In 2017, the Northwest Interfaith Council re-emerged as a response to the intolerance of the Trump Administration, as reported by the Northwest Dharma Association  Details Here

​How Interfaith Activities Got Their Start in the Seattle Area:
​My Personal POV

Rabbi Anson Laytner

To the best of my knowledge, the first interfaith event—and by interfaith I mean multifaith, not just Jewish-Christian—was a Thanksgiving celebration organized by the Vedanta Society.  That was in 1987, I think. 
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Around the same time, in my capacity as director of the Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, I had been concerned about how the Church Council of Greater Seattle was seen by both the media and the local political establishment as the spokes-organization for “religion” yet no non-Christian faith had voting rights on it.  This was disturbing to the Jewish community in particular since, at the time, the Church Council was advocating a position on Israel-Palestine much at odds with those of most Jewish groups in Seattle.  (The Rev. Bill Cate, executive director of the CCGS, had led a Christian clergy delegation to Lebanon in 1982 to meet with Yasir Arafat, chairman of the PLO, then still very much a violent organization committed to the destruction of Israel.)

From this disenfranchised state of distress, I came up with the idea of an interfaith council in which every faith would be represented equally and which would serve as a counter-balance to the solely Christian Church Council as the voice of people of faith in our region.

I approached the late Rev. Peter Raible, of University Unitarian Church (a non-Christian faith and likewise a non-voting observer at the Church Council), and Swami Bhaskarananda, head of the Vedanta Society of Western Washington, both of whom were enthusiastic about the concept.  In 1987, we convened a series of meetings with other faith representatives—Baha’i, Buddhist, Catholic and Protestant Christians, Hindu, Islamic, Jewish, Latter Day Saints, Native American, Zoroastrian and others—to explore how we might work together.  Eventually, after looking at models operating in various other cities, we came up with an organizational framework that proved satisfactory.  The Interfaith Council of Washington, known by the ungainly acronym “I-COW”, was incorporated in 1988.

Under the structure we adopted, each faith, regardless of size, had three representatives, chosen by a convening organization.  Thus, for example, the Church Council got to designate the three Christian attendees; similarly the Jewish Federation. We left it to each convening organization to determine the denominations or movements to involve. To minimize mistrust and to prevent any faith being out-voted, we aimed for consensus in decision-making but also gave each faith the right to veto any position or proposed program.  

Pasha Mohjerjasbi, a Baha’i woman, was elected our first president; the Rev. Joyce Manson, a Presbyterian Christian, was our second; and I believe I was the third.

In the beginning it was a challenge just to sit together.  The Israeli-Palestinian conflict divided the Jewish and Muslim delegates, and to a lesser degree Jewish from the Christian delegates; LDS had to be admitted separately from Christians even though they saw themselves as a Christian church; and Muslims considered the Hindus as worshipping idols. 

Eventually we learned to accept one another by setting aside our differences but more significantly by getting to know one another as fellow human beings.

Another issue that arose almost immediately was the admittance of additional faiths.  The admittance of Wicca was without a doubt the most controversial but, as was pointed out in the discussion, if certain faiths were allowed to pass judgment on the validity of other faiths, who would be left on the Council. In the end, we adopted some criteria—non-profit status, length of time in existence, being two of them—that we used to screen potential members.

Although we were very successful in producing interfaith celebrations and educational programs, we foundered on the issue of engagement with some faiths advocating for social activism while others were resolutely non-political.  When the war in Bosnia resulted in a significant Bosnian refugee problem, some wanted to send relief to the refugees but others stymied this effort because they saw it as one-sided partisanship.  (They said we should also support Serbian refugees but there were none to speak of.)  On other issues, such as assisting the homeless during winter, we were able to come to consensus.

After my term in office I moved on to other activities and ICOW continued on for many years before morphing into The Interfaith Network or “TIN”, which also persevered for many years before merging with NICO (Northwest Interfaith Community Outreach) to become Northwest Interfaith.