When Linda Sarsour got involved in planning a massive Women’s March for the day after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, she needed dozens of speakers to give brief remarks onstage. Sarsour, a Muslim activist, quickly found diverse and willing participants of faith, including a rabbi from California and a nun who travels the country.
All were women she had last seen in November at a gathering of a new network of eminent religious leaders. This little-known group — which includes 18 members, all of them prominent in religious organizations and highly active in national politics — is quietly seeking to bring together a “Religious Left” to counterbalance the decades-old Religious Right by supporting liberal politics with the imprimatur of faith.
Among the members: Valarie Kaur, a Sikh activist whose prayer for America video gained national attention last month after the shooting of a Sikh man in Washington; the Rev. William Barber II, whose stirring address at the 2016 Democratic National Convention set social media aflame; and Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Church’s first gay bishop, who gave a prayer during President Barack Obama’s inauguration ceremonies.
“It’s sort of like getting the Martin Luther Kings, the Ghandis, the Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschels, the Dorothy Days, the Fannie Lou Hamers of our time together and creating a sense of community,” said the Rev. Katharine Henderson, the president of Auburn Seminary in New York.
Working in concert
Henderson helped launch this high-powered network. The seminary — a bit of a misnomer, since it does not ordain any clergy nowadays, but does offer continuing education for faith leaders further in their careers — first convened the members, whom it terms “senior fellows,” in 2015.
With funding from several philanthropic foundations, the senior fellows communicate online and by phone year-round and meet in person twice a year. It is these meetings, the fellows — most of them heads of either a major congregation or an activist organization — put their heads together to discuss how the organizations they lead can work in concert. At the most recent meeting, held last month at a retreat center in Sedona, Ariz., much of the talk was about what each fellow’s congregants were doing to resist the Trump administration’s policies, and how their organizations could more effectively mobilize together.
“The thing that’s really important about this group is the opportunity to speak candidly, to puzzle together: How do we do this justice work?” Sister Simone Campbell, who leads the Nuns on the Bus social justice group, said during the Sedona meeting. When the Nuns on the Bus drove to the Republican National Convention in August, Campbell recruited others from this network to join their demonstration.
The fellows send each other links to petitions to sign. Sarsour’s fundraiser in which she asked her Muslim community to pay to repair a Jewish cemetery vandalized in Missouri was inspired in part by the interfaith discussions in this group. Jews then donated to repair mosques set on fire in Florida and Texas.
“We’re really seeing in this moment that our communities are learning to support each other, and some of that was born in this space,” Henderson said.
A steady rise
The hope for a “Religious Left,” has risen in light of the protest activism since Trump’s inauguration, with a flurry of headlines predicting its revival and other writers scoffing at the idea.
Clergy and other people of faith were at the forefront of liberal activism throughout the early 20th century, campaigning successfully for reforms in prisons, mental health, political corruption, among many issues. Most notably, African American preachers led the Civil Rights movement and were joined in their marches and voter registration efforts by liberal white ministers and rabbis.
But scholars and pundits have been skeptical that religion could again be a significant motivating factor for liberal activists, like it still is for many conservatives.
Rabbi Sharon Brous, one of the fellows whom Sarsour recruited to speak at the Women’s March, agreed. “Resistance is a muscle all of us built, resistance ministries,” she said. “This is a muscle that’s been working for many years to build. And now when we’re called to the front lines, we’re ready.”
