Our Purpose
Interfaith Action of Southwest Michigan is a collaborative network of faith communities dedicated to promoting peace, justice, and compassion. Rooted in diverse faith traditions, our mission is to put love into action for the healing and transformation of our world. We aim to practice and promote:
Affirm the inherent dignity and worth of every person
Promote peace and nonviolence
Advance justice, particularly for those marginalized in society
Honor and protect the sacredness of all creation
Our Organization
Interfaith Action operates as a collaborative rather than a membership-based organization. Participating faith communities engage with us in ways that align with their values and priorities. While some fully support all our initiatives, others focus on specific areas of concern.
We currently have over forty faith communities committed to peace and justice in Southwest Michigan from Allegan, Berrien, Cass, St. Joseph, and Van Buren counties. To see the full list, click here.
Faith Frame
Interfaith Action’s faith-based commitments around the ideals of common good, common home, and common life provide an opportunity to use religious language and religious commitments to provide a public theology for the public square.
Our hope is that this faith frame will inspire the creation of an interfaith ethic of community and instill in individuals and groups the emotions that bind us with each other and with all of creation.
Interfaith Action Abridged Faith Frame
1. We commit to listening to the stories of others and telling our stories, recognizing that storytelling is key to our faith traditions.
2. Our practices and policies are grounded in tenderness - a visceral, loving connectedness we share with all beings.
3. We are committed to ensuring human rights and justice so that all might flourish.
4. In the midst of our differences, our common life guides us to promote human dignity, mutual respect, and dialogue.
5. In our common life as communities of faith, we are to be bearers of peace.
6. People of faith have a bedrock commitment to our common home, including advancing policies and practices towards the protection and preservation of creation.
7. We commit to solidarity with migrants around the world (neighbors in our common home) and work to ensure their dignity, human rights, and protection.
8. We advance the value of the common good as an essential guard against greed and power, advocating for a metric of equality of outcome, not a metric of opportunity.
9. Our common good requires advancing policies of inclusion and equity. We reject systems that oppress people and create inequities, such as racism and other types of systemic exclusion.
10. Grounded in solidarity with the poor and the vulnerable, we advance policies that alleviate poverty, homelessness, and hunger as foundational to our common good.