If you or someone you know needs help, call or text the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988.
It was a Sunday morning in September, and Rep. John Bear (R-Gillette) was on a mission.
With a white goatee and a blue button-up, he navigated through crowds of fellow congregants at Living Rock Church in Gillette with the same ease he carries through the checkerboard tile halls of the Wyoming state Capitol.
But his purpose that morning wasn’t political.
“I'm looking for some muscle today, guys, this afternoon,” said Bear, who co-chairs the powerful Joint Appropriations Committee and who formerly chaired the further-right Wyoming Freedom Caucus. “We have to lift a big, heavy I-beam up to support the beams in my house.”
Bear was asking for a favor. Lifting the I-beam would help with remodelling to accommodate Bear’s father-in-law moving into the family home.
“ What we want to do is get a ladder on each end and lift rung by rung, and then we'll do the final lift,” he said as part of his pitch to friends and relatives in the church.
In attendance that Sunday was Bear’s wife, Sage, who serves on the Campbell County Public Library board, Chelsie Collier, another Campbell County Public Library board member, as well as his daughter, son-in-law, and a coterie of other friends and acquaintances.
The sound of laughter and piano drifted across the gathering. Decorative wood-panel mountains, their edges warm with yellow light, stood behind the stage along with musical equipment and brightly lit TV screens.
Living Rock is part of the Evangelical Free Church of America, a denomination of evangelical Christianity and an association of autonomous churches that lists “Priority of God's Word,” “Power of Prayer” and “Engaging Evangelism” as just a few of their core values.
In the end, Bear got the help he needed, “easy as pie.”
But that was just one of Bear’s missions. A much bigger task is helping lead the state Freedom Caucus and the Wyoming Legislature.
As Wyoming lawmakers gear up to reshape the state’s budget in the upcoming legislative session starting on Feb. 9, Bear and others in the caucus have talked about how their vision for the state comes from scripture, and how that vision unites them as a political bloc and gives them strength in numbers.
The caucus and its allies and endorsees took control of the state House after the 2024 general election, the first state Freedom Caucus in the U.S. to do so.
“ We had a plan,” Bear said at a press conference in February 2025. “A plan came from a vision, and if your core values are just based on something nebulous or your own emotions versus something like scripture, then it's very easy to try to go in multiple directions and not have a plan, not have a vision. It's very easy for us, because of our common desire to be involved in the scriptures, to understand the scriptures, and to live by the scriptures, that we can come to the same vision as a group.”
In an ideal, theoretical world, Bear told Wyoming Public Radio he’d like to see churches take more of a lead on some aspects of state government, like certain mental health and welfare programs.
That’s not a view everyone shares.
“ Whenever you outsource essential services to religious groups, the state then loses oversight over that service, over that group who is contracted with them, whether it be a church or any other religious organization,” said Ryan Dudley, the state policy manager for the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), a Wisconsin-based nonprofit organization that promotes “the constitutional principle of separation of state and church.”
Bear said he isn’t expecting change to happen overnight.
“ From my perspective, we've taken a hundred years to get to this point,” he said. “That’s not going to be an easy, quick solution, because basically, you've got to cut taxes and put the money back into people's pockets, right? Those people have to actually start going to church. So there needs to be revival.”
‘Shattered’
In 2011, Bear’s family suffered an unthinkable tragedy. John and Sage’s 18-year-old son, Taylor, died by suicide.
Taylor’s reputation had been citywide, according to Bear, in part because he was elected as a junior to be the student body president at his high school, where he was also a three-time state wrestling champion. That made him “a sports figure within the community that was looked up upon.”
“ When I lost my son, my idea of a perfect family and living right and everything working out roses and unicorns and all those things was shattered,” he said. “In self-reflection on that situation, my understanding is that we only live here on Earth a short time. We should be doing all that we can during that time to advance the kingdom of Christ.”
Taylor was also involved in a church youth group. Bear said he and his wife later learned Taylor talked other kids out of suicide.
But behind the scenes, Taylor faced the pressures of being a teenager, like balancing good grades and extracurriculars.
“ He had been in the wrestling season where [he spent] lots of time away from school. As the student body president, he was constantly being taken out of class,” he said. “So he'd gotten behind, and as his parents, we were requiring him to get his homework done at that moment.”
Taylor would evangelize by inviting new students to his church youth group, Bear said, which in Bear’s view made him a target for spiritual forces seeking to do harm.
“ He was advancing the kingdom of God, and that made him a target for the devil,” he said. “And what does the devil do? He's the father of lies. As an 18-year-old boy, lots of lies were happening in his mind, I'm sure … We believe that he gave the devil a stronghold, because he was angry at us for making him do his homework.”
Bear said he knew Taylor was angry at him for that reason because of a suicide note Taylor left behind.
After his death, some family friends said Taylor must’ve been depressed. But Bear said he doesn’t think Taylor had depression or any other mental health conditions.
“We think that Satan put that lie in his heart, and he fell for it,” he said. “We knew he was angry at us when he took his life.”
At that moment, Bear said he had two choices.
“I could say, ‘I just want out of here,’” he said. “I could take my own life and be out of here. I realized that no, that's not what God wants me to do. God wants me to keep fighting the good fight, occupying until he returns. I want to arrive in heaven, bloodied from head to toe, knowing that I was in the fight.”
He said his son’s story isn’t over.
“ I know when I die, I'll see my son again, and I long for that,” Bear said.
Taylor’s death didn’t fundamentally change Bear’s core political beliefs, he added. If anything, it strengthened his resolve.
“ You can't say that an event like that doesn't change you, doesn't affect you,” he said. “But I would say that my core beliefs have been strengthened by it, not weakened and not diverted to a different direction.”
One possibility for Wyoming’s future
More than a decade after Taylor’s death, Bear co-chairs Wyoming’s Appropriations Committee, which is tasked with helping decide which parts of state government should be funded and by how much. That includes some state programs that touch on mental health.
During this year’s legislative interim, a panel under Bear’s committee began investigating the state Department of Health’s budget, the largest in Wyoming government. State lawmakers have compared that panel’s goals to those of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) at the federal level.
Legislators like Bear will begin holding hearings on Gov. Mark Gordon’s proposed $11 billion biennial budget in December and January. The state Freedom Caucus has said it wants to bring the state budget to a “pre-COVID level of spending” without specifying how they’ll do it.
“ If I was the king for a day and I could write the budget for the Department of Health, I would say we need to turn the ship around and go the other direction, where less of [mental health programs] is handled by the Department of Health and pharmaceuticals,” he said. “But there's always going to be an element that is far beyond what an individual family member can do to take care of their mentally ill family member.”
In an ideal world, Bear said he’d like to see Wyoming focus less on mental health programs and psychiatry, the latter of which he said takes a “Marxist view of humanity.” That’s a shift in priorities that he acknowledges won’t happen anytime soon.
“There is certainly a large part of what we call mental health now that could be addressed through the church,” Bear said.
The Freedom Caucus, whose members Bear said mostly consider themselves either part of the Catholic Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, evangelical Christians or nondenominational, are motivated by “shared faith in Jesus” that “drives everything that they do,” according to Jessie Rubino, the Wyoming state director of the caucus.
In 2021, Bear voted against a bill, sponsored by current Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams (R-Cody), that would’ve required school districts to adopt suicide prevention programs. He said secular efforts to prevent suicide in education aren’t enough.
“When I look at the secular effort for suicide prevention within our education system today, it is woefully inadequate,” he said. “Woefully inadequate. The reason is because it's never bringing in that truth that creates hope. Suicide comes from hopelessness.”
Between 2010 and 2020, 1,623 people in Wyoming died by suicide, according to the health department. Suicides among 10 to 24 year olds made up 15.4%. Lawmakers appropriated over $364 million to the behavioral health division for the 2025-2026 biennium.
In 2023, Bear voted against another bill that established a trust fund for the state’s 988 suicide lifeline. He said while he supports the need for a lifeline as a “first line of defense” and wouldn’t defund it, the secular solutions it may provide for people who call “ fall short of the kind of solutions that you have that are Biblically based.”
“ I think that the scriptures far outpace anything the secular world can provide when it comes to hope,” he said.
Rep. Jeremy Haroldson (R-Wheatland), a member of the Freedom Caucus and a pastor at Impact Ministries in Wheatland, echoed Bear on that point in an interview with WPR in May 2025.
“ Now, there could be the one-off accident where someone has a brain injury and it messes some stuff up, and they get suicidal,” Haroldson said at the time. “Or it could be a postpartum, and it's something that needs to be addressed through medical issues. Okay, I get that. But fundamentally, when a 19-year-old pulls the trigger, why? Because they don't have anything to live for, and the state can't give them that.”
Alicia Johnson is the program manager for the state’s 988 lifeline. She talked about the reason for its creation.
“988 was designed to be there for anyone who needs assistance, regardless of their faith background,” said Johnson. “We're available to everyone.”
Dudley with the Freedom From Religion Foundation said making the lifeline more “Biblically based” might make it harder for callers of different faith backgrounds to get help.
“Something like that, I think, would cause irreparable harm to a number of Wyoming residents who require more specialized care, a more pluralistic environment outside of a religious context,” he said.
He pointed to an article published in the journal Suicide and Life-Threatening Behavior that found out of those surveyed nearly 98% of callers reported the 988 system as it currently exists helped them in some way.
Ragen Latham, senior administrator for the health department’s behavioral health division, said crisis professionals at local 988 call centers in Wyoming can address faith if it comes up. She said, if appropriate, they can make referrals, too.
“That does include community programs and faith-based organizations,” she said. “We know that everyone needs to be at the table to support people. Communities know best what people in those communities need.”
Former Senate Pres. Ogden Driskill (R-Devils Tower) said the fact that shift hasn’t happened yet is an indication that it’s unlikely to ever transpire.
“ If it was that easy, why aren't they doing it right now?” said Driskill. “We've been without this for the last three decades, obviously [churches] didn't step up. By the way, I'm not throwing any rocks at any of our religious institutions. I think they've done a phenomenal job, and they help people a lot. Faith is a great thing. But they aren't doing it. I can tell you, my son's lost a couple of his friends [to suicide]. I've lost some friends. And so from my end, that's exactly where government comes in.”
Bear also mentioned welfare programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and unemployment benefits as other aspects of government that churches could one day take more of a lead on.
The benefit of that arrangement, Bear explained, would be that Wyomingites seeking those social programs would come away with the teachings of the Gospel as well.
Dudley said he’s concerned about a possible lack of regulatory oversight.
“ If you outsource these public benefits to private religious entities, there's no telling what will happen, because it's just within this veil of secrecy,” he said.
By way of example, Dudley cited concerns about possible fraud due to school voucher programs in states like Ohio and Arizona, where taxpayer money can fund religious or private schools.
“What you're doing is creating a lose-lose-lose situation. The government loses, the service provider loses, and … the Wyoming resident who's seeking those services loses.”
But for Bear, any accountability issues that would arise are preferable to the ones the state already deals with. Plus, Bear said the state would not fund churches to take on public services.
“Let's take welfare, for instance,” he said. “There certainly could be pastors out there that do a poor job of taking care of the needy in their area, but I would say that there're also bureaucrats that would fall into that same category. I'd rather take my risk with the church body than I would with the bureaucracy.”
Altogether, Bear said he knows such seismic shifts in policy could take years, even decades, or not happen at all. But first?
“Number one, we draw a line in the sand,” he said about his personal vision for state-run mental health programs and initiatives specifically. “We're not going to go down this path any further. Then I would look very seriously, which I hope the subcommittee that we created [on the state health department’s budget] is going to do, I'd look very carefully at the programs that we have and I would prioritize. We can't do it all. So which ones are the most important?”
Legislative decision-making: Morality, constitutionality, constituency
After the church service at Living Rock, Bear stepped into a side room to talk about the three principles that guide him through his decision-making in the state Legislature.
“ Number one is morality,” he said. “And then if it's not a moral issue on one side or the other of that decision, then I go with the constitution. Is it constitutional or not? Then thirdly, if there's no issues in either of those, then I go with the preponderance of my constituency.”
Mike Shober, a congregant with Bear at Living Rock and a committeeman in the Campbell County Republican Party, went to the service, too.
“I'm not a fan of legislating morality, if that makes sense,” said Shober. “I think if you're in public office, you serve the entire public. There's maybe certain areas, and morally you stand on certain issues. I think the important thing is your faith is personal. If you try to integrate [faith and politics], it gets messy, because then it's open to interpretation.”
In a text message, Bear later told WPR he views Wyoming as one state in a nation that “was founded on Christian principles.” Shober said he’s conscious of the fact that not everyone sees the country’s founding that way.
“Not everybody believes we live in a country that was founded on Christian principles,” he said. “I think if your goal is to say we need to be a Christian nation and we’re going to legislate it, that’s not right.”
Some, like Dudley, argue the idea the U.S. was founded on Christian principles is sometimes shared by Christian nationalists. The term describes the idea that the U.S. was founded as a Christian nation and that its government should reflect Christian values.
Dudley said the concepts behind Christian nationalism constitute an ahistorical myth that often come at the expense of people of color and LGBTQ+ people.
“ In doing this … they seek to instill the idea that the only true Americans are Christian, this misguided belief that Christianity really set up our government, and it didn't,” he said.
WPR asked Bear about how he responds to critics like Dudley who say some of his beliefs match those of Christian nationalists.
“The moniker ‘Christian nationalist’ needs to be defined, because it's used as a pejorative, but I believe and love my country and I am a Christian,” he responded. “If you're going to put those two terms together as a pejorative, I'm sorry, I qualify. It's not a pejorative in my mind. I think that we should love our country. I think our country, historically, has done more for humanity than any other in human history. I'm proud of that, and I will continue to be proud of that. I do believe that it ties back to my Christianity.”
In a phone interview months after the service at Living Rock, Bear said he’s not a Christian nationalist as the term is commonly understood. He added that the government has responsibilities separate from those of the church, like providing peace and justice. He said he doesn’t want any state-sponsored religion or religious tests for office in Wyoming or anywhere else.
“ I'm certainly not looking for theocracy,” he said. “I can tell some people are going to read your article and think that's what – because people already, you know, they call me a Christian nationalist, and that's what they believe. It's not true. I think government has a responsibility, and it is separate from the responsibilities of the church.”
At a press conference at the state Capitol in February 2025, Rep. Haroldson described his interpretation of church-state separation to a conference room of reporters and lawmakers. In addition to his pastoral duties, Haroldson holds the position of speaker pro tempore at the Legislature.
“It is not the government's role or job to dictate to the church its function or role, but it is the role of the church to dictate to the government its function and role,” he said at the time.
Haroldson argued the separation of church and state has been co-opted by the political left. Bear told WPR that notion rings true to him.
“ What I believe Jeremy was trying to portray is that you need to have good Christians in office,” Bear said. “Not that to be in office, you have to be a Christian, but as Christians, we should try to get as many Christians in office as possible.”
He drew a comparison to his support for the state Freedom Caucus, which he described as being about having the votes to get policies passed.
“ If we're going to have what I believe is the right type of government and it's going to be within the constitutional constraints, then we need to have enough people that agree with that, that we can get the votes to accomplish that kind of government,” he said. “Well, most Christians that I'm associated with have that same understanding, and so we need more Christians in office so that we can accomplish that kind of government.”
Even after stepping down as chair of the caucus, Bear said he’s retained a leadership position in the faction.
“ But that has to do with what I did in the past,” he said. “What I'm attempting to do now is to prove to the people of Wyoming that this movement of conservatism that is embodied in the Freedom Caucus is not just me and my leading, but there are many leaders. There are many people of the same mindset.”
The power of the caucus comes from “people at the grassroots,” he said. Meanwhile, according to him, the further-right group is under attack from others in the state.
“ We don't have the backing of the media,” Bear said. “We don't have the insider mindset or backing [of] the long-term government influencers. We're not in that crowd. And we don't have the bureaucracy championing our ideas, because we're asking for smaller government, and that's antithetical to – they're trying to protect their jobs. We have this trifecta that we're up against.”
Both Shober and Bear agreed that at the moment, churches aren’t set up to take on big swaths of state government, though such a shift is something Shober said he actually agrees with in principle, but disagrees with in approach.
“My opinion is the government, whether it's state, local, county, city – their responsibility is to take care of all the people,” he said.
Bear said he’s happy someone like Shober, who he describes as “further toward the left,” than him, is a fellow congregant at Living Rock.
“It's a beautiful thing when you can have different political views come together and have a Christian worldview combined across a body, like a church body,” Bear said. “ It allows people to go into debates with a much better attitude toward their debate opponents, I believe. I think that having that commonality in the church would help the dialogue about different worldviews, and the debates of how we're going to solve these problems in the future.”
Some Sundays find Shober and Bear in the same church, singing the same songs. They said they expect that to continue.
This story is the second in a series by state government reporter Chris Clements on the interplay between religion and politics in Wyoming. The first is available here. Think you have a story that would work well in the series? Send Clements a tip at cclemen7@uwyo.edu.
This reporting was made possible by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, supporting state government coverage in the state. Wyoming Public Media and Jackson Hole Community Radio are partnering to cover state issues both on air and online.
