Sobering thoughts as we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Each year we celebrate the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday and talk about how Dr. King worked for justice. We read, recite and play recordings of his famous "I Have a Dream" speech from 1963 with that marvelous rhetorical flourish about being judged by character rather than the color of our skin. And, for the most part, we forget about the searing judgement he made in that same speech that our society has not delivered on its promises.

I have no doubt that Dr. King would deliver that same uncomfortable judgement to our ears today. He would still be working for justice. He would still be exhorting us to take up the challenge and to see America as it is with its unfulfilled promises. 

We learned this year that America has still not delivered on its promises of economic equality. Twenty times it hasn't delivered! The average white person, we have learned, now has 20 times more wealth than the average person of color. The gap jumped from the already unconscionable 8 times to 20 times less wealth.

The brutally predictable deleterious ramifications for this generation and future generations of African Americans are breathtaking. From where will the resources for locating near the good jobs come? From where will the resources to send children to good high schools and colleges come?

You see, despite the fact that the mortgage crisis and the Great Recession affected everyone, these events pillaged the wealth of the already precarious African American family. Families held back by years of discrimination were determined to join the ranks of middle class home ownership and took the chance offered them. Predatory lending practices took advantage of those aspirations, and combined with crashing home values the wealth of aspiring home owners was looted. The consequences are devastating.

It is not hard to imagine Dr. King again mounting the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and delivering a Jeremiad. The promissory note marked insufficient funds has again and again been returned.

In metropolitan Detroit, low literacy rates and too many people with limited economic resources for something as basic as heat are symptoms of a society that remains manifestly unequal.

Our commitment as an interfaith community must be to face such challenges boldly with "eyes on the prize" as Dr. King did almost forty-four years ago. As we work together, seeking justice, bridging barriers, we certainly hope that the work we do honors the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

A 'Providential Opportunity' has come to our community

Recently various people from within and outside of Michigan have taken notice of metropolitan Detroit’s rich diversity. They are not pleased by this fact. They have chosen to focus their fears on our community. Too often these fears are revealed in expressions of bigotry.

The InterFaith Leadership Council of Metropolitan Detroit was formed to meet this fear and bigotry head-on. We cannot allow it to fester and poison our community.

Lately, Muslims have become the target of this negative attention with a focus on Shariah, the codes of conduct found in Muslim scripture and practice. Some states such as Oklahoma, Alabama and Tennessee have passed laws preventing Shariah from being used or even considered in legal decisions made by the courts.

Metropolitan Detroit is a marvelous community. We are in the enviable position of having a lot of attention paid to us. This is an opportunity for us to show the wider American society - even the world - how vibrant, creative and ultimately beneficial a diverse community like ours can be. The whole world needs to see that. Ours can be a model for others.

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The IFLC: Who We Are

The InterFaith Leadership Council of Metropolitan Detroit is a faith-based civic organization that holds that the American core values of religious freedom and equality are major contributions to civil society requiring active support by religious groups. In our view, religious freedom goes far beyond tolerance and is a demanding community value.

The Council is made up of independent, visionary clerical and lay leaders of many faiths whose shared values and desire to build a just community where we live in harmony with one another compels us to be dedicated to the support of interfaith community organizing. As we bring together, encourage and nurture interfaith groups and networks—as well as the community at large—we build goodwill through active conflict resolution aimed at eliminating any impediments to positive interaction. We fully respect our religious differences while building a unified, but not uniform community, where we work together on our shared interests and values. We provide interfaith education with the intent of obtaining for the metropolitan Detroit community all the synergies and creativity that a diverse community can provide. In short, we bring people of faith together so that we can live together.

The Council provides a forum wherein the many religious leaders who are devoted to minimizing community tensions and barriers to goodwill are gathered together to leverage their energies and seek to build a community consistent with their shared values. Among our Council participants are interfaith clergy organizations, interfaith seminaries, prominent judicatory level faith leaders, journalists who write on religious issues as well as individual interfaith leaders. The Council facilitates relationships and dialogue among these interfaith actors.

The Council is aware of many religious tensions in our community, some of which are closely identified with particular ethnic groups. We intend to continue to defuse these tensions. Two examples from our history are instructive. When a congregation of Muslims in Hamtramck desired to broadcast the traditional "call to prayer" some people within the city objected. Members of the IFLC brought together people of good will within the community to work out a mutually beneficial agreement that was acceptable to the whole community.  Another example of our work involved a mosque as well as an Assyrian Christian Church that were vandalized by bad actors within our community. In both cases people from the IFLC organized to surround and symbolically protect these buildings that the faith community holds as sacred thus achieving appropriate and effective attention from the media and police. We are currently working on some of the tensions introduced into our community by the conflicts in the Middle East. One such effort resulted in a shared Jewish and Muslim “Mitzvah Day” that obtained national media coverage.

In all of this, it is recognized that education is key. In order to work together effectively as a community we need to know and understand each other. Education must be carried on intensively at all levels. The media needs education. Faith leaders need education. The priests, imams, ministers and faithful in the pews need education. We do need to preach to the many choirs.  Most recently, we have organized a series of educational sessions for journalists who today come in many guises. We have been gathering together these “communicators” for tours of sacred places of worship after which we facilitate discussions around religious issues. Early in 2010, they gathered at historic Congregation Shaarey Zedek. After a tour of the sanctuary and building they sat down to discuss how the Jewish Passover and Christian Holy Week are or are not related; and whether there is concern among Jews when Christians perform a so-called "Christian Seder."  In April 2010, a similar gathering was held at historic Christ Church Cranbrook.

This is just the beginning. Join with us as we build the Religious Leaders Forum; as we work with WTVS on the “Detroit Doors” project; as we create various tools to help facilitate learning about all the diverse religious groups around us; as we…well you get the picture. We will be busy and we need your help.

 Robert Bruttell, chair