Creating “Actifests”: Activist Festivals, Public Liturgies for Eco/Social Justice, & Healing Earth

This discussion includes a Jewish, a Christian, and a Muslim scholar/teacher who are each pursuing an “actifest” (= activist festival) practice in their own communities and encouraging it in others. By this, we mean aiming to change a number of traditional fasts and festivals that have focused on celebrating or mourning the past into a continuing pattern for all the “seasons of our joy and sorrow” that also includes public acts intended to transform the future of our societies toward love and justice. The discussion presents, explores, and shares the idea as it has already been practiced in several religious and spiritual traditions (in Passover, in Stations of the Cross, and in silent marches in memory of the Martyrdom of Imam Hussein) for the sake of committing the faith communities to broader and deeper work to advance social and ecological justice as an organic part of the faith traditions.