Sacred Solidarity Network

Congregations, faith communities, and spiritual communities working to dismantle white supremacy in our institutions and in our practices.

The foundation of the Sacred Solidarity Network (SSN) are cohorts of congregations and communities. Together, we build relationships, deepen our knowledge and understanding, and take concrete actions to co-create conditions from which collective liberation can grow. 

Participants meet for an ongoing cycle of action, learning, and reflection. By engaging in a planned curriculum, groups come away with a customizable racial justice toolkit that includes a range of concrete plans and resources that can be used within their particular community.

Who Participates?

SSN is free and open to teams from any congregation or faith community who are eager to engage in this work and who are committed to our shared values. Teams should be actively supported by and include members who have leadership roles and who can meaningfully shape congregational or community decisions. Teams might include:

  • members of a racial justice task force, 

  • board or governing council members, 

  • clergy, or

  • any others who are charged with stewarding and leading the work of dismantling white supremacy and creating a racially just community and world.

The SSN primarily includes communities and congregations who have historically been predominantly white, and who have benefited institutionally from white privilege—even though their demographics may be multiracial. This is called “institutional whiteness.” 

MARCH focuses on such communities because we know the significant impact that happens when institutionally white culture and actions shift away from reproducing white supremacy and move towards resourcing the direct leadership of Black, Brown, Native, Trans, and queer people who are leading front-line movements towards justice. 

MARCH believes that white supremacy is created and sustained by white people. As such, predominantly white faith communities have a unique role and responsibility to leverage our spiritual and social power and infrastructure for the work of dismantling the dehumanizing system of white supremacy. 

SSN 101

We are currently testing a hybrid curriculum for teams and individual team members who are beginning their journey in dismantling white supremacy. This introductory course uses an online learning environment (with videos, links, and downloadable worksheets) along with Zoom-based gatherings for “real-time”  instruction and discussion.
If you are interested in signing up for this SSN 101 curriculum, please contact Rebecca Voelkel at rmmvoelkel (at) aol (dot) com. 
If you are one of the participants who have already been in touch with us, please register for the course by clicking here or go directly to the course dashboard if you’re already registered.

Principles of the Sacred Solidarity Network

  • We are uncompromisingly pro-LGBTQ. 

  • We recognize our work as spiritual work. We engage with our various theologies, philosophies, worldviews, and traditions.

  • We believe that people are the experts on their own lives, and that social movements are best led by the people most impacted by the conditions of oppression that we seek to change. 

  • We act in solidarity, supporting work led by Brown, Black, Native, trans, and queer people towards collective liberation. 

  • We honor embodiment. We take seriously the way that systems show up in our physical beings. 

  • We support and practice reparations. 

  • We embrace a diversity of tactics and time-horizons. We reject the notion of a single answer or one best practice. We welcome all tools, and work to come into right relationship with the tools we use. 

  • We challenge Christian supremacy. We welcome people who practice various forms of the Christian faith, but we work against centering forms of Christianity as the norm, and we pay attention to dynamics of power and privilege. We name and resist anti-Semitism and Islamophobia when they occur.

  • We know that oppressions are always intersectional and intertwined. We work against misogyny, classism and erasure. We are strongest when we recognize our multiplicity. 

  • We pay attention to assumptions, to inclusion and exclusion, to differences in identity, history, privilege, and oppression when we are together.

  • We embrace emergence. 

  • We welcome children and life cycles. 

  • We show up. 

  • We listen to the truths within our diverse faiths knowing that none of us have the right answer for anyone else. We honor what has come before and yearn towards what will be. 

  • We support and care for one another, in this work and in our lives. None of us can do this alone. 

  • We make room for messiness. We hold patience and love with each other in hard moments even as we hold the work with fierceness and responsibility.