,581
You know, on my wall behind my computer screen is Micah six, do justice, love kindness,
walk humbly and Matthew 25.

283
00:25:51,581 --> 00:25:54,321
When you do it to the least of these, you do it to me.

284
00:25:54,321 --> 00:25:59,181
If we can just live into that and do it with integrity and authenticity, I think you're
right, Joel.

285
00:25:59,181 --> 00:25:59,822
think.

286
00:25:59,822 --> 00:26:08,478
it will bear witness to people who have written us off because of the caricatures that
exist in mainstream America about what it means to be a Christian.

287
00:26:08,478 --> 00:26:11,192
It's kind of a dirty word and we need to reclaim it.

288
00:26:12,160 --> 00:26:19,487
Well, honestly, Reverend, we are so grateful and it's such an important message.

289
00:26:19,487 --> 00:26:30,678
uh Just want to talk about I made a friend at the Vatican, uh a young priest called Father
Manny who uh was from Chicago.

290
00:26:30,678 --> 00:26:36,262
And when I lived in Chicago and I knew that I would be there on Sunday, I would go to
Mass.

291
00:26:36,423 --> 00:26:37,438
And uh

292
00:26:37,438 --> 00:26:45,072
I remember the last sermon that he preached before the Vatican hauled him to Rome, which
is unfortunate for the city of Chicago.

293
00:26:45,332 --> 00:26:55,317
But uh he said, he always wore the collar when he was traveling and people would stop him
and they would uh talk to him.

294
00:26:56,278 --> 00:26:57,489
he preached this.

295
00:26:57,489 --> 00:27:02,622
said, you know, they would talk about the hurt that the Catholic church had imposed on
them.

296
00:27:02,622 --> 00:27:05,003
But he said they didn't talk about the clergy.

297
00:27:05,003 --> 00:27:07,104
They talked about the other.

298
00:27:07,478 --> 00:27:09,890
congregants who judged.

299
00:27:09,970 --> 00:27:16,596
And he said, so if you want, if you want to bring faith that back into people's lives, you
need to approach without judgment.

300
00:27:16,596 --> 00:27:21,400
And I think that that is such an amazing message that you're delivering that he delivers.

301
00:27:21,400 --> 00:27:33,791
And, you know, so I have, have a big belief in prayer in the power of prayer, and I'm
praying for all of you who are doing this, um this tough work, and really, really hope

302
00:27:33,791 --> 00:27:35,752
that it will lead to

303
00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:43,262
a resurgence of people coming together in faith to change outcomes in this country.

304
00:27:43,634 --> 00:27:44,470
Thank you.

305
00:27:44,470 --> 00:27:47,478
Your words to God's ear, I agree.

306
00:27:47,478 --> 00:27:50,050
Reverend, I want to add this before I know we're about to go.

307
00:27:50,050 --> 00:27:59,308
But if you go before me, find a way to let me know if you got in, because if you don't
make it, I'm not wasting St.

308
00:27:59,308 --> 00:28:00,349
Peter's time.

309
00:28:00,349 --> 00:28:01,570
You know what I mean?

310
00:28:01,570 --> 00:28:04,192
So just find some way of letting me know.

311
00:28:04,192 --> 00:28:07,444
Have have have the Vikings actually win a Super Bowl.

312
00:28:07,444 --> 00:28:09,416
Then I'll know for sure.

313
00:28:09,716 --> 00:28:11,208
You made it.

314
00:28:11,208 --> 00:28:11,911
OK.

315
00:28:11,911 --> 00:28:15,881
my family will say that I'm really iffy on whether I'm getting it.

316
00:28:15,881 --> 00:28:19,674
I swear like a drunken sailor on shore leave, I have bad habits.

317
00:28:19,674 --> 00:28:26,707
I'm, it's gonna be, I'm gonna come in on a wing and a prayer at the last second, but if I
get in, I'll do what I can, Joel, I promise.

318
00:28:26,707 --> 00:28:28,653
not the big guy, but you'll make the cut.

319
00:28:28,653 --> 00:28:29,265
Trust me.

320
00:28:29,265 --> 00:28:30,959
You'll be fine.

321
00:28:30,959 --> 00:28:32,030
so too.

322
00:28:32,030 --> 00:28:38,713
Thank you and have a glorious Easter season and keep the faith and keep the work.

323
00:28:38,893 --> 00:28:52,041
It is so important, not just for this country to re-examine our values and our faith, but
it's so important to faith to have leaders out there who are redefining Christianity in

324
00:28:52,041 --> 00:28:58,104
what I would think is a more Christian kind of belief system.

325
00:28:58,104 --> 00:28:58,895
Yeah.

326
00:28:59,766 --> 00:29:01,533
Thanks for joining us, Reverend.

327
00:29:01,671 --> 00:29:02,666
You're very welcome.

328
00:29:02,666 --> 00:29:03,289
My pleasure.

329
00:29:06,107 --> 00:29:12,986
You know that was a great great conversation with Reverend Jane Field from Maine and now I
get to talk a little leg.

330
00:29:12,986 --> 00:29:20,933
That's right, I get to do that with Chris Jones from the great state of Iowa where you
know what he's running for Secretary of Agriculture.

331
00:29:20,933 --> 00:29:24,093
Chris, good to have you with us here on the hot dish.

332
00:29:24,093 --> 00:29:25,888
Okay Joel, thanks for having me.

333
00:29:25,888 --> 00:29:27,533
All right, first question is why?

334
00:29:27,533 --> 00:29:29,276
Why'd you throw your hat in the ring?

335
00:29:29,302 --> 00:29:35,126
Well, I waited a long time actually to see if someone was gonna jump in.

336
00:29:35,126 --> 00:29:46,042
There was not a declared candidate for a long time and I just felt like it was a duty here
and I'm running mainly on an environmental platform.

337
00:29:46,042 --> 00:29:56,482
I think people here in Iowa are very disappointed and in fact fed up with the quality of
our water here and so, you know, I've told the media that

338
00:29:56,482 --> 00:30:01,587
My candidacy should be seen as a referendum on the condition of the state's water.

339
00:30:01,587 --> 00:30:04,630
And so that's the primary theme of my campaign.

340
00:30:04,630 --> 00:30:13,366
But, know, I'm an old rural water manager, you know, so I know what it's like to to draw
out of the aquifer and move it on down the line.

341
00:30:13,366 --> 00:30:14,367
So do you.

342
00:30:14,367 --> 00:30:15,667
I get that.

343
00:30:16,028 --> 00:30:22,472
Have you had any indications, anything that makes you go, look, here's a specific.

344
00:30:23,678 --> 00:30:36,290
Well, you know, last summer in Des Moines, 700,000 people there rationed water for two
months because not because there wasn't enough water, but because the nitrate in the water

345
00:30:36,290 --> 00:30:40,473
was so high, the treatment plants couldn't remove it.

346
00:30:40,894 --> 00:30:45,809
This has been ongoing since 1992 in the Des Moines area.

347
00:30:45,809 --> 00:30:49,282
We've just been unable to solve this nitrate problem.

348
00:30:49,419 --> 00:30:56,561
We have 6,000 private wells in Iowa that have been contaminated above the safe level with
nitrate.

349
00:30:56,561 --> 00:31:04,663
We have other major cities here, Iowa City, Cedar Rapids, Cedar Falls, Waterloo that
struggle with nitrate.

350
00:31:04,663 --> 00:31:13,165
And the big news story here the last couple of years is our state has the second highest
cancer rate of any state in the country.

351
00:31:13,165 --> 00:31:16,616
We're the only state where the cancer rate is increasing.

352
00:31:16,714 --> 00:31:25,230
We have about a million people in Iowa that are drinking water with nitrate above a level
that's associated with a whole suite of cancers.

353
00:31:25,230 --> 00:31:33,890
And so the time has come for the state to confront this issue with water quality and the
corn-soy production system.

354
00:31:33,890 --> 00:31:36,191
Well, and that's it, Chris, right?

355
00:31:36,191 --> 00:31:45,283
mean, Iowa is a farmer state in a lot of ways, and you're running for, uh you know, the
job when it comes to Secretary of Agriculture.

356
00:31:45,283 --> 00:31:50,104
And so uh they put nitrate down, they put fertilizer down.

357
00:31:50,104 --> 00:31:55,840
They instead of 250 bushel corn or 400 bushel corn, they want 450.

358
00:31:55,840 --> 00:32:03,838
And so how do you answer the farmers when you go to those town hall meetings and they say,
wait, you're slowing down our production?

359
00:32:04,522 --> 00:32:14,690
Well, there's a misperception, I think, that if we could just get farmers to do this,
that, and the other thing and nip and tuck here, that we'd get the water quality that we

360
00:32:14,690 --> 00:32:15,191
want.

361
00:32:15,191 --> 00:32:18,333
I just, that's not true.

362
00:32:18,333 --> 00:32:22,357
I think, you know, the corn-soy system, we call it a leaky.

363
00:32:22,357 --> 00:32:23,527
It's a leaky system.

364
00:32:23,527 --> 00:32:30,883
And so even when all farmers are doing everything perfectly, the pollution, the water
pollution is likely to be intolerable.

365
00:32:30,883 --> 00:32:33,335
And so we need a greater diversity of crops.

366
00:32:33,335 --> 00:32:34,536
We need a

367
00:32:35,008 --> 00:32:36,608
greater assemblage of crops here.

368
00:32:36,608 --> 00:32:41,140
We need to integrate other things into this corn-soy rotation.

369
00:32:41,140 --> 00:32:43,320
so, you know, oats is a big one.

370
00:32:43,320 --> 00:32:45,541
We used to be the number one oat state.

371
00:32:45,541 --> 00:32:46,771
We're not anymore.

372
00:32:46,771 --> 00:32:55,724
know, 20 miles from my house in Iowa City is the world's largest oat mill in downtown
Cedar Rapids, and they don't use any Iowa oats.

373
00:32:55,724 --> 00:32:58,184
They all come in from Canada.

374
00:32:58,184 --> 00:33:00,675
And so there's things that we could do here.

375
00:33:00,675 --> 00:33:03,126
We need to take cattle back to pasture.

376
00:33:03,126 --> 00:33:05,096
We need to get cattle out of

377
00:33:05,334 --> 00:33:09,355
uh feed lots and indoor confinements, get them back on pasture.

378
00:33:09,355 --> 00:33:13,876
We need to grow forage crops for cattle, clovers and alfalfa.

379
00:33:13,876 --> 00:33:16,727
We could grow uh orchard fruit here.

380
00:33:16,727 --> 00:33:20,328
Iowa, believe it or not, was the top apple state at one time.

381
00:33:20,328 --> 00:33:22,879
We were the number one apple state in the country.

382
00:33:22,879 --> 00:33:24,709
We could grow vegetable crops here.

383
00:33:24,709 --> 00:33:31,001
And so there's lots of other things we could do here, but of course it's going to require
structural change.

384
00:33:31,161 --> 00:33:34,454
And so we need to start talking about these things because

385
00:33:34,454 --> 00:33:42,054
Honestly, the pollution here is an existential threat for a lot of farming here.

386
00:33:42,394 --> 00:33:46,394
not only that, we have terrible disease problems in our CAFOs.

387
00:33:46,394 --> 00:33:52,558
mean, it's just, we need to rethink the system here and hit a reset button at some point.

388
00:33:52,694 --> 00:34:02,248
Well, if someone would have told me before we began this interview about the apples and
where Iowa was in the past, you know, I would have called it not, you know.

389
00:34:02,248 --> 00:34:06,110
So, uh you know, that to me is interesting enough.

390
00:34:06,110 --> 00:34:10,271
uh Well, I want to talk about the timing of it all.

391
00:34:10,271 --> 00:34:21,492
uh You know, Donald Trump's tariffs, what's happened to the market when it comes to
soybeans, corn, everything else uh is have the stars aligned here?

392
00:34:21,492 --> 00:34:26,430
a little bit to where it's the perfect time to consider, you know, a different rotation.

393
00:34:26,612 --> 00:34:31,465
So it does, the timing and world events do seem fortuitous here, right?

394
00:34:31,465 --> 00:34:42,814
And so we see here really how fragile this production system is, you know, when the whims
of one guy in DC can just throw things for a loop, right?

395
00:34:42,814 --> 00:34:54,061
And so, you know, we have fertilizer, we're stuck in the, behind the straits of Hormuz and
we have diesel fuel going above $5 a gallon.

396
00:34:54,061 --> 00:34:55,136
uh

397
00:34:55,136 --> 00:34:59,847
We have the tariffs affecting the soy markets especially.

398
00:34:59,967 --> 00:35:14,191
And so, yes, I agree the time has come for us to look at this and say, look, why can't we
uh develop a production system that's sustainable not only environmentally, but also uh

399
00:35:14,191 --> 00:35:20,732
sustainable uh against these world events that can just throw things for a loop.

400
00:35:20,732 --> 00:35:23,113
When you can only do two things,

401
00:35:23,113 --> 00:35:24,494
you know, which is corn and soy.

402
00:35:24,494 --> 00:35:26,556
And really that's just one thing.

403
00:35:26,556 --> 00:35:31,880
When you can only do one thing, well, you're really vulnerable to the whims of
politicians.

404
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:35,423
You're vulnerable to the people selling you inputs.

405
00:35:35,423 --> 00:35:38,485
You're vulnerable to the people buying the grain.

406
00:35:38,485 --> 00:35:41,658
And I think right now people see the vulnerability.

407
00:35:41,658 --> 00:35:48,733
It's been exposed here in a really uh quick and sort of, uh you know, apparent way.

408
00:35:48,898 --> 00:35:51,070
So let me throw a what if at you.

409
00:35:51,070 --> 00:36:02,620
So you're in a town hall meeting, you know, outside Iowa City, outside Des Moines, and
you're making your pitch to be, you know, the head of agriculture in the state of Iowa.

410
00:36:02,620 --> 00:36:07,664
And somebody says, look, I can't make money on oats.

411
00:36:07,664 --> 00:36:15,071
I don't have uh access to build up a herd when it comes to taking some back something back
into pasture land.

412
00:36:15,071 --> 00:36:16,882
What's going to be your answer to them?

413
00:36:17,215 --> 00:36:20,637
So, and that's, uh I hear that, right?

414
00:36:20,637 --> 00:36:23,408
And these things are, uh they're true.

415
00:36:23,408 --> 00:36:30,672
That you don't just wake up one morning and decide you're growing oats, or you're gonna
grow apples, or you're gonna graze cattle.

416
00:36:30,672 --> 00:36:31,953
That isn't how it works.

417
00:36:31,953 --> 00:36:42,538
And so, we plow a bunch of public money into agriculture right now, uh especially through
uh taxpayer subsidized crop insurance.

418
00:36:42,599 --> 00:36:46,602
So I think it's fair for the taxpayer to participate in

419
00:36:46,602 --> 00:36:48,183
what I call off-ramps.

420
00:36:48,183 --> 00:37:00,491
so farmers, if they want to transition to a more sustainable system, a more diverse crop
rotation, perhaps a different animal production system, I think it's fair for the taxpayer

421
00:37:00,491 --> 00:37:02,332
to participate in that.

422
00:37:02,333 --> 00:37:05,775
You can't do a lot of this stuff without infrastructure, right?

423
00:37:05,775 --> 00:37:09,838
You need built infrastructure, you need economic infrastructure.

424
00:37:09,838 --> 00:37:12,099
Farmers can't go out and do that themselves.

425
00:37:12,099 --> 00:37:15,561
There's gotta be taxpayer participation in this.

426
00:37:15,667 --> 00:37:29,027
And I think this is a much better way to spend public money than on a lot of what I call
band-aid conservation, band-aid and diaper conservation, and other publicly supported

427
00:37:29,027 --> 00:37:31,128
programs like crop insurance.

428
00:37:31,128 --> 00:37:42,487
Let's use that money and let's transition farmers into more sustainable systems that are
gonna give us better environmental outcomes and also give the state better economic

429
00:37:42,487 --> 00:37:43,254
outcomes.

430
00:37:43,254 --> 00:37:49,308
Well, you and I both know that the hardest thing to do is to change a farmer's mind.

431
00:37:49,549 --> 00:37:50,430
And I get that.

432
00:37:50,430 --> 00:37:51,617
I understand it.

433
00:37:51,617 --> 00:37:55,073
And, you know, not everybody in Iowa also farms.

434
00:37:55,073 --> 00:38:02,919
know, a lot of the people you're going to be putting your name in front of are going to be
people that are in these cities with the nitrate problems.

435
00:38:02,919 --> 00:38:04,370
What are you hearing from them?

436
00:38:06,047 --> 00:38:15,543
So I think there's the way I characterize it, especially in Des Moines, there's close to a
jailbreak about to happen on this water quality thing.

437
00:38:15,543 --> 00:38:17,365
I think people are fed up.

438
00:38:17,365 --> 00:38:23,249
Last summer we saw landscaping firms laying off people because they couldn't water sod.

439
00:38:23,249 --> 00:38:26,951
You know, these communities couldn't fill their swimming pools, stuff like that.

440
00:38:26,951 --> 00:38:30,093
It's not just, you know, the drinking water component.

441
00:38:30,093 --> 00:38:32,105
It affects life in these cities.

442
00:38:32,105 --> 00:38:35,536
And I think people are fed up with this after 35 years.

443
00:38:36,309 --> 00:38:40,049
Only 5 % of the people in Iowa live on farms.

444
00:38:40,209 --> 00:38:45,009
95 % live elsewhere.

445
00:38:45,669 --> 00:38:54,329
And so I think there's a realization here that the Secretary of Agriculture needs to serve
all Iowans, right?

446
00:38:54,329 --> 00:39:03,849
We need better outcomes from this industry that are gonna be beneficial to all Iowans and
not just farmers and not just agribusiness.

447
00:39:04,392 --> 00:39:09,544
And so I really think farmers are starting to realize this.

448
00:39:09,544 --> 00:39:16,227
And we've put farmers on this pedestal and farming is part of the culture of this state,
let's face it.

449
00:39:16,227 --> 00:39:21,269
I mean, it's more of a part of the culture here than maybe anywhere else on earth.

450
00:39:21,269 --> 00:39:23,730
We've put farmers on a pedestal.

451
00:39:23,730 --> 00:39:30,653
It's good for us to have them there, but if they wanna remain in that position, some
things gotta change.

452
00:39:30,690 --> 00:39:33,318
You're a blue candidate in a red state.

453
00:39:33,318 --> 00:39:34,834
How do you get around that?

454
00:39:36,159 --> 00:39:39,211
So, and it's gotten redder here too.

455
00:39:39,211 --> 00:39:46,277
But I think this thing with water quality really transcends party affiliation.

456
00:39:46,277 --> 00:39:50,920
And so we've got a Republican candidate for governor, there's five of them.

457
00:39:51,240 --> 00:39:58,145
One of the Republican candidates for governor is actually running on some of the same
things that I talk about.

458
00:39:58,246 --> 00:40:03,089
And so I think there is uh some real bipartisan or, you

459
00:40:04,149 --> 00:40:09,209
real agreement across the political spectrum that something needs to change here.

460
00:40:09,209 --> 00:40:15,549
You know, this is just the production system we have here is gone on for 50 years now.

461
00:40:15,549 --> 00:40:19,769
We've got 99 counties in Iowa, 70 of them are losing population.

462
00:40:19,769 --> 00:40:24,109
A lot of our rural towns are in serious states of decay.

463
00:40:24,269 --> 00:40:27,409
We once had 4,600 school districts in Iowa.

464
00:40:27,409 --> 00:40:29,609
Now we're down to 320.

465
00:40:29,609 --> 00:40:32,845
Is this really the rural Iowa that we want?

466
00:40:33,395 --> 00:40:38,571
You know, is this is the rural Iowa that the corn, soy, kefo system has brought us.

467
00:40:38,571 --> 00:40:40,012
Is that what we want?

468
00:40:40,012 --> 00:40:45,508
I think there's a lot of people in both political parties that are saying no, that's not
what we want.

469
00:40:45,508 --> 00:40:46,889
We want something different.

470
00:40:46,889 --> 00:40:49,261
We want a better rural Iowa.

471
00:40:49,356 --> 00:40:51,037
It's going to be interesting.

472
00:40:51,037 --> 00:40:56,578
You know, the campaign you've set in front of uh individuals is, you know, it's not the
norm.

473
00:40:56,578 --> 00:41:08,841
uh Most people to get to be secretary of agriculture are trying to find ways to advocate
upon the federal government how to get more and more and more when it comes to a

474
00:41:08,841 --> 00:41:12,442
subsidization of corn and soybeans.

475
00:41:12,442 --> 00:41:15,863
and the thing that they're the most upset about is is the tariff.

476
00:41:15,863 --> 00:41:18,444
So if you're able to connect.

477
00:41:18,552 --> 00:41:23,240
uh I think Chris is going to get a lot of the national attention.

478
00:41:24,488 --> 00:41:32,704
So I've had one person say that, uh you know, there's been nobody like me run for
agriculture commissioner.

479
00:41:32,704 --> 00:41:36,857
There's only 12 in the United States that are elected.

480
00:41:37,358 --> 00:41:40,900
There hasn't been anybody like me since Jim Hightower.

481
00:41:40,900 --> 00:41:48,406
And so I think at least people will know that there is an election for secretary of
agriculture in Iowa.

482
00:41:48,406 --> 00:41:51,878
think a lot of people, you know, don't turn over the ballot and.

483
00:41:51,878 --> 00:41:54,199
even realize that we elect this person.

484
00:41:54,199 --> 00:42:00,351
And so this year, they're gonna know that there's an election for this position.

485
00:42:00,372 --> 00:42:04,713
I mean, you're right uh that uh this is gonna get noticed.

486
00:42:04,713 --> 00:42:07,094
A lot of Democrats don't like me.

487
00:42:07,635 --> 00:42:16,238
You know, there's a lot of establishment Democrats that are, you know, pretty pro
agribusiness and ethanol especially.

488
00:42:16,238 --> 00:42:21,180
You know, we've had the first in the caucus, first presidential caucus here for

489
00:42:21,284 --> 00:42:27,649
All these presidential candidates have come here and had to kneel at the altar of ethanol.

490
00:42:27,649 --> 00:42:33,494
But, you know, some Democrats now are realizing, Tom Harkin is one of them.

491
00:42:33,494 --> 00:42:35,645
You know, he's one of the fathers of the industry.

492
00:42:35,645 --> 00:42:40,449
Now he says it's one of the worst mistakes he's made is to get behind ethanol.

493
00:42:40,449 --> 00:42:47,374
And so I think there's some Democrats that are ready to say, yes, we need to do something
different.

494
00:42:47,720 --> 00:42:57,944
this pollution that we have, the decay of rural Iowa, Democrats want to throw that on the
backs of Republicans, but I'm telling you, Democrats have participated in it every bit as

495
00:42:57,944 --> 00:42:59,526
much as Republicans.

496
00:42:59,938 --> 00:43:01,053
Chris, where do people go?

497
00:43:01,053 --> 00:43:03,476
How do they find out more about your campaign?

498
00:43:03,476 --> 00:43:06,918
ChrisJonesForIowa.com, four is F-O-R.

499
00:43:06,918 --> 00:43:10,160
uh I also wrote a book about this.

500
00:43:10,160 --> 00:43:12,520
The title is The Swine Republic.

501
00:43:13,501 --> 00:43:18,936
It's been well received and I also write a sub stack, riverraccoon.substack.com.

502
00:43:18,936 --> 00:43:19,656
You bet.

503
00:43:19,656 --> 00:43:21,756
Chris, great conversation.

504
00:43:21,756 --> 00:43:26,376
I tell you, you know, some of the things you brought forward, I'm going to track.

505
00:43:26,376 --> 00:43:29,716
And I know a lot of people are going to track as a talk show host.

506
00:43:29,716 --> 00:43:35,856
You don't hear too many people in egg states, in egg states saying what you're saying.

507
00:43:35,856 --> 00:43:39,756
So if if nothing else, you're courageous as hell.

508
00:43:39,756 --> 00:43:42,076
So thanks for coming on the hot dish.

509
00:43:43,136 --> 00:43:43,836
You bet.

510
00:43:43,836 --> 00:43:45,145
Chris Jones, ladies and gentlemen.

511
00:43:47,873 --> 00:43:53,226
Thank you so much for joining us today on The Hot Dish brought to you by One Country.

512
00:43:53,619 --> 00:43:58,408
You know, and you can learn more about us at onecountryproject.org.

513
00:43:58,408 --> 00:44:02,765
Be sure to follow us on Substack, YouTube, Facebook, and Blue Scott.

514
00:44:02,803 --> 00:44:08,624
And of course, we will be back next week with more of the hot dish comfort food for rural
America.