There is rarely a day without an event happening at Faith+Works in Orange – repasts, quineañeras, art shows, even a mayoral debate. It’s unusual for a religious organization to function as a community center. But 10 years ago, the congregation’s leaders had to think of a way to keep the doors of its century-old church open.
Faith+Works, the county’s first Unitarian Universalist congregation, has survived when so many others couldn’t – and this year is their 135 anniversary. It is an impressive milestone that merited celebration. Instead, the church members were asking for messages of healing.
This historically progressive organization finds itself, like many other left-leaning institutions, wondering what went wrong in the November elections and bracing itself for the fallout.
“We’re living in a time that we need to be uplifted,” said Darcy Hall, a trustee.
President Donald Trump’s win last November along with Democrat losses in the Senate and House of Representatives were, for many, a referendum on progressive ideologies.
“It was a pretty comprehensive defeat on a political level,” said Douglas Farrand, president of Faith+Works. “So, we have to contend with what it means to find ourselves with so little power and re-evaluate what that means on a cultural and spiritual level.”
Public support for many progressive ideas – such as reparations, defunding the police, immigration policies, and trans participation in sports – continue to poll low. The cancellation of leftist news shows, like Joy Reid’s on MSNBC, points to a larger cultural shift toward the right.
Meanwhile, progressive voting blocs that were historically unified continue to splinter. Today, the growing conservative queer movement with David Rubin, Brad Polumbo, and Arielle Scarcella at the helm – has been a thorn in the trans community’s side on subjects like sports participation, puberty blockers, and neopronouns.
Earlier this month, Faith+Works held a Sunday service at their church — renamed the HUUB — in which Dr. Rebecca Parker and Dr. Joanne Braxton, two prominent figures in the Unitarian Universalist denomination, gave sermons on healing.
Afterward, Parker told the Four Oranges that division among leftists is not only a danger to the progressive movement, but it is a “strategy” of the political right to sow discord among its opponents.
The antidote is “coalition building,” she said.
“We don’t have to be monolithic,” said Parker, the former president of the Starr King School for Ministry. “Solidarity doesn’t require that everyone agree; it does require that people not let the downward pressure divide us from each other when we have a common concern for justice, sustainability, and human dignity – those are the big things holding us together.”
Frank Barszcz, the HUUB’s board president, said Parker and Braxton were a model for ally-forming in the way they work across denominations. “Through their teachings and lectures and work with communities, they are building strong organizations,” he said.
The topic of coalitions is important to Farrand and he takes inspiration from the late labor organizer Ernie Thompson, an Orange resident, whose crusade in the Civil Rights era is the subject of Homeboy Came to Orange, which he co-wrote with Faith+Works trustee, Dr. Mindy Fullilove. “That broad coalition in 2025 is completely fractured,” he said. “The left doesn’t make any effort to reconstitute that broad coalition.”
But Farrand wants to change that.
Earlier that day, Parker and Braxton joined one of the Faith+Works trustees Dr. Mindy Fullilove on a tour of Orange. It was their first time visiting the city, a place that bears some resemblance to Braxton’s hometown in Maryland in that both were scarred by urban renewal.
Braxton said that the HUUB is an “anchorpoint” for the city. “This hub really has its finger on the pulse of what is happening now in relation to what has happened,” she said.
That was another enduring message the congregation took from Braxton and Parker’s visit. Fighting for these broad social issues are only a part of what progressive organizations do. The HUUB has been instrumental in its advocacy for smart real estate development, historic preservation, the over-reliance on tax abatements, and fostering real political discourse by hosting mayoral debates.
All of these issues seem to converge at the site of National Register-listed Orange Memorial Hospital, where a developer’s plan to build more than a thousand apartments has gained the city’s approval without much community involvement. Farrand was among the 20-plus members of a coalition that is demanding more engagement before the demolition of seven of the nine hospital buildings happens and construction begin.
Days prior, the HUUB hosted a community meeting to redesign Freeway Drive, one of the most dangerous areas of town for pedestrians and a legacy of midcentury highway construction that tore the city’s fabric. Artists, community activists, preservationists, longtime residents, and city officials gathered in a room and talked openly in ways that likely wouldn’t have happened if the event had been held at City Hall.
“Having a space that cultivates civic discourse that is grounded in love and respect is critical,” Farrand said. “And that’s what our organization stands for.”
