UCCtruths

Interfaith organizations rarely make news which is why it was coincidental today that two different groups are making news for different reasons. Both have active participation from UCC churches. For starters, the Kentuckiana Interfaith Community is set to disolve. From the Louisville Courier-Journal:

It has brought leaders of churches, synagogues and mosques together to distribute gun locks, speak out against Ku Klux Klan gatherings and decry anti-Muslim sentiments after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Now Kentuckiana Interfaith Community, a decades-old coalition of Christians, Jews, Muslims and Bahais, is shutting down operations -- a victim of shriveling funding and dwindling participation.

On the upside, an interfaith group in Wisconsin is forming. From the LaCrosse Tribune:

Imagine if people knew La Crosse not only as the place where rivers flow, said the Rev. Curtis Miller on Sunday, but where justice flows.

Miller was speaking at the Cathedral of St. Joseph the Workman during a covenant celebration that publicly kicked off the work of AMOS Inc., a coalition of faith communities working for justice.

The eight congregations that now initially form AMOS are Christ Episcopal Church, English Lutheran Church, the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration, Hope United Church, Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, St. Joseph the Workman Cathedral, Congregation Sons of Abraham and the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of La Crosse.

Miller, a United Church of Christ minister, is president of AMOS, which stands for “Advocating, Mobilizing, and Organizing for Solidarity.”

Other congregations will likely join the organization.

“When we don’t work together, we’re not as efficient and effective as we could be,” said Bishop Keith Whitmore, head of the Episcopal Diocese of Eau Claire.

I tend to be skeptical of interfaith groups at the local level. I know it sounds simplistic, but I get the sense that these groups suck up more energy from the participants than the results they produce (or don't produce). On the other hand, I believe that regional and national interfaith groups are better positioned to leverage financial and human resources to be much more effective.