Editor’s Note: As a new feature, Church & State will publish a monthly Q&A conversation so we can learn more about the people in the church-state separation movement and how they connect to Americans United’s work. This month Assistant Editor Liz Hayes sat down with Alyssa Aldape, AU’s faith organizer and programs manager. The conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
You’re just marking your one-year anniversary on staff with Americans United. Tell us about your role at AU.
Aldape: I can’t believe it’s been a year. Time flies when you’re fighting fascism. Part of my job is to mobilize people of many different faiths and philosophies who are also passionate about church-state separation and religious freedom. That can look like mobilizing them for an action. For example, tomorrow [Jan. 13] we’re headed to the U.S. Supreme Court to show support for our trans siblings, as there are two cases being heard in front of the Supreme Court to protect trans rights.
So, it’s anything from that to signing on to a letter that is in support of religious freedom, or being a plaintiff in a case that we are involved in. There are many different ways that people of faith and faith leaders can be involved, and part of my job is to connect them to those ways.
One of the things I love the most about my job is that, within a span of a week, I got to speak with a rabbi, a Wiccan priestess, and someone from The Satanic Temple in southern Virginia who also founded an abortion fund. And those aren’t even punchlines to a joke! That’s just organizing, right? And I just love that that’s my job. I get to talk to people from different philosophies and ideologies and faiths, and this thing we have in common is protecting one another’s freedom of choice and autonomy
Why is engaging with faith leaders and inviting people of faith into our movement important?
Aldape: I’ll speak primarily from a Christian perspective, and particularly Baptist, because that is the philosophy that I adhere to. For a long time, there has been a specific type of Christian who’s had the microphone and has had the platform, and I think it is high time that other people of Christian faith use their voices in the public square to speak a little louder about what religious freedom and church-state separation is.
I believe that if you have any type of pulpit that you have the privilege to speak from, it’s time to go beyond those walls of that community of faith that you preach from. My job as the faith organizer is to get people connected to resources and to the tools so they can do so responsibly. I love nothing more than pestering pastors to get louder about religious freedom! I think it’s really important that we see a much more diverse voice of Christians coming out to be advocates for church-state separation and religious freedom.
Can you share a bit about your own religious background?
Aldape: I’m an ordained Baptist minister. This is my 10th year of ordained ministry, 13 if we count the unordained years. For me, growing up Baptist meant a lot of things that you didn’t do, like smoking and dancing and cussing and drinking. And that just didn’t seem like a real reason to be a Baptist. It was a Baptist history class in seminary, actually learning about the rich history of prophetic people coming together to really understand free will and choice and autonomy, that helped me grow into my faith.
For me, that was [a call to action that] we’ve really got to remind people about what it means to be a Baptist. Religious freedom — choice — and freedom of conscience were two of the things that really reignited my curiosity of what it meant to be a Baptist, and what it meant to be an advocate for religious freedom and church-state separation, which are tenets of the Baptist identity. And so, those are the two things that drive not just my personal life, but also as a person of faith and as an organizer.
AU President and CEO Rachel Laser likes to ask people how they see church-state separation connecting to their lives and the issues that they care about. How do you see church-state separation connecting with your life?
Aldape: I think about it in two ways. First, I grew up the child of missionaries at a really pivotal point in history: We moved to the other side of the world a couple months after Sept. 11, 2001, right as there was this rise of Christian Nationalism in America. I was forced to look in the mirror that was being held up and being indirectly asked some really hard questions about living as an American in another country, about what it meant to be a good American and a good Christian. And my parents’ choice of being these ambassadors of one version of Christianity, and why does this require leaving a country to help people when there’s plenty of people to help in our own country? There was a lot of deconstruction that was happening for me, both as an American citizen and a person of Christian faith
Second, really learning about freedom of conscience and religious freedom as Baptist tenets. I think it really brought me to this point of [believing that] everybody’s allowed to have this if we truly believe in free will as Baptists. Who are we to stop people from using those God-given minds and spirits to decide whether they’re right or wrong? That’s something that’s driven my understanding of religious freedom for a while.
And I will say now, as a woman who has been around to see the many changes of reproductive rights and freedoms in America, religious autonomy and autonomy in general don’t just stop at my conscience and what religion that I choose to adhere to. If we’re going to be advocates for autonomy, it has to be the whole person’s autonomy, holistic autonomy. Religious freedom also includes freedom of choice of body. I think autonomy is a Baptist distinction that I hold dear for myself and for others. And now more than ever, as a soon-to-be mom, as a person who is pregnant currently, I understand that reproductive freedom and reproductive rights are important to every single person. Bodily autonomy is just as important to me as a person of faith and as a soon-to-be mother as it has ever been before this stage of my life.
Any New Year’s resolutions, intentions, or goals that you’re willing to share with us?
Aldape: One of my goals is to really invest in my local library and local community centers. I grew up going to the library a lot as a kid. The library was a saving grace for my parents, who didn’t have a lot of money to send us to after-school programs or extracurriculars, and so the library was always an amazing resource, for kids of any socioeconomic background. There’s a special place in my heart for public libraries, and so I’m determined to make the librarians know me by name at my local library this year!
What are you binging right now? That could be a book, TV show, music, food, anything. What’s got your attention right now?
Aldape: Am I allowed to say “Heated Rivalry?!” We’re trying to hold all of our new shows for after baby gets here, so we’re not watching a lot of TV right now. I get suckered every year into watching the Oscar movies. I never watch them throughout the year, so it’s always that crunch of feeling like we have to watch all the Oscar movies before the Oscars. And then we never watch the Oscars anyway, so I don’t know why we do that! As far as music goes, I’m always an Alabama Shakes girly through and through. I have that on in the background at all times. I know you’re supposed to make babies listen to Mozart, but I think Brittany Howard is just as important and profound.