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We’re coming to you from New York City! This week on State of Belief, Interfaith Alliance’s radio show and podcast, we are in the Big Apple to catch up with clergy who are working day in and day out to promote interfaith cooperation and calm the storms of division.
This week, a new report revealed that the number of anti-Semitic incidents dramatically increased in 2017. And, certainly, nobody can forget white supremacists marching through Charlottesville, Virginia, last year with tiki torches, prompting members of a local Jewish congregation to sneak out the back door of their synagogue with their sacred Torah scrolls because of safety concerns. Rabbi Irwin Kula, president of Clal, the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership, will join host Rev. Welton Gaddy this week to discuss how Jewish leaders are helping calm the waters and ensure safety for everyone.
Earlier this year, the Rev. Elder Pat Bumgardner was with us to talk about how the shifting in policies and priorities here in the United States is impacting the women and LGBTQ people of faith that she works with around the world. She will join us again on State of Belief this week to catch up with Welton and dive more deeply into how her ministry has changed with the seismic shift in national priorities in the last year. Pat is senior pastor at the Metropolitan Community Church of New York, a congregation she has served for 33 years. She is also executive director of the denomination’s Global Justice Institute.
From a chaplain program in the state legislature that excludes non-Christian clergy to an upcoming lobby day for Muslims in the community, there’s a lot going on in Oklahoma. Rabbi Abby Jacobson, president of Interfaith Alliance of Oklahoma, will give us a look at the stories most impacting the interreligious community in the Sooner State.