The Trials Of Faith

PHILIP WILLIS-CONGER is former director of the Tucson Ecumenical Council's Task Force on Central American refugees. At the time of the interview, he was a United Methodist and he and his wife, Ellen, planned to enter the Pacific School of Religion and the San Francisco Theological Seminary, respectively, as soon as legal proceedings allowed. —The Editors

Sojourners: How have you felt about the trial? What have been your impressions?

Philip Willis-Conger: They've run the gamut. In good times I really appreciate all the learning I am doing during this process. But there have been a few really bad times in which I've felt like I have to get out, to escape.

What has impressed me about the trial itself is what a farce it has been. There doesn't seem to be any semblance of impartiality on the part of the judge. But that has developed a climate here in Tucson where there's a general feeling or awareness that the judge is biased, so that people who weren't interested in sanctuary, or were even against it, have become concerned that we're not getting a fair trial. And that has raised their consciousness level.

It's been a real shame that during the course of the trial we have not really dealt with the major issue. The basic issue isn't how our lawyers interact with the judge, or what Jesus Cruz, the informant, says on the stand. The issue is: Who are these people who are fleeing Central America? Are they persecuted? Do they have a right to asylum here? Is the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) breaking the law by not allowing them to apply for asylum at the border? Do church people have the right to respond affirmatively when their government breaks its own laws? These are some of the more central questions.

Does international law apply, or is it just part of the treaties we sign, just pretty papers we can quote when they are beneficial to us, and ignore when they would embarrass us, as in the case of Nicaragua? Can we just say the World Court doesn't have jurisdiction over us, that we're not going to participate? Those are some of the real issues that were never even touched.

One of the things that I've been struggling to learn is the old concept of loving your enemy. Jesus talks about it very clearly in the New Testament; Martin Luther King Jr. talked about it. Sitting in the courtroom and hearing all kinds of untruths, and feeling and experiencing the judge doing everything he could to convict us, I discovered within myself a tremendous anger that built up immediately. And there was no way to get rid of it easily. I couldn't shout at the judge, I couldn't speak in the courtroom.

What happened was that it built up inside me and began to eat away at me. I ended up getting severely depressed lots of times, because the anger just turned inward. I couldn't even deal with the people who were making me angry in a constructive manner, so it became clear to me, just for self-preservation, that I needed to in some way forgive these people for what they were doing to me. But I also started questioning my faith.

I'd heard and read about how King had dealt with the violence against him and the members of his movement. And I knew a little bit about what Gandhi and his followers had been through. One of the most powerful experiences during the trial was when one of the refugees came to testify, a union organizer from El Salvador named Alejandro, who has a very deep and profound faith; he talked about having forgiven the people who had tortured him.

So I wondered what's wrong with me. Where is my faith? Why can't I forgive these people?

Alejandro said to me, when I pressed him on the point, that he forgave his torturers. But did he actually love them, and was he forgiving them in the actual process of being tortured? His response to me was, "I'm not Christ. I really couldn't at that point, but afterward I realized I had to." So I decided that perhaps there needs to be a time when I am very angry, and maybe that even turns into depression. But beyond that, with some space, I can learn to forgive these people—because I have to.

It's a difficult position to maintain, trying to be faithful and being willing to confront the principalities and the powers—whoever it is that is standing in the way of a more just and peaceful world. It's hard to be faithful to one's vision and understanding of the kingdom and confront those whom we might usually call the enemy and, at the same time, also love and forgive these people we are confronting.

I think many, if not most, Christians and churches in the United States end up avoiding conflict. We avoid confrontation, because we see that as bad. Yet at that point, we become less than faithful.

The other side is to become completely confrontational—to refuse to forgive and love the enemy. We have that fear of being somehow politically naive. We know there's an enemy out there, namely the INS and the Border Patrol, and we believe that in order not to compromise our beliefs, not to betray the refugees, we have to continually fight that enemy and never give in until we attain our goal. And that leads to an avoidance of solutions to the problem, because we're afraid to negotiate, afraid to dialogue, afraid of becoming less than pure.

We need to be willing to confront the evil in our society and yet still love the individuals who are carrying out an unjust system, who are creating misery among God's people. It means being able to hold on to one's faith and values while also looking for the openings in the other's position, because we're not living in an ideal world.

We can't compromise our values, but at some point we must realize that we have to deal with the enemy, we have to quote the enemy, we have to enter into negotiations and dialogue. There has to be some common ground, some meeting place.

It's not an easy position trying to live out one's faith in this life, and I think we are called to be in a constant struggle. And when we feel very comfortable and satisfied with our own position, when we feel we are on high moral ground, that is when we need to be careful. When we get so justifiably and righteously angry at something that's going on, then we need to be careful.

King and Gandhi talked about this love of enemy and this forgiveness that you're speaking about as a transforming force, something that would transform the enemy. Have you seen that happening in the courtroom at all?

Clearly the U.S. marshals working in the courtroom have been transformed. Many of the U.S. marshals are ex-Border Patrol agents. In fact, we even have the former chief of the Tucson sector working as one of the marshals. There has been a tremendous conversion, if you will, on their part.

We haven't seen the conversions of the prosecutor and the judge that we had hoped for. But we cannot feel responsible for the conversion process; we have to leave it up to God. If we were responsible, nothing would happen; no one would be converted, perhaps. We would love to have the judge converted after a week, a month, or whatever. But it is not our time line that ultimately rules.

As a Christian, as someone who has dealt with refugees out of El Salvador and Guatemala, I don't feel that I can give up hope. I have hope that the judge will somehow, in some way, be touched. But I don't know when that would be, and I can't worry about it. It's not my time line, unfortunately. But the majority of the spectators, 98 percent of them, and I think virtually all of the marshals, have been brought around just by the daily contact with us as human beings. They have that contact, and I think that's what really brings about conversion.

At this juncture in the sanctuary movement, what needs to happen?

I think the trial has had both positive and negative effects on the movement. I think more people in Tucson and around the country are aware of sanctuary. More people have been touched through our standing trial, and that was one of the reasons to go to trial in the first place, to try to educate people. That has happened, though not as much as perhaps we could have hoped for. However, one of the negative effects has been that a lot of attention has focused here on Tucson. Too much media hype and attention have been focused on Tucson, perhaps, for the health of the whole movement.

What effect will the verdicts have on the movement?

No matter what happens in the trial, it's not going to change the basic fact that U.S. foreign policy is helping to create refugees in Central America. The war victims who flee and who cannot find refuge in Mexico have to come to the United States. The vast majority are denied asylum here, and they're deported as quickly as possible. Those basic ingredients won't be changed by the verdict.

I don't think people's understanding of their faith will change. If there's a guilty verdict, then they will just understand the cost of discipleship more clearly. It may mean people going to jail. In the long run, a guilty verdict may be beneficial, because we can appeal and set an important precedent at the appeal level if we win.

Is there anything more you want to say about the cost of discipleship?

Something I need to keep telling myself, and help other people understand, is that what we're going through in this trial of six months—all the frustrations, the anger, and the pain—is really nothing. The price we're paying is very cheap compared to the price of being faithful in countries such as El Salvador and Guatemala. Being faithful there and teaching literacy or Bible study classes, or speaking out against injustices, can mean one's life. And for people that flee those countries, if they're not assisted by somebody here in the United States, it could mean their life if they're deported. So what we've done is really nothing in comparison to what the people of Central America have done and continue to do. My faith is like a grain of sand compared to the faith of many of the refugees we see, or the people of faith continuing to work in Central America.

Many North Americans refuse to become involved, refuse to even learn about the issue of sanctuary and Central American refugees, until it touches their lives personally. Until they can identify with a North American, laypeople don't become involved; they don't respond at all. And that's a shame.

This interview is one in a series of interviews with sanctuary trial defendants conducted in Tucson by Vicki Kemper two weeks before the verdict.