Social Change

Letter from Connecticut Religious Leaders to Agents & Employees of ICE

“INTERRELIGIOUS WITNESS: OUR URGENT CALL FOR REPENTANCE”

Wednesday, February 18, 2026, 12:00  p.m.
Hartford Immigration Court, Abraham Ribicoff Building (outside)
450 Main Street, Hartford, CT

“Shout out. Do not hold back. Lift up your voice.” Isaiah 58:1

As a matter of faith and in defense of the humanity of all residents of Connecticut, leaders of faith across the state will join together to denounce the violence of ICE and Border Patrol, to call for those Federal agents perpetrating violence in our communities to reconnect with their hearts, and to advocate for the “loosening of the bonds of injustice.”

In this time as faith communities mark holy days – Ramadan for Muslims, Ash Wednesday and Lent for Christians, and Purim and soon Passover for Jews – we hold in common our commitment to the sacredness and dignity of all persons, to the power of nonviolent love, and to the pursuit of justice and liberation.

Together we will raise our voices in prayer and in song. We will issue a call for repentance and returning to love of our neighbors. And we will mark that call with the sharing of ashes and other visible signs of our mutual commitment to human dignity and liberation.

To read the entire letter, click here.

Crisis in Gaza: A Threefold Cord Cannot Be Broken

For more than two decades, the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme has sent delegations to Israel and Palestine.  During that same time, we have received visitors from that scarred and haunted land.  Each in their different ways, whether Palestinian or Israeli, have sought a just and peaceful future for the land they share.  Each and every voice of conscience we have learned from – whether Israeli or Palestinian – has impressed upon us the importance of examining the roots of this long and terrible conflict, stemming from a history not only of the Holocaust, but of settler colonial violence and a decades long military occupation of Palestinian land.  Any credible peace, we have learned, must be a just peace, one that implements human and civil rights for all Palestinians (alongside their Israeli neighbors). For more on our church’s beliefs and work in this area, click here.

Nehantic Land Acknowledgement

We, the First Congregational Church of Old Lyme, acknowledge that we occupy and benefit from the Indigenous land upon which our church and our homes are standing.  For thousands of years, this has been, and continues to be, the traditional territory of the Nehantic people, along with the Indigenous kin of other tribes. To read our church’s complete land acknowledgement, click here.

“All This Sainted Difference is What God Wants”

Robert Farris Thompson wrote those words in reference to the Black Atlantic religions that he lovingly documented over the course of more than 60 years of teaching and writing. Too often those traditions continue to be misunderstood and mistreated by outsiders. All this sainted difference may be what God wants, but much of the world has behaved otherwise. It’s time to change that.  To explore our “All This Sainted Difference” sermons, click here.

“Wheels of Justice”: Stories from the Deep North

This original video series, originally presented as a part of our weekly sermons, unearths stories of racial injustice and, sometimes, the bold resistance to that injustice, that occurred throughout Southern New England, including the towns of Old Lyme, Old Saybrook, Deep River, Willimantic, Mystic and New London.  To explore “Stories from the Deep North,” click here.