the call to build community
Our Vow to Each Other
by Terry Kyllo
We were all feeling it as we walked to the cafeteria.
Typically, after a seminary class, the Lutheran students would chat loudly down the hallway, continuing some debate from the lecture. Not that day.
Our professor had taken us through an overview of the Lutheran Church’s response to the rise of the Nazi Party. Some church leaders showed public support for Hitler prizing power over prophetic truth. Many pastors failed to see what was happening, prizing order over justice, getting along over getting it right. The Confessing Church movement responded by opposing the Nazi movement, but they acted too late, did not speak in the language of everyday people, and did not create relationships between Christians and their Jewish neighbors.
The church, unlike Christ, is often better at reflecting on what went wrong rather than acting with courage in the moment. We were struck by two unsettling realizations: first, that we had never heard this history before, and second, that if a similar situation occurred, that we might act no differently than our forebears in the faith.
As we sat quietly at lunch, I said, “If I see something like that happening in my time, I am going to do something.” I recognized this was a vow.
Of course, dehumanization was already at work around us in Chicago. People of color were being treated as less than human, and this dehumanization was being used as a rationale and excuse for committing violence against them. I had witnessed some of this, but hadn’t actively stepped in to address it. Eyes that see and ears that hear take cultivation. Hearts need time grow in both a capacity to bear pain and act with courage. Minds nurtured in wisdom can perceive effective strategies.
Photo: Wikimedia
In 2014, I was the pastor of an Episcopal church. The treasurer loved chicken fried steak. Fred invited me to lunch at a Muslim-owned restaurant, that he said, made the best in the area. Through Shabbir and Ruqayya, I began to meet more Muslims and develop relationship and friendships. We started working together to counter anti-Muslim bigotry in Snohomish County. I learned that, just as in Nazi Germany, there was a concerted, well-funded effort to dehumanize American Muslims — at least thirty million dollars a year was being poured into this effort.
This dehumanization campaign led to violence against Muslim children, adults, businesses, and even the broader community. Muslim businesses were vandalized. Hijab wearing women were threatened in public. Children were bullied in schools for being Muslim. I knew something of how they felt, being bullied in school myself.
Unlike myself, however, many of these children were impacted by many bigotries. As Kimberly Crenshaw has taught us, a person impacted by anti-Muslim bigotry, may also be impacted by being female, an immigrant, and experiencing poverty. These various dehumanizations “pile up” on a person, making them more vulnerable.
Seeing the suffering unfolding before me, I remembered my vow.
Standing Against Hate
After leading ten events across Western Washington to create space for American Muslims—from Ferndale to Longview—I left parish ministry to dedicate myself fully to this work. Being part of a tradition means learning not just from our stated values but also from how we have historically fallen short of them. When we fail to act differently, we reveal that we do not truly understand or live by our stated values.
Photo: Using Their Words
In doing this work, I wasn’t thinking only of Muslims. As I learned more about the process of dehumanization and how it leads to violence, I realized that dehumanizing one group strengthens hate and fear toward others as well. Many Jews, Sikhs, LGBTQ people, Buddhists, Indigenous, and Hindus have asked me the same question: “You aren’t just working to counter anti-Muslim bigotry, are you?” My response is always the same: “All of these bigotries arise from the same place in the human soul and are often connected historically. When we lose the ability to see people in another group as human, we lose a part of our own humanity and our ability to thrive is decreased.”
Dehumanization weaponizes what we love—who we value, who we want to protect. Leaders who use the tactics of dehumanization understand that much of our reasoning and gut reactions stem from our identity within a group. So, they tell us that members of another group are a threat to what we love. They suggest that the other group is not really human—that they are disease that threatens our own survival and act with hidden malice. Therefore, these leaders claim, we are justified in setting aside our values to enact or allow violence against them.
This is what happened in Nazi Germany and many other contexts. It is estimated that two hundred and sixty million died in genocide in the last century. Such genocides are built upon history. In this nation, it is built upon the history of genocide against Indigenous populations and the enslavement of human beings. These were built on yet earlier Antisemitism and anti-Muslim bigotry.
Between 2015 and 2020, I spoke to over 200 organizations about the dangers of anti-Muslim bigotry in our nation. We have since seen rising antisemitism, anti-LGBTQ violence, anti-Sikh bigotry, and other forms of hate.
I helped organize over ninety public events across Washington State with local partners, creating space for American Muslims. I saw incredible courage, wisdom, strength, and love in these human beings. Aneelah Afzali from the Muslim Association of Puget Sound and I led nearly thirty public events together. We sought guidance from communication experts on how to respond to dehumanizing statements and questions.
We worked with national organizations to help launch the first Faith Over Fear trainings for clergy, teaching them how to counter dehumanizing narratives. I am immensely grateful for my partnership with Aneelah and every Muslim who courageously stood in public, knowing they could be targeted with violence for doing so.
They understood well the Quranic teaching: The good deed and the evil deed are not equal. Repel by that which is better; then behold, the one between whom and thee there is enmity shall be as if he were a loyal, protecting friend. (Quran 41:34)
Loving those who count us as enemies is hard. It requires a supreme act of faith in the One Creator of all human beings. I was humbled by their courage and leadership.
The Power of Shared Tables
I once asked Dr. Patricia Killen, a professor of the history and sociology of religion, “What do you do when the larger culture doesn’t seem to need or want the wisdom of your tradition?”
She replied, “Go more deeply into your tradition, go deeply into the larger culture, and be prepared for the time when your wisdom will be needed.”
Taking her words to heart, I began hosting Zoom conversations with people from diverse wisdom traditions, asking them to respond three questions:
What is happening to our society?
Why does this happen to humans?
What does your tradition offer as a strategy for responding?
I spoke with people from Atheists to Zoroastrians. Alongside sociologists like Robert Putnam, these leaders described a lonely, segregated society where, because we don’t know each other, we easily believe the worst about one other. We are experiencing a famine of meaning and community—what Mother Teresa called the worst famine in the world.
Make no mistake: our segregation from each other is a direct threat to the future of this nation.
This loneliness and group isolation that has been festering for sixty years[i] makes Americans vulnerable to dehumanization of each other. Many groups are impacted—though not equally. It was being fed by leaders, media, and especially social media. In 2015, Facebook turned its programming over to a machine-learning algorithm. When we “like” something, it learns what we love. When we react with “anger,” it learns what we fear. The algorithm discovered that one of the best ways to keep us engaged is to claim another group is threatening what we love. In light of this, social media became:
A slander machine—spreading falsehoods and misinformation
A dehumanization machine—convincing us that the “other” lacked humanity
A tool for organizing violent groups—as seen in events like the Unite the Right Rally
All of these thoughtful and compassionate leaders saw where this would lead us. What do we do?
A Zen Buddhist monk, Genjo Marinello, encapsulated what I heard from so many others during my Zoom conversations: “We need to be together and see each other as human, do something positive for our community together, and find ways to honor each other in public.”
This inspired Let’s Go Together, a program now in its second year, bringing people from over twenty-five groups to:
Eat and share stories
Partner to carry out a service projects
Attend a public event where we honor each other’s humanity
In our first year, we brought seventy people from twenty-five diverse groups together. Gang impacted, formerly incarcerated, LGBTQ, Catholics, Sikhs, Muslims, Agnostics, Jews, and Indigenous (and many more) became friends. A female Lutheran pastor now has regular coffee conversations with a Muslim in the McDonalds in Mount Vernon. Groups are eating with each other and starting partnerships to form a stronger community.
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Photo: Paths to Understanding
We also launched The Potluck Project with the Seattle University Center for Ecumenical and Interreligious Engagement. This downloadable toolkit helps groups build trust and relationships through potluck meals, where people share stories rather than debate beliefs. As of February, 2025, this toolkit has been downloaded over 190 times.
Now, we are launching the Potluck Project Tour, both in the Pacific Northwest and nationally, encouraging leaders to start ongoing potluck events in their own communities. This isn’t just “interfaith work,” but rather group-to-group work since we are divided by more than religion.
How did the Lutheran and other churches fail in Nazi Germany? The reasons are legion, but one stands out: they didn’t know or relate to their Jewish, LGBTQ, and disabled neighbors. They remained segregated from those they saw as “other.” Let’s don’t make the same mistake.
Jesus saw a similar segregation in his time and he modeled how to overcome it. One of his strategies for bringing the Kingdom of God was table fellowship between diverse groups. Preachers and priests recognize the prophetic message of Jesus. Now it’s time to see his prophetic relationships as a faithful response to the famine of meaning and community weakening the bonds within the human family.
I encourage you, if you haven’t already, to take a vow to build community and protect those who are facing hate and dehumanization. During a time when division is being sown, love is being weaponized, and the most vulnerable among us are being targeted, it is more important than ever to stand together. Silence enables harm, but collective action can foster healing, justice, and hope. It can begin with a simple meal–even chicken fried steak.
We need you – we need everyone – to act in ways that reject indifference, challenge injustice, and create spaces of belonging for everyone. Whether through words, deeds, or showing up in solidarity, every act matters.
[i] The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again, Robert Putnam, Simon abnd Schuster Paperbacks, New York, 2020
Header Photo: Pexels