Religion and Progressive Activism

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
Community Organizing ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
New Left ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Immigrant Rights ◽  
The Public ◽  
Plowshares Movement

This volume focuses on an important, if often overlooked, way that religion and politics intersect in the United States. Within almost every community, and involved with almost every possible issue or area of public concern, progressive religious activists are a driving force in American public life. Their presence complicates the prevailing wisdom that religion is necessarily conservative and political progressivism is necessarily secular. Yet little is known about these activists, either among the public or within academia. This book brings together a group of leading experts who describe and analyze the inner worlds and public activities of the progressive religious activist field, including chapters on faith-based community organizing, immigrant rights activism, the Plowshares movement, the New Left, and the Nuns on the Bus, among others. Other chapters consider the political engagement of various religious communities, including Mainline Protestants, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and Catholics. Finally, authors consider connections between these activists and the Democratic Party, examine what factors lead congregations to mobilize for progressive causes, and trace the revival of civil religious rhetoric. Taken together, this book challenges common perceptions of religiously motivated social action, and offers new ways of thinking about the American religio-political landscape as a whole.

scholarly journals Bella Abzug, queer rights, and disrupting the status quo

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Trevor G Gates ◽  
Margery C Saunders
Keyword(s):  
Civil Rights ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The United States ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
Field Analysis ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Status

Workers who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ)-identified have always been a part of the workplace in the United States, yet there has been a lack of awareness about how to advocate for the needs of these people. This lack of awareness was challenged by Congresswoman Bella Abzug. Abzug’s campaign for creating an equal working environment for sexual minorities initiated gradual changes in the public discourse concerning workplace and other broad equality measures for these communities. To frame these gradual transformations within a historical context, we use Lewin’s force field analysis framework to examine the change efforts of Abzug. Abzug had beginning success in thawing the status quo yet her visions for equality for LGBTQ people have yet to be realized. Using Abzug’s social action as an example, this article concludes that allies must continue to challenge societal oppression, power, and privilege and to demand civil rights protections for LGBTQ individuals.

God’s Messenger Boy

2020 ◽  
pp. 139-158
Author(s):  
Vaughn A. Booker
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Religious Literature ◽  
Religious Music ◽  
The Public ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Public Consumption ◽  
Celebrity Status ◽  
Racial Lines

This chapter provides an overview of Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concert tours in the United States and Western Europe to showcase the promise of ecumenical and interracial fellowship. These occasions served to affirm belief in God in the late 1960s, a time when the public questioning of God’s existence animated the anxieties of many white mainline and liberal religious communities. Duke Ellington’s three Sacred Concerts were interfaith projects in which his musical professions of faith lived and came to acquire religious authority due to his prominent celebrity status. His personal religious reflection ultimately resulted in the production of religious music for public consumption. Ellington’s theological explorations marinated in a world saturated with popular religious literature that he studied to compose his Sacred Concerts. Moreover, the presence of Ellington in houses of worship across theological and racial lines also revealed differences in the ways that black and white religious audiences were receptive to his musical work.

scholarly journals The Effect of Whiteness and Attempts to Preserve It on Political Division in the United States

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-117
Author(s):  
Therin Alrik Showalter
Keyword(s):  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
College Graduates ◽  
National Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
The Public ◽  
White Voters ◽  
Dramatic Shift

Beginning in the early 1990s, the American public has become increasingly politically polarized. As party affiliations have become more rigid, a racial trend has emerged in which white voters are much less likely than black voters to identify as liberal or align with the Democratic Party. Using voting data from the 2016 presidential election, this study correlates the prevalence of whiteness in certain counties with those counties’ support for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. This paper first details the increasing polarization over the past decades and the dramatic shift of white voters away from liberalism. It then analyzes the political affiliations of other identity groups (such as women, millennials, and college graduates) that are majority liberal and demonstrates that, when restricted to their white members, those groups all lean conservative. The research results find a significant correlation between concentrated whiteness and a rejection of Hillary Clinton. The correlation on a national level is weaker, however, than the correlation of counties when separated regionally, suggesting that the relationship between whiteness and anti-liberalism depends heavily on a county’s degree of whiteness (or anti-liberalism) in its geographical context. While it is impossible to determine whether the race of white voters consciously motivates their voting behavior, the results suggest that American democracy is informed, in some way, by the racial identities of its participants. These results should encourage the public to discuss the current political climate and its intensely divided electorate from a racial perspective. If the nation perceives political division as a problem to be solved, it is essential to understand what factors might be causing the division. To that end, the results of this study would be fundamental to the nation’s dialogue and should be considered when voters make their decision on Election Day. 

scholarly journals The Impact of Fake News and the Emerging Post-Truth Political Era on Nigerian Polity: A Review of Literature

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Umaru A. Pate ◽  
Danjuma Gambo ◽  
Adamkolo Mohammed Ibrahim
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
The United States ◽  
Online News ◽  
Fake News ◽  
The Public ◽  
Key Stakeholders ◽  
General Elections ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Ruling Party

Since the rising to notoriety of the present ‘genre’ of malicious content peddled as ‘fake news’ (mostly over social media) in 2016 during the United States’ presidential election, barely three years until Nigeria’s 2019 general elections, fake news has made dangerously damaging impacts on the Nigerian society socially, politically and economically. Notably, the escalating herder-farmer communal clashes in the northern parts of the country, ethno-religious crises in Taraba, Plateau and Benue states and the furiously burning fire of the thug-of-war between the ruling party (All Progressives Congress, APC) and the opposition, particularly the main opposition party (People’s Democratic Party, PDP) have all been attributed to fake news, untruth and political propaganda. This paper aims to provide further understanding about the evolving issues regarding fake news and its demonic impact on the Nigerian polity. To make that contribution toward building the literature, extant literature and verifiable online news content on fake news and its attributes were critically reviewed. This paper concludes that fake news and its associated notion of post-truth may continue to pose threat to the Nigerian polity unless strong measures are taken. For the effects of fake news and post-truth phenomena to be suppressed substantially, a tripartite participation involving these key stakeholders – the government, legislators and the public should be modelled and implemented to the letter.

Urban Activism in a Downsizing World: Neighborhood Organizing in Postindustrial Chicago

2004 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 277-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Heathcott
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Community Organizing ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Urban Activism ◽  
Postindustrial Era ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Neighborhood Organizing ◽  
National Training ◽  
Political Economic

In this article, I examine the origins and development of the National Training and Information Center (NTIC) in Chicago as part of a broader neighborhood organizing movement. I am particularly interested in the development of a philosophy and strategy of civic action in a postindustrial era. One of the most influential forms of grassroots urban activism in the 20th century was Saul Alinsky's community organizing movement. This movement, I argue, relied upon a relatively stable cadre of mass institutions including unions, the New Deal Democratic Party, and the Catholic Church. However, by the 1960s, these institutions fell into decline alongside the changing political, economic, and social conditions of the city wrought by deindustrialization. Neighborhood organizing arose in the late 1960s as one response to these changing conditions, and its emergence reflects an important shift in the methodologies of urban social action. Yet I conclude that the lack of a broad agenda for social change is a weakness of neighborhood organizing inherited from Alinsky, and that this weakness constitutes a major challenge for NTIC and like groups.

scholarly journals Religion, Politics, and Civic Engagement in the United States

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Tobin Grant
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Political Development ◽  
Political Process ◽  
Empirical Finding ◽  
Religion And Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Broad Concept

Though church and state are constitutionally separated, religion and politics are often intertwined. As Alexis de Tocqueville wrote in his classic Democracy in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), the nation is both highly religious and unapologetically democratic. Some of the most effective political movements in the US political development included the active involvement of churches and religious communities. One reason is that churches and other religious communities in the United States often encourage civic engagement. Civic engagement is a broad concept that includes any activity aimed at changing society, government, or policy. Education and psychology often focus on civic activities such as volunteering or participating in a nonprofit organization. Political science and sociology often use the term “civic engagement” more narrowly to mean “political participation.” This would include activities whose aim is to affect political outcomes. Political participation includes voting, persuading others to vote, campaign contributions, working for a campaign, contacting or lobbying public officials, and protesting. A consistent empirical finding in the study of religion and civic life is that those who are involved in religion are more likely to be more civically engaged as voters, volunteers, and activists. Churches and other religious communities can become active as organizations. They can also increase the civic engagement of their adherents by mobilizing them, providing the skills to participate, or fostering democratic values. Political parties and candidates target religious voters to bring them into the political process. Studies of religion and civic engagement continue to examine the many ways religion affects civic engagement in the United States.

The Organizational Interpretation of American History: A New Synthesis

Prospects ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 611-629 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert F. Berkhofer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Action ◽  
American History ◽  
New Left ◽  
The United States ◽  
Moral Judgments ◽  
Hard Times ◽  
History Of ◽  
American Society ◽  
The Masses

The overall interpretation of American history has fallen upon hard times. Once upon a time, so the story of American historywriting goes, there existed a complete model of the United States' past that explained as it described the dynamics of American history over the centuries. Not only did the progressive or conflict school of historians assent to a paradigm of moral and methodological assumptions, but its practitioners also possessed a model of American society that was applicable to the whole of the United States' past as well as to its parts. The succeeding counterprogressive or consensus historians, by transmuting the realities of their predecessors into the realm of myth and paradox, questioned their easy correlation of class position and ideation, but they failed to develop an explicit model of the workings of American society that would describe let alone explain the dynamics of its history. New Left historians challenged the static nature as well as the moral judgments of consensus history by stressing, once again, the relationship of power and interests to cultural hegemony and the possibilities of social action from the masses, but the dynamics of conflict they reintroduced into American history too often failed to meet the new standards of rigorous explanation considered so important by the practitioners of the so-called new histories. The new economic, political, and social historians' insistence upon explicit methodology and the statistical analysis of correlation and variability destroys old models more than it advances new ones to explain parts of American history, let alone all of it. Thus, at this point in the history of American historiography, we have lost any overall approach to the framework of American history as we have gained sharper tools to achieve its testing and verification.

Disappearing Social Movements: Clandestinity in The Cycle of new Left Protest in The U.S., Japan, Germany, and Italy

2000 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gilda Zwerman ◽  
Patricia Steinhoff ◽  
Donatella Porta
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Movements ◽  
New Left ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Public ◽  
Integral Element ◽  
Identity Conflicts ◽  
The U.S

Research on social movements has paid little attention to the dynamics of clandestine mobilization as an integral element ofprotest cycles. Studies ofsixteen New Left clandestine groups in Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United States demonstrate strong commonalities in the processes ofgoing underground and staying underground. Activists move from the public to the clandestine realm as a result of increased repression at the protest cycle's peak, commitment to specific ideological frames, and personal ties. Identity conflicts specific to underground roles and other aspects ofunderground life influence the nature ofclandestine violence, further affecting the protest cycle's course.

Latina/o Religious Politics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felipe Hinojosa
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Political Action ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Religious Politics ◽  
Political Orientations ◽  
Family Choices ◽  
Personal Matter

Religion is at the heart of the Latina/o experience in the United States. It is a deeply personal matter that often shapes political orientations, how people vote, where they live, and the type of family choices they make. Latina/o religious politics—defined as the religious beliefs, ethics, and cultures that motivate social and political action in society—represent the historic interaction between popular and institutional religion. The evolution of Protestantism, Pentecostalism, and Catholic Social Action throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries illuminates the ways in which Latina/o religious communities interacted with movements for social justice.

Inter-Party Competition, Public Electoral Pressure, and Democratic Strength: Refining Political Explanations of Incarceration Trends in the U.S., 1980 – 2010

2021 ◽  
pp. 073401682110611
Author(s):  
Pavel V. Vasiliev
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
State Legislators ◽  
Random Coefficient Models ◽  
The Public ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Marijuana Decriminalization ◽  
Party Dominance

The purpose of this research is to advance the politics of mass imprisonment literature by testing and specifying the macro-explanations of the state-level incarceration change in the United States (U.S.) between 1980 and 2010. Specifically, I account for mechanisms of inter-party competition and public electoral pressure neglected in prior research. To accomplish this goal, I utilize random coefficient models designed to control for repeated annual measures of state-level data that overwhelm traditional analytic techniques. Findings suggest that violent crime, partisan affiliation of state legislators and governors, probation rates, citizen ideology, marijuana decriminalization, and recidivist-focused laws are associated with incarceration as hypothesized, as well as the African American presence net of crime and socioeconomic disadvantage. Contributing to the theoretical debates on democracy and punishment, this paper demonstrates that inter-party competition and public electoral pressure amplify incarceration in the context of Democratic Party dominance, where no liberalizing effects of competition were found. I conclude that legal and extralegal factors are associated with incarceration and suggest that the public did not oppose criminal justice expansion via democratic feedback mechanisms, so both penal populism (Pratt, 2008) and popular punitivism (Campbell et al., 2017) are valid interpretations of imprisonment politics during the analyzed period.

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