Ethics and Religion Talk: Farewell, Grand Rapids Press!

The first week of August will be the 10th anniversary of this column. Sadly, this week is the final appearance of Ethics and Religion Talk in the Grand Rapids Press. Due to retirements and resignations, they no longer have the staff to continue publishing the local content that we have been providing in the religion pages. We will continue publishing on TheRapidian.org and ask that our loyal readers find us there every Monday.

I remember when I arrived in Grand Rapids in 1994, meeting the new religion editor and seeing the growing diversity of our community featured in the religion section. For 27 years, I have watched the continual growth and development of our city and the gradual diminishment of our local newspaper. I grew up with a love for newspapers. My father owned and edited a national country music newspaper for a while, was a columnist and editor for the local Jewish newspaper. Prior to that, he spent time as a sportswriter before settling into his primary career in public relations. We always subscribed to a Minneapolis daily newspaper, and I married into a family that subscribed to both the morning Duluth newspaper and the afternoon Superior, Wisconsin paper. Watching the Grand Rapids Press shift from daily to three days a week delivery was heart-wrenching for me. I continued to read the daily e-replica edition.

A newspaper used to be the virtual gathering place of a community. We read the news in the first section and the op-ed pages provided thoughtful reflection on the meaning and implications of the news, whether it was good or bad for our country, our state, our city, or our lives. The letters to the editor were our talk-backs about the way the news was reported. And we knew that the paper was doing its job well when it was criticized for being both too liberal and too conservative. The newspaper modeled diverse and civil conversation. This is what I had in mind when I began this column. I gathered a group of clergy and started conversations based on readers’ questions. We are a diverse group who do not agree on every issue, but enjoy spending time together because we respect each other’s dedication of our various religious traditions.

Dr. Sahibzada, our Moslem panelist, commented that “A positive approach to religion and faith brings harmony and closeness among humankind of various cultures and perceptions.”

This column believes that religion can and should be a force uniting our community. Dr. Sahabzada and I and several of our panelists have planned and participated in the annual Interfaith Thanksgiving service together, bringing together 600 people, including those with no religious faith, to focus on the value of thankfulness.

My community, Congregation Ahavas Israel, grows food on our property, distributed by the Baxter Community Center and by the Temple Emanuel community through their food bank program, most of which reaches beyond the Jewish community. This is true of all of the food distribution programs, many of which are managed by religious organizations, that their reach extends beyond members of their own community.

We participate in the Family Promise shelter program, partnering with the Trinity Lutheran Church, feeding and housing families who need a home. The program is a partnership of many religious organizations throughout the city, helping not only with emergency housing but also with long-term permanent housing.

Habitat for Humanity, the Grand Rapids Center for Transformation, and the Knights of Columbus are all faith-based organizations who seek to make Grand Rapids a more livable and equitable community by partnering with other faith-based and non-faith based organizations. The Grand Rapids Press once was one of those partner organizations seeking to make the connections to enhance communal life. The Ethics and Religion Talk panel is saddened by the severing of our relationship with the Grand Rapids Press and by the diminishing role that a once-great community newspaper plays in our efforts to put our faith in action and in partnership with others.

We hope that you will continue to read our column on TheRapidian.org. It is a hyper-local news source, hosted by the Grand Rapids Media Center, covering only metropolitan Grand Rapids. Articles are written by citizen-journalists. When Mlive.com dropped Ethics and Religion Talk five and a half years ago, TheRapidian.org was happy to give us an outlet to publish online. You can subscribe to my articles there or find them on our Facebook page. It is our hope that we continue to grow our readership online to make up for the loss of a print outlet.

We love hearing from readers! Send us feedback on columns or questions for new columns. Reach us through our Facebook page or by email to [email protected]. We are seeking a new print outlet. If you have suggestions, or even better, connections, please let us know.