A Career Marked by Dignity: Wilberforce Award Winner Al Quie

Former Minnesota Governor Al Quie remembers hoboes—as they were called—showing up at his family’s dairy farm during the Great Depression. “Evidently our farm was known as a place where they could get a meal,” says Quie. His parents always served their unexpected guests in the formal dining room—a place usually reserved for holidays or for a visiting Lutheran minister. The lesson Al learned was simple, yet profound: Respect the dignity of every person.

Indeed, upholding human dignity has been a hallmark of Al Quie’s decades of public service and ministry—and the reason why last week he was honored with our 2008 William Wilberforce Award. We give the award every year “in recognition of exemplary witness for Jesus Christ, perseverance, and selflessness in combating social injustice and advancing Christian values in the face of opposition.”

A former state senator, congressman, and governor of Minnesota, Al cites two accomplishments that give him a great sense of gratification: the first, landmark legislation mandating public education for handicapped children. The second, fair-employment legislation that abolished job discrimination against African-Americans.

At the time, both segments of society were treated as second-class citizens. But Al had learned from a father who treated hoboes as honored guests. So when Al pushed for the legislation, he gave his fellow legislators only one reason: “It’s the right thing to do.”

Al Quie is also a man who, at the height of the Watergate scandal, reached out to a disgraced advisor to President Nixon: one Chuck Colson. Seven months into my prison term, I was facing a pair of family crises. Al called and said he was going to go see the president to ask Gerald Ford if he, Al, could serve the rest of my prison sentence. I was overwhelmed. His willingness to lay down his life for me was a turning point: I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus Christ was real.

After retiring from political office in 1983, Al did not go into business or lobbying, as many politicians do. He began serving on the Prison Fellowship Board of Directors, where he fulfilled his passion for reaching out to society’s outcasts: prisoners. He then joined the Prison Fellowship staff, not as a national leader, but as a state director out in the frontlines of the ministry. Later he became president, and he has been my closest friend and colleague over the years.

Today, at age 84, Al still spends hours ministering in prisons—especially at the aptly named Albert H. Quie Unit in Lino Lakes, Minnesota. There, in 2002, he helped Prison Fellowship launch the InnerChange Freedom Initiative® for prisoners willing to invest hard work in turning their lives around through biblically based character development. Quie is a mentor, teacher, and even surrogate father and grandfather to many of the men—modeling his faith in Christ.

“The guys know that he lives out what he talks about,” says John Byrne, director of the Minnesota unit. “It really gives them a boost to know that someone of his background and experience wants to spend time with them and cares about their growth.”

For Al Quie, it is simply the right thing to do—to treat everyone with dignity. As his parents did. As William Wilberforce did. And as Jesus does.

In my city, there is the typical passive aggressive approach to the homeless. The city wants to ignore them, but at times is growled at by businesses and individuals who want them kicked out. It is all too common across the US.

However, a group of five Christian churches banded together to give the homeless what they really needed. And while, of course, food is the #1 thing, they were sensible enough to do something quite extraordinary. They asked the homeless what they needed.

Now, among those who want to help the homeless, there are any number of ideas as to what they need. But they almost never ask the homeless what they think they need. Usually it is what they think the homeless need.

But these five churches put together a plan to be envied for its intelligence. To start with, they sat down and planned ahead. Six months ahead. They planned so that they could feed the homeless regularly, and in such a way that it would not strain a particular parish.

They bought food in bulk, and thus were able to get much more. Two of the churches had kitchens that could be used for cooking. This guaranteed that no matter what else was available for feeding the homeless, there would always be large amounts of rice, beans, spaghetti and boiled potatoes.

Each church would cook about two meals a month, with two large hot meals served to the homeless a week. So every three days, the homeless would have a feast. This reduced their food needs so much that a lot of begging was curtailed, which made the local businesses happier.

But on top of it, they asked the homeless what they wanted. It was usually not difficult to meet these wants. For example, socks. By collecting just socks, they improved the daily lives of the homeless to a great degree. And they also provided blankets in the coldest part of winter.

And here is the strangest part of the story. The churches were *rewarded* by the homeless for doing this.

A strange reward, to say the least. The homeless started to send to these churches some of the most pitiful victims imaginable. Several young girls, who had been abused and beaten by their own parents, before being thrown out onto the street and left to fend for themselves.

Horrible tales of woe, living with alcoholics and drug abusers who despised them, their own parents. Forced to seek help from the homeless, what little help they could give, to save their own lives.

Yet once these churches had built their reputation, the homeless began sending these abused waifs to ask them for their help. Imagine the response of a reverend to meeting these desperate children, and hearing their cries for help.

Imagine the response in those churches when the reverend told his congregation of their plight. A strange reward, indeed, to throw a roomful of people into tears of empathy at these tragic lives, and anger at those who would do such a thing to a child.

But again they came through, providing foster care to them, until they could find a stable home for them where they could live as adopted children. A strange reward for their kindness, indeed.

....[Al Quie] has also served as one of the early leaders of the Word Alone organization....

Albert Quie is a true servant of God. I didn’t know that he was still alive, or about his ministries.

When I read this article, I wondered where he sat with respect to the train-wreck that is the ELCA. I know many others who are younger than he is (60s and 70s), who are “old and stuck” (i.e, too stuck to fight or move), not only in the ELCA, but in liberal congregations and synods. Then there is the pastor whom I consider to be my mentor when I was a student, who passed away at age 93 a couple of years ago, stuck in an ultra-liberal congregation. That cut me to the heart.

I continue to pray for him, especially when I light my candles in an Orthodox church.

This was in Tempe, Arizona, about 20 years ago. I have no idea if the program lasted, or much more than what I wrote. I do remember that while the city didn’t particularly like anyone feeding the homeless, they didn’t dare even suggest that the churches not do so.

At the time, there had been several private efforts to provide food for the homeless, but they invariably broke down, because of lack of prior planning, or the people running them burned out.

One such group furtively tried to become a non-profit organization, and were amazed and appalled at how much paperwork was demanded of them.

Many years before, in the 1960s, there had actually been a “pay whatever you want” restaurant, run by a Sikh temple, that fed many homeless people, but the city eventually forced them out, to redevelop their building.

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