Faith and the Common Good (FCG) is a new program to create multifaith collaborations between religious leaders around the United States and their congregations to advance social responsibility and the common good. Rabbi Sid Schwarz conceived of and directs the project.

We live in the most religiously diverse country in human history. Many of the religious communities represented in the United States are at odds in other regions of the world. Yet America’s tradition of religious freedom and democratic pluralism sets the stage for an unprecedented level of dialogue and collaboration. Unfortunately, there are very few arenas where people of faith can come together, work together and collaborate on advancing the
common good.

President Obama has focused attention on the ability of faith communities to advance peace and justice in the world. In a speech given to the National Prayer Breakfast just a month after his inauguration he noted how faith can be a force for division or a force for social cohesion. The Faith and the Common Good project is based on three core principles:

1. Only when faith communities both celebrate their uniqueness and seek common cause with sister faith communities can democratic pluralism truly thrive in America.
2. Each faith community must reclaim and amplify the social message of their respective traditions as a way to make religion relevant to their adherents as well as to enable faith communities to play a leadership role on the pressing issues facing our communities, our country and the world.
3. Faith communities need to help rebuild the civic fabric of American society by modeling social responsibility. This social responsibility ethic needs to incubate in the bosom of spiritual community and then it must extend outward to successive reaches of a world crying for compassion.

Teams of clergy and religious leaders who lead congregations will be recruited from targeted communities around the United States for training retreats. The retreats will focus on exploring what the Dali Lama called in his most recent book, “the true kinship of faith”. Religious leaders will be trained to galvanize their respective congregations to mobilize across faith lines and to address one or more pressing issues facing the communities in which they live. Individuals and institutions interested in playing a role in the launch of this project should contact Rabbi Sid Schwarz at rabbisid2@gmail.com.