NASHUA, NH – After a discordant election season, The Nashua Area Interfaith Council held a Unity Gathering at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Thursday night.
“We had conversations with our whole group about what our role should be in this,” said Reverend Allison Palm, minister at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Nashua. “[We know] that we represent a diversity of folks and so people will also be in a diversity of places.”
“We wanted to figure out how after a very divisive election cycle how we were going to move forward together because we’re not going to move forward separately,” she added. “So how can we move forward together despite the hateful rhetoric that’s out in the world?”
The Nashua Area Interfaith Council is a fellowship of congregations of different faiths, individuals and organizations, including Christ the King Lutheran Church, Main Street United Methodist Church, and Temple Beth Abraham, among many others.
Coming together despite each other’s differences is the very spirit that the council embodies.
“Because we come from such different faith backgrounds, we already know that we’re really different,” said Meta Vornehn of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “We don’t come with the expectation that we should feel the same about so many things, which I think is kind of freeing because it allows us to then find those points of commonality and work together while definitely respecting the differences.”
Rev. Palm and Rabbi Jon Spira-Savett spoke with governor-elect Kelly Ayotte earlier in the day to discuss how New Hampshire can move forward together. Rabbi Spira-Savett’s takeaway from their conversation was Ayotte’s commitment to her own values rather than adhering to her political party.
“I think she wanted us to hear her as a person who hasn’t walked her own party’s line all the time and I think as someone who has distinguished between her political philosophy and her political party which is a potentially imperfect representation of her beliefs, and that she would be rooted in her beliefs more than her political party,” he said.
“One of the things that I hope faith leaders are bringing to politics is groundedness in values and not party,” Rev. Palm added. “Because there are things we believe in really deeply and there are implications for the world for those things, and that’s more important than Democrat or Republican.”
