FAN Board and Staff met for our annual retreat recently to help strengthen our advocacy and solidarity. We are looking forward to the change we can accomplish together in our multi-faith statewide work against injustice.

Concern for Increased Violence toward Faith Communities

Friends, we are deeply concerned about the unprecedented number of reports of property destruction against faith communities in the past few months, most recently during Pride month. We know this is part of a nationwide campaign fueled by white Christian nationalism. We’ve heard about and seen on social media acts targeting Temple de Hirsch Sinai in Seattle, Edmonds United Methodist Church, Edmonds Lutheran Church, Holy Spirit Lutheran Church in Kirkland, Wayside United Church of Christ in Federal Way, Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church in Vancouver, United Christian Church in Renton, Trinity United Methodist in Seattle, and Veradale United Church of Christ in Spokane Valley. We know these are just some of the incidents. We remember well standing together at mosques, synagogues, Black churches, and gurudwaras in the past. These threats and actions surface as anti-LBGTQIA+ harassment, antisemitism, Islamophobia, and racist violence. As we talk with our colleagues in other states, we hear of additional experiences and growing concern.

We want you to know that we care about you and your communities. As we find ourselves speaking with elected officials and media contacts about how polarization and harmful narratives are impacting faith communities, it would be helpful to know the scope of what you are experiencing.

Please consider filling out this simple Google form with brief information about what you have experienced. We will follow up with you if more is needed. This of course does not replace first contacting authorities, reporting to ADL, CAIR-WA, and other dedicated hate crime reporting organizations. What it will do is help us understand and advocate for you in a multi-faith, statewide way. It will also help us have staff and board present and showing our solidarity when you hold vigils and gather to say that LOVE WILL OVERCOME HATE. We plan to keep you informed as we strategize with faith-based and secular organizations.

FAN is Hiring!

One of the things we enjoy and do best at FAN is convening our network. We love joining together for our two major events, the Annual Dinner and Interfaith Advocacy Day, to be able to look across the room and see that this is what a multi-faith movement in action looks like! As we learned from the pandemic, we can also do some of that as we gather online, and we can gather even more people when we do it in a hybrid way. We would like to add to our team a FAN Network Events Manager who can make that magic happen and manage our gatherings throughout the year. Please download the job description and share it with your networks to help us find that special person to do this job. Review of applicants begins July 25, 2023, with a preferred start date of early August.

Pride Events

FAN celebrates Pride with you all month long. We appreciate faith communities that provide a presence of love and inclusion during Pride activities across our state. Here are a few events we want to highlight:

Friday, June 30, 4:00pm until you are ready to go home, Edmonds. Show Your Pride-Downtown Edmonds.

Sunday, July 2, Noon-3:00pm, Spokane Valley. Love is Greater than Hate.

Saturday, July 8, 10:00am-4:00pm, Pasco. Tri-Pride. Don’t forget to look for the FAN booth!

Saturday, July 8, Noon-8pm, Esther Short Park, Vancouver. Pride in the Park. 

Events

Thursday, July 20, 11:00am-12:30pm, online, Using a Critical Lens around Patriarchy for Housing Justice. This lecture led by Ana Fabragas is part of the Washington Low Income Housing Alliance’s Equity, Racial Justice, and Culture Lunch & Learn Series.

Saturday, July 22, 4:00-9:30pm, in person, White River Buddhist Temple, 3625 Auburn Way B, Auburn. Bon Odori 2023. Obon (お盆) is the Japanese Buddhist holiday to honor the spirits of one’s ancestors. It is of significant religious importance and is the biggest event of the year for the temple. They are looking forward to welcoming back the public to this year’s event that will have several interactive activities.

Saturday-Monday, August 5-7, in person, Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, 16159 Clear Creek Road NW, Poulsbo. Hiroshima Weekend of Action. Join 3 days of activities and actions at or outside the largest concentration of deployed nuclear weapons in the US. Organizers would love to see faith communities represented as advocates for peace at this memorial event.