On Tuesday We Vote for Love: Sign our Letter
Dear Friends of Faith and Conscience,
We so appreciate your work to make our world more just and sustainable. We are looking for your support and presence as we come together for love, tolerance and healing. Please see this faith call to action sign-on letter below. Sign here and spread the word.
***
As members of the multifaith community, we all believe people are valued and precious. We strive to treat others the way we want to be treated. In this moment, we think especially of our Jewish family as they stagger under the weight of grief and sorrow, of the lives and legacies of compassion and service ended too soon. We join with all victims of extremism in its many forms in a pledge to give our lives fully to the quest for justice and love.
We condemn in the strongest possible terms the white supremacy that emanates from the highest leadership of the US government. We now know that President Trump’s lies describing the men, women, and children of the Central American “caravan” as terrorists and thugs directly contributed to the actions of the shooter at Tree of Life Synagogue (see 1,2 below). This type of rhetoric sets off alarms in our hearts and soul. We remember our history, the stealing of Indigenous lands and the enslavement of people. We cannot stand by and listen to public proclamations that target people of color, religious minorities, and the LGTBQ community. We condemn attacks on the freedom of the press and suppression of voting rights.
The God of all faiths calls us to rise up with the most vulnerable. Our Jewish neighbors have taught us: Olam chesed yibaneh | עוֹלָם חֶסֶד יִבָנֶה | we will build this world with love. We reaffirm our covenant with all humanity to build this world with love, to call out hate and violence wherever we find it.
As we near the election this Tuesday, November 6, 2018 we urge you to vote for candidates who are committed to speech and policy rooted in treating all human beings with dignity, and holding the sacredness of the earth in trust. We urge you to support your friends, family, communities, and neighbors to do so as well.
We expect our leaders to speak with integrity, to respect all beings, to put the wellbeing of the many over the financial gain of the few. Once elected, we will hold our representatives to the highest standards, to behavior that we would be proud to model to the youngest among us. We speak these words of truth that all people may live free from hate, and live fully the life we were given.
Please add your signature here and invite your faith leaders and communities of faith to sign on.
Signed in hope,
Dr. Julia Nerbonne, Executive Director of Minnesota Interfaith Power & Light
Rev. Dr. Curtiss DeYoung, CEO of Minnesota Council of Churches
Rev. Dr. Rebecca Voelkel, Director of the Center for Sustainable Justice
Rev. Gwin Pratt, Board Member at MNIPL and Pastor at Presbyterian Church of the Apostles
Rev. Ashley Horan, Executive Director of Minnesota Unitarian Universalist Social Justice Alliance
Rev. Jim Bear Jacobs, Director of Racial Justice at MN Council of Churches and Pastor at Church of All Nations
Bishop Fred Willis Washington, Church of God in Christ–Minnesota Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction
Rev. Billy Russell of MN State Baptist Convention & Greater Friendship Baptist
Nausheena Hussain Executive Director of Reviving the Islamic Sisterhood of Empowerment
Rabbi Michael Adam Latz, Shir Tikvah Synagogue
Bishop Bruce R. Ough, United Methodist
Rev. Dr. Billy G. Russell, Greater Friendship Missionary Baptist Church
Rabbi Debra Rappaport, Shir Tikvah Synagogue
Rabbi Alan Shavit-Lonstein, By The Rivers Synagogue
Rabbi Jeffrey Schein
Bishop Steven Delzer, Southeastern Minnesota Synod, ELCA
Rabbi Emma Kippley-Ogman, Macalester Center for Religious and Spiritual Life
Rabbi Shalom Reznik-Bell
Rabbi Shoshana Dworsky, Carleton College
Bishop Bruce Ough — Minnesota Conference of the United Methodist Church
Bishop Thomas Aitken, Northeastern Minnesota Synod, ELCA
Bishop Fred Willis Washington, Church of God in Christ–Minnesota Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction
Elona Street-Stewart, Executive of Synod of Lakes and Prairies, PCUSA
Rev. Steven Newcom, Founding Director of Kaleo Center for Faith, Justice and Social Transformation @ United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities
Rev. Dr. Timothy Reinhold Eberhart , UMC
Rev. DeWayne L. Davis, All God’s Children MCC
Rev. Jin S. Kim, All God’s Children MCC
Rev. Justin Schroeder, First Universalist Church of Minneapolis
Rev. Susannah Tuttle, ED NC Interfaith Power & Light
Rev. Canon Peg Chemberlin, Former Director National Council of Churches
Rev. Will Healy of Park Avenue United Methodist Church
Rev. Sarah Campbell, Mayflower, UCC
Rev. Satya Cynthia Scott, Clouds in Water Zen Center
Rev. Shari Prestemon, Conference Minister, United Church of Christ
Rev. Timothy Button-Harris, District Executive Minister, Church of Brethren
Please see the full list of over 400 signers here
1. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/
2. http://time.com/5432702/
