Anglea is CEO of Interfaith Community Services. He lives in Escondido.
“We believe that you have the capacity to bring an open mind, making our faith places safe places.”
That’s what Kadri Webb says in the opening of Interfaith Community Services’ new anti-racism training for faith communities.
So I ask each reader here, do you have the capacity to bring an open mind to the topic of racism and equity? Are you willing to approach this often-difficult subject from a position of love and understanding? As we seek to heal and overcome the tumult and division of 2020, an open mind may be the most important salve to healing wounds and moving forward in unity as a San Diego community.
Interfaith’s Multi-City Racial Reconciliation Coalition of local faith and business leaders understands that no one looks to our elected leaders or political commentators to change what we believe and how we choose to act. Instead for people of faith, it’s our faith leaders who have tremendous impact on what we believe and how we lead our daily lives. Webb, who is the pastor of St. John Church in Oceanside and vice chair of Interfaith’s board of directors, leads our coalition of more than 40 diverse faith leaders who have developed the “Making our Faith Places Safe Places” curriculum. With guidance and clarity from a panoply of Evangelical Christian, Episcopalian, Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, Jewish, Muslim, Bahai and Sikh faiths, an interactive training has been developed featuring local leaders on this most local of issues: Is your faith place a safe place?
Our training is offered at no cost, and is available now at interfaithservices.org/faith. We invite faith communities and faith groups to participate in this training together. It can be experienced online or in-person. Groups can move at their own pace and engage in conversation and shared learning in whatever means best s their goals.
As Webb shares in the opening, “It takes a lot of bravery to have such a difficult but necessary conversation. We ask that you not just bring your mind, but that you bring your heart to this discussion. Be brave enough to open your heart.“
Our Multi-City Racial Reconciliation Coalition invites all local faith communities to engage in this training during the Season for Nonviolence, the 64 calendar days between the memorial anniversary of the assassination of Mohandas K. Gandhi on Jan. 30 and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4. The Season for Nonviolence teaches that “every person can more the world forward in the direction of peace through daily nonviolent choices and actions.”
If we can all maintain an open mind and have the courage to take on challenging issues like racism in 2021, we will indeed be able to heal and overcome together. I invite you to take up the challenge.
