Faith and the Arts: Ecumenical & Interfaith Coalition
Connecting artists and faith communities to foster creative and innovative expressions of peace and understanding. Initiated by Rev. Kathryn Dickinson, an ordained United Methodist minister based in Brooklyn, Faith and the Arts Coalition supports original music-making, visual art, liturgical, and theatrical works with an aim to bring joy and meaning amongst and within diverse congregations and communities.
Taizé Prayer seeks to support ecumenical prayer opportunities in the spirit and format as created and shared by the Christian monastic community in Taizé, France. (see Taizé in drop-down menu for more information.)
Peace Be With You: Bible, Grief and Song began in response to the death of Jacob Vogelman in Hurricane Sandy, where Kathryn composed “Jake’s song” to the biblical text of Jacob’s Ladder in Genesis. This project of matching one’s source of grief to a sacred text gathers an ensemble to compose and share their songs within a faith community. Over 15 songs have been composed and shared through this collaborative process.
Women in the Bible brings people from diverse Christian and Interfaith communities, exploring how the life of women in our common textual histories (for instance Hagar and Sarah in Genesis) relate to our contemporary experiences of spirituality, faith, and relations between diverse communities.
Meals in Sacred Texts brings playwrights and faith communities together in the development of site-specific performances. Performances will be immersive experiences in synagogues, mosques, churches, gardens, and will foster creative expressions of our commonality, politics, social justice issues through the stories of meals.
Special Services are created within a congregation/community, such as a Good Friday Tenebrae Passion Service, the Epiphany story, reenactment of Pentecost, or a service of grieving, celebration, unity amongst world religions and peoples.
Art Installation & Puppetry inspire and bring visual artists to congregations/communities in order to create expressive large pageantry pieces, installations, and/or simple collections of artists.
Project Prayer workshops hold space for those with diverse beliefs to create prayerful liturgy that identifies and respects each other’s religion, culture, beliefs, celebrations, and political affiliations.
These projects are a sampling of what ‘s possible when we come together as diverse peoples and faiths. .
