About Us
Who We Are
Compassion Not Cruelty began in July 2025 when United Church of Christ pastors, disturbed by the government's celebration of cruel detention conditions at "Alligator Alcatraz," formed a movement urging Christians to call for compassion. The movement is growing and now also includes Baptist, Episcopalian, Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), United Methodist, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic clergy and laypeople. We are creating chapters throughout New York and hope to expand nationally over time.
Please note that CNC is a non-partisan movement. Congregations and individuals are welcome to participate in our life and activities. There isn't a membership fee. We do not ask churches to vote to join us, and we don’t propose taking votes on issues that will be divisive. We seek to create positive changes that reflect our values in our communities and in our national life. However, we are careful to work and advocate in kind ways that respect people with differing views. And we don't specifically support or criticize individuals or political parties. We focus on values, policies, and principles, sometimes tying them to ongoing events, but not denigrating individuals or parties.
At this point, we are an ecumenical Christian movement. We seek to include congregations and people from a wide range of denominations. We choose to remain identified as Christian because we want to show our nation that Christ’s life and teachings were full of love and inclusivity—especially for those in need of help or suffering from discrimination—not the power-hungry, blaming, militaristic values and
actions promoted by Christian nationalism. At some point we may formally include other faiths who share our values and vision. For now, we welcome their partnership in the work we are striving to accomplish.
Our leadership structure looks like this: We have a Leadership Team which meets twice a month of about a dozen members—heavily clergy. This group is the overall steering group for our life and work. In addition, we have five other working teams devoted to particular responsibilities:
a. Our Education Team plans educational events for the community that highlight problems, needs, and ways we can work together to address them.
b. Our Worship Team creates liturgies, prayers, calls to worship, and sermon resources for pastors and worship planning teams in congregations. These resources are appropriate for different situations in our national life or different seasons of the church year.
c. Our Community Events Team works with the Buffalo United Coalition and other community groups to provide input and support for events that draw the larger community together to give voice to shared values.
d. Our Recruitment Team invites churches and denominations to join our movement and to find a place in our life together.
e. Our Communications Team maintains our website and helps facilitate effective communication about events and activities.
About once a month, we hold Zoom calls for representatives from participating congregations and interested individuals to coordinate upcoming CNC activities and to seek their insights about what they want to happen. At the same time, we encourage CNC interest groups in congregations to plan their own activities and to share them with the rest of us.
Our overall philosophy of working together is to encourage as much energy and creativity as we can. In line with this, we will maintain a focus on training leaders at all levels of CNC. We want to encourage all individuals to broaden and deepen their sense of having a public life that complements their private life. We want them to see that they can proactively initiate change around values that are important to them. Along with this, the Leadership Team does not aim to make it hard for the working teams or for individual congregations to carry out activities under the CNC banner. If it learns of something that seems widely outside of our purpose or our way of treating others, then it will intervene. But we expect this to be rare! Instead, we want to set our participants free to be moved by Christ’s Spirit of Love and Compassion to energetically carry out our mission and advance our vision and values.
