Torture
California Council of Churches has a deep commitment to ending US-sponsored torture. In alliance with the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, we are coordinating outreach and education projects that remind people of faith that torture is a moral issue. In times of past global tension and conflict, the United States has stood firmly against this heinous practice. Our nation's current engagement in practices that we once renounced puts our moral as well as political leadership in jeopardy. Using our young men and women to inflict harm on thousands of others places the perpetrators as well as the victims of torture in deep and perhaps irrevocable moral, mental, and emotional peril. We are using our voices, from all our faith members, to renounce this despicable practice and call for a return to the standards that have long distinguished us as a just and humane people.

Food Security
Food security is a standard of well being this state and its people have long accepted as the norm. Over the past decades, however, growing numbers of our residents are becoming victims of both massive malnutrition and outright hunger. More and more we find people food scarce relying on food banks, pantries, and kitchens. Many of our congregations operate some form of food distribution on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. We are called to remind ourselves that food is a basic human necessity and to educate our congregations and members on the many food programs that can and must exist to alleviate hunger. We enlist our members in giving both the helping hand of filling immediate need and in speaking for those same people in permanently altering the conditions of hunger here and abroad.

Interfaith Understanding

Building Bridges of Understanding
An Interfaith Response to September 11th

The California Council of Churches invites you to begin a journey of interfaith understanding with the use of this 6-session study guide and video for congregations, which introduces the six major religious traditions in California. We believe that you will find this a good beginning point in discovering the variety and diversity of religious traditions in the United States today.

The challenge of knowing one's neighbor in our California communities is often complicated. Beyond geographic, linguistic, socioeconomic and political boundaries, there also are six major religious traditions that co-exist in a myriad of expressions throughout the state. While diverse in theology and practice, they all at heart encompass a vision of the sacredness of human life, community, tolerance, and justice. Yet many of us have little experience with or knowledge of those traditions outside our own.

In the Harvard University Pluralism Project, Diana Eck noted that "how Americans of all faiths and beliefs can engage with one another to shape a positive pluralism is one of the essential questions - perhaps the most important facing American society...religious diversity in our civil and neighborly lives is emerging, mostly unseen, as the great challenge of the twenty-first century."

To begin meeting that challenge we have produced our newest study guide, Building Bridges of Understanding. It is not designed either to promote universalism or to view any tradition through the prism of Christianity. Instead it is an academic look at six faith traditions and a glimpse at their inward expression and outward models of community service. The Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California is a partner in this effort, which has been largely funded by The California Endowment.

When we offer love, respect, and dignity to our neighbors, we lower our tolerance for hate crimes to be committed against each other. When we seek dialogue with and service to each other, we offer national security beyond any borders. Through this guide, may we see each other as neighbors, not as strangers; as co-inhabitants, not as "others". Join us in Building Bridges of Understanding in California.

In addition to the study guide we also offer a video resource which supplements the printed materials with a personal look at how individuals from the various traditions live out their faith today in California.