Q&A with Jean Darling

Co-Founder of Voices Exchange

By Charles Salvatore

How did you get involved in Voices Exchange?
I am one of the founders, also in Active in United for Peace. It is a faithful citizenship interfaith group after Sept. 11, about anti-war issues. We found it easier to find others to speak about peace and religion. We work with two other groups, the Oak Park Coalition for truth and justice and the American Friends Service Committee Chicago office.

What are your responsibilities here?
We are all volunteers, there are five on board steering communication, and we are doing work of organization and direction.
What do the speakers you cover speak about?        

I have given workshops with the Unitarian Universalist for Social Justice in the Chicago area. There is an Economic Justice Taskforce, talk about the growing divide between the rich and the rest of the population. Also talk about war and economy, workshop for labor union of women, stress and activist meditation technology and for people in social justice activities.

So you are a reverend first and foremost?
Yes, we are starting a new church. We are a small group who meets twice a month. Right by Ashland and Union Row, we are in the United Electric Building. It is a welcoming place for working class people. We are socially and economically diverse congregation, called the New Garden Community Church.

What else can you tell us about the church?
There is a small steering committee, with several different congregations helping to make this happen. The meetings are attracting people little by little, we just cracked two digits.

What kind of speakers does Voice Exchange cover?
Certain perspective not voiced in the mainstream media, in a time of war it is hard to hear the voices of peace. We want to connect speakers with groups of people who may not know about them. We are trying to reach out to more mainstream people, and trying to reach people who don’t normally go to demonstrations. We are just trying to get the information out to people.

How much feedback have you gotten from speakers or from people?
Tina was starting to, but what little feedback we have gotten it has been all positive. A Hindu trained Swami woman spoke at a school about peace. We are desperate for someone to fill role to make connections for us.

There was an anti-war march downtown about a month ago, where you involved in that at all?
We were on the Saturday march, I know people who got arrested for marching on Michigan Ave. because they didn’t have a permit to walk on Michigan. That Sunday United for Peace had a place full of 800 people. Half of the people there walked with a horse drawn carriage with a casket. There was a U.S. flag over the casket to represent all the dead U.S. and Iraq soldiers.

Would you say, with all that has gone on in the last month in Rome that more Americans are turning to the church?
I would say the U.S. goes through revivals every 30 to 50 years. There is a movement more towards religion now over 20 years ago. There is a revival from the right, the religious moderate or the left is more active. The middle needs to wake up; those people are not speaking for us in the middle. There is a book by Jim Wallis, “God’s Politics,” he is a born again Christian, but not a right wing born again. There is a new consciousness of more moderate people in the U.S. and I think that’s a good thing.

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