The State Of Belief Interfaith Alliance

In the coming days, the United States Supreme Court will hear a case on the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) – a federal law that guarantees all people treatment for emergency medical conditions. However, anti-abortion extremists are trying to exclude pregnant people from EMTALA’s long-standing protections. This has the potential to not only drastically impact access to life-saving reproductive care, but also religious freedom. The same goes for the recent SCOTUS oral arguments on access to mifepristone, the leading medical pregnancy termination drug. And of course, we're fast approaching the 2nd anniversary of the Dobbs decision, reversing Roe v. Wade.
Infringing on people’s rights to make personal decisions based on their own moral beliefs is one way that religious extremists are seeking to chip away at our democracy and impose their Christian nationalist agenda. One way to push back is to stand together for the values most Americans actually hold.
This week on The State of Belief, Interfaith Alliance’s weekly radio show and podcast, Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush speaks with Skye Perryman of Democracy Forward to unpack the EMTALA and mifepristone cases and their impact on democracy. Paul also speaks with the Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis of Middle Church about the upcoming Freedom Rising Conference, which will convene community leaders, organizers, and educators to determine how the interfaith movement can work together to save democracy in this pivotal moment.
“These are attacks on our democracy, plain and simple. They’re attacks on everything about the way of our life in America, about the ability to hold our freedoms, about the ability to raise our families, about the ability to be in communities with people. And so I think we need to see that for what it is. And one thing that people can do is just to make sure that they are engaged in their local communities, that they are registered to vote, that they are encouraging people to vote.”
- Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward. An attorney, activist, and organizer, she is also a member of the board of Interfaith Alliance.
“Whether our political party is Democrat or Republican or Independent, we know that our democracy is eroding, and if we want to stop the failure of democracy and the destruction of Mother Earth, we remember that God is for the healing of all the people and for the protection of the planet. And we, we are co-creators with God. We are co-stewards with God. We have a responsibility to load in at this time so that love can win in November. And that's what we're organizing for.”
- The Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, longtime senior pastor at Middle Church in New York City. Author of the book Fierce Love: A Bold Path to Frocious Courage and Rule-Breaking Kindness That Can Heal the World. Jacqui is an activist, preacher, writer, and teacher. She also hosts the Love, Period podcast.

While some traditions and congregations may be more inclusive than others, LGBTQ+ people have always had a presence in faith communities. When faith communities are affirming of LGBTQ+ people, it creates opportunities for more welcoming spaces, challenges forces of division, and fosters a society that embraces pluralism and intersectionality. This affirmation and inclusion also expands religious freedom for all by promoting peaceful coexistence and challenging the exclusionary and discriminatory white Christian nationalist agenda.
This week on The State of Belief, Interfaith Alliance’s weekly radio show and podcast, Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush is joined by Dr. Royal G. Cravens III to explore the history of LGBTQ+ inclusion within faith communities. They discuss how faith and LGBTQ+ communities can empower each other to engage in positive political action and dismantle the barriers that often separate faith and acceptance.
"I think the one thing that's so important for me to say now is that the idea that one person can't be both LGBTQ+ and religious, that's a false construction. It's a political construction, largely. It's something that was created to fuel political division. And so I think it's really important if you can understand that, then it makes sense that LGBTQ+ people are deeply influenced by faith; that faith, how we're socialized into it, because it's part of the world that we live in, especially in American politics, that it makes sense that it would influence how LGBTQ+ people engage.”
-R. G. Cravens III, senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center. R.G.’s recent book is titled: Yes, Gawd! How Faith Shapes LGBT Identity and Politics in the United States. The author of several important recent SPLC reports, including CAPTAIN, which stands for Combating Anti-LGBTQ Pseudoscience Through Accessible Informative Narratives. he is the previous recipient of the Bailey and Cynthia Weber Award from the American Political Science Association and has held fellowships with the Social Science Research Council and Public Religion Research Institute.

Language and the words we use possess the extraordinary ability to bridge divides and bring people together, fostering understanding and solidarity among diverse communities. However, when wielded maliciously, they can also serve as a dangerous tool for sowing discord and causing division. This week on The State of Belief, the weekly radio show and podcast by Interfaith Alliance, host Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush talks with crisis communications expert Helio Fred Garcia. They delve into the power of language, its implications, and discuss available strategies for resistance, particularly in the context of the current election year marked by an alarming escalation of divisive and dehumanizing rhetoric on the campaign trail.
“We can, at whatever level of society we happen to be at, we can be diligent and say, this demonization and dehumanization stops with me. I'm going to be the person who lives by the standard - and behavior that we walk past is behavior we condone. And so we need to call it out when we see it.”
- Fred Garcia, founder and president of the crisis management firm Logos Consulting Group, and executive director of the Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership. A coach, counselor, teacher, and public speaker, Fred's books include Words on Fire: The Power of Incendiary Language and How to Confront It. He's on the faculty at New York University and Columbia University and is a past chair and long-time member of the board of directors of Interfaith Alliance.

As many faith traditions across the globe celebrate important Holy Days this weekend, it provides an opportunity for introspection and diving deeper into our personal relationships with faith. At a time in our history when an extremist religious minority seeks to weaponize faith in the service of an authoritarian political agenda, it’s important to build bridges and connections across traditions to lead with shared values of truth, justice, and love. This week on The State of Belief, Interfaith Alliance’s weekly radio show and podcast, Rev. John Pavlovitz joins host Rev. Paul Raushenbush to examine how faith can buoy us through challenging times.
“But the parts about the fighting with and for my faith tradition, so the part about Christianity, is really important to me because it acknowledges that I have come through this tradition. I love it, many things that I have experienced as a part of it, but I also see its toxicity. And so there's the honesty about the tensions of saying, I have a deep spirituality and I have an incredibly complicated relationship with organized religion, and so how do I do that work? And how do I follow Jesus' command to love the least and love my enemies who may be oppressing the least?”
- John Pavlovitz, an ordained pastor, writer, and activist from North Carolina. He is the best-selling author of numerous books including If God is Love, Don't Be a Jerk and A Bigger Table: Building Messy, Authentic, and Hopeful Spiritual Community. His new book, coming April 2, 2024, is titled Worth Fighting For: Finding Courage and Compassion When Cruelty is Trending.

Over the past several years, the global church has been grappling with sex abuse scandals and how to address and lift up the needs of survivors. In their new book, Surviving God: A New Vision of God Through the Eyes of Sexual Abuse Survivors, theologians Rev. Grace Ji-Sun Kim and Rev. Susan M. Shaw work to dismantle traditional theological constructs that perpetuate the grave issue of sexual abuse, shedding light on how these patriarchial beliefs diverge from the compassionate and just essence of the gospel.
This week on The State of Belief, Interfaith Alliance’s weekly radio show and podcast, Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush is joined by the authors to delve into the authors’ lived experiences and unveiling the intricate intersections of gender, race, sexuality, class, and religion. They discuss what can be done to offer a hopeful pathway to a reimagined church committed to healing and justice.
 As I think more theologically every day, I'm thinking that our image, our metaphors, our understanding, our language, our words about God actually really, really has a deep impact on our actions, our thinking, our modes of behavior...If we continue to use this language in the church, it really allows abuse, allows domination, allows colonialism, allows subjugation, allows genocide, all these things, they are intersecting forms and acts of violence perpetrated against other people.
- Dr. Grace Ji-Sun Kim, professor of theology at Earlham School of Religion in Richmond, Indiana, and an ordained Presbyterian minister. She's the author or editor of more than 20 books, including Hope in Disarray: Piecing Our Lives Together in Faith and Healing Our Broken Humanity: Practices for Revitalizing the Church and Renewing the World.
Grace and I went into this book as survivors ourselves, and so we want survivors to know that we are speaking as people who understand what they've gone through and what they continue to go through. And while the book has a lot of difficult material, and we're going to talk about that, but we also ended on a note of joy. And so we want survivors also to know that we're going to get to the joy as we talk about it.
- Dr. Susan M. Shaw, professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Oregon State University. Her books include Reflective Faith: A Theological Toolbox for Women, and God Speaks to Us, Too: Southern Baptist Women on Church, Home, and Society. An ordained Baptist minister, Susan makes her congregational home in the United Church of Christ.

The outsized, but often forgotten, role of women in the Civil Rights Movement has come up several times recently on The State of Belief, Interfaith Alliance's weekly radio program and podcast. Now, host Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush welcomes an expert on the subject, Dr. AnneMarie Mingo. Her new book, out on March 26th, 2024, is titled Have You Got Good Religion? Black Women's Faith, Courage, and Moral Leadership in the Civil Rights Movement.
"Unfortunately, we still see that today, where many of the women who are the strategists, the architects, those who are making it happen, are ignored. But one of the things that I've always appreciated that the women that I studied didn't get caught up in, was the fact that they were ignored. They still did the work anyway."
- Dr. Anne Marie Mingo, associate professor of ethics, culture, and moral leadership, and director of the Metro Urban Institute at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. An ordained itinerant elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, AnneMarie is the founder of Sister Scholars, an organization that supports Black women pursuing doctorate degrees. The compelling conversation raises up the everydayness of activists who never make headlines, but who ensure the words of prominent leaders are followed up with action.