PROJECT

The Fetzer Institute partners with the Faith & Politics Institute to foster community and encourage contemplative dialogue among people in political life. Activities include:

• Retreats and workshops for bipartisan bridge building
• Convening faith leaders for deeper conversations between members of Congress
• Congressional pilgrimages addressing the U.S. civil rights movement, the American Indian Trail of Tears, and the Hispanic heritage experiences
• Reflection groups (weekly one-hour groups) provide safe spaces for members and staff to process both inward self-examination and outward exposure with trustworthy colleagues in a way conducive to growth and change.

The Faith & Politics Institute has consistently sought to foster community and encourage contemplative dialogue among people in political life. It has worked to create safe spaces for honest conversation and creative reflection on issues at the intersection of faith and politics.

To consider embracing a consciousness informed by the power of faith, courage, hope, love, and forgiveness, members of Congress and others on Capitol Hill must have opportunities to

• Cultivate a capacity to reflect on their own deepest values and awareness
• Become acquainted with people, stories, and models that compellingly represent the power of values such as faith, conscience, courage, hope, love, and forgiveness
• Develop an appropriate awareness of history and the power of historical memory
• Share experiences through which historical memory becomes an instrument of healing
• Process both the inward self-examination and the outward experience with trustworthy colleagues in a way conducive to growth, change, and the building of circles of trust and a community of conscience among political leaders

Latest News

9th Congressional Civil Rights Pilgrimage to Alabama, March 2009

Rep. John Lewis, working with The Faith & Politics Institute, led the 9th Congressional Civil Rights Pilgrimage to Alabama March 6–8, 2009. The pilgrimage, partially funded by the Fetzer Institute, serves as a celebration of how far we have come from those terrible days of civil strife in the 1950s and 1960s.

Nina Totenberg, NPR’s legal correspondent, began her radio essay about the pilgrimage with the following opening reflection:

“It is rare in life that you get to see history come full circle in a single event on one stage. But in March, I witnessed just such an event in Alabama. In 1965 local, state, and federal officials considered John Lewis as an agitator, a troublemaker. Things have changed drastically. In 2009 the ‘boy from Troy (Alabama)’ returned to his native state as a congressman who is described by his colleagues as the moral conscience of the nation. The signs of change went beyond Rep. Lewis.”

The 9th Congressional Civil Rights Pilgrimage was an interactive history education. The sojourn did more than revisit the past; Rep. Lewis shared his vision of history as a spiritual quest firmly founded on the ideals of love and forgiveness. The trip incorporated additional educational components. Participants visited museums (Rosa Parks Museum of Montgomery and Civil Rights Institute of Birmingham) and historic churches (Dr. King's Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and Birmingham's Sixteenth Avenue Baptist Church, fire bombed in 1963). Veteran civil rights activists joined the tour to recall their participation in the movement. Dr. James Lawson, Dr. Bob Zellner, William Taylor, Odessa Woolfolk, Bettie Mae Fikes, and Dorothy Cotton augmented the history lessons delivered by Rep. Lewis. The dinner program included a panel discussion on Jewish contributions to the civil rights movement, hosted by NPR’s Nina Totenberg. The educational elements of the trip introduced participants to the dreams, locations, and people of the civil rights movement.

Reflecting on history, as the pilgrimage does, is a political act. In Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement, Lewis writes:

“A people united, guided by a goal of a just and decent community, are absolutely unstoppable. We proved that a generation ago. There is no reason it cannot continue, today and on into the dawn of the coming century. Know your history. Study it. Share it. Shed a tear over it. Laugh about it. Live it. Act it out. Understand it. Because for better or worse, our past is what brought us here, and it can help lead us to where we need to go.” (Lewis 1998:500)

The pilgrimage exposed policy makers to America’s legacy of injustice and inequality. The trip reflected Rep. Lewis’s desire for the creation of a community based on love and reconciliation.