The Palm Springs cluster has been gathering since late May, rotating across host congregations and building an ongoing, multifaith conversation anchored in the foundational texts of American life. Sessions co-led by Rabbi David Lazar and the hosting clergy have drawn participants from Jewish, United Methodist, Disciples of Christ, Baptist, Episcopal, Buddhist, Presbyterian, Unitarian Universalist, and unaffiliated backgrounds. They’ve been meeting at the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Desert with Rev. Ian W. Riddell in late May and early June, and at St. Paul of the Desert Episcopal Church with Rev. Dan Kline in mid-June, before a three-session series at United Methodist Church of Palm Springs with Pastor Jane Voigts drew between 26 and 32 participants, joining both in person and online. The curriculum has paired faith250’s foundational American texts with material from participants’ own faith traditions, spanning the Declaration of Independence, 1 Samuel, the Sermon on the Mount, “The New Colossus,” and the legislative history of American immigration restriction.
The conversations have been candid and searching. Participants traced their own family histories through Ellis Island, grappled honestly with which Americans the founding documents did and did not address, and reflected together on what it means to pursue democracy as both a civic and spiritual practice. The group read Emma Lazarus’s poem against the backdrop of the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act, examined the Biblical roots of the call to welcome the stranger, and considered what Ben Franklin’s list of virtues and John Wesley’s method of structured self-examination have to do with self-governance today. A four-part series is now scheduled for August at St. Paul of the Desert, co-led by Rabbi Lazar and Rev. Frank Dunn. We’re excited to see what happens next with the Palm Springs Cluster.
