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Williamstown, MA Church Holds ‘Interfaith Call To Action’ After Midterms

The midterms are over, but nerves are still raw after a rough campaign season. Saturday, Berkshire community leaders will gather in Williamstown, Massachusetts to discuss meaningful ways to react to a changing America.

The event at First Church Williamstown is an attempt to turn fear and confusion into something more powerful.

“This is ‘Reviving Our Hearts For Justice: An Interfaith Call To Action,'" said Bridget Spann, the church’s Community Outreach Organizer. “For many people, what has been going on in our country has been such a challenge as it feels like such a divisive time at a point where we all need to be coming together.”

She said the event was planned with an expectation of a stressful election week.

“We really wanted an event where we could call people together to hear from different speakers, activists, artists, musicians about important social justice topics to get people inspired about how people are working for change and how they might also make a personal commitment to take some action steps,” Spann told WAMC.

It’s not the first time the First Church has stepped into that role.

“What I witnessed is after the 2016 election, people were just feeling a tremendous amount of grief and fear about the future of our country," said Reverend Mark Longhurst.  He said around a hundred attended a similar gathering after the election of President Trump, whose 2016 campaign denigrated immigrants and promoted an isolationist worldview.

“It seemed like a good time to remind ourselves that our deepest values are of concern and care for those who are most marginalized,” he told WAMC.

Longhurst has served as pastor at the church since 2013. He says the role of the church has expanded in trying political times.

“We have seen some numbers increase simply because the state of our country," said the Reverand, "and I think one thing that the progressive Christian church can offer in these times of real fear and uncertainty on the part of many is a community where we’re struggling and acting and remembering a biblical vision of social justice together.”

Longhurst said he sees a tide shifting in the role and perception of Christian values in American life.

“It’s a moment for the progressive church that has always valued issues of social justice and did not align with the Christian Right," said Longhurst. "It’s a time for them to go public with the message that they’ve had all along and say, hey, we may be smaller in numbers than we were in the 1930s in our heyday, but we’ve had these values of social justice and care and advocacy and action with the marginalized for years and years and this is central to our faith.”

“In terms of principled action, that is definitely something that is rooted in faith, and I think a lot of that has grapped me to continue to work at the things that I do and research the things that I do," Mohammed Memfis told WAMC. He's a sophomore at Williams College who studies political and environmental sciences. From Atlanta, he’s a Muslim active in interfaith initiatives on and off campus.

“For instance, I’m on the board of the Muslim Student Union," said Memfis. "We have sort of an interfaith council. We cooked Shabbat dinner with the Williams College Jewish Association, so there is a lot of intermingling of the different faith groups and traditions on campus.”

Following a recent appearance on climate change and social justice at the church, he’ll speak at Saturday’s event on how many of the issues facing America today overlap on its most vulnerable populations.

“This past summer, I was working at the ACLU back home in Georgia," the sophmore told WAMC, "and a lot of the biggest obstacles that we had to overcome were issues facing communities that were subject to mass incarceration on unprecedented scales that were being suppressed against in terms of their ability to vote in elections.”

Longhurst says that kind of intersectional thinking reflects the main purpose of the event.

“That’s part of our goal, is to bring folks of faith, different faiths, and no faith together and say we need to commit to action in this time,” he said.

‘Reviving Our Hearts For Justice: An Interfaith Call To Action’ will feature speakers like State Senator Adam Hinds, Brooke Mead of the Berkshire Immigrant Center, Berkshire District Attorney-elect Andrea Harrington, spiritual leaders from throughout the county, and more.

For more on the event, click here.

Josh Landes has been WAMC's Berkshire Bureau Chief since February 2018, following stints at WBGO Newark and WFMU East Orange. A passionate advocate for Western Massachusetts, Landes was raised in Pittsfield and attended Hampshire College in Amherst, receiving his bachelor's in Ethnomusicology and Radio Production. His free time is spent with his cat Harry, experimental electronic music, and exploring the woods.
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